Abundant Tomatoes and Missing Zucchinis

It's been a while between posts... I could blame a new business and a new horse. BUT! It's a new year and with new years come new goals, and mine is to blog about my garden and all things related once a week.

I've just come inside from happily wandering around the garden watering and picking as I go. Our many tomato plants are flourishing and ripening. Tonight I picked handfuls of Black Cherry, Green Grape, Tigerella, Jaune Flamm and Garden Peach tomatoes. They've been extra pampered this season as I've been slipping little mesh bags over ripening fruit to protect them from tomato grubs.

All is not entirely as it should be though. One veg that has been decidedly sluggish this season is the zucchini. They're normally ready for picking well before Christmas but I have only just picked my first one two days ago after hand fertilising some flowers (not something I've ever had to do before). The plants have plenty of flowers but the tiny fruits just seem to drop off. I've hardly seen any bees lately whereas they were prolific in spring. Is that the problem? I've got plenty to entice them. Marigolds, broccoli and kale flowers, poppies and violas abound but where are the bees? Perhaps it's time to get my own hive...

So tell me, do you have zucchinis coming out your ears or are yours slow to perform this year too?

Hope you and your plants are enjoying our relatively mild summer!

Early October Wonder

I was wandering around the garden this morning and felt so happy and amazed at the amount of life and vibrancy surrounding me. There was a background buzz of honey bees collecting pollen, butterflies flitting around and I noticed new sprouts everywhere.

The bees were particularly enjoying this echium plant and the kale plants that have gone to flower.

Plenty of cuttings have proven successful and are happily sprouting away, like this smoke bush cutting.

And these black mulberry tree cuttings. (It's going to be fun trying to fit 20 mulberry trees in my suburban backyard!)

I'm very excited that all my blueberry cuttings are going strong. This one is even trying to flower!

The parent blueberries are looking lovely too and putting on lots of delicate bell flowers.

The tomato plants are going through some serious growth spurts and I've had to take the horticultural fleece off some before the plants burst through the top.

This Black Russian tomato wins the prize for first to flower. Fingers crossed I get get ripe tomatoes by Christmas!

Oca tubers have begun to put out foliage. And no, it is not a weed.

One pineapple guava is getting ready to put on a show of lovely red and white flowers.

This red currant plant is laden with fruit, amazing as I only planted it a couple of months ago.

Lastly, my ever generous black mulberry tree is putting on fruit.

What's amazing you in your garden lately?

Can You Ever Have Too Many Seeds??

I have been stocking up on seeds for the spring/summer growing season. My seed containers were already overflowing but I just can't resist buying more varieties!

One very stylish seed box. Left of the divide for autumn/winter plantings & right for spring/summer plantings.

I was excited to find more seed companies selling smaller quantities of seed for around $1-$2 a packet (like Boondie Seeds and The Seed Collection). I can get all the varieties I want without feeling guilty that there is 3/4 of a packet going out of date in the cupboard!

It's no wonder that I've found myself raising 15 varieties of tomatoes this season! Now to find room to plant them all...

Two tomato seedlings. Their label is MIA so who knows which of the 15 varieties they could be!

Risky Late Winter Plantings

Yesterday was the last day of winter... Yesterday I planted out a tomato seedling and my pumpkin seeds. Risky you say? Probably, but I did take some risk mitigation measures and look forward to seeing if they pay off!

I've planted my pumpkin seeds in a repurposed dog kennel (that I scavenged from the side of the road) with a piece of perspex over the top. I put 2 warty Galeux D' Eysines pumpkin seeds in one half and 2 Musquée de Provence seeds in the other half. These pumpkins are supposed to be so delicious they were traditionally eaten raw- can't wait to give that a go!

Hard rubbish dog kennel/pumpkin oasis.

The tomato (a Green Grape seedling) is tucked up under some horticultural fleece and is next to a bottle full of water. I hope the water will provide thermal mass over the cold nights.

Green Grape tomato seedling ready to bear some low temperatures (I hope!)