Week in Retrospect – Monday, 25 Sept – Sunday, 1 Oct

With the wicked wind today, it is best to reflect on gardening last week, than to try and go outside to do anything! Luckily so far my tomatoes and zucchinis seem only a bit windblown, but not worse for wear. I don’t think the colder evening we had last night, nor the hail, would affect them too much. Most of the time the weather is more than adequate for their continual growth, so I’m excited for summer produce to come soon.

In the Nursery

Last week, being a productive planting time according to the moon calendar had me sowing quite a bit (for the latest moon calender see October 2017). This is what I sowed:

Vegetables

Artichoke – Purple de Jesi
Beans – Heritage Takamatua Black Runner
Beans – Heritage Climbing Emu
Beans – Heritage Climbing Selugia
Beetroot – Colour Mix
Caigua
Cucumber – Mini White Wonder
Cucumber – Telegraph Long Green
Cucumber – Richmond Green
Cucumber – Yellow Port Albert
Eggplant – Ping Tung Long
Eggplant – Black Beauty
Eggplant – Tsakoniki
Fennel – Milano
Gherkins
Lettuce – Danyelle
Lettuce – Aapche
Lettuce – Drunken Woman Fringed Head
Lettuce – Freckles
Luffah
Okra – Burgundy
Okra – Clemson Spineless
Peas – Yellow Sugar Snap
Peans
Pumpkins, squash and gourds
Selection of chillies and sweet peppers
Selection of more heirloom tomatoes
Silverbeet – Bright Lights Mix
Sweetcorn and popping corn
Zucchini – Black Beauty
Zucchini – Cocozelle
Zucchini – Costata Romano
Zucchini – Fiorentino
Zucchini – Golden Heirloom

Fruit

Cape Gooseberry
Melon – Italian
Pepino
Roselle (Jam plant)
Tamarillo, Red
Tomatillo – Grande Verde
Tomatillo – Purple
Watermelon – Sugar Baby
Watermelon – Gold Nugget
Watermelon – Moon and Stars

Herbs & Flowers

Anise Hyssop – White & Blue
Balm of Gilead
Basil – Selection (Sweet, Fino Verde, Greek Bush, Lettuce Leaf, Lemon, Lime, Thai, Cinnamon, Sacred)
Chives
Coriander
Dahlia
Echinacea
Elecampane
Lesser Calamint
Liquorice
Lovage
Marshmallow
Mugwort
Parsley – Flat Leaf Italian
Rocket – Salad & Wild
Sage
Sunflowers
Thyme
Wormwood
Zinnia

I potted up some sprouted chillies that I managed to do in zip-loc baggies on wet paper towels on the hot water cylinder. Quite impressed by the success rate of this! The larger chillies got put in their big bags and are ready for markets now.

Sacred basil is coming along nicely, as is the new lemongrass, and even more sunflowers.

Getting ready to make a lot of cuttings, which I’m hoping to get to in this coming week in the last few days of moon calendar fertility.

“Empty” looking bags of Horseradish are filling out, as are all the Echinacea and Marshmallows from last season. Only one Liquorice seemed to have made it out of dormancy though…

In the Orchard

We (my kids and I) re-potted our two gifted lemons, another Lemonade and Yen Ben, and I finally potted up the finger lime into a bigger pot. We dressed all the other citrus fruit trees with some compost and gave everything a good feed for spring growth.

My potted fig had a fruit on it! But unfortunately it got bumped off when I moved the pot around… luckily there seems to be more coming!

I’m super excited to finally have my insect hotel up! It is still in its building stages, but it is already looking amazing. I hope will add to the biodiversity of the garden, and stand as a learning point for all who come and visit, or at least be a great talking point in the garden.

My grape astounded me (it is an Albany Surprise after all!) with having flowers already! I thought she was late in budding into leaf, but seems she was exactly on time, but I’m sure she is early with her efforts in fruiting!

In the Bee & Butterfly Garden

With the archway in and the sweet peas starting to grow up it, it was lovely to put my two sentinel maypole crab apples to either side of it in beautiful terracotta pots. They are also finally showing leaf budding! I’m so very excited for them. Of my other two dwarf fruit trees, Mischief and Little Rascal, only one is showing buds, I hope the other still wakes up!

The flowers are growing in nicely in this garden, and empty spaces are filling up. In my minds’ eye, I can see how it will look all grown and flowering!

In my Vegetable Garden

Not much planting happened, but a lot of hardscaping – I fixed up the pavers on the walkway around the raised vegetable beds, and remulched around them. I managed to split more lawn chamomile to put in throughout the path as well.
As for new additions – I got a mustard lettuce plant to go with my red giant mustard, and a hops plant, which is actually a bit from a plant that I gave a friend some time ago when I didn’t have the place to grow my own hops.

Oh! And my zucchini flowered already too – I think about a week after I put it in the ground! And it looks happy. Now just to wait for the female flowers to catch up, and soon it will be zucchini time!

The raised beds are pretty much cleaned out and ready to be planted up, and most of the vegetables that I have planned to go in there are ready and waiting too…I’m just waiting for the weather to play with.

Not that no planting happened – I put in some dwarf beans with my zucchini in the raised beds they’re going to share with my eggplants. , and managed to redo the first two gutter gardens with wild strawberry (Fragaria vesca) and violas.

We (well, my amazing husband) made me more pollinator flower boxes to edge the vegetable garden with. That is going to look epic when its all flowering! Bring on the bees!

Finally, I did spend some time on most days simply watching and enjoying the wildlife in my garden – particularly the bees that went crazy over the red coral mizuna I let flower.