Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Not the Backyard

It seems growing vegetables at the other side of our backyard fence has been a good project. We started using that space because we wanted to prevent cars or trucks to park at our side of the fence that made a lot of noise so the kids can have a nice nap during the day. We started growing things there last spring and mostly sunflowers and onions. It is still less than a year from the time we started to plant our first batch of sunflower seedlings last spring. All the sunflowers are gone and were composted on the same place it has grown. Here is the update of what is growing at the other side of our backyard fence since a month ago.
The Redland Pioneer bush bean has already given us first bean harvest this week from this batch. I sowed a row of Dragon carrot seeds 2 weeks ago in between rows of this bush bean and found some carrot seeds have already sprouted last weekend.
Our first batch of Telephone peas has start to flower. We have already eaten many daikon thinnings growing in between the pea trellis. I have already plan to transplant some cabbage seedlings in between these pea trellis after those daikon are harvested. The cabbage seedlings have just sprouted and I have already daydream of transplanting them at that spot. I hope I can fool the white cabbage butterfly using the pea white flower that there are other butterflies around here. So they won't lay eggs on the cabbage later.
Mammoth sunflowers growing slowly and the chili plants growth are stunted. A row of carrot seedlings at the front can be harvested soon.
Mostly root vegetables on this veggie patch with fast growth sequence ~ daikon, 2 rows of Afghanistan carrots and 2 rows of parsnips. I sneaked in some watermelon radish seeds in between parsnip and leeks which has just develop it first sets of true leaves.
Rainbow chards seedlings at the front. In the middle new potato plants interplanting with Giant Purple Mustard (Potato seeds from Berry Gnome). At the back, a mess of self-sowed tomato plants and peas have just sprouted. Not sure whether that one papaya tree that my mother planted last summer will survived through winter or not but I will just let it be there as it please.
Sweet corn seeds sowed in middle of February has already have cobs. Some of the silk from the female ears has beginning tu turn brownish. I wonder if we get full kernal or not this time. I did not help with the pollination as I usually don't pay much attention with the plants growing at the other side of the backyard. Hopefully, a few will be ready to be harvest this weekend, after a long week coop up in school.
This is Ilhan sweet corn patch growing much healthier and taller than mine which were sowed in March. His sweet corn plants are taller than the ones at the other patch. We were making remarks that Ilhan sweet corn follows Ilhan growth like weed. So we voted that Ilhan will sow the next season for sweet corn. He will be taller and understand more what he needs to do by then. But he is still growing taller at that time which make him the best candidate to sow sweet corn seeds.
I am assuming that this veggie patches will be providing us food on the kitchen table this month.

22 comments:

Skeeter said...

Everything is growing so nicely for you. Soon you will be eating fresh harvest from your gardens...

Leckeres für Mensch und Katze - Goodies for a pleasant life said...

thanks for your lovely comment. LG Tina

Unknown said...

it looks like you have a great garden, everything is growing os nice for you :)

Daphne Gould said...

It all looks wonderful.

fer said...

Your little guerrilla gardening definitely paid off. Those crops look amazing. Is great that you got double benefit from them, no noise and more space for gardening.

Sue Garrett said...

Do any bypassers help themselves?

~TastyTravels~ said...

Wonderful garden! You have quite the green thumb!

Hazel said...

My goodness, your garden is wonderful. You are such a fantastic gardener.

makcikmanggis said...

masuk blog Dianan ni terus nak pegang cangkul kerana bersemangat hehe.apa nama bm Telephone peas tu?tak pernah dengar nama kacang cam tu...baru gali karot merah beberapa hari lepas..frust sb tak ada isi..jika ada pun sgt kecik:(

shaz said...

What a great collection of seedlings :) I just discovered yesterday my friendly possum broke through the netting and ate all my broad bean seedlings. Sigh! But since reading your blog I am more determined than ever to get a proper vege garden happening, so not givign up yet!

Wendy said...

looks fantastic! It will be interesting to see if you can fool the cabbage flies! that corn looks great!

Kelli said...

Looks great. I'm amazed at your spacing and how you use inter planting, always very interesting to see and read about. Kelli

Jennifer@threedogsinagarden said...

I am always so impressed with the variety of things you are able to grow in a relatively small space.

Kathy said...

Wow, you have quite the garden - everything looks marvelous - love to see the way you interplant the vegetables -
Kathy

One said...

I find that the comment that comes to my mind when I come by, is always 'WOW'!!! Can't help admiring your backyard. I wonder how you water them since they must be quite a distance away.

I'm still chasing after some critters. :) Anyway, the weather is extremely hot and dry for weeks. Also hazy now. Not a good time to add more plants at the moment. Better keep the current ones alive.

Malay-Kadazan girl said...

Skeeter~ I hope we are lucky to have continuos fresh harvest this winter.

Leckeres für Mensch und Katze - Goodies for a pleasant life ~ Thank you for visiting and the nice recipe.

Ewa~ I hope those sweetcorns will have the will to produce before the weather gets to cold from them.

Daphne~ I wish our Asian greens can grow as wonderful as yours. But since I have been neglecting the garden except for Saturdays, caterpillars are merrily munching them.

Fer~ I am glad that we started that project now. Yeah to no noise and more space to grow.

Sue~ So far nobody been picking the harvest except us. But we had an incident when it was almost dark a driver wanted to test his car at that reserve road and did not noticed the veggies. The tyres flattened a row of chives border and daikon seedlings in the root veggie. Those daikon and chives survived. Because the root of daikon were disturbed we had a funny forking alien daikon when I thin them.

Holly~ Your parents garden are beautiful.

Hazel~ I hope when you encounter platypus, you will share photos of this shy animal.

CikManggis~ Kacang pea cume jenis namanya Telephone. Kacang pea ni ada macam-macam jenis dan bentuk. Ada juga warna ungu kulitnya. Tak tahu kenapa yang ni dipanggil telephone tapi takde bentuk Telephone. Kalau CM gali satu karot tapi takde isi sangat biarkan je yang lain tu tumbuh lagi. Berapa usia karot tu?

Shaz~ The tricky thing about pest is that they love new seedlings and then the harvest.

Wendy~ Hopefully the peas flower can fool those cabbage white butterfly.

Kelli~ With the lack of space, interplanting is one of the option to obtain more harvest.

Jennifer~ I hope your veggie garden project this year will give you abundant harvest.

Kathy~The garden seem to look much better after all the summer vegetables were put into compost.

Kwee Peng~Water them using water can, manual...hehehe..it is hard in summer but thankfully the evening sun sunflower were big enough not to fuss about water that much. We got some rain this week so I don't have to worry about them. Oh I have several critters that I need you to help identify;-).

Chloe m said...

I bought some Daikon radish seeds.
If they do happen to grow for me... I was wondering how you prepare these in your kitchen?

cina said...

Hello Diane
Was drafting a comment on your post when all hell broke loose yesterday. Anyway, thanks for all your comments too. I have this vine that appeared in my garden and am not sure what it is. I have posted it on my blog, it looks like a loofah vine similar to the one you have.

littlekarstar said...

Oh wow that looks fantastic! It is so cold here that I can't grow the things you are so it is so nice to look at them growing on your blog instead! :) What are telegraph peas?

Stephanie said...

It's funny to see sweet corn in this height. I do hope you will get lots of corns even though they many not look so promising as you said.

Blogger was down yesterday. Fortunately I read your message before the whole post reverted to schedule mode. I have to re-publish later. But will wait a little longer first. Hopefully it will come back ;-) Thanks and have a great weekend!

kitchen flavours said...

As usual, your garden is fabulous. Your carrots and corn look really healthy and beautiful. For some reason, my carrots seedlings seems to have "stunted", stop growing in their little pot. Usually how long do I have to wait until I can transfer them to their permanent pot? All I see are the first leaves, no sign of any second leaves at all!

Malay-Kadazan girl said...

I had replied each comment but blogger had some problem or Hazel'S Old Tut curse;-).

Sue~ So far nobody seems to disturb it but only four-legged creature or with wings. A driver who wanted to test his car did not see the root veggie that he run over it. Some of the veggie survive but some daikon thinnings had wierd shape.

CikManggis~ Oh kacang pea cuma jenis telephone. Takde rupa telephone pun tapi dibagi namanya gitu. Kacang pea ni banyak jenis ada juga yang kulitnya warna ungu. Kalau CM tarik satu karot tapi takde isi, biarkan yang lain tumbuh lagi. Karot ni memang lama nak tunggu berisi, selalunya daun je yang tumbuh dulu sebelum isi.

Mrs Bok~ Telephone pea, a climbing pea variety.

Joyce~Carrot does not like to be transplanted. I usually sow the seeds direct on thier permanent bed.Carrot is a vegetable that grow so slowly.