Edible garden chatter

[briggsy's girl]

We've only had a few toms so far. There will be heaps when they ripen though.

Strawberries are in overdrive.

Capsicum plants haven't grown much in height. Zucs are hit and miss. Pumpkins doing ok. Peas and beans have gone crazy. We are harvesting a couple of meals worth every second day so the freezer us getting stocked. Broccoli was delish and quite a bit in the freezer. Cauli we only had one do any good. Cabbages are ready and we harvested the first on Friday. Yummmmmm!


Need to find ways to use a heap of beetroot. Mum grabbed a couple of sick looking trays of seedlings in special expecting nothing to grow. It's taken off in a big way. We don't have preserving hard at the moment and can't afford to get any.

I have my first sunflowers in flower now. The lather sized ones have fine squat but the mid size and dwarf. Ones are doing wonderfully!

[peanutter]

Beetroot - I love it grated in salads, in sandwiches and in felafel pitas. You can also do them as a feature side dish, with a bit of feta or Crème fraîche.

[briggsy's girl]

thanks PN. i may have to add it to burritos too

weve just got a massive crop
planning onn baking some too. though googling how to get best results brings up a million different ideas of the perfect way to use it!

[peanutter]

Do you do anything to your veg before freezing it?

I froze up a whole heap of stuff that I'd chopped up (carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, etc) and put it in the deep freeze, and a lot of it went brown and watery and was gross when defrosted, and just had to be thrown out

[briggsy's girl]

we blanch everything - basically drop it in boiling water and bring back to boil then drain. cool it quick then straight into freezer

never had anything go bad doing that

we always keep everything individual

[peanutter]

Coolies. Will have to try that. I'd just chopped up kilos of carrot, beans, broccoli, snow peas, zuchinni, cauliflower, kaffir lime leaves, etc, and had put them in bags of the different types of veggies, and it did not end well.

[Jaycee]

Hi ladies, would I be wasting my time planting sweet corn seeds now? I'm in SA

[Pholi]

Jaycee, according to the Gardenate website (definitely worth a google - it provides a planting guide for different climate zones across Australia) it is not too late to plant sweetcorn. Good luck!

[chody47]

This hot weather is ripening everything nicely! In the past few days I've picked 7-8 tomatoes (one plant only), a mini capsicum and a handful of beans. Might not sound like much, but we just have a mini garden. We also have heaps of chillies

[Astrid]

There is some good info about preserving in this thread: https://www.bellybelly.com.au/forums...-Fresh-Veggies

We went away over Christmas, some plants did not survive very well. Lost another blueberry bush (goat got the last one). The weeds did really well though.

[Jaycee]

Thanks for the info, might give them a go

My tomatoes just don't seem to be ripening, not sure why as its been pretty hot here.

Think I might have to move my strawberries to pots too as the flowers don't seem to turn into strawberries, think they might be getting too much sun where they are.

[~Kim~]

I'm pretty much out. Seems no matter how protected and well watered they are veggies don't like weeks and weeks of 37+ temps. It killed off nectarine flowers just as they bloomed, the pumpkins were flowering like mad, but as soon as the days get underway, the flowers wilt. The pumpkins, cucumbers, a strawberry, cherry toms are all sadly deceased. The blueberry hasn't grown and is getting burnt. Passionfruit vine is growing well, but no flowers (and it's 3 years old nearly). Lemon tree is laden, so at least that's a win

[Jaycee]

Oh no Kim! Feels like such a disappointment when u go to all that effort and get nothing In return.

[Mum2twoBoys]

My zucchinis is going crazy get 3-4 every couple of days. The corn is starting to grow the cobs. Have harvested a few carrots. That's it so far, but very exciting. Also just planted some snap peas and beetroot.

[Mother Goose]

Our cucumbers have done well and we harvest one every few days. Sadly the capsicum rotted on the plant ;( we had two big ones almost ready to harvest and they went rotten! The tomatoes are doing great but we've only had 4 cherry tomatoes ready to harvest.

[peanutter]

Three years ago, I took all the lemons off the lemon tree and used them or gave them all away. There must have been 50 lemons.

Since then, it's been slim pickings ... probably less than 10 a year ...

How do I fix this?

[briggsy's girl]

Three years ago, I took all the lemons off the lemon tree and used them or gave them all away. There must have been 50 lemons.

Since then, it's been slim pickings ... probably less than 10 a year ...

How do I fix this?

we gave our lemon tree a decent hair cut, and let DH loose peeing on the trunk and it came back in a big way...

[nickle730]

Morning ladies, I'll join in! My vegie garden is doing well, lots almost ready to harvest! Sent the kids out to pick the thousands of snow peas yesterday and have enough to feed a small nation! Carrots are coming along nicely, it's a battle to convince the kids not to pick them and feed them to the horses. Sweetcorn growing nicely and I've harvested several cucumbers. Had green beans from the garden for dinner last night - delish! Surprised we haven't got any zucchini yet! Having a problem with the tomatoes - nasty green caterpillars are eating them before they are ripe enough to pick Any suggestions of a chemical free way to get rid of them?

I think my blueberry (which I only planted about 6 weeks ago) has not survived the recent heat, it has turned brown and dry looking. Will give it a week or so to recover and hope for the best. We planted a stack of fruit trees about a year ago and have a lovely crop of plums. Picked some yesterday with a lot which will ripen in the next few days, think I will stew some to have with yoghurt. I'm generally not much of a gardener - told my mum she can harvest whatever she likes if she takes charge - it's a co op vegie garden! But mum is away so I have been forced to get out there myself or we will lose all our hard work. Think I could start to enjoy it!