A veggie garden thread
No worries JD....if you don't want to use your fresh chilli stock, the supermarket cheap bottled chilli paste version is a cheap alternative..
Good luck veggie brother.......
Sounds like a potent mix there Megzee, I'm going to give it a try. Would not want to get it in the eyes either...
It's a beauty Seaslug.......yep the eyes are a no no.......and don't go for a piss during the manufacturing process.......if you get my drift...
It's one of those ones you can dose up pretty heavily but the straining process is key so as not to block the spray bottle....
Yes the old chilli d..., roger on the straining. I recon granny should coat the bamboo whipping stick with it
Mate, I reckon that old Mekong Tiger has a few Viet Kong tricks up her sleeve and chilli would be on the light side...
I can only imagine....
The old beer trick Indo mentioned works a treat on snails and slugs. Just make sure you don't own a Labrador as well like I did who slurped the whole lot up early the next day slugs, snails and all.
haha, what a good Labrador
Forget the Battle of the Bands, its the Battle of the Birds
Ring necks !
Been too long since I’ve seen one of them.
Bloody things 28's.
Mr Einstein has a sore foot so came for a sit down and bit of TLC
Chrissy eve goodness. The rains have come and the land is alive. You can just about feel the greenery pushing up from under your feet.
Olives
More mulberries ( ! )
Lychees
Summer citrus cranks onwards
Blueberries still happening
Pineapples coming on
Longans
Bananas loving the rainfall
Avos gaining weight and numbers with the water
Black sapote in flower
Jaboticaba showing
Heidi mangoes looking good still
Persimmons
Macadamias
Green green green
Calypso mangoes
Calypso goodness
This time last year was burnt , brown and depressing 
Nice one Blowin, happy Christmas to you and yours
Looks wonderful, Blowin!
Happy Christmas and eat well.
Serious fruit tree envy there Blowin, everything is thriving! You're not wrong with the comparison to this time last year. The environment seemed hostile back then, and it's just lush and bountiful this year. How big/mature is your jaboticaba tree? Wait until you see that thing in full flush, it's a sight to behold. You probably don't want to hear it, but the waves have been very good over my way!
Not my place, but my mothers. Every year for the last 30 or more she has always grown vegies in the old above-ground-swimming-pool-spot. This year at xmas I noticed she has put in some netting, and it works really well.
I've had gardens on and off for many years, but like others struggle to maintain the motivation when my vegies get eaten by birds and pests. Anyway might give it another go next year. There's a lot of inspiration on here so thanks again for sharing.
I'm getting more into livestock.
so much easier converting carbon, nitrogen and oxygen into proteins via animals than plants.
Pretty sure it was Supafreak who alerted me to the identity of the Nam Doc Mai mangoes we’ve got growing. He was correct. As soon as I tasted them I was transported to SE Asia. Not sure if it’s because the flavour is so evocative of great times overseas, because we had relatively few Nam Doc Mai fruit amongst a sea of other mango types or whether the Nam Doc Mai are simply the tastiest of all varieties, but they were soon a firm favourite of the harvest.
This inspired me to try and propagate a few more Nam Doc Mai trees from the seeds of our sole existing tree. It’s always rewarding growing something particularly from seed and especially if it’s useful or edible. Interesting that the Nam Doc Mai is often polyembryonic, meaning that it can get multiple sprouts off the single seed. Apparently one of the sprouts is the result of sexual reproduction and therefore the fruit will differ slightly from the parent tree, whilst the rest of the sprouts are pure clones of the parent so that their fruit will taste exactly like the mother tree.
Cant wait to try them all and find out for sure which is which.
Yum, I've eaten a lot of Nam Doc Mais in Thailand.
What's everyone doing in the garden now? I got a good crop of spuds earlier in the year, double what was in this pic. It was my first time growing them.
Now I've moved to a new place with established olive trees and I've started pickling this lot. They should be ready in about four weeks. My first time doing this as well.
The previous owners set this place up well, lots of herbs, small fruit n citrus trees, dug up carrots the other day and pak choi and other greens are going well. Spud plants scattered around too.
those olives look amazing.
I'll try and get a pic of our latest mulberry haul. The fruit has just gone from barely there to fucken everywhere. So fast the Grey Cuckoo Shrikes weren't aware they'd come good (they have now though, the bastards). Mango trees are heavy with flowers too. Meant to be a wetter than average spring up here on Sunshine Coast so hopefully the black fungus does get a foothold in the flowers as a result.
Big head start moving into a place with established trees, Patrick.
What's your plans for the olives and how you gonna prepare them?
We had a quiet winter down here. My boys all wanted to do some gardening, which meant they planted seedlings then didn't give them a second thought till they bolted.
I'm currently preparing the beds for a big summer. I've also got a passionfruit vine that I planted late last summer that, because it's facing due north, grew all winter and is now occupying twenty metres of fence up to three metres high. The flowers are just starting to appear. Hoping for a purple bonanza.
Stu, I salted them for one month and then used this recipe, minus the chilli, that I got from the guy who planted them:
'Sterilise jars. Place 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil , little salt, chilli ,lemon and top with water - make sure water just covers olives.
Seal with bakers sheet and lid and enjoy. Leave in jars about 1 month.'
I added some red wine vinegar and apple cider vinegar to some of the jars and chucked in some parsley.
Started eating them a couple of weeks ago. They're ok, the ones in red wime vinegar best so far. I've given away a couple of jars, haven't got feedback on what they think of them yet.
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Love this time of the year. Fruit tress blossoming, heirloom broccoli going nuts, and worm farms doing their thing.
Started the worm farms after having constant trouble with rats and mice in the compost bins.
The worm tea that the farms produce is possibly the best thing for the veggies and fruit that I’ve seen. They love it!
Is that a peach tree? Wait till you see mine after I gave it a prune a little while back.
That is a serious worm orgy!
Nice one GF.
Spring is the worst time in sub-tropical NSW (imo).
soil moisture dries up, all the winter veggies bolt to seed or get nailed by pests.
Temperate fruit trees do OK, but fruit fly gets 90% of anything with a soft skin (stone fruit).
They are peach and nectarine’s. Only a couple of years old.
Also have apples, apricot, couple of plums and olives.
Yeah the worms are amazing, wish I had of got in to it earlier
The fruit fly must be so frustrating fr76
Not anymore.
I appreciate the peach tree blossom and once a blue moon you find one without the fruit fly grubs in it.
too hard trying to trap or spray.
might get a few mangoes this year.
Fruit is a hard task around here......getting it past the fruit fly, possums, rats, bats and birds is not easy.
I pretty much give up gardening from now until March.
might grow some sunflowers for fun.
Looks unreal GF. Realise I've gotta get my seeds in the ground ASAP.
I usually wait for the first NEer, but with the odd weather this year that would've meant June.
Also, Patrick, your language appears subdued regarding the taste of the olives, or am I just imagining that?
It's been a while since I had a garden. Probably a bit put off because I wasn't real successful. Whether it was the animals digging up the beds, birds eating the tomatoes, bugs, insects and snails doing their bit, they all added to my gardening frustrations and disappointments.
But this year I have at least made a start and got the seedlings into my raised garden beds. Thanks for the inspiration fellas!
It's called the 'Salad Sandwich' garden. It is inspired by the salad sandwiches I used to get as a teenager from the local corner shop at the beach. At the time I had a bit of a 'pimple' issue so was motivated to improve my diet...
Lettuce, Onion, Carrots, Beetroot, and tomatoes. Put those together with a bit of salt and pepper and you have imho a delectable sandwich. (Cucumber not welcome sorry)
Plus some Celery for the spag bog and strawberries for dessert.
I have also implemented a method to keep the animal diggers out of my beds and at least keep the birds from eating my tomatoes by utilising an old swing set frame and some bird-netting.
Will let you know how it goes, or should I say grows.
stunet wrote:I've also got a passionfruit vine that I planted late last summer that, because it's facing due north, grew all winter and is now occupying twenty metres of fence up to three metres high. The flowers are just starting to appear. Hoping for a purple bonanza.
Stu my vine is on its last legs but I have had a purple bonanza the last 4 years. They either fruit or they don't. Each year instead of wasting what we couldn't eat I put a heap of pulp into ice trays and once frozen transferred them to a freezer bag. You can then enjoy a cold treat in the off season or a tasty iceblock for that vodka and soda!!
Great time of year right now to throw around some dynamic lifter type fertiliser especially before some rain and also great time to mulch to ensure the least amount of soil moisture loss in the warmer months, makes a huge difference.
If a vegetable garden a mulch like sugarcane mulch that releases nitrogen as breaks down is great. (bark type mulches are great for general garden use, but pull nitrogen from the soil as break down)
Yes Stu, a touch subdued because I didn't think much of the second jar. The first one was terrific though and a neighbour liked the second batch. Will see how the other jars taste soon. Each jar was cured with a slightly different recipe.
There are about eight trees and I mixed all the fruit together but the guy who planted them said I should keep them seperate as they're not all the same variety. I'll do that next time.
I made them so they're barely bitter, almost sweet.
"It's called the salad sandwich garden"
That's the way to go, just plant what you like eating.
Way ahead of you Patrick- my fried chicken is coming up nicely and I should get a nice harvest from my pizza vine.
No posts here for a few months. Back in September I did everything right for a summer bounty from the vege garden, yet it's been the worst growing season I've had yet. Almost every plant failed to deliver, even the regulars such as tomatoes and zucchinis - which I usually get in abundance. Ten or so toms, zero zucks was this year's count.
Reckon it's just been too moist, and with too little overall sunlight. Even the companion plants aren't going that well, so the bees aren't coming around to do their work. And all the while the weeds are upwardly mobile. Can strip the beds of them and three days later we're ankle deep into the next cycle.
Only things that have done OK are chillis; got a few Habanero plants sporting shiny orange bombs.
As for the mild eating...nup. Was hoping my passionfruit vine, which I indulged and allowed to take up a huge amount of space, is flowering yet not fruiting.
Was a bust for mangoes which, considered last years gangbusters crop is to be expected and the diversion of energy to growth instead of fruit is a glorious consolation.
Avocados showing heavy yield but I’m a bit suspect about so much rain. Some other wet years have shown little hard pits in the flesh. I think it was calcification of some kind? Though last year we got away without too much drama after even more precipitation than recently. Cause or correlation?
Fingers crossed.
Edit ….just been reading and the pips are result of insect attack, not excess rain.
All i grow are chillies, super hot chillies like "carolina reaper" and semi hot chillies like " birdseye".
Use the birdseye for home made mie goreng and nasi goreng or tacos and burritos.
The best nutrient ive found for chillies is called "Chilli Focus" by Growth Technology nutrients.
They eat it up with huge yeilds of potent chillies even in soil, but can be grown in coco coir too. or Perlite doesnt matter too much the medium.Excellent product.
I didn't bother with a vegie garden this year, knew it was going to be wet.
still managed a good crop of rocket and lettuce from self seeding plants.
got some herbs and Turmeric growing.
Enough to get something fresh out of the garden every day.
I'd counter that it's been very good up here. The good rain and less intense heat days = greater soil moisture, are definitely factors. Have managed to keep the salad greens going the whole season so far (lettuce - multiple varieties, chicory/dandelion, rocket, purslane [a weed, so easy], Ethiopian kale), cucumbers, cucamelons everywhere, random self-sown diakon radish, carrot hanging in there but not so great tasting now, lufa out of control, as is the sweet potato Those last 2 require weekly pruning to prevent them taking over the entire patch.
And heaps of fruit - blueberries awesome right now, usual massive amounts of citrus (meyer lemon, tahitian lime, finger limes, round limes, other unidentified, maybe yuzu?, although the mandarins have mostly dropped to the ground), bananas, a few mangoes, figs coming on, but another failed avocado crop (trees still young, oldest is 5 and I thought this would be the year - fair bit of fruit set, but then dropped). I've begun to realise the extent of the damage the Fruit Spotting Bug does to a wide variety of crops - I understand it is an emerging major pest. This includes for the macadamias - a decent crop has set and the harvest is just now underway, but lots of young nuts were lost to the damn bug. I will be trying a parasitic wasp program next season, similar to what I've been using for the nut borer grub, which is proving quite effective, if you get the timing right.
Now prepping beds for the autumn plantings - I plan to get a large mixed brassica crop in this year, lots of different brocolli, cabbage, cauliflower etc. Get prepping guys, it should be a good autumn/winter cropping season ahead!
I'd counter that it's been very good up here. The good rain and less intense heat days = greater soil moisture, are definitely factors. Have managed to keep the salad greens going the whole season so far (lettuce - multiple varieties, chicory/dandelion, rocket, purslane [a weed, so easy], Ethiopian kale), cucumbers, cucamelons everywhere, random self-sown diakon radish, carrot hanging in there but not so great tasting now, lufa out of control, as is the sweet potato Those last 2 require weekly pruning to prevent them taking over the entire patch.
And heaps of fruit - blueberries awesome right now, usual massive amounts of citrus (meyer lemon, tahitian lime, finger limes, round limes, other unidentified, maybe yuzu?, although the mandarins have mostly dropped to the ground), bananas, a few mangoes, figs coming on, but another failed avocado crop (trees still young, oldest is 5 and I thought this would be the year - fair bit of fruit set, but then dropped). I've begun to realise the extent of the damage the Fruit Spotting Bug does to a wide variety of crops - I understand it is an emerging major pest. This includes for the macadamias - a decent crop has set and the harvest is just now underway, but lots of young nuts were lost to the damn bug. I will be trying a parasitic wasp program next season, similar to what I've been using for the nut borer grub, which is proving quite effective, if you get the timing right.
Now prepping beds for the autumn plantings - I plan to get a large mixed brassica crop in this year, lots of different brocolli, cabbage, cauliflower etc. Get prepping guys, it should be a good autumn/winter cropping season ahead!
sorry, doubled up...
Yep, keen to get a good brassica crop this year with the soil moisture high.
GreenJam wrote:I've begun to realise the extent of the damage the Fruit Spotting Bug does to a wide variety of crops - I understand it is an emerging major pest. This includes for the macadamias - a decent crop has set and the harvest is just now underway, but lots of young nuts were lost to the damn bug. I will be trying a parasitic wasp program next season, !
The best pesiticide for those, and whiteflies and many other other pests including mealy bug was a product call confidor but since it kills bees its been made illegal.
Also i think monsanto made it which if you didnt know was a very questionable company.
yeah, thanks groundswell - I'm aware of monsanto and wont be supporting them, or Bayer as it is now, I recall they bought out monsanto, suckers, now copping all the old monsanto lawsuits
but also no chemical pesticides here, and confidor, while I believe a somewhat 'gentler' one, still makes the produce non-organic. I'll probably try some pyrethrum spray and try to get some of the bugs directly, but its the eggs to target to get the best effect. Those parasitic wasps, tiny things, can do a great job. Also key is trying ensure those 'good bugs' thrive naturally, and you get some balance in the system, you'll always lose some produce to pests, but that can be greatly reduced to an acceptable amount. Good research going on around this with macadamias, keeping biodiverse grassy/weedy strips between the rows rather than the industry norm of mowed lawn, and demonstrating the population booms of the good bugs. Here, I am integrating the macadamias in with both planted and natural local 'dry' rainforest restoration. I'm hoping the species and structural diversity will more mimic the natural environment of the macadamias thereby assisting with natural pest control and only minimal intervention needed. We'll see... So far, pretty good, but early days
there's some
Thats interesting GreenJam.
always wondered why maccas need so much spraying when they are native to the area.
sorry again, disregard 'there's some'
Still waiting on my native finger limes to ripen , it's been forever. Some varieties take up to 10 months to ripen apparently. Can't pick em early because they taste bitter and don't ripen off the tree.
The plant had 3 fruits last year and this year it has about 30 , despite a massive early fruit fall.
I remember seeing the "beneficial bug" episode on landline. Was so good. Well worth a watch.
Is there a gardening thread? I haven't seen one but I've seen lots of posts about people's veggie growing tips. How about we help each other out?
Planted first garden in about ten years today.
Lettuce, broccoli, swedes, kale, thyme, parsley. Raised bed under straw. Peas and carrots go in tonorrow.