This is the best day of the week! The day I go out with my basket and harvest all the ripe and ready vegetables!! Yum!! Happy Days! The photos tell the story…….
[one_half]My new yellow heirloom plum tomatoes[/one_half]
[one_half_last]Roma tomatoes always the best![/one_half_last]
[one_half]Amish Heirloom tomatoes[/one_half]
[one_half_last]Sweet basil in abundance![/one_half_last]
[one_half]Basil with tomatoes-great companion plants[/one_half]
[one_half_last]Swiss chard, Kale and lettuce[/one_half_last]
[one_half]Wild Rocket – great in salads[/one_half]
[one_half_last]Curly Kale[/one_half_last]
[one_half]Egg plant – Heirloom Black Beauty[/one_half]
[one_half_last]Swiss chard[/one_half_last]
[one_half]Baby cabbage and beetroot[/one_half]
[one_half_last]Baby cabbage[/one_half_last]
[one_half]Broccoli looking beautiful[/one_half]
[one_half_last]What an amazing head of Broccoli[/one_half_last]
Love all the veggies and such great variety!! Will cook some and juice the rest!
After all those flowers for GBBD – I am wondering what is happening in my veggie patch. I have been busy so I haven’t had time to take any new photos this week, but I will do this coming weekend and keep you up-to-date! But heres what’s growing in my veggie patch and my new raised beds. Somethings are completely new for me. For instance potatoes! I have read up on them and I have purchased my “seeds” from Living Seed so I am very curious on what my garden will produce. So far so good – they are the biggest plants in my garden. Everything else seems slow to rise. The beet root is taking nicely and some tomato plants are looking good. Have a look and see …..
[one_half]My raised beds have Living Seeds planted in them[/one_half]
[one_half_last]My Roma tomatoes are coming along[/one_half_last]
[one_half]My first asparagus – I nearly missed it[/one_half]
[one_half_last]More potatoes! These are Harmony Potatoes from Living Seeds[/one_half_last]
[one_third]Celery is tall and green. Delicious and I use it for juices too.[/one_third]
[one_third]My first baby assorted lettuce leaves[/one_third]
[one_third_last]We are going to be fat potato heads after this crop! They better be good![/one_third_last]
Well that’s all for now! I’ll write a more detailed update after the weekend.
I have set up the new veggie planter, purchased seedlings from the nursery, studied up on companion planting to see which of the seedlings will grow well together and then lovingly planted all the new herb and vegetable seedlings. With the new vegetable planter it has been incredibly easy to do and surprisingly, it was lots of fun! Now it’s time to sit back, give the plants a good daily watering and lots of TLC and then see what happens. As this is my first foray into vegetable gardening I’m excited but also just a little sceptical. Can I do actually do this? Time will tell …
I thought you might be interested in what I’ve planted. As I have negative experiences with planting from seed in the past, I decided my first attempt at vegetable gardening should be planting from seedlings (“Instant gratification” is what I was really going for here. We’ll leave the seed planting for a time when I am a little more experienced with this).
So here is what I’ve planted in the basins: (see photos below)
[one_half]Basin number One: In the first basin (Far left), I have a Strawberry plant which is a fair size and already flowering. I couldn’t resist, it was such a pretty plant and we love Strawberries. I’ve planted cauliflower (bonny hybrid) and one rocket lettuce plant in there as well. Cauliflower is supposed to work well with Strawberries. I bought the little Bumble Bee as a “scare crow”, so that the birds don’t come and eat the strawberries (wishful thinking!)[/one_half]
[one_half_last]Basin Number Two: In the second basin (Centre Left), I’ve planted two chili plants. The first is called “Long Red Cayenne Slim”. Its supposed to be very hot with green to red fruit. The second Chili plant is called Golden Habanero. Together with the two chillis we’ve planted parsley (type: Big Ben moss curled) and three little seedlings that lost their label. (I think they are lettuce but am not 100% sure. They look like lettuce).[/one_half_last]
[one_half]Basin Number Three: In the third basin (Centre Right), I’ve planted at the back, Oregano (Rosenkuppel), a Sweet Pepper star yellow, a few Cherry Tomatoes and Sweet Basil (because I already know Tomatos go well with Sweet Basil).[/one_half]
[one_half_last]Basin Number Four: In the fourth basin (Far Right), I’ve planted at the back: Lemon Grass (which Stefani uses a lot in her Thai cooking) and Coriander (which we use a lot). In the front: lettuce (green Cos) and spinach (bright lights).[/one_half_last]
As usual, I bought too many plants, so some extras still need to be planted out into the garden. These include Rosemary and Garlic Chives and a few cherry tomato plants I didn’t have space for. I planted them in the bed with the existing Sweet Basil and Tomato Plant (which are both thriving!) If I’d know vegetables grow so quickly … I might have started this a long time ago!
Costs involved:
I’ve worked out that the amount of money I spend buying Sweet Basil and Parsley alone from Woolies in a period of one year, pays for all the seedlings, potting soil and the vegetable planter I bought! So as long as the sweet basil and parsley reward me with usable leaves, we’ve broken even. Any additional crops I harvest from my new little Vegetable Garden will be a bonus! And how wonderful that I won’t be wasting left-overs anymore. I really hated throwing away what we didn’t use every week because it was no longer fresh. So that alone will make me happy and if it tastes better than store bought I’ll be ecstatic.
If this works we’ll progress on to growing cucumbers, onions, potatoes and who knows what else … but for that we will allocate a bed in the garden. I already have my eye on one!
I took a stroll around the garden and the veggie patch this evening and I was pleasantly surprised with all the healthy growth happening – my trees and my veggies. We had a heavy down pour after that really hot day last week, so my garden was so thankful. It got a good soaking and it shows! My little guava tree is all bushy and bright! Maybe this year we will have guavas. All my spinach and lettuce are looking delicious! AND my tomato plants are finally showing signs of producing tomatoes! My lemon tree is, at long last, looking healthy and producing lemons! I drenched it with my soapy water pesticide to get rid of the woolly aphids and ants last week and I pruned all the dead or diseased branches yesterday! So now this week I’ll give it a good mulch and feed and also plant my nasturtiums underneath it! How is your lemon tree doing? I hope that you are having the same success as I am. See you soon!
What a way to start the weekend … with a visit from one’s best buddy who arrives bearing a basket of gifts from her garden! Ah! Life really is good!
As you can see from the photograph, said basket looked almost too beautiful to unpack … but unpack it I did because it was so full of yummyness. Firstly, the big bunch of Lavender, from your garden – I put it in the vase-like bucket in my bathroom. The whole bathroom smells of lavender now and it looks just beautiful. Then the gorgeous roses picked from Barbie’s garden which are now in a vase on my dining room table, fresh Rosemary which we will use in cooking this week, although I’ve put one sprig into my Olive Oil decanter where it infuses the oil with a wonderful taste and aroma. Then of course the freshly laid eggs from Barbie’s “Girls”. I Love those eggs – the yolks are so yellow, the eggs taste a whole lot better than even the best free-range eggs one can buy at Woolies.
Then to start me off in my “veg-growing” career, I got a Tomato plant – its too gorgeous, I can’t wait to watch it grow. I’m keeping the seedlings to plant in my “veg-grower” when I get it. I’m just too nervous to plant it in the ground here where the “nasties” will get to them … I think my first foray into planting seeds should be in a controlled environment. So I will wait with that. The last little surprise package in the basket was a pack of Xylitol which I had yet to try – I rushed out this afternoon to buy a nice container to keep the Xylitol in … its the same as my salt container, just bigger. One of those glass ones with the snappy lid type thingy …
I felt totally spoilt by all the gifts … thanks my friend! You are one in a million!
I wanted to show you the tomato plants and the sweet basil that I grow together. These are grown direct from seed and the ones I was able to salvage from the chicken attack! Still mad about that, you know! Anyway, here you can see that they are doing well. This way of organic planting is called Companion Planting. I did alot of research into this and it is a pesticide-free way of planting. Tomatoes and Basil (as well as Parsley) do very well together. This improves the flavour and growth of the Tomatoes. They thrive too! I also learnt that thyme and peppermint are very good herbs to plant along side Tomatoes – helps control white fly. So I have thyme next to mine. Marigolds are also helpful around tomatoes. You told me about Marigolds. They keep away the nematodes in the soil. These little pesky root-destroying pests can stunt the growth of your plant.
My new yellow heirloom plum tomatoes[/one_half]
Roma tomatoes always the best![/one_half_last]
Amish Heirloom tomatoes[/one_half]
Sweet basil in abundance![/one_half_last]
Basil with tomatoes-great companion plants[/one_half]
Swiss chard, Kale and lettuce[/one_half_last]
Wild Rocket – great in salads[/one_half]
Curly Kale[/one_half_last]
Egg plant – Heirloom Black Beauty[/one_half]
Swiss chard[/one_half_last]
Baby cabbage and beetroot[/one_half]
Baby cabbage[/one_half_last]
Broccoli looking beautiful[/one_half]
What an amazing head of Broccoli[/one_half_last]
