garden update

Iznik Cucumber seedlings, from Egmont Seeds

​Happy New Year!  I hope that everyone has been enjoying the festive season, as well as their summer gardens.  I only took a short break of a week away at our bach this year.  I initially intended to be away for two weeks but returned home early on the 23rd of December as the weather wasn’t very nice.  Besides, I really wanted to be home for Christmas.  After all, it’s about spending time with family!

The big news in my gardening update is that on Christmas Eve, I found out that I was placed Runner Up in the Yates Veggie Gardening Challenge for the best use of Yates products.  The prize is $200 worth of Yates products!  As a first-timer to the Challenge, I am very pleased with this outcome.  Spring was an incredibly busy time.  Blogging nearly every day, managing the garden and fitting in my training were all challenging enough, so merely participating in the competition was one of my achievements in 2018.

Over the past week, I have been in a mad rush to try and put in as many of my remaining plants as possible.  I try hard to keep planting to an absolute minimum in January because temperatures usually increase considerably and there is very little rain (if any at all), making it harder to get plants off to a strong start.

Here is a summary of the tasks that I powered through since returning home:
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•          Planting nine punnets of basil in containers as the seeds I sowed in November and early December failed to germinate well
•          Potting up two trays of cucumbers (Iznik from Egmont Seeds and Diva from Kings Seeds), as well as a mixture of different types of zucchini, to be planted later this month
•          Pulling out our strawberry plants which finished fruiting after Christmas
•          Preparing the area which previously contained strawberries with compost and general garden fertiliser
•          Planting gem squash and cucumber plants in the area which previously contained strawberries
•          Planting okra seedlings in black 9 L pots
•          Planting more eggplants and chillies in black 18 L pots
•          Planting amaranth seedlings in black 35 L pots containing chilli and capsicum plants.  I noticed that one amaranth plant self-seeded in a container and is growing nicely.  As I’m short on ground space at the moment, I decided to plant my amaranth seedlings this way
•          Planting some marigold seedlings (“Chameleon” from Kings Seeds) in a trough to replace some plants which didn’t survive
•          Liquid feeding the garden with Seasol.  With all the rain just before Christmas, the garden has become a bit of a jungle so I find it’s easier to connect 2 L bottles to the hose rather than trying to get around the garden with a watering can!
•          Pruning some roses which were overhanging considerably, causing a nuisance in the garden!
•          Pulling some diseased leaves off our eggplants
•          Harvesting twice daily, once in the morning and again in the late afternoon/early evening.  I find this is necessary on sunny days as berries and tomatoes tend to ripen during the day
•          Purchasing more rosemary plants to replace our two that died because they got swallowed by our brambles!  These are still in the nursery as I need to find a safer location for our new plants where they aren’t threatened by other plants in the garden!
•          Purchasing some gardening products from Kings Plant Barn during their Boxing Day sale.  I still need to purchase bagged fertilisers but always do this by email and get them delivered to us as I need such large quantities

​What has everyone else been up to in their garden lately?