Comments and Cundall

As I've mentioned before, one of the advantages of the Front Yard Farm over a more conventioned backyard vegie patch is that people passing by can see what you're up to and stop to have a chat. Often it's to ask what something is, what's good to plant right now or if I know why their tomatoes didn't do well this year.

Peas in Public

Sometimes they stop and talk for a while, other times it's just a few passing comments like this exchange from a week or so ago:

Teenage Dude: "Hey, your garden rocks!"

Me: "Thanks"

Teenage Dude's Mum: "Keep up the good work young man!"

Now I'm pretty sure that Teenage Dude's Mum was actually younger than me, so I don't know if it was a little lighthearted condescension, she was legally blind or the fresh garden vegies have even greater regenerative properties than I'd previously suspected. Legendary Australian gardener Peter Cundall, now 84, often attributes his good health to hard work and fresh vegetables so it may be having some effect on me. We saw him once at a Gardening Australia Expo where he made the following observation which makes me appreciate all the more the comment of Teenage Dude:

Audience Member: "My question is this: How can I get my teenage son interested in gardening?"

Peter Cundall: "That's easy. You can't. It's not possible."

He then told of how difficult it had been to get his teenage son to get out of bed to mow the lawn. He eventually managed to rouse him by wheeling the mower into said teenager's bedroom, then starting it up.

Thanks Teenage Dude and Teenage Dude's Mum, you made my day.

Peas on Earth

It's far too hot here in Summer to grow peas. The plants go brown and crunchy. But this time of year they thrive, providing some spectacular colour splashes in an otherwise monochromic green Winter garden.

Pea Flower

Lately we've had a few periods of much rain followed by lots of sun, so the pea plants have reached the top of their trellis and are continuing upwards in an apparent attempt to reach the overhead power lines. And despite these exertions they're now popping out purple flowers followed by golden pea pods.

More Pea Flowers

 I planted two varieties, alternating between our favourite Purple Podded Dutch and Golden Podded peas, or at least I think I did. Perhaps I mixed them up because all the plants bar one with pods on them are the golden variety. Perhaps the purple ones will appear later.

..and a Pod

 In any case, the peas look great when the sun's out. And when it's not.

Pea plants discuss the events of the day

Spring Sputters

Spring has departed. Like a slinky down the stairs, it slunk away from me. I know where some of it went, but there's still a large portion of it unaccounted for. One week was a quick trip to Tasmania. That was followed closely by a work trip to Germany which was supposed to be for only a week but turned into three. So that's one third of it gone. The rest, I don't know about.

I have to send a special thanks to Suyin, who kept everything alive while I was away. Even lugging a watering can down my annoyingly convoluted path when she was sick with the flu. She even did some weeding, despite her wormyphobia. Hopefully the fresh peas and radishes were some small compensation. Oh yes, the peas. Here's what they looked like back in late October, just before I went away:

Golden Podded Peas mit Golden Pods!

 The golden podded peas matured first and tasted great pods and all when eaten like snow peas.

They can be picked at this stage and eaten as snow peas or left a bit longer to use as shelling peas.

The purple podded Dutch peas took a little longer but have magnificent purple flowers.

By the time I got back they were all but done. There were a few of the purple ones left which had got a bit old and hard. No matter, they were all a bit of an experiment to see if I could get a Spring crop before the sun got too hot and toasted them. I'll plant some more in Autumn.

Now on to proper Summer crops, and here's the amazing circle of corn, again from late October:

Crop Circle

You'll notice that I have two sizes of corn. For some reason most of the seeds I planted on the left side didn't germinate. Either that or some little rattie dug them up and ate them. I suspect the rattie. 

Corn, lettuce and very small tomato seedlings

 Here you can also see the trellis for the tomatoes and some lettuce seedlings alongside the path... But NOW:

Big corn, big lettuce and not-very-big-at-all tomato seedling

Everything is huge. The corn is now flowering, or at least the large half is. Corn normally likes to be planted in a big enough clump to ensure good pollination. Hopefully my two slightly staggered half-clumps will be ok. The tomatoes got off to a very slow start and are only now really taking off. I'll have to work on my tomato seedling raising technique. However careful I am, they always seem to sulk for a month after I plant them out.

There's lots more happening, but that all I have time for tonight. Back soon.

One Week at a Time

It's been a busy week, unfortunately not in the garden. It was so busy that I never found the time to post some photos I took last weekend. But never mind, because I thought it's be neat to compare them with this weekend's photos to get an idea of how quickly things are moving along. So here they are..

Here's my army of pea seedlings from last weekend..

..and this weekend. Soon they shall be ready for battle! I mean, making peas.

The apple trees continue to awake from their Winter slumber with new leaves and blossoms.

The Granny Smith from last weekend.

And the same branch today. Pretty!

The potato plants also seem to have doubled in size, thanks to a little rain and a lot of sunshine.

Happy potatoes. Note the amount of visible dirt.

Very happy potatoes. Not much dirt to be seen.

You might have also noticed a couple of volunteer coriander plants in with the potatoes. They're doing fine and welcome to stay as far as I'm concerned. The main coriander patch is now flowering and going to seed but looks great. See random coriander shot below:

Coriander is pretty enough to put in a vase. Which we did.

 Anyway, that's about all for now. But just because I like them, here are few more pics of apple blossoms. This time on the Pink Lady tree:

Pink Lady blossom

More Pink Lady blossoms. Just because they're nice.