Autumn audit - '13

Each season I do a summary to reflect on what has happened in the patch. Here is my autumn 2013 summary - the first autumn in our new rural patch. But first an explanation for those from outside Australia - we define our seasons here by calendar months - so autumn here is March, April and May.

Weather
Phew, thank goodness for the cool of autumn. Summer was exhaustingly hot and so we were so grateful for the coolness that autumn brings. We had good rain in March and again in May but April was achingly dry. Our first frost was in late May and then it was only relatively light. In the whole of autumn we have only had two frosty mornings.

Growing for the first time

• Parsnips -They seems to be growing ok, but it's hard to tell with root crops until you pull them.  As the soil is still developing I think they will be pretty short roots, but I love parsnips and I as sure I will enjoy eating them no matter what size they are.
• Brussels Sprouts -  I bought a punnet of Brussels just to give them a go. I never really liked Brussels until I had them fresh from a garden in Lincolnshire, UK. They were wonderful and I hope mine will be too. I can just see the little sprouts starting to form on the stems. It's fun to grow new things.
• Raspberries -  But they have just gone in so no reflections yet.

Finally getting success with
Garlic -  I have attempted to grow garlic before but it has been pretty unsuccessful. This year I have taken it more seriously. I have about 40 cloves in  - most are Monaro Purple and a few are the sprouted cloves from some locally grown garlic I buy for cooking purposes. I figure seeing it's locally grown it might do ok here. I think they are doing well -  certainly they have more growth on them that I have ever had before. The difference this year is that they are getting more water and they are getting more of a feed.  I also have them in a bed all together. Previously I have used them as a gap filler crop  meaning that they kind of got lost in the garden and didn't get the attention they deserved.

Plants I am really enjoying
Red drumhead cabbage -  their red-blueness is just stunning beautiful in the bed.

Brussels Sprouts - growing them for the first time is kind of quietly exciting - but I'm a bit odd.

Blueberries -the beautiful colours of their autumn leaves.

Fennel - I love the fine fluffy foliage as a break to all that brassica-ness.

Broad beans - popping their heads out of the soil.

Things I am really enjoying
The way rain beads on brassicas.

 Spiders webs on the fence lines.

The way mist hangs in the valleys.

Chickens encountering wildlife, wildlife encountering chickens.

Pests
Cabbage White butterflies and their grubs - strangely no cabbage white moths, not one, consequently I have very tidy looking brassicas, that is where they haven't been nipped by the chickens.

Aphids -  loads of aphids but only on the Savoy cabbages.

Things that chickens like too much!

Cauliflower plants - they totally ate three of them pecking thru the plastic mesh I had erected to exclude them.

Any of the onion family - lost a whole bed of onions and half a row of leeks to the chooky girls!

Beetroot leaves and rocket - they harmlessly graze on those protruding the chicken exclusion fence

Do yourself a favour - take a drive to Adelong
Just a little recommendation for you... you really must drive the Snowy Mountains Highway from the Hume to Adelong in autumn, the autumn colour of the deciduous trees is outstanding. The golden poplars along the road and then a riot of  colour in  pretty  little Adelong.

What's happened in your garden this autumn?

The garden in mid-April - Cabbages

There is a special something about autumn. The sun is still warm but the colours of the day are different and the nip of the morning and the evening is such a pleasure especially after an extreme summer.

I am not alone in appreciating the season, the garden too is relishing the gentler weather and, as a result, I finally have a vegetable garden that is worth showing you.

It is of course brassica growing season and the beds are stuffed full of different brassicas at different stages of development.  Most have been raised from seed on the front verandah, just a few are shop bought punnets.

First, the cabbages.

I am growing several types this year - most for the first time. Red Drum Head is such stunning blue cabbage. So why is it called 'red'? Is it one of those Australianisms? You know where we call people with red hair 'Bluey'?

Crinkly, wrinkly Savoy

I am also growing my old favourite the crinkly Savoy. This is the only  non-Chinese style cabbage variety I have grown before and these are the only cabbage seedlings I bought.

Mini Cabbage

I am also growing a mini cabbage unimaginatively called Mini Cabbage.

As for Chinese cabbages I am starting my second lot of Red Pak Choi  - we have already eaten the first sowing, they grow so fast and are eaten so quickly.

Tiny baby Red Pak Choi

And I have a good number of Mini Wombok in. I went for a mini version as a full sized wombok can be a bit of a challenge to deal with unless you make endless amounts of kimchi (which isn't a bad idea actually, perhaps I will put some more in).

Mini Wombok

Strangely, I have had hardly any cabbage moth grubs at all. Mind you, I am not complaining! I have really only picked off half a dozen grubs and that was some weeks ago now. The Red Drumhead have been completely untouched. Perhaps it's their colour - that red or blue putting the cabbages off the scent or sight?

Which cabbages are you growing this southern autumn/ winter? Northerners, what are you growing for the first time this year?

Later in the week I will show you the broccoli and cauli I am growing this season.

Autumn audit - '12

summer and autumn produce

Autumn has ended and I have missed about 2/3rds of it being away overseas for work – see Garden Glut International. Autumn in Australia (at least in the southern states) is defined by the calendar months March April and May and in my opinion is the loveliest time of year in Sydney (but come to think of it, I think  autumn is about the loveliest time of the year just about everywhere I have ever been!).

So what can I say about autumn if I have been away? Well most of this is from the reporting of my David who has been giving me great updates.

Its been a weird autumn...Just as our summer was cool and wet, this autumn has been the summer we never had, followed by heavy rains and the impact on the patch has been profound. Here is some of the things that have happened as a result.

• Eggplants - normally pulled out in February/ March continued flowering and flowering and were finally only pulled out in mid-May. The fruit were smaller than they had been earlier in the season, but I guess that can be explained by all the hard work they put in, no doubt depleting the store in the soil. Must feed up those parts of the patch.

• The Chillies too have been long producing...in fact I still have two plants in and the long cayenne still has loads of green chillies on the plant. Again I normally pull them out in around March. Even though we don’t get a frost in Sydney (at least in my part of Sydney)  I don’t over winter them. I only have limited space and I remove them when they are past their best to free up the bed. Frankly I don’t think I need to grow any chillies next summer, what with the stash ‘preserved’ in oil, in vinegar, in rocket fuel, in sweet chilli jam and frozen could keep me going for two years. But I KNOW I will grow them again next summer, they just brighten up the garden so much. And besides which I can always use the excuse offered by Suburban Tomato in her value space rating blog - they are just too efficient how can I not grow them.

last of the brown berries

• Brown berry tomatoes - just when I thought they were finished in Feb and when I had pulled all, the other tomatoes out,  they revived and  started flowering heavily. They have produced small crops – a punnet at a time and are only now giving up the ghost.

• The Broccoli that I planted in February were producing great big heads in early May. Quick hey?  Must have been all that sun they had. All the big heads have been picked and now its the side shoots to keep us going.

beautiful broccoli

• The Sunflowers that self-seeded in the broccoli patch and which I left to see what happened grew and grew and produced lovely browny heads.  In May they were towering over the patch and there were plenty to cut to bring inside. I normally pull my summer sunflowers out when they are spent and they don’t normally go about sprouting until the next late spring. I will probably take these out of the garden this weekend. They have pretty much finished now.

• Snow peas that were planted in February behaved pretty much like they always do, they started being picked in early May. They are heaven on a stalk. We pick every second day and pretty much eat everyday. There is nothing better to eat veg-wise in my opinion in a winter veg garden. Crunch, sweet, best eaten at the vine.

All this resulted in some interesting harvest baskets – a great combination of summer and autumn veg.

Autumn gluts

• Lettuce
• Rocket
• Broccoli
• Snow peas
• Spring onions – I just planted too many to keep up with!
• Lemons endless lemons

With the lovely man home alone there was only so much he could eat so much of the glut was distributed to friends and family for their consumption.

too much for one man to eat

Mini gluts

• Limes
• Eggplants

Autumn struggles

• Cabbage - with a booming broccoli crop the savoy cabbages got a little shaded. I also suspect I had another issue... the cabbage went into the patch where the eggplant were. I had had a great eggplant year and  I suspect that the eggplant had really taken a lot out of the soil.  I did top it up before planting the cabbage seedlings, but I suspect not enough.
• Beetroot - these too got a little too shaded by the monster broccoli. I got some but only small roots. 

This all comes from having only a small space and big ambitions and planting thickly to cover ground and get the most out of the patch.

Autumn duds

• Radish -  these failed pretty spectacularly I suspect it might be because of two reasons - I didn't thin them enough, and they may have been overshadowed by a very prolific rocket crop. 
• Cauliflower - hmm, big failure - serious whip tail... I have always had a little bit of whip tail but always had good strong heads. This year I pushed my luck and have paid for it. If I get any heads at all they will be tiny.  Lesson?  Don't ignore micro-nutrient deficiencies! 

The other big learning of this autumn, was how well and how enthusiastically my darling husband tended the patch while I was away. Grub squashing, compost emptying, path clearing, plant feeding, pulling out when veg had finished, harvesting and taking photos and sending  them to me to make me think of home.