Still Life in the Veges

I do think aubergines are the most beautiful vegetable (fruit)

Should perhaps have washed and polished these to optimise their photogenic selves, or else left the water droplets on them- must try that next time!

I picked the courgettes a little small but wanted to make a ratatouille for dinner tonight and the aubergines were a good size...

We've also had lots of delicious (and sweet) corn and lebanese cucumbers this week, so that was dinner last night with tomatoes (some of ours supplemented with bought ones since ours are still recovering from some insect infestation) to make a Greek salad with a bit of feta. Our capsicums are a bit small, but overall can't believe our vege success! Thanks to my dear friend Liz and energetic son Alfred for all their help getting the vege garden built.

What's growing in your corner of the world?

Before and During...

The garden has grown like billyoh (how do you spell that and what does it mean I wonder...?)!

It's gone from this:

On the 14th December

To this:

today the 17th Jan- only 1 month!

Even some baby courgettes without any AI as I thought they might need! I waited in vain for the male and female flowers to open together, then I found they'd done it by themselves; must have been some bees around after all!

 Baby Lebanese Cucumbers growing rapidly...

We put in a decent sized red pepper plant, but it's still grown, it's just that the peppers aren't very big and are a bit heat prone, despite adding shade on days over 35 deg C. Still I'm not complaining mind you...

 The aubergines are flowering so we'll see if it comes to anything. Something enjoys nibbling on its leaves- not sure what? I can't find any critters...

The lettuces are going to seed quickly, as Liz predicted, none then less we've enjoyed some leaves in a couple of salads. Alfred's corn is romping away, the beans need securing/guiding to the fence, the silver beet's ready and I'm wondering if I should've separated out the spring onions a bit? 

But all in all I'm pleasantly surprised!

A Bee and a Garden

First the bee 

I've joined one, which will be my first ever. I read about it on Wellingtonian Adrianne's blog. I think I maybe a bit mad, given the number of things I want to do next year, but it'll be fun. I've signed up for the Australasian bee (but there are also ones for other continents including the UK), which means postage won't bankrupt me and it's for solid fabric which will be great as I'm always drawn to solids. I think we only need a couple more in the group, so if you're keen you can read more about it here.

And then the Garden

My initial confidence with my courgettes seems to have been misplaced as they really aren't thriving. I don't know what I'm doing or not doing but the flowers have all come to nothing and the leaves don't look happy so predicted gluts seem impossible.

My friend Liz is not only a sewer, but also a gardener and tho' she says veges aren't her area of expertise, she was not full of optimism about my courgettes either. Possibly the large tree next door, or the small lime tree in the middle of the vege patch are taking the nutrients, or it's not sunny enough? Whatever... things have never thrived there despite our best efforts. So...

Liz and my youngest son and I laboured away last Friday in the heaviest rain we've seen all year and built a new garden. We've sited it at the back in a spot which gets at least 6 hours of sun a day, except the other day!

It was wonderful to have the use of Liz's dad's ute to collect the supplies to build this garden as the rain poured down.

I was buoyed by Liz's confidence and enthusiasm for the whole project. And Alfred was a tireless worker, seeing the project through.

Liz and Alfred mattocked too but no photos unfortunately...

I've cropped you out of the pics Liz, since I didn't have your permission to post you to the world in drowned rat format!

We've planted corn, silver beet, lettuces, spring onions, capsicum, aubergine(eggplant) lebanese cucumber and courgettes and two sorts of beans. We can grow the beans up the fence, they've sprouted, so roll on bean glut!  We've mulched and watered and will do our best to look after it, but I am doubtful given my past lack of success on the garden front. But Liz reckons it'll be great...!

Courgettes

Now I know this isn't really a garden blog, but I hope any quilty followers will forgive a brief diversion.

Louise is doing regular posts about her zucchini and I thought it might encourage ours to grow if I joined in! Now I don't think it's healthy to compare courgettes, but I must say that I can't believe how big and flowery your zucchini is Louise!

I have put in 4 courgette plants and am mildly surprised that they all seem to have not only survived but to be growing reasonably. Some even have some flower buds- I think that's them in the middle? A couple of them are beginning to look quite rangy. You can't tell here, but I dutifully planted them on a mound according to the label, but since we mulched the birds rummage about and I think have reduced the mound a bit. But I don't mind if they eat any snails and slugs the blitzem hasn't got to. I hope birds don't eat blitzem...?!

You can see our embarrassingly hopeless beetroot in the background and really our winter veges were altogether fairly hopeless. I don't know if we planted too late or what, but nothing much did that well. I'm going to pull out the leeks soon which are about the size of  spring onions and now have flowerheads! We did use a few of the celery stalks but they were really thin. Even the rainbow chard didn't really grow well- I thought that was supposed to be failsafe?!

 I have a feeling that 4 plants will take over our patch, but I wasn't optimistic of success and I can always move one or two into a pot. Can I? Should I? Will that work? Just to have it trailing down the side?
Given that this is my first ever time of growing them I feel it's a little premature to be posting recipes for my crop, but as soon as I see a baby I'll share a recipe- how about that?

This is to prove that our cucumber recovered from being eaten by snails. I have never seemn a snail or a slug in the garden, so I don't know where they hide in the day, but I should've heeded my gardening friend's advice more expeditiously, you were right Liz! One has been eaten never to be recovered, but one seems to be doing OK. But I digress from courgettes now.

 I am starting to believe we will have edible tomatoes. This is a cherry variety. I have seven plants, only 5 staked so far. The 2 littlest are to the left and right of the last one on the right. I hope I haven't planted them too close together? This is a nice warm wall and I thought maybe their leaves might shade each other's tomatoes?  Or maybe I should move the two smallest somewhere else? Advice please experts...

We went for mainly the garden centre man's recommendations- Mighty Red; but also one cherry tomato and one Tommy Toe I think it's called.

This is a promising looking mighty red-green so far...

So I'll link up with Louise and hope for her Garden Glut!