In The Organic Garden This Week
Record Temperature for October
This is today’s harvest of organic broccoli! Why so much? I think the 38degrees on Saturday had something to do with it!
I had put up the covers on the bed so that the veges would not burn and that seems to have worked well. However the high temperatures push the growth of the broccoli heads forward and we had 7 or more ready in one go. Normally we can pace our harvest over a week or two but the extreme conditions brought it all on at once!
Never mind a few friends will be happy tonight since they have my excess for dinner!
I picked 1.5 kilos of broccoli altogether.
Oh yeah, a few carrots as well!
Fruit Trees are loving the Sunshine
That is a 10 litre bucket about half full of mulberries that we picked this afternoon and are currently turning into jam!
My dear wife had been preparing them for jam this afternoon and I did the last kilo an hour ago. We cut the little stems off the fruit to improve the jam. If you don’t the jam is a little crunchy – I actually don’t mind that but it is very smooth without the stems.
Seed Collection
I let my Bok Choy go to seed this winter and collected the dry pods as the plants died off. Today I removed crushed the dried pods and separated them from the seeds and now have plenty of organic seed for the next 12 months. I will also share a few with some of my friends who like to grow their own as well.
Preparing Seedlings For Next Crop
Last week I planted some beetroot, spring onion and tomato seeds. The tomatoes are heritage varieties and were great value and I hope to have an excess of tomatoes – which we will turn into sauce or paste and deep freeze. I hope to try drying this year as well, since the few I did last year were very yummy.
This is the fresh bed for the tomatoes and is full of manure, blood and bone and wetting agent.
Dinner Time
Just before I finish up I have ducked out for dinner and thought you might like to see what I am having – pork spare ribs on rice with prune and apple sauce with organic broccolini of course!
Have a good week!
The Organic Gardener
October 25th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
hello organic gardener,
i’m enjoying your blog and read how composting is a skill. i agree but have found the japanese method of bokashi to be amazingly simple. it ‘pickles’ your scraps using effective micro-organisms in an anaerobic environment which kick-starts the breakdown into soil. the scraps need to be buried but within a few weeks have turned into rich black soil. no need to buy the expensive buckets or the ‘powder’ – you can figure out how to do your own. between the worms, the pet rabbit and the dog and now our bokashi we have no organic scraps at all – and we live in sydney with only a pool and pebblecrete in our backyard!
cheers and keep upthe awesome garden.
kate
October 28th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
Hello organic gardener,
Thanks from me too, for your most enjoyable blog.
You mentioned that you put covers on the beds, and I wonder if you can tell me what sort of covers you use? I have recently installed raised beds and know that time is running out for arranging some sort of cover for them before the hot days hit. What would you advise from your experience?