urban vegetable patch

Male Zucchini Flower

I have noticed that both my cucumbers and zuchinni have both had loads of flowers lately, but I dont seem to be getting much in the way of crop.

So I made myself periodically visit the vegie patch at various times of the day, I know it seems odd and a bit overprotective, but I needed to confirm if my suspicions were correct.

And they were, I seem to be sadly lacking a bit of Bee Action!

I checked the flowers and as you can see in the picture there are male and female flowers which is a good thing, but no sign of any bees buzzing about doing their thing.

So its time to put opertaion Bee into action.

Plant some Bee attracting plants nearby the vegie patch and fingers crossed that this will encourage some bees to visit the garden and more importantly the vegie patch. While it wont help this cucumber and Zuchinni season, it may help next year.

Female Zucchini Flower

Some of the Bee attractors that I will consider are Cammomile, Hyssop and Lemon Balm as the 3 of these are not only ahndy for attracting bees, but also are great herbs. I will also look at some other non edible plants as well, becasue I really need those bees!

Without a doubt, YES. My friends often tease me that growing my own vegetables cost 3 times as much as buying from the store. Well, maybe they are right. Maybe they have not tasted the real vegetables, those that does not taste like soaked cardboard boxes.

The truth is ever since I grew my own vegetable (and fruits of course), I have started to eat more greens. I can’t give myself lame reasons for not cooking some because “I am just too tired to drive to the supermarket“. Because they are so fresh, I spent much less water washing them and use much less seasoning when cooking; A little pitch of sea salt would usually do the trick. Not only do they taste better, they keep longer in the fridge without growing into a ball of fur in the crisper!

The most important reason for me is I have re-kindle that gardening passion that I always had; My childhood memory of following my mum to the backyard and collecting vegetables for dinner. I am spending ever more time in the garden; Looking, inspecting and experimenting with growing technics and organic products. No one garden is the same; Every individual one has it own characteristics, soil composition and challenges. It needs us to nurture and tend to their needs and in return, it will reward us handsomely. In my case, vegetables on my table and the joy to tell someone “Hey! I grew my own greens. Do you?“

Organic
By Don Burke

As a six-year-old he started his own vegetable garden under the watchful eyes of his father and grandfather. Now Don Burke is known as Australia’s foremost authority on all things gardening.

Organic covers all that you need to know to start and cultivate your own vegetable garden including composting, pests and diseases, growing conditions, chickens, harvesting and scrumptious recipes.

In a poor economic climate, good quality, inexpensive food is hard to find to feed your family. Why not start a grocery store in your own backyard? Find out the benefits of growing your own vegies for yourself, including cost-cutting, family fun, fresh produce and greater variety of species unavailable in stores.

From terrace pots to acreage, grab your gardening gloves and seedlings, and your family will enjoy building the garden, no matter the size of your plot.

Purchase online – Organic: Don Burke’s Guide to Growing Organic Food

Just part of my unruly Tomatos

Tomato’s!!!!

Yes, spot the happy vegetable gardener!

Finally, the tomatoes have begun to ripen and more are on the way. This is very exciting as you can see by the photos my Tomato plantings went a bit mad!

It all started off in an orderly manner, beautifully planted and spaced. Then in the lead up to Christmas, they got a bit neglected and only received the barest of attention which consisted of the odd bit of organic fertiliser and water when necessary. In mid December we had a nice drop of rain, which has been a rare occurrence this year and everything “took off” overnight. Sedate little plants became wild unruly giants and so began the tomato jungle.

I know the purists of tomato growing will gasp in horror at the jungle… but I don’t think it has been all that bad of thing. We have had some extremely hot days of 40 degrees Celsius plus, so I think the jungle has helped protect many of the young fruit from being horribly burnt to death.

Adding to the jungle were a few tomato plants that sprang up from the soil in the patch, these were obviously seeds that had been in the ground and they decided to spring to life and add to the havoc of the jungle. Most of these were Red Fig and just like in Corine’s garden I have lost a couple to some sort of blight or rot at the bottom of the fruit, but fortunately this has not been as bad as lat year, so please don’t despair Corine, there will be better tomato growing times ahead.

Below are a few of my lovely little tomato’s, just picked from the garden, included in the photo are the varieties, Tatura Dwarf, Red Fig & Black Russian, plus a couple of other random varieties which “sprang” up.

Last Monday saw Melbourne’s first 44C degree heat wave for this summer. After loosing all of my crop last year, I was determined not to loose this battle this time round.

The way I think of preparing my garden for those extreme days is like writing a bush fire plan for my garden. This year I am experimenting with

1. Shade
2. Seaweed solution

Shade

Extreme hot days usually consist of hot northerly wind and intense sun exposure. Just the hot dry wind would suck the dear life out of anyone, let alone a plant! There is not much I can do to reduce the hot wind but I sure can reduce the sun exposure. So, off to the garage for all potted plants and a 70% shade cloth over the vegetable patch. I literally dropped the shade cloth over the patch and secure it with bricks on the four corners.

Seaweed solution

After the sun’s set, I gave the plants a good soak with seaweed solution. It helps them to recover from stressful condition.

I am glad to to say that I did not loose any crops to the heat wave (yet). Although some plant got sun burnt around the edge, but in conclusion I am extreme happy with the result. Corine: 1, extreme weather: 0.