Update for Summer 09
After harvesting the carrots (deformed stumps), bok choy (got very big very fast), lettuce (very crisp), silverbeet and swiss chard (both made a lovely quiche), we dug up the soil, yes I said we, as husband Brad now seems to enjoy getting himself dirty in the patch. We added some compost and soil improver which we bought in bags because although we have started a compost it wasn't ready.
Brad enjoys picking out what we're going to plant. We chose seedlings rather than seeds because we wanted to get things moving quickly. Brad picked a chilli plant and capsicum plant and staked those in the front of the vege patch. He also bought a purple chilli which we potted - looks beautiful I think (see below).
In the patch we planted a row of corn which we have grown once before, it really does look fabulous and grows so quickly. Brad erected a mesh trellis and we sowed bean seeds (we had bought these seeds previously). We couldn't believe how quickly they popped their little heads through the soil, it was only a couple of days.
I wanted to try some tomatoes because my previous attempt a couple of years ago hadn't been very fruitful (in all interpretations of the word). So I bought three small plants and staked them. Last time I grew them I kept pinching out some of the new shoots because I had read somewhere to do that. So this time I decided to just leave them to do there thing. I watered (alot) and fed them every few weeks and they went rather wild. They just kept growing and in no time there were little green tomatoes - very exciting.
Over a couple of months they developed and I picked a few ripe ones here and there, but all of a sudden there was a huge amount of tomatoes and the plants had wended there way through the vege patch, sending there new shoots amongst all the other veges and generally dominating, but not to the detriment of the other plants luckily. I let them all ripen on the vine (probably a little bit too much) then picked them all off just last week. I've been so excited about my tomatoes and I spent some time looking through recipes for a chutney or something similar to make and found an awesome tomato chilli jam. I've made two batches and still have tomatoes left!
Starting to Become More Self Sufficient
