round up of recent gardening activity

I’ve been very busy in the garden over the past few days!  Tasks I managed to complete include:
​

•          Harvesting our Liseta potatoes.  I sent a box mixed with some Swift and Rocket spuds to my cousin Shireen, who lives in Whangarei with her husband Tor.  She was stoked to receive them
•          Preparing the area which previously contained the Liseta potatoes for planting melons.  I dug compost and Nitrophoska fertiliser into the bed and raked the soil to make it nice and even.  I then laid down black plastic over the entire area, making a hole to accommodate a self-seeded sunflower and poppy plant because I couldn’t bear to pull them out.
•          Planting four different varieties of melons in the area – Watermelon, Honeydew melon, Inverno melon and Banana melon.  I cut holes in the plastic where I wanted to plant the seedlings and mixed a scoop of slow release fertiliser in the ground beforehand.  Mum thinks I’m dreaming but I’m determined to grow a watermelon successfully this season.  They’re much harder to grow than rockmelons, which I’ve had a lot of luck with in the past. 
•          Harvesting our crop of garlic.  With the exception of our Elephant garlic, this was an epic failure.  As you may recall me mentioning in an earlier post, the garlic was affected by rust and this affected the size of the bulbs.  In future, I am going to have to spray garlic fortnightly with liquid copper, from the time it surfaces.  That is, if I’m game enough to give it another go.
•          Planting kumara. I was going to pull out a row of strawberry plants which weren’t doing well to make room for the slips but decided against doing this because the plants suddenly picked up and are cropping well now.  I managed to find some space next to a row of Agria potatoes, once I cleared some dead borage.  I made a hole in the ground where I wanted to plant each slip and added a sprinkle of Superphosphate fertiliser beforehand.  Afterwards, I mulched the plants with pea straw and used the hose to wet it so it doesn’t fly away
•          Planting more gem squash.  Our patch is looking good now and the first plants I put in a fortnight ago have started to creep!
•          Planting more heritage and snake beans
•          Planting more cucumbers
•          Planting more eggplants in containers
•          Picking a variety of lilies that have just opened (see photos)
•          Harvesting carrots.  We have had a great crop this season and still have plenty of them in 35 litre buckets.  We just harvest as we need them, although I have had to do some harvesting en masse (like now) so I could use the buckets for planting chillies and capsicums
•          Filling our two new garden waste bins with rubbish.  This morning, our waste management company finally came to collect the bins for the previous cycle last month.  The waste that went into them was mainly dead borage and calendula.  The next collection is on the 20th December and I already have a new pile of waste waiting to be binned for next time!
•          Liquid feeding.  I’ve been trying to liquid feed the garden every week because growth is so active.  I have been using Yates Thrive Strawberry liquid fertiliser on the strawberries and other berries, Yates Thrive Tomato Liquid fertiliser on all fruiting veggies and Yates Thrive pods on all other plants in the garden, including flowers.  For a garden this size, it’s a big job, especially since I use a watering can!  I started on this task today and will continue tomorrow.