vegetables

Wow, it is going to be a fabulous year! We have hay stacked ready for winter, (and the next winter, and the next!), the cows have been playing with Andromeda and will almost certainly bring forth gorgeous calves in September, the alpacas are already growing their new coats and we have a NEW WEED BIN!

To make room in the vegetable garden the weed bin has been demolished and a new one built, today, in the adjoining area. More user friendly, I can now add to it from either the house garden area or the vegetable garden area or the alpaca run. The dirt we made in the old bin, just 4 years of composting weeds, prunings etc etc, is fantastic. The photo below doesn’t do it any justice, it is rich moist dirt ready to plump up the vegetable garden, and full of red wriggly worms.

So the second day of our new year has been very productive; next project, replace the driveway posts and make some garden beds at the entrance.

The last of the green peas and broad beans, and the first of the purple beans in 2014

Purple climber beans, very slow to produce food, but pretty to look at.

Broad bean plants and pods.

Fabulous dirt – 4 years of composting weeds from the house garden, with a touch of paca poo for good measure.

Fresh pickings for dinner salad: Broad beans we pod and eat raw, spring onions, borage flowers and nasturtiums.

Iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, beans, capsicums, corn and squash.

Weedbin, incinerator and compost bins all in same area now.

My new weed bin, it is truly fabulous.

What a fabulous place the Huon Valley is! Our crazy cool but wet and occasionally warm spring weather has morphed into crazy and cold and wet but occasionally warm summer weather, and happily the vegetable garden seems to LOVE the weather. We will be eating fresh, clean, organic fruit and vegetables throughout summer, safe in the knowledge that our excess of any one thing can be swapped with friends and neighbours for equally safe and tasty produce. We even have enough to share with the parrots, snails and insects that are already eyeing off the tender new growth. At the moment we are growing; sunflowers, spinach, snow peas, broad beans, purple climber beans, lettuce varieties x 4, tomato varieties x 6, apples, plumcots, mulberries, nashi, cherry, apricot, plum x 3, pear, beetroot, zucchini, sweetcorn, squash, runner bean, chive, spring onion, and a variety of herbs.

When we were travelling in Quebec the Wendak Indians introduced us to the Three Sisters concept. Plant a squash, corn and bean together and they will assist each other. The squash leaves keep the soil shaded and moist in summer, the corn stalk provides the support for the bean. So I planted out 15 plots of this, and I have about a 70% success rate in germination, (thanks snails for munching some of my tender sisters before they got going!!!)

: Sunflowers – Giant Russians, and beetroot and zucchini and sweetcorn and raspberries on the fence for the alpacas to enjoy.

: Broad beans, iceberg lettuce and tomatoes of varied persuasions.

: Iceberg lettuce, broad beans and my Three Sisters experiment in the right side background. And Rasberry the alpaca wondering what I am up to! Oh, and a double pink poppy just flowered.

: Apples, and chives and Sunflowers – Yellow Empress. We harvest the sunflower seeds for winter alpaca feed, and we enjoy the sun FLOWERS in the summer.