urban vegetable patch

The crop of my wonderful winter vegies is almost done, only a few random brussel sprouts left to harvest, a cauliflower that is still a little undersized and a couple of womboks. This year was the first time I had managed to grow cauliflower, I had tried a few times in the past but they never really flourished, but with the new garden bed that was built at the end of last summer and loads of compost & blood and bone mixed in, plus a regular feed of potash,  I feel that this certainly made a huge difference.

The Brussell sprouts grew wonderfully and while not all of them manged to be tight, it didn’t really matter as they were still delicious and made it into several different dishes. They were full of flavour and while not as large as the store bought ones they were still good. And that brings me to the wombok, Corine started them off as seedlings for me and I nurtured them into really good looking and tasty fat womboks. I did have some issues with millipedes, but they didn’t destroy the crop which was the main thing.

I still have the onions growing that I planted amongst the cauliflower and Brussel sprouts, they will be a little bit longer before they are ready.

Now for Spring!

LED grow light in action

Winter is a time of nothing-ness; there is nothing much to do in the garden. Most of my plants goes into domaincy and there is only so much cleaning and organising I can do in the shed, which is a good thing; This leaves me time to perfect my other gardening techniques, propagation.

I have always wanted to buy a grow light; My window sill just doesn’t cut it. It either gets really sunny and hot or cold and nothing. My seedings usually grows to be quite leggy and is ever slightly slanted towards the sun. Xavier says I am obsed with perfection which I am not denying, but who’s not?

After 2 days of googling, I bought this LED light off eBay. As you can see from the photo, it emits purple light. Apparently this aids growth and flowering (something to do with the light spectrum, frankly too scientific for me). The result so far is more than good. My herbs are growing really well, lush and bushy. Like wise cannot be said for the tomato seedlings. I think it’s just too cold in the garage, nothing to do with light exposure. Infect I think I have found the next thing to buy, a heat mat! Ahh.., woman and shopping.

UPDATE: Really happy with the results but likewise could not be said for the product itself. Very poorly made; Had barely used it and have to start duct taping the wire. Not happy. Maybe is just this model that I bought, just maybe….

I remember as a child heading off with my Grandpa, down the back of the garden to the vegie patch, here I learnt many little gardening skills, including planting, how to water plants, how to use my special little shovel, but most importantly how to know when to pick the garden goodies. We would load up our buckets with all manner of vegies and head back to the house were Grandma would be waiting and then she would teach me how to prepare the vegies we had just bought into the house. My most favourite vegetable was a purple bean, now I didnt like beans, but for some reason, the purple ones were ok, now I dont know whether it was beacause they didnt really look like a traditional bean or whether it was beacuse I had helped to grow them. But they sure tasted the best! So it got me thinking about getting children started in the vegie patch. Not only will they learn lifelong skills, but it may also encourage the more picky eaters to try some vegies.

With a young child, a good starting point  is to involve them in your family garden, give them a small watering can and get them to help with the watering, let them pop the seeds (non chemical coated/treated is best) into the soil and let them pull the odd weed out, and most importantly let them help pick the vegies. It is a gentle learning introduction, then as they get a little older, give them their own piece of patch to plant out with their favourite vegetables.

If your child is a picky eater or your would just like to make the vegie gardening process a little more interesting, investigate some heirloom varieties of vegies, there are some fairly unusual and can I say funky vegies out there.

Here are just a few ideas (note: you may need to purchase these varieties as seeds, rather than seedlings);

• Beans – Purple King, Rattlesnake (purple and green), Dragons Tongue Bush Bean ( purple and white)
• Capsicum  – Sweet Chocolate
• Carrots – Dragon (purple skin)
• Corn – Popcorn or Anasazi (multicolour kernels-red, white & blue)
• Beetroot – Candy stripe (red & white flesh), Golden (yellow fesh) or white (white flesh)
• Pumpkin – Guatemalan Blue Banana or Turkish Turban
• Radish – Black round spanish
• Tomato’s – So many to choose from, but black russian, green zebra or the large mortgage lifter may be fun, along with yellow and red cherry tomatoes.
• Watermelon – Moon & stars
• Zucchini – Tromboncino.
• Strawberries – White Alpine, yes they are White! ( and available as seedlings)

These are just a few fun, yet traditional heirloom varieties that may just spike some interest in Vegetables and gardening, plus they can also make a great “show and tell” subject at school.
Look what I grew!

I was recently flicking through a new seed catalogue and I was struck by the number of purple vegetables that are available and many of them are the traditional heirloom varieties which have been saved from extinction by seed savers around the world.

OK, we know about purple cabbage, beans,eggplant and more recently purple carrots, but here are some other varieties of vegetables that come in the colour purple.

• Artichoke – Violetta
• Asparagus – Purple
• Beans – Purple King – Violet Queen Bush
• Peas – Purple podding
• Broccoli – Purple Sprouting
• Cabbage – red Drumhead
• Carrots – Dragon & Purple Three Colour
• Cauliflower – Purple Cape
• Eggplant – Many varieties, black beauty, Early purple and more!
• Tomato – Eva purple ball
• Potato – Sapphire seed

As I said, I was amazed at the number of vegetables available in a purple colour and I have possibly missed a few, so please feel free to let us know of any others.

You could even dedicate a section of your vegetable garden just to purple vegetables. It would certainly make a good conversation piece.

I though it is about time to write post on our faourite seed sellers! After showing off all our lush, scrumptious looking vegetables it’s only fair to tell our dear readers where we source our seeds from. These seed sellers offer online purchasing and you can pay via credit card or cheque.

• Diggers
• Eden seeds
• Green Harvest

We are in the process of collecting more seed or seedling growers and we need your help! If you are or knows someone who sells seeds and seedlings (via online or Mail order preferable), contact us today!

There are some juvenile delinquents roaming my neighbourhood at the moment and boy are they sneaky!

My juvenile delinquents are in fact 2 young butcher-birds… I have done the “crazy vegie gardener” thing ( I think much to my neighbours amusement) and waved my arms and “shooed” them, but they hardly take any notice and fly into the large gum tree, pretend to hide and then after a while they return. So what are they doing?

They are sneaking cherry tomatoes… And are doing so through the bird netting…. its actually quite an achievement and I have watched them do it out of fascination for their skill, they put their beak through the netting, latch onto a tomato and then twist and manoeuvre it through the netting, I don’t quite understand how they get a tomato through the netting but they do it.

But the worst thing is they are only doing it as a bit of sport, they don’t eat the tomatoes, they bite them, then throw them on the ground and try for another. I am not sure if my tomatoes just aren’t to their taste or if it is a bit of a game.

Wonder if  I built a scarecrow, if that would work???

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!

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.

Welcome to the Urban Vegetable Patch.

The Urban Vegetable Patch takes a look at the joys and challenges of “growing your own” . Whether you have a huge back yard, smaller garden, courtyard or a balcony with a few pots, if you enjoy growing even the odd herb, then read on as we add to this site and attempt to share our passion for the urban vegie plot no matter what the size.

More soon….