The Summer Garden Is Finally In

With going away and then the family health hiccups we've had, my poor garden has been totally neglected.

Last weekend, DH finally prepared the garden beds for me. We've built one of the beds up a level and topped up the second bed with compost. He also built me 3 strawberry beds.

On Wednesday I bought some seedlings and last night they went in.

Strawberries

I bought 5 more plants to bring our total number of strawberry plants to 10. Those that have survived from last year have increased in size so I'm hoping we'll do better with our strawberry yield this year.

DH used 3 truck tyres filled with compost for me to plant into. They're nice and close to the vegie garden so will hopefully get watered more there.



I bought one punnet of sweetheart plants (4 in the punnet) and a single plant in a variety I've not heard of before - Eureka. It's supposed to grow large fruit.

Tomatoes

I was disappointed with how the Roma Tomatoes yielded last year and the Diggers Heirloom punnet I bought didn't even survive. So this year I'm trying a couple of different varieties. Mighty Red and First Prize. Each came in a punnet of 4 so I have 8 tomato plants in. A couple are looking a little on the sad side so we'll see how many we end up with in a week or so.



Cucumber

Last year my cucumbers got choked out by overzealous zucchini so I've tried to give them more room this time. I planted apple cucumbers last year but the kids weren't real keen on them. This year I've stuck with lebanese cukes (which is what I normally buy from the supermarket).



Sweetcorn and Beans

I bought a different variety of sweetcorn this year called Tasty. Last year we grew a variety called Sweetest which had a combination of yellow and white kernels. I couldn't find seedlings for this variety this time so we're trying something different.



I read somewhere recently that if you plant your beans at the base of your sweetcorn plants, they can grow up the sweetcorn plant. My beans were a total flop last year so I'm giving this a go. I think the biggest problem was they struggled for water being right on the edge of the vegie patch. Hopefully this way they'll get some of the water.

Squash, Zucchini and Pumpkin

I bought a punnet of green squash plants to try this year. We quite like the small yellow button squash but it's quite expensive. I've never seen green button squash before so hopefully it tastes okay.



The only zucchini seedlings the store had were black jack and we didn't really like the blackjack zucchini I grew last year. I thought I had some green zucchini seeds at home but I don't so we don't have any zucchini in so far this year.

The pumpkins took over the vegie garden (and half the rest of the yard) last year so the plan was to plant them outside the yard in the orchard (where they can grow to their hearts content). Unfortunately, I don't have enough of the right soil out there yet so I haven't been able to plant. I did pop a couple of butternut seeds in the edge of the garden yesterday in case I don't get the chance to plant any others. The butternut plants weren't quite as big.

Why So Many Seedlings?

I usually try to plant seeds where possible and only buy seedlings for those plants that are harder to raise from seed (like sweetcorn and tomato) but time wasn't on my side this year so I've gone for more seedlings.

While I really want to learn to garden as frugally as possible, for now we have decided that we'd rather spend the money and actually grow something. There is so much more benefit from the garden than simply low cost food. We're going for freshness, nutrition and taste above money saving. Hopefully as my experience grows, we'll do better at gardening on a budget.

The trouble with Corn is....

It thinks it owns the garden!!!!

This morning I have been trying to dig up the roots from my sweetcorn plants.

Do you think they want to vacate the premises so that the next tenant can move in???

N.O.!!!!!

At this rate I'm going to have to call in the Sheriff's Department (AKA my husband) to evict them!!!!

It doesn't help that the dirt is bone dry and rock solid!!!!

I thought I'd wait until after a rain to try and dig them out.

It rained yesterday. Obviously not enough because the ground just isn't the least bit wet. :(

I've put some water out there and now giving it a few minutes to soak.

And my arm muscles a few minutes rest.

Oh well....best get back to it.

Progress report later..... I hope! :)

Sweet Corn Stats

It looks to me like the sweet corn is now finished. The few cobs left on the stalks haven't matured so I suspect they missed the fertilisation boat.

Here are a few stats:

Planted: Sweetcorn Sweetest (which is a bicolour corn - yellow and cream)

Number of Punnets: 3

Anything added: Small amount of Potash to encourage flowering when plants were grown

Total investment: Approximately $10

Yield: 59 cobs plus another 10 that ended up looking like this:


It looks to me like only partial maturation and well as a lack of water. Anyone else have any thoughts?

In general though I'd have to consider our attempts at growing sweetcorn to be quite a success. DH LOVES the stuff (especially fresh) so he has been in heaven. It's a definite winner as far as we're concerned.

I was going to attempt to grow from seed next year but I've heard it can be quite fickle so may well stick with seedlings. It's still a worthwhile investment given the yields we had.

For $10 we got around $50+ dollars of sweetcorn (based on around $1 per cob which is what I can buy it for sometimes on special - more if I were to buy it not on sale).

This variety was very nice although the kids thought the cream coloured kernels were a little strange. I may try a different variety next year for something different. We don't really have the space to grow more than 1 lot at a time.

Anyone have a favourite variety of sweetcorn that they grow? Of course, it will come down to what the local nurseries stock at the time but it's always useful information to have (what others have enjoyed and/or had success with).