urban vegetable patch

These are my second round of harvest. Looking lovely, ain’t they. I though I would share The second round of greens grew much bigger and taller compared to the first batch. I think is the extra mushroom compost I added before sowing. What can I say but the Bok Choy taste just so sweet; Don’t think I can go back to the supermarket vegetable anymore!

Bok choy in patch

Harvest time!

10 days after the first flower appeared, I see pea pods!! You can only imagine how excited I was. Snow peas are currently selling for $14.99/kg in the market! $14.99/kg,  are you kidding me?

2 Pea Pods

On the upside, I’ve now got peas! On the downside, I got only 2 peas. I don’t think I can do much with it. Oh well! Before I get all excited and all, I thought I will jot down some points for future reference.

My maturing Snow pea plants

So these are my notes:

• They are a cool climate vegetable. Plant either early spring or late Autumn
• They are really really easy to care for. I will even go as far as saying you can plant and forget about them.[link to previous post]
• Pea seedlings are really susceptible to bugs. I am not sure what bugs (my guess is earwigs) but I lost 2 seedlings due to their ferocious appetite.
• Good in fixing nitrogen in the soil. Plant them after harvesting hungry crops (Eg: Brocolli, tomatoes)
• It takes about 2 months to grow from seedling to flowering stage. Once they flower, pea pods will appear shortly, usually within a week.
• Not all sweet peas needs trellis. I bought a dwarf sweet peas from Diggers that are advertised as “No trellis needed”.
• I do not intentionally fertilise them except for the occasional left overs in my watering can of fertiliser.

Things I have read about but have not and will not want to experience

• They are susceptible to mould/fungus known as powdery mildew. This has not happened to me, but I try to only water the roots using the spout of the watering can

Absolutely love it. No longer do you need to feel guilty about washing your vegetables twice or thrice for that matter – you can now reuse the water and put it back into the garden. Beauty! I bought my sink at an Eco exhibition sometime ago and have never since looked back.

Hughie Sink. Notice the pail at the top right corner? Yup, use that to temporary capture water from the sink

My garden runs purely from greywater and no, I do not have a greywater system. I collect water around the house, that would otherwise go down the drain, to reuse it in the garden. Hughie sink just makes it so, I repeat, so easy. You fill it up, wash your vegetables and empty it directly to the garden. I usually empty mine into a pail and then later transfer it to the garden; this saves me the trip of walking to and fro to the garden while cooking.

Pro:

• Australian made
• Water saving. Duh!
• Made with good quality study plastic. Not the flimsy kind
• Inexpensive
• No need for any ‘special installation’. Just buy and use it.
• Sits nicely in the kitchen sink. Works even better if you have a 2 bay sink.
• There is a plug at the bottom to make releasing of water really easy!
• Can be used anywhere (not only kitchen) where water needs to be captured and later used on the garden
• You can even use it as a basket to carry your harvest!

Con:

• Its somewhat ‘chunky’. You cannot collaspe it, making storage a problem in tight spaces.
• When its almost filled with water, its hard to carry to the garden without spilling some along the way
• Due to its rectangle shape, you can’t fit it in a circular sink. (but of course)
• Looks ……. raw. If only it looks more ‘urban’ (you know what I mean)

You can get buy yours today from Bunnings ($29.95) or through these websites
Hughie official website
Todae

Snow peas flowers!!

I thought I would never see the flowers from my snow peas but the day has come. After buying some seedlings from Bunning in early August, I stupidly realise that peas are more of an Autumn – Winter plant then a Spring – Summer plant. Oops! That would teach me to read before buying.

I did not really tend to them much after transplanting except for watering and the occasional splash of leftover liquid fertilizer. No surprise, some died, others eaten by bugs of unknown species.

So there I was, minding my own business and doing the usual gardening type things and ‘Whoooo, is that…..?’ Oh yes. Surprise indeed. I am now like a praying hawk (more like a mother realising the potential in her long neglected child), waiting for the emergence of the sweet, sweet peas.

Melbourne had a wild weather night on Friday; There was wind, rain and more rain. My mob of unruly tomatos flopped over their existing supports and nearly killed itself. It’s probably my fault for not staking it properly in the first place.

unruly red-fig tomato. Look closely on the bottom left of the bush

While stalking them securely to the existing bamboo stick, I realised some of the undergrowth are starting to grow out and up to get more sunlight. This is not good because as they grow bigger (which is what happened now), they will be heavier and lay in the soil bed for support. This is bad bad karma for spreading disease from soil to plant.

What I did was, I had a bit of a DIY moment with 2 kebab sticks and a rubber band. I tied the two sticks together in the middle (using the rubber band) and poked them in the ground to form a ‘X’ shape. I then gently lifted the branch and rested it on top of the kebab stick frame.This will lift the heavy branch above the ground now. Not sure about its performance in high wind condition; Will deal with it when it comes. For now, I am a happy girl.

Branch support to lift it up and up

This is just half of the harvest!

I have harvested my first batch of Bok Choy and the bed is being prepared for the second batch with a good mix of mushroom compost. Nothing beats harvesting super fresh vegetables and cooking it straight after with a little butter and garlic. MMmmm. I think I’ve got our week of fibre all sorted!

I have read a lot other blog posts about how easy it is to grow Bok Choy, but seriously, it has not been the case for me. Almost all of the blogs that I have read would suggest you to grow them in “rich organic soil”. But if you are like me and have a okie-ish soil bed (heavy clay for me) and would love to have some asian green action happening, fear not. These are my notes from growing the first batch of Bok Choy

• Bok Choy are fast growers; If the weather is nice and warm, seeds usually germinate with 3 days and ready to be transplanted with 2 -3 weeks
  

  Bok Choy are perfect in container too

• If you are going to transplant your Bok Choy seedlings, try soaking the punnet in seaweed solution the day before. I find that this reduces the plant stress and shock.

• Bok Choy have shallow roots so that makes them perfect container vegetables

• They are hungry little feeders. If you have mixed in a good amount of compost into the soil before sowing then its going to grow fine. If not, try feeding it with a weak organic liquid fertilizer weekly.

• Snails and slugs love Bok Choy (or green leafy vegetable for that matter). I usually spread a thin boarder of snail pallets around the seedlings.

• Sun, sun and more sun. Bok Choy don’t grow well in shaded areas. My vegetable patch is north facing and gets a minimum of 5 hours of sunshine each day. I also realise that they grow really fast if you get a week of nice sunny weather (which proves to be difficult in Melbourne).

• Keep the the fluids up, especially after a hot day.

P.S: Alert readers would have notice how I was complaining about growing Bok Choy from my previous. I take it all back.

Roots removed and all ready to be eaten

1 week before harvest

I am the procrastinator queen. After moving into our current home over 1 year ago, I finally got my act together and got my backyard done. The result, as you can see below, is a usable vegetable patch of 6m x 1.3m using treated timber. The bottom was filled with local area soil and topped off with compost. Not only have I made the place look so so much better but I turn a once piece of  un-usable land into a workable vegetable patch. I am so proud of myself.

garden before the big makeover

Garden after. OMG!

Garden hawk-eye view

The plants that I am currently growing:

• Snow peas
• Soya bean (edamame)
• Rock melons
• Tomatoes – 1 red fig and 3 of unknown spices grown from a seed mix
• Spinach
• Bok Choi
• German Chamomile – currently growing in container.

I am fertilising the green vegetables weekly with a weak organic liquid fertiliser and boy are they growing like crazy! Spinach leaves are harvested weekly by picking the outer ones and leaving the center to grow.

Not sure about the Bok Choi though. They are not growing as well but I will with-hold my judgement for now; The weather has been cold in Melbourne for a couple of weeks and probably it is the heat that is the missing ingredient.

Snow Peas

Bok Choi and soya

Ha-ogen Rockmelons

Red Fig Tomato

Corn

German Chamomile