October Plans

almost ready to start harvesting!

We had some sun this morning so decided to get into the garden and remove all of last seasons crops and make some room for our next batch of seedlings. Whilst the greenhouse is nearing completion we have been using a few cheepo mini-greenhouses to get an early start on some of our families most eaten veges though since its been pretty warm lately we have been hardening them off and they are surviving the weather well.

this side is a bit bare.. on the other hand at least the compost bin is full

Over the next few days we will be transplanting our broccoli, chilli (a few different heirloom varieties we have been collecting seed from for years), eggplant, leeks, tomatoes (another one we like to grow heaps of heirloom varieties) and we tried our luck with a few turnip... though I doubt anyone will convince me to eat it.

Planting Guide for October

Plant straight into garden; asparagus, beetroot, borage, broccoli, gooseberry, carrot, beans, cucumber, daikon (japanese radish), artichokes, lettuce, kohlrabi, yacon (sunroot), oca, corn, sunflower, spring onion, silverbeet, salsify (swiss chard), rocket, rhubarb, radish, pumpkin, potato and parsnips. 

Start in greenhouse; sweet majoram, rock melon, ladyfinger (okra), NZ spinach, marrow, celery and celeriac.

Underlined is what we are planning to plant, italics is what we have in the patch ready to harvest. 

Yay.. Some Sun!

Spring is finally here and we cant wait to get planting! We still have some of last seasons crops in the beds but have decided to get the soil prepared for the weeks to come. First things first though, we wanted to save some seed from our lettuce that has begun to flower.

After years of wasting money on overpriced seedlings and seeds (and wracking up a pretty hefty collection of empty pots) we decided to start collecting our own seed. The idea for our garden in the beginning was to become a little bit more self sustainable but now its more of an addiction we need to save all the money we can! Collecting seed can sometimes be a bit of a hassle and most people will probably not bother, but for us it feels pretty rewarding.

Our process for collecting lettuce seeds:

1. wait until at least half of the flowers have gone to seed
2. cut the entire top of plant off and place upside down in a paper envelope to dry
3. when dry we will shake the seeds from the plant into the envelope and hopefully save ourself a few extra bucks on seeds!