A Summery Summary

Time flies. The Summer's long finished and so, nearly, is the Autumn. Before having a look at what's going on at the moment I'm going to do a bit of a review of the Spring/Summer season and talk about the spectacular successes and the... er... other things.

The Good
Well you've probably already seen all the good stuff here. The corn was spectacular, the potatoes were tasty buried treasure and the sweet golden beetroot like jewels in our Summertime salads.

The world's cutest corn cob

 The carrots continued to provide orange, yellow and purple crunchiness and the early Summer lettuce crop was also wonderful, with the Australian Yellow Leaf variety in particular outyielding everything else in sight. The sunflowers were enormous, with only one mysteriously beheaded and the others slightly munched on by cockatoos, but not before the neighbourhood had a good chance to stop and admire them. The yellow-stemmed chard powered through its second summer, providing more than we could eat. I also planted a small trellised bed with frost beans (more on that when I finally get around to writing "Beans Pt 2") which was very productive.

Pretty frost beans dried for storage.

The mysterious goings-on in the as yet unseen back yard have also been very fruitful but I'll keep you in suspense on that one too for now..

The Bad
The tomatoes were a disappointment this year. Had I pulled out the volunteer "Tommy Toe" plant that sprung up in the wrong bed we would have had very few on our plates. The ones I actually planted were very slow to get going then started to wilt and look miserable just as the fruit was coming on. I have a few ideas about why, one of which is that the weather basically sucked. I shouldn't feel too bad though, because I'm not alone. From what I've heard and read just about everyone in Eastern Australia had tomato problems this year. Fortunately that one volunteer plant did very well, and kept us in tasty tomatoes for a few months. This year I tried growing some "Crystal Apple" cucumbers and they were pretty nice, but unfortunately we got maybe 6 or 7 before the plants dropped dead. The basil just didn't seem to get going at all, and the tiny plants sat there sulking until early Autumn before finally deciding to grow. Likewise the first round of rocket produced some unhappy, spindly plants as they bolted to seed in the hot weather.

The Ugly
The much anticipated fig bonanza failed to eventuate. The fruit was a little slow to appear, probably due to the big prune I gave the tree last year. The scale that was left after the prune was sprayed with white oil twice, so all was looking good for a bumper season. I even bought some netting to stop, or at least reduce, the losses from the nightly visits by a couple of hungry bats. But it was all to no avail as the tree was practically skeletonised one leaf at a time by wave upon wave of leaf beetles and their larvae. It went something like this:

1. Leaf beetle appears, it's this innocuous looking brown beetle.
2. Many leaf beetles appear, then go on feeding frenzy, feasting upon the new leaves as they shoot.
3. Leaf beetles lay leaf beetle eggs.
4. Leaf beetle eggs hatch into vast numbers of icky leaf beetle larvae. Sort of like green and black caterpillars.
5. Leaf beetle larvae reduce leaves to leaf skeletons in short order.
6 Did I mention that there vast numbers of them?
7. Leaf beetle larvae turn into leaf beetles. Goto 1.

Damge from leaf beetle larvae. That black blob in the centre is a fig covered in them.

Spraying white oil, "mechanical" removal and general harassment of the blighters had little impact. As a consequence, there wasn't a whole lot of fruit. I think we actually ate maybe half a dozen and left the rest to the bats. So it looks like a rethink is required for next season. There will be further pruning to try and get the tree to a more manageable size. Possible severe pruning. Also further research is needed into the best way to rain merciless death upon deal with the leaf beetles. I also tried to get in a late crop of "Parisian Pickling" cucumbers as well, but they dropped dead before producing anything but flowers and aphids.

The Verdict
The source of most of my problems this year was the weather. December was nice, but January and February were very hot and dry. We had 7 consecutive days with tops over 33 degrees. One night I went outside at midnight and it was still over 30 degrees. Nuts! The heat no doubt caused a few things to bolt to seed early and generally knock everything around a bit. Then March and April were wet. Stupidly so. March had about 50% more rain than the long term average, April more than double. With all this moisture it was party time for bugs, mildew and other damp-loving nasties. The mildew killed off the cucumbers, the beetles got the figs and I suspect it was some sort of fungal wilt or nematodes that bothered the tomatoes. So for next Summer I'm preparing a new bed for the tomatoes, in which I'm currently growing mustard as a biofumigant to kill off the nematodes and other soil-bourne baddies. This will be dug in and left to decompose for a while before the tomatoes go in next spring. The cucumbers will go in much earlier so they're fruiting well before the serious humidity arrives. Apart from that it's just a matter of accepting that when trying out new varieties, or trying to sqeeze in a filler crop a bit later or earlier than normal, some things are going to fail. It's all part of the fun and a good lesson in why diversification is a good thing.

Beans Part 1

Beans are another vegetable that's easy to grow at home, taste much better than the ones from the shop, and come in all kinds of strange varieties you would otherwise never encounter. They also grow alarmingly quickly, even without magic seeds that cost a cow or help from your friendly neighbourhood Totoro. All they need is a well drained soil with lots of organic matter, lots of sun and regular watering. Also keep an eye out for snails and slugs that just love the seedlings. Being a legume they don't need a high nitrogen fertiliser, they extract nitrogen from the air and fix it in the soil where it becomes available for other future crops. For this reason they're one of the plants that can be used as green manure.

Anyway, from the point of view of eating (which is especially important to me) beans can split up into those you grow to maturity to shell for the bean inside, and those you pick at an immature stage to eat pod and all. Today I'm talking about the latter, which may be either climbing beans or bush (dwarf) beans.

Climbing beans on a trellis and stakes, plus a few bush beans for good measure.

Climbing beans can reach 3 metres tall or more and require a tripod, trellis, stake or some other structure for support. They make more efficient use of space and are ideal for narrow garden beds alongside a wall or fence. Bush beans can just be planted in any regular garden bed without the need for a support structure.

Dwarf Beans "Bountiful Butter"

 I've grown both in my tiny garden, and while they both produce well, the climbing beans do make better use of the little space I have. Last year I grew climbing beans "Blue Lake" and "Purple King" together on a large trellis. The Purple King matured sooner and gave better yields, but perhaps the Blue Lake was out-competed and would have done better on its own. Another trick to growing productive plants is to keep picking the beans before they mature to keep the plant producing new flowers and pods. Otherwise it'll produce some beans, decide its job is done and head for an early retirement. Don't let them off that easy!

Beans "Blue Lake" and "Purple King"

 In any case I prefer the Purple King (and other non-green beans) not because I like strange purple vegetables, but because they change colour when ready to pick so are much easier to spot amongst the foliage. Interestingly, they change back to green when cooked. Both varieties tasted wonderful: succulent and sweet and not at all stringy unless picked too late. Once your beans get going you'll need to be out there picking every second day or so to keep on top of things. Yes, you'll have a LOT of beans, but trust me, when eaten fresh they are tasty enough to become the main focus of a meal, rather than just some token green boiled matter on the side of the plate. Cooking for about two minutes in boiling water seems to do it, then serve with a shallot confit and chopped, toasted macadamia nuts. Fantastique!

Bean Factoids: 
- Bush beans are preferred for large scale production as they are easier to mechanically harvest
- I do not know of any mazes made from beans or bean-related theme parks
- Jellybeans are not actual beans
- The beans in bean bags are not actual beans
- Beanies are not made of actual beans
- Mr Bean is not an actual bean

A Maizing

A small bunch of corn (maize) plants may not appear particularly interesting or exciting to anyone who's driven through the vast oceans of the stuff in the US Midwest. It's not exactly uncommon either, being the world's most produced crop by weight. But a home-grown crop of the freshest, organic sweet corn is one of my favourite things about Summer. It's fast and relatively easy to grow, productive and makes any garden look satisfyingly farm-like.

How the corn looked about 8 weeks ago...

..and how it looks today.

Before too long the corn plants, actually a kind of grass, are rocketing skywards and deploying their flowers.

This year I'm growing a hybrid variety called "Honey & Cream" with variegated yellow and white kernels. Last year's crop of open pollinated "Golden Bantam" wasn't very successful, mostly because I left them too long before harvesting, so they were pretty starchy and dry. I might try them again next year. The hybrid varieties tend to be sweeter and keep longer so are a little less crucial with regards to timing. Nonetheless I've been gently opening one up to have a peek from time and checking if it's ready.

The corn should be ready for harvest when the silk at the end dries out and turns brown.

Today it looked about right so I picked it to try out. The husk was peeled back to reveal:

Glossy yellow and white kernels

Very pretty but the kernels towards the tip seemed a bit underdeveloped. I cooked it up anyway and we had a taste; not bad but probably needed a few more days. So, the more mature ears should be about ready for Christmas. I've also underplanted the corn with "Purple King" climbing beans, which will grow up the stalks and help replenish soil nitrogen. And give us more tasty beans of course.

Corn Factoids*
- 2009 world production was over 817 million tons.
- Only 2.5% of US production is for human consumption. Most of for animal feed. 
- Almost every kind of processed food has some sort of corn-derived ingredient in it.
- GM maize allows greater use of glyphosate pesticide.
- Australian maize commands a premium as GM maize is not grown here so there is no risk of contamination.
- In the US there are maize mazes, corn theme parks and even conferences about maize mazes and corn theme parks.
- Home grown corn is yummy.

*from Wikipedia and other unreliable sources