The growcover is doing a reasonable job of protecting the vegies, although there are a few holes being munched in the cauli’s and brocolli’s and the two carrots that survived the chook attack, are no longer. The bitter disgusting kale is growing prolifically, lucky the chooks like it as none of us do!
Nearly all of the beetroots that I thinned and transplanted have recovered and are growing well (much to my surprise). I’ve been presuming that the beetroots growing in the first garden bed are so much larger and healthier looking than the patch in the second bed (all planted the same day) purely because the first bed had GrowCover from day 1 and I was using clear plastic sheeting to protect the ones in the second bed, but on checking my notes, the firt bed is planted with Early Wonder and the second with Detroits, so that is most likely the reason for the difference (and confirms the importance of taking notes!).
My potatoes are growing beautifully, or at least the ones in the garden bed and the green bag – the ones planted in the wire cage have been munched on badly and look like they will be going to plant heaven soon. Using the ‘cage’ method but with the plastic garden bag is definitely the easiest way of growing them – at least its easier to keep adding the straw to the bag than it is to the raised garden bed, it will be interesting to see the difference in the harvest between the two methods.
I’ve planted the first lot of tomato seedlings in the garden, some Roma’s and one Mortgage Lifter. Another seedling tray is growing little Amish Pastes, but the two other seed trays got flooded out with unexpected rain that we had, so I lost all those seeds and seedlings that had already sprouted. Definitely glad that I planted twice as many seeds as I wanted, but I still need to start quite a few more (should have done this a couple of weeks ago, but there is never enough time for everything that needs doing).
Yesterday I moved the fence to make the vegie garden area bigger and finally planted the sweetcorn seedlings that were getting very cramped and root bound in their seed pots. Hopefully they will be able to overcome that quickly, but just in case I will be planted a few more from seed – and hopefully plant a new lot of seeds every three weeks to get an ongoing harvest for a longer period. I’ll be planting some watermelon in this area as well, some seedlings that I started and some straight from seeds. I’m not sure how the seedlings will go as they don’t always transplant that well. Live and learn I guess!
A huge amount of time, effort and money has gone into getting everything in the garden to this stage, fingers crossed that everything will keep going well so that we will actually be able to enjoy a good harvest over the coming months!
