Tuesday 7 January 2014

Winter's End

Somehow, life got in the way of me blogging. But, I'm back now and have lots to post, including some gorgeous gardens in Italy. But this post is all about the end of winter.

Winter saw the garden give us beautiful kale, leeks, broccoli, celery, silverbeet, lettuce, brussel sprouts, carrots and the usual suspects as far as herbs go.



I have to admit to a few misses this winter, notably our garlic which has in the past given us a bumper crop, that has seen us right through the year. This time, it started picture perfect but in the latter stages was attacked by thousands of black aphids.

Black aphids on our garlic

They were relentless and although the ladybirds did their best, I resorted to using eco oil every 10 days for the last two months of the growing time. On roses, I have used high pressure water and that was always the end of them, but I didn't want to soak the already wet ground.

Garlic crop with celery in the foreground
Secondly, I got a huge surprise when I pulled the garlic as they were all single cloves and had not split into separate cloves. I quickly looked this up on the Internet and found a Chinese variety that are like an onion, but remembered that I had planted mine from my own and a friend's cloves that were definitely the splitting variety.


So, the only reason for it in my mind is that they were immature and had not formed properly yet. I am still mystified though as a good rule of thumb when digging up, is to allow half the leaves to die and then they are ready (the number of leaves also apparently tells how many layers of skin the garlic will have). As half my leaves had turned brown I can only deduce that the heavy winter rain with long dry spells in between may have caused changes to the speed in which they developed....but why so many brown leaves if not ready???

I've always said the only way you learn about your garden is by doing it yourself so I guess this is a lesson I will have to remember. In future I will pull only a few and if not ready, leave them in, no matter how keen I am for the next crop to be sown!

More successful were our broccoli and broccolini that just kept on giving for weeks and weeks. And, less than a dozen caterpillars were found on them the whole season. I really was sorry when they finally finished but it was out with the old and in with the new. After producing such a fantastic crop, I knew the bed was in dire need of enrichment so decided to use some green manure our friend Ian had given us courtesy of The Diggers Club. Green manure is just leafy green plants that you dig back into the soil before they die. They then enrich the soil with nitrogen and organic matter. I also threw in some cow and sheep poo and turned it all in with a large fork. This helps aerate the soil but also keep the worms safe by not slicing them in half with a spade!

Our leeks were so tasty and we pulled them as needed. Mine always seem to grow at different rates which used to be annoying but is quite handy really!

Leeks in the early stages
Celery. If only the family loved celery. Such an easy vegetable to grow that is prolific once the roots get settled. I really need to find more ways of sneaking it into the family meals!

Celery snuggled between baby silverbeet and garlic

So that was winter. Seems a long time ago now and such a short time until I will be writing about it again! My New Year Resolution is to make sure I blog often and do shorter posts  (a daughter's recommendation)! To get up to speed, I'll be shortly posting about summer and my favourite crops, our Italian trip and the delightful gardens we saw there as well as some new recipes.

'If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.'
- Marcus Tullius Cicero



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  1. AnonymousJanuary 21, 2014 2:34 pm

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