Oat Harvest

The oats I planted back in autumn were finally ready for harvest. Last Sunday there was no well-muscled, bare-chested, god-like young man wielding a scythe available (as if!), so a chubby woman in her mid-forties attacked the oat patch with a pair of kitchen snips LOL! Well, it was only a small patch . . .

The result was a couple of boxes full of oat sheaves (as pictured). The oats are hanging upside down for the moment and in a couple of weeks when my exams are over, I'll set about threshing them to extract the grain. Not quite sure how as yet, but it should be good post-exam therapy.

After the harvest, I dug over the patch, putting the residue of the stalks onto the potato patch in the next bed - instant mulch! Interestingly, the roots on the oat stalks were only about 4cm (1.5") long (maximum), so oats are obviously very shallow rooted. The soil in the bed where the oats grew was quite fine and looked somewhat depleted, so I dug in some cow manure.

The patch now has some "seedless" watermelon seeds in it. We saved them from a watermelon we purchased and they were plump and brown, so looked to be fertile. Does anyone know whether these will grow? I thought I'd give them a couple of weeks and if they don't sprout, I'll plant something else there - maybe some other watermelon seeds.

love and light
naturewitch

This Weekend in the Garden

I didn't get done anywhere near what I had wanted, but the snow peas are now weeded, hilled and mulched, with a few parsnip seeds and carrot seeds planted to keep them company. I also managed to put some wire between the stakes we put in a little while ago, so they now have a trellis to climb as they grow.

Excitement set in last week as I noticed that the purple asparagus seed I planted a few weeks ago has mostly germinated. Today I counted 44 baby asparagus plants, out of 65 seeds sown. Given they are just emerging (the tallest one would only be about 15mm high), I'm hoping for more little asparagus babies over the next few weeks.

Didn't do quite so well on the artichoke front. To date, only three seedlings have appeared, but there's still time for more. The seed was over a year out of date, so I'll try some fresh seed and see how that goes. Meanwhile, in other parts of the garden, the artichokes are growing well, so I'm sure we'll have heaps of artichokes to eat later in the season.

Wandering around, I noticed a couple of leafy green plants in one of the beds. Unfortunately, when sowing the seed I didn't label it, so was not so sure what it was. It looks like spinach, but maybe it's some sort of turnip? A quick feel underground reveals no tuber; a quick munch reveals spinach. Wish I could remember what type it was; I think it was something a bit different. The leaves are thicker than usual, but just as yummy. It's now three hours later and I haven't dropped off my perch, so I'm guessing it's OK.

The potatoes I planted about a month ago when I was planting the kiwi fruit have now made an appearance. They get a bit of protection where they are, so I'm hoping they will be OK if we get any late frosts.

Checking on the carrots led to three lovely long ones being pulled up and grated for lunch, alongside one of our winter lettuces. The beets are coming on and I must start pulling up some of the larger baby beets to thin the rows out for the others.

Apart from all that, the deciduous herbs are starting to wake up, with one of the comfrey plants, a French tarragon and some of the mints sporting green leaves again. It won't be long now before spring really will have sprung!

love and light
naturewitch

Delightful Day in the Garden

I cannot be cooped up for too long, so I've found the past couple of weeks or so very frustrating, as I've recuperated from my horrible lurgy. However, this morning dawned beautifully fine and feeling somewhat recovered, I headed for the garden.

The first delight that greeted me was a lovely buzz coming from our early flowering peach - about two dozen bees were already at work, drinking the lovely peach flower nectar. I tried to take a photo, but alas it didn't come out very well. Actually, this peach tree was one I bought from someone at the local farmers' markets. It was supposed to be a yellow fleshed bottling peach, but turned out to be a white fleshed eating peach. It has some of the best peaches I have ever eaten, so the mix up is long forgiven. Can't wait for the new crop.

Another delight was discovering some little waxy potatoes in an area I was preparing for kiwi fruit. I had planted potatoes in this area the summer before last and apparently, a few have continued to grow. They made a lovely warm potato salad for lunch, accompanied by fresh herbs, baby beets, carrots and winter lettuce, all from our garden - not bad for the middle of winter!

While I worked in the garden today, I was serenaded by a local family of magpies. The song from Australian magpies is indeed unique and is especially beautiful on a Sunday for some reason. I found a lovely fat scarab beetle larva while digging and threw it to one of the magpies who then watched me keenly for the rest of the day, awaiting further treats. No more fat grubs, unfortunately, but the family did come down and dine from our compost heap, as well as checking over my diggings.

During the day, I was also talking to my neighbour and saying that I wanted to get some bees. Apparently, he has had the same thoughts, so a hive in the back yard should not present any problems. I just have to source one now.

And at the end of this gorgeous day was a chat with my sister, a lovely hot shower and dinner with my darling man. Hope your day was just as great.

love and light
naturewitch

Tatie Planting Time

For a lot of you, it's time to start thinking about planting potatoes. It's a little early here yet, but since there's been a bit of discussion about growing potatoes, I thought I'd share with you a great way of growing them without any back-breaking digging.

1. Choose your patch of ground and cover it liberally with newspapers.
2. Place potatoes on top of the paper at about 30cm or 12in apart in a grid.
3. Cover with a layer of mulch or hay (lucerne hay is best if it's not too expensive). On top of the mulch / hay, place liberal amounts of blood and bone, well rotted animal manures and/or compost. Water the lot in well.
4. Add more hay and more fertilisers / manures, watering after each addition. You want the pile to be moist throughout, but not sodden.
5. When you reach a height of about 60cm, finish off with a layer of mulch or hay.
6. Note: you can add shredded paper and lawn clippings in with your hay if you like.

The advantages of this technique are:

• no digging!
• when the potatoes are ready, you just lift up the layer of mulch and pick them up
• you are left with an area ready to dig over and plant with new things
• you end up with a heap of semi-composted hay, which is a great addition to the garden

The disadvantages are:

• the hay can be expensive
• you may need to top up the hay during the growing season, so the potatoes do not get exposed to light
• it takes a reasonable sized patch of ground (compared with potato condos)

Happy planting!

love and light
naturewitch

Great Day in the Garden

What a great day in the garden! Daphne has just started to flower - I love her beautifully sweet, rich scent. Have you noticed that many winter and early spring flowers have a particularly appealing scent? I wonder if they are calling the bees?

The great maize experiment has come to a close for now. We have had a few heavy frosts now and so I thought it was time to stop hoping for much produce. We didn't get much suitable for grain, but we did get quite a few "baby corn" cobs, which I intend to bottle and use in stir-fries. I've gathered the silks and will dry them to use as a herbal remedy (great as a diuretic and for soothing cystitis), as well as gathering some long leaves, which I will use to try some rush work. So, we may not have obtained what we hoped, but it certainly wasn't all in vain. I'll definitely be planting it earlier next season.

This morning I planted a packet of globe artichoke seeds (37), so hopefully we will have some baby artichoke plants by spring. Globe artichoke is a fantastic food - full of nutrients and a great tonic for tired livers.

I cleared the asparagus bed of the spent ferns today and there was a bonus - red berries, full of seeds. Normally I wouldn't bother with the seeds, as it takes quite a while to grow them to harvest size and you have to sort out the male from the female plants. But this asparagus is rather special. I bought it to replace the crowns that were overpowered by parsley a few years ago when I was ill and couldn't tend the garden. I had ordered both green and purple asparagus crowns, but when the order arrived, there was only purple asparagus because they had run out of green. The purple was merely to satisfy my curiosity, but it has proven to be a very prolific and delicious asparagus. It's not in the catalogue anymore; hence, I thought it might be worth trying to propagate some from the seed. I can't remember whether it was a hydrid or not, but I guess its babies will let me know the answer to that. Anyway, the asparagus bed is now fed and mulched and ready for next season.

Remember those cheeky potatoes surviving under the asparagus ferns? Well, the frost had knocked them back as well, so I harvested their produce - a couple of kilos of nice, red potatoes. They'll make a great meal.

Oh, and I picked the last of the tomatoes this morning - I'm blown away by the fact we still had tomatoes on bushes (albeit rather dead looking bushes) in open ground in Canberra in mid-July! It must be a record of some type, I'm sure. This winter has been rather mild until the last week or so, so maybe that accounts for it. I've collected both red and green tomatoes, so when I find my green tomato marmalade recipe, I'll be in the kitchen cooking some up - it sounds weird, but is truly delicious.

Unfortunately, with the frost the nasturtiums are looking rather sad and the peas, onions, leeks and shallots are not making much progress. But the broccoli is still producing madly and there's a couple of nice cauliflowers ready for picking, not to mention the ongoing Asian greens and the baby beets.

I'm fairly pleased with my vege garden - my aim is ultimately to produce fruit and vegetables all year round, so we are more self-sustaining. There will be some limitations, though - mangoes, bananas, pineapples and pawpaws are not likely to grow here. But we'll be happy with what we have.

love and light
naturewitch