Daikon is not a vegetable that I bought often, maybe because it tends to be sold as big specimens that seem daunting to get through, but when they’re home grown they’re more appealing. I sowed these at the end of May, and after a slow start they are off and jostling with the turnips next door. A feel around during a weeding revealed a shoulder, so I pulled one to see how they’re going (and thin them a bit). The result was not a huge root, so apparently they can…
Read MoreCategory: Vegetables
Turnips
Turnips are only second to radishes for quick root crops. My carrots are still tiny, the beetroots are not far ahead, but the turnips sprouted luxuriant greens and started showing their purple shoulders after about 6 weeks. I needed to thin them, and we were having salmon for dinner, so I pulled three to go with. The cultivar is ‘purple top white globe’, from Eden seeds. I put in ‘gold ball’ in the same sowing, but they haven’t done well, and have been overshadowed by their neighbours. They were delicious.
Read MoreSalad greens
The salad greens bed: Back row; Lettuce ‘lollo rosso’, Celtuce, Lettuce ‘Australian yellow’ Middle row; Rocket, Mustard greens ‘Osaka purple’, Lettuce ‘marvel of four seasons’, (fennel). Front row; Mibuna, (Mitsuba – failed to germinate), Mizuna. Tomorrow the salad greens bed will be two months old from sowing, and they are providing some nice winter salads. The rocket is stronger in flavour than the rest, but just picking a few leaves from each of the others and throwing them together makes for a nice mesclun. The fennel was already in…
Read MoreOnions
By all accounts the Winters here in northern NSW are too warm for standard bulbing onions, but the good news is there are other types we can grow, namely the bunching onions and shallots. That’s extra good news since I preferred to cook with shallots in Sydney, but they came at a premium price compared to ordinary brown onions, and of course here I can buy brown onions cheaply anytime. So to clarify, as there’s some confusion in terms used, shallots are the long bulbs, either golden or red, that…
Read MoreNew beds planted.
It rained on Saturday night, not a lot, but a heavy thunderstorm that got the ground moist again. So I got into the new beds and sowed a new lot of seeds. In this pair of steep narrow terraces I put in a repeat crop of brassicas; radish champion, radish early scarlet globe, daikon, and turnip gold ball. In the rich looking level bed next to it I put a second sowing of some of the salad greens that have poor shows from the May sowing; mustard osaka purple, endive…
Read MoreNew beds
These beds will be a change. Flat land is not a feature of this property, and here I’ve tried making two small terraces with a goat track in between. This is the last of the beds made by the previous owner, which have sat covered in black plastic and cardboard for some time. Mum and Dad helped me pull that off, exposing this sloping plot beneath a corrugated metal retaining wall, but inside the old fenced area. There was at least one big ants’ nest underneath, so we pretty much…
Read MorePerformers at 4 weeks
It’s four weeks today since my first vegetable sowing, and there are some standout early starters. Choi sum is up and going; it’s used as flowering stems. Bok choi is looking good too; it’s used as little cabbages. Behind it is Wom bok, the tall chinese cabbage. And also a Brassica, Mibuna is looking like it will be ready to pick for salads in a couple more weeks. Some vegetables that I expected to be quicker, particularly the radishes, are still coming along, although looking good. The bed was very…
Read MoreNursery and gift plants
It’s been a week of plant nursery visits, and fortunately there are a lot to choose from around here. We took my parents to Kingscliff, a beach town, on Saturday, because the markets were on and it’s just a nice place for coffee anyway. The markets were true to form and we picked up some shade-loving plants for the South-facing front of the house where we will make a formal entrance. At the moment it’s a bit wet underfoot as it sits at the base of a cutting and is…
Read MoreNew veggie patch.
We have fenced the veggie garden. It became a priority because the broad beans I had sown in a rough bed came through earlier than expected, and the sprouts were being eaten by chickens and possibly night -time visitors. Fortunately my parents arrived on Thursday, and they have more experience than I with fencing, so they helped get a chicken wire fence round the developing veggie patch. It’s not your classic patch, as there is no level ground of any size, so the far corner of the rectangle goes way…
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