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Growing things
I haven’t written about my latest gardening feats or should I say lack thereof. It’s not all doom and gloom but the cucumbers that were looking so well aren’t so well. The plants are still alive but any fruit seems to be eaten by creatures of the earth. At least something is gaining from the growth. I did harvest an odd looking fruit once about a week ago because it wasn’t really growing any longer and I decided I didn’t want it to rot. I took a bite and it was quite bitter.
I had two large pots with tomatoes growing. One of the pots has heaps of fruit and they all have tough skins. I guess we don’t water it enough. Maybe they need watering morning and night but we are just scraping along once a day. The fruit is reasonably flavorful so that’s something to appreciate. I’ve managed to get two fruit from the other plant and they were incredibly flavorful. Unfortunately other creatures agree with me because they seem to attack the bottom side of the fruit and it’s rendered inedible by the time they are mature. I’d really like to grow another one of these but I suspect it’s a bit late in the season now. I wonder how well they would last into the winter months if they were sheltered a bit. With a bit of research I should be able to figure out ways to repel some of the creatures without poisoning the earth any more. I’ll add it to my list.
I’ve had more success with the cherry tomatoes. I never managed to get the overgrown ones out of the pots and into the ground but they are still doing reasonably well. Some of the fruit went bad due to excessive explosure to the excessive heat but much of it has been quite good and it’s made for some good snacking over the last few weeks. The three plants along the back wall have done extremely well and are sprawling all over the place. Two have a treillis of sorts for support and that’s made a huge difference there. I might try to move others to the back wall too but probably won’t ever get a round tuit. :)
My coriander has all gone to seed but the leaves were wonderful. I’m going to attempt to reseed into the ground after I get hold of some soil improver. The sandy soil is annoying. Im also going to try growing some mint and plant a new crop of basil. The last time I planted basil, we had a jungle of it in the backyard. I think mint will do equally well. My intention is to have heaps of mint so that I can make fattoush more regularly. I might even try for some Italian parsley.
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Cucumbers
I’ve been adding to my garden pots lately but trying to grow continental cucumbers from pots just wasn’t likely to work. These are my only seedlings to go into the ground so far. I planted three seedlings and included soil improver and organic fertiliser along with some stuff to help hold water (Wettasoil or something) in the soil. Just behind the cucumbers, I stuck some of the overgrown cherry tomato plants that had been all crowded into one pot. The plants were looking a bit yellow, possibly due to lack of soil and other nutrients. I’m hoping to grow these up some old trellis pieces we’ve got around the place. Just have to remember to water out in the back regularly.
Other new plants: I bought two tomato seedlings to go into two very large pots I got from Kmart the other day. I also bought two chilli plants. One is jalapeno and I can’t recall the name of the other one. It’s supposed to be good in Asian and Mexican food though. I didn’t have enough potting soil to plant the last chilli seedling so will have to get that sorted out tomorrow. The jalapeno didn’t look quite as healthy as the other one so I planted that first. After all was planted, I did some watering and due to sprinkler issues got quite wet. The sprayer nozzle is broken or I would have used instead.
The strawberries are doing pretty well. Snails have become less problematic since I put the pots up on brick pavers. The fruit is now tasting really nice so I’m kind of wishing we had more planted to keep up the supply. The thyme is doing well as are most of the cherry tomato plants. I’d like to add basil and mint to the garden but need to figure out locations. It would be nice to make a proper herb garden some time.