Forgot to mention the garden

[gemfyre]

Heh, can you tell I'm bored?

Sunday morning I got up and was like, not doing much, why not paint my nails? So I did.

A few HOURS later I go, "lovely day, lets get that gardening done!" Out I go, put on my gloves, remove the dead savoury (the thyme won that battle, but that's okay, I use the thyme A LOT more than I ever used the savoury). Do a bunch of pruning of dead herbs and that damn vine and stuff.

Then I remove my gloves. My nails had 2 - 3 hours to dry and they were STILL crapped up after I did that bit of gardening. Gah!

Anyway, I ignored it and continued. Liquid fertiliser for everybody. Then some slow release over the herbs. Pyrethrum on the veggies and the herbs that are ceaselessly attacked by butterflies (later it was satisfying to see a butterfly hovering around the cauliflower attempting to alight, but being unable due to the pyrethrum repelling it). A good smattering of snail pellets about the place. Then I round-upped. All those weeds coming up in the paving and all the vine suckers. The days following I felt like I'd been riding a horse, I guess it was the half-crouched shuffle around the yard as I sprayed all the weeds.

Later in the day I bought some earthworms and put them throughout the veg garden. Hopefully they find the compost and start working on it.

Progress report

Capsicum - one fruit, not sure if it's getting bigger or not. The plant that looked dead now has a bunch of leaves on it.
Tomato - I have a fruit!! I expect more soon, I have enough damn flowers. The plant wants to be a creeper. All I have to stake it to is the palm tree and that isn't really practical for a branched plant.
Rainbow chard - looking great, I should eat some soon.
Peas - looking a bit sad but still giving me the odd pod. They're probably nearing the end of their life.
Leek - Not much happening with them.
Lettuce - finally starting to get actual lettuce heads. Now if I can stop things eating it!
Chinese Cabbage - also forming heads (and also being eaten by bugs). Two are flowering - anyone know if I should let them do this?
Cauliflower - FINALLY, tiny little curds are forming. Yay!
Broccoli - Lots of little heads branching off. Now if I can just keep the damn caterpillars away so they don't ruin my dinner. (Did you know that when you cook caterpillars they release a load of silk? - and put you off eating your broccoli.)
Eggplant - being hammered by various bugs.
Asparagus - looks weedy.
Onion - growing. Will this produce more bulbs or what? I just planted an onion that was growing in the pantry.
Potatoes - no sprouts yet.
Strawberries - 2 ripe fruits so far, one with a bit already taken from it. }:-\ About 7 more ripening up.
Blueberries - flowers are dying, hopefully I'll have a bunch of berries soon.
Chilli - seems to have stopped fruiting for now.
Tatsoi and my 3 varieties of Basil - Leafless because of damn caterpillars and snails!! grar
Coriander - going to seed. Hopefully it resprouts. Hoping the Rocket does the same.
Bay - lots of new leaves, I should get a bigger pot for this fellow.
Lemon - flowering like crazy despite having barely any leaves. This tree is mental, and it has it's priorities all wrong.
Kaffir Lime - Loads of new growth. :)

Comments

[bleedingwillow.livejournal.com]

"Onion - growing. Will this produce more bulbs or what? I just planted an onion that was growing in the pantry."

Nope. One plant, one onion. ^-^ I just pulled up our Walla Wallas the other day. Yummy!

[gemfyre.livejournal.com]

So will it get bigger and I'll be able to re-pick it? I planted it because the onion was sprouting and going squishy.

[bleedingwillow.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I think I misunderstood originally.

Anyway...is it just the same onion growing? Like, 1 stalk? If yes, then you'll just have one onion. 1 per plant. If you've got multiple sprouts, you'll end up with multiple onions...I'm not sure how many seeds are in an onion. I usually buy starts, and you only get 1 per start. It's not like potatoes where 1 turns into 8 billion.

[bleedingwillow.livejournal.com]

Oh, and yes. If it keeps growing you should be able to pick it. It's like a carrot...once you can see the top part of the onion above the ground and it looks pretty good size, you can pick it and it will be teh uber awesome.

[sunrise-raver.livejournal.com]

With the Chinese Cabbage, I think flowering means it's bolted - producing seed. Perhaps if you can snap the flowers off it might stop, but AFAIk, once they bolt that's it and the produce is usually inedible because it's so bitter.

However, if you let it continue, you have a free supply of seeds for next season.