urban vegetable patch

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???

Growing your own heirloom vegetables – Bringing Carbon Dioxide down to earth, is written by Diggers Club founder Clive Blazey.

It provides information and loads of photographs to help you on your way to growing your own patch of heirloom vegetables. Plus also has a section for children to get started on their own vegetable garden.

Find out what makes these old varieties of vegetables so good!

Growing Your Own Heirloom Vegetables: Bringing Carbon Dioxide Down to Earth

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.