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At the moment, it seems that we don’t really walk around the Farmlet. Rather, we wade and slither. Everything is sodden, and we and our animals are all feeling ready for some spring weather to dry things out just a little. Even though the farm is soggy and the garden scruffy, August finds us full of plans and hopes for the growing season ahead. We have drawn up plans for the spring and summer garden, and the new packets of seeds we ordered have already arrived.

Lemons

Today, I started organising the area under the front porch that I use for starting seeds. I had the help of my parents’ elderly dog, who is lodging with us while they are on vacation. The “to do” list is long at the moment. A couple of overgrown areas of the house paddock need to be cleared and covered with black polythene sheeting without delay, if we are to extend the vegetable garden for the coming season. Garden beds need to be cleared, and compost made with whatever we clear out. Then the beds need to be prepared for planting. It is certainly encouraging to see how good the drainage is in our vegetable beds compared to the rest of the house paddock. We are glad for all the work we have done over the past year to improve the soil structure. . . but more time and hard work will be necessary to build the soil up to the levels of our expectations.

It is exciting to have some new kinds of seeds to try, as well as favourites from last year. One such favourite is the New Zealand heirloom “Tree Lettuce.” It proved very bolt resistant last summer, and was also remarkably pest free. We have a new lettuce to try, as well: another heirloom called “Asian Red.” It’s also meant to be a good summer lettuce — resistant to bolting and pests. I’ve planted the first lettuces already, in little pots by the window, so we’ll see how they go.

Some of the vegetable varieties that we liked and are growing again this year include:
Green Feast Peas (a shelling pea, prolific, sweet, and every bit as tasty as the name suggests)
Red Orach (a beautiful and delicious salad green)
Tampala Amaranth (also very ornamental, and a welcome addition to salads and stir-fry dishes)
Bull’s Blood Beet (beautiful, burgundy-coloured foliage on top of sweet beetroots)

Some new varieties that we are trying this year include:
Purple-Flowered Snow Peas
Marrowfat Peas
Corn Salad, Dutch Large Seeded

I guess we will be writing more about the different veges in the garden as the season progresses.

Harvest-wise, our garden is not very abundant at the moment, so we are pleased still to be eating last season’s potatoes, and tomatoes in the form of bottled tomato puree. We are also picking all the greens we can eat (garden cress, collards, squire kale, mustard lettuce, swiss chard, and some broccoli), as well as green onions, leeks, turnips, beets, cilantro and pot celery. We certainly can’t complain, with this selection of vegetables on our table! We are also enjoying the fruit of the meyer lemon tree that grows in the house paddock between the vegetable beds, as well as the scent of its blossoms.

And the garden already promises more treats to come: The broad beans are flowering, little rosettes of corn salad are emerging, “red drumhead” cabbages are starting to form heads, and the garlic (planted about a month ago now) is really taking off!

This entry was posted on Monday, August 6th, 2007 at 2:10 am and is filed under Garden. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.