The Organic Home Garden

Well I am off this Friday to a Yoga Retreat at the Serpentine Retreat Centre. This is always a great time for me I look forward to it every year.

No it’s not just the yummy vegetarian food!

It’s the time to slow down and find some space in a busy life and find some guidance and inspiration for the remainder of the year and beyond. The weekend is also a time to serve one another and my first contribution will be some organic vegetables! Your surprised I know! LOL

I hope to bring a recipe or two back for you all so stay tuned!

This week we are in the grip of lovely winter weather and so the organic gardener has been just relaxing. Lot’s of rain and with it the natural fertilising of the nitrogen dissolved in the water as it falls. There is something special with this natural event it always amazes me how it produces slightly better growth than just chucking on other fertiliser. I suppose when you think about it the plants have been tuning themselves to this natural process for thousands of years and so should be expected to respond so strongly.

Today I picked a lovely pair of organic cauliflowers and there are three more ready by Friday and they will be going to the retreat for dinner. The parsley is so thick and green it would make lovely juice drinks. I hope to take about 2 bags of this to the retreat as well.
The capsicum are nearly finished now – in August? – and the turnips and beetroot are just ripping along. I have just finished eating half the large turnip and will finish it with my Shepherds pie!

This first photo shows the cauliflowers with their leaves to show you how huge the plants are growing.

Here they are all cleaned up!

Some lovely Red Coral lettuce is progressing well.

The baby broccoli are tearing up the garden and the leeks are doing very well too.

Here are the scraps and I chop them up to put in the worm farm!

A layer of newspaper over the top and then lid on top!

Flowers Are Springing

The wattle is bursting into blossom and should be at it’s best this weekend!

The Mulberry Tree is pushing out leaves and should start producing sugar in the new fruit soon!

Well that’s it for this week! I have work everyday so it will be busy up to the retreat.
Have a great week and enjoy whatever season it is your part of the world!

Cya
The Organic Gardener from the Organic Home Garden

We picked some Organic Silverbeet for dinner tonight and whilst I was out there I thought I would just check the beets and turnips. We are having a nice family roast dinner tomorrow and I need a few veges to roast. Anyway, went digging about the garden bed and find myself confronted with these huge vegetables!

The beetroot I am familiar with since they will grow large if you let them. I usually eat them small, they tend to be less tough that way. Though, I must say the organic beetroot seem to be quite tender even at this sort of enormous size.

I cleaned them up and bagged them for the fridge – friends and relatives may get a few this week!

Not that they mind!

Our Vegetable Loving Cavalier

I also chopped up a little turnip for the dog tonight – after he gets his meat based food we always give him fruit and vegetables. He loves capsicum, carrots and cucumber. Yes I know he is a carnivore but he loves his vegetables.

The vegetable feeding started as a puppy!

I remember one year he managed to eat all my snow-peas – I could not work out why I was losing peas every day until I caught him red-pawed – biting them straight off the bush! Then last year he started eating the capsicums that fell on the ground from the wind.

What can you do?
I have to put up fences now to keep him out!

This dog eats better than a lot of kids I know! Don’t let the cute act fool you!

Until next time!

The Organic Gardener

A great gardening book! Click Here!

Just an update on what is fresh in the organic garden this week!

Lot’s of lovely rain has stirred things along and so we are enjoying the benefits of that.

Beans are still going strong and the eggplant defies all logic and also pushing out stacks of fruit. Bok Choy and parsley going strong and the turnips are yummy!

I cannot believe the number of capsicums that are still growing despite it being so cool but we don’t mind. Found a red one today!

I mowed the lawn this week, first time in 4 weeks – I love this new Sir Walter – and had to mow around lettuce that are springing up through the lawn! Beats the normal weeds you get in lawns.

Pests In the Organic Garden

First sign of a real pest this week. Aphids on the roses.

I normally deal with them by wiping them off with my hand. If they get very thick we use a garlic spray to discourage them. I usually don’t over react at this early start to the winter since the ladybugs need food and these few aphids will give them a feed.

The roses should be going dormant by now so if we lose a few leaves or flowers it does not matter. I need to keep the ladybirds in my garden over winter so that they can make a start in the spring as things warm up. If I go and hammer the aphids too much the ladybirds may leave for greener pastures.

Organic gardening is about balance in the garden between the bugs and the gardeners friends the predators. We put up with a few bugs knowing that in the long run balance is more important than 100% productivity.
I also now have the personal experience of several years organic gardening of seeing less bugs the more I follow the principles of balance.

Until next week
John the organic gardener.

The organic home gardener here!

Lovely, lovely rain! Yes it is pouring outside and the wind is raging a gale! My organic beans were flat out due to the heavy rain this morning but they look happier this afternoon.

On Wednsday I managed to get out and harvest the garden crops and also today a huge pile of silver beet! This week – turnip (lovely and sweet), english spinach, beans, eggplant (two varieties), lettuce, baby carrots, beetroot, spring onion, leek. We had a nice roast dinner last night and all the vegetables we could we baked!

The apples are nearly ready to pick and if the wind does not kick them off today we will be eating them next week!

The organic strawberries are still going nicely though I suspect this colder weather will put an end to that!