October- Garden Share Collective

I admit that garden related posts can be a little lacking, but form a vital part of our lifestyle. So I am making a concerted effort to make a monthly post as part of The Garden Share Collective.



Least someone enjoyed the rain

The Garden Share Collective was instigated by another Liz of www.strayedtable.com/grow/garden-share

This group is of bloggers who share their growing adventures- from veggies patches, allotments, herb and container gardens. These blogs are from all over the world, creating a monthly community, navigating garden troubles, highs and lows.

I stumbled upon this community as other bloggers that I follow, became members. So I in turn have joined. If you are interested in joining or know of a blogger that maybe email liz@strayedtable.com

 Well it’s the end of the month and we welcomed the first decent rain we have had in months.  Though we registered a decent 135mm, some places only had around 30-50mm. So whilst my weeding was postponed for a few days, I was not complaining as it was rain that we desperately needed. For the tanks and the gardens, as despite our efforts the garden beds and lawn were looking as brown and dry, as does everywhere here really. I guess when it comes to gardening there is just no substitute for actual  rain. It’s amazing how green the lawn and the paddock are looking just from that one day’s rain.

Cumquat

carrots

You’re probably wondering why I’m banging on about 1 day of rain. But here in the tropical climate almost everything is governed by the weather; everything from sporting or social events, construction and obviously smallholding/gardening. As such we are coming to the last few weeks of the ‘dry season’. Unlike the Mediterranean climate (or Welsh/British weather) we were brought up with. The tropics do not really have the traditional four seasons, in fact they are generally described as two- Wet & Dry. The Wet season traditionally runs from December til March and the Dry April-November. So rather than growing the bulk of our produce in the spring and summer months for an autumn harvest we make preparations in the ‘autumn’ for winter and ‘spring’, tending to wrap things up for the summer months.

So as a general my planting has slowed now, reduced to produce fast growing varieties and those that cope with the humidity, such as tomatoes, pumpkins aubergine/eggplant, capsicum/peppers, plenty of lettuce, bunching onions, rashes, beetroot and Asian veggies- Chinese cabbages, bok choi etc.

We have also planted our a few more sweet potatoes following the success of our first batch- nearly 10kg of sweet potatoes from just 2 little spuds!

I have also sown a few new seeds (as the rain should actually do them good), coriander, dark basil (love this variety), to accompany my other basil and lemon basil.

My main aim for this month is to secure my garden fences, as the chooks have breached the perimeter, but I’m afraid they are not the only ones, as the pigs have done rather well out of our harvest recently… given something had had a good feed on it first!

Elsewhere in the garden our trees are looking a little healthier. We’ve planted a ‘dwarf’ mango tree and a few cumquats and Brazilian cherries to accompany the existing orange, lemon and lime trees surrounding the bio system- hopefully one day this will make a nice ‘little’ orchard (as their all dwarf varieties, given their proximity to the house).  Along the fence line the rosella plants, carobs, mulberry trees and macadamia appear to be doing well. And recently we planted a few more- finger limes and mangoes. The mangoes were originally planned for the cows paddock. However these proved too tempting for our big girl. So a salvage plan meant they were relocated beyond her reach.

Basil, fennel and carrot seeds- Not sure any class this as harvesting- but am happy to swap seeds with anyone. We are in QLD. So I know there would be issues sending to WA and Tasmania, but other Australian areas should be OK (I think?)