Back to School and Harvesting

 I have returned to school from maternity leave almost 2 weeks now and Abby is 2 months old. Hence, disappearing for a short while again from the blogsphere. I have not come in early to school yet probably around noon as it is hard to leave Abby. But then I stay at least until 7PM. I think that is an excuse I am never a morning person (another excuse low blood pressure). The Medela freestyle breastpump has been a savior as I can do 3 things at a time breastfeed, expressing and browsing the net. 

I missed Daphne's Dandelions Harvest Monday last week so these are the harvest summaries for the first half month of October.

 The month of October will be continuously harvesting Western Red Carrot, Boltardy Beetroot and Golden Nugget Cape Gooseberry.

 We still have some fresh lemon grass stalks to harvest after the plants stayed dormant during cold season. Peas are reducing as the weather gets warm. Harvest the last black round Spanish radish last week. Need to start harvesting Florence Fennel regularly before they flower. We kept on finding some potatoes whenever we do some weeding in the garden.

We harvested our first small red cabbage last week. No more Bloomsdale spinach in the garden as I harvested them all as some of the plants starts to form flower stalk. The last 2 touchstone gold beetroot were harvested and I left one to flower to collect seeds.

 The harvest in the photo above were growing at the back of our backyard fence on reserve land. They got trampled by the council cleaning team. My husband was shocked when one morning he wanted to harvest some veggies at the back all the veggies were almost gone and even big plants were mowed. We managed to harvest leeks that had hair cuts because the stem were planted deep into the ground and only the top were mowed.Same with the florence fennel were severed from its roots and the leaves cut , lucky that the bulb stayed intact. For 3 years, I grew veggies back there but this is the first time happened. The spring onion flowers were left drying on the plant but it got chopped so brought them in to dry.

The previous post I mentioned that I am giving-away Australian Brown Onion and Spring Onion seeds.

Winners, please send me your address so I can post it to you (kebunkmg@gmail.com).

Aussie Brown Onion and Spring Onion Seeds Winners:

> Gardenglut author of Glut: a year in my patch

> KitsapFG (Laura) author of The Modern Victory Garden

>Joyfulhomemaker author of Fhat Farmer Chick

>Ummuaidan author of Our Simple Garden

>Malar author of My Little Garden

Mid-Autumn pickings

This month harvest is all rather quick process of picking what I needed while cooking so did not taken many photos of our harvest this month. This month available harvest in our kebun (garden) are mainly consist of...

Some of our banana capsicum is ripening at the moment. Banana capsicum is not a hot but sweet variety type so Rayyan can enjoy it as well. He won't eat spicy food yet. Brought in our last batch of home-grown onion that were hanging out at the shed. Cut some Chinese celery stalk. It was growing under the canopy of our tree dahlia plants that I almost forget I have them in the garden. It does not received much direct sunlight at the moment. Harvested our first 'bari' cucumber. Its actually a melon and very mini size type. I did not realised that it is actually a 'heirloom' cucumber that is not available in catalogues. I got it from our local seed-saver group. 

With the warm mild weather, the garden is producing eggplants, cucumbers and okras. I tried to grow several variety of beans in the shade during summer as they still get indirect light. We did get some produce though not as prolific as the ones that are growing in sunny position during spring/autumn. In the basket, bean harvest from shade position.

Pull out some of our summer growing parsnips to see how they are growing under the soil, glad that they are roots to enjoy. But I will leave some for winter harvest. 'Cherokee Wax' and 'Redland Pioneer' bush bean has been the main bean that we harvested this month. I am excited with the 'Redland Pioneer' harvest because it was my first time growing home saved-seeds of this bean. The bush bean 'Redland Pioneer' produces the first batch of bean to harvest the same as the fast growth of Pak chois for fast crop. Everyweek we have some kangkung to harvest.

What amazed me is how tolerant the savoy cabbage and Italian sprouting broccoli withstand our extreme summer weather. I have one neglected happy Italian sprouting broccoli plant and still producing shoots for us at the back of our backyard fence. It only gets water 3-4 times a week during the warm season. It is already a year old.

We caught many bream fish but there are still small (mostly almost 20cm) not legal size. So have to be released back into the water. The only legal size catch that we had is whiting.

See harvest all around the world at Daphne's Dandelions Harvest Monday.

Verona Purple Savoy Cabbage

I like purple colour very much. So when I was making decision to try a new variety for winter last year the verona purple savoy cabbage caught my interest. The first time I saw a savoy cabbage was here in Adelaide. Found very fascinating that there are cabbage with wrinkle leaves (Savoy~ A cabbage of hardy variety with densely wrinkled leaves). I like the sweetness of savoy cabbage. This is the first savoy cabbage variety  we grown and it was an interesting experience with trial and error. The first error I made was the sowing time. The first batch that I transplanted bolted. Sometime you just have to try your own sowing time instead of following the instruction. Followed the instruction at first did not get favourable result with the first sowing batch in winter bolted. Because I can be very stubborn at times, I sowed some seeds in winter~early spring which was not recommended in the seed packet instruction which at the end gave us some harvest.

Verona Purple Savoy Cabbage Seedlings.

Purple veins on the cabbage leaves.

Inter-planted with radish for productivity.

This is how 100% organic and neglected growing cabbage look like.

Amazingly, a well-established verona purple savoy cabbage can withstand more than 40 degree Celsius and our extreme hot summer here in Adelaide. There were also few days when it did not get any water during mid-summer. We were lucky to harvest several of this cabbage during summer. A heat-tolerant variety cabbage.

One of the cabbages that we harvest last mid-summer.

Aduh sakit pinggang belakang minggu ni nak berkebun pun tak boleh. Gara-gara lama sangat duduk depan mikroskop dari minggu lepas nak pulun habis kerja.

Earliball Sayonara

The first cabbage that we grown from seeds is Earliball variety which is a hybrid and small size cabbage suitable for gardener who has small space to grow. Earliball can be grown all year round. This variety is also very suitable to be grown in containers and we have some success growing this cabbage in container.

The biggest cabbage head that we managed to harvest was about 12cm diameter across the cabbage head. Although it is small, you might think it will be ready to be harvested quicker than the normal cabbage variety, we found this is not the case. For example in autumn, we planted cabbage earlier than the sprouting broccoli but broccoli produce the head first and cabbage was just starting to form head. Growing cabbage is easier to manage in June~August where it is too cold for the white cabbage butterfly to make an appearance. So the cabbage look much more better than the one grown in warm weather, less artistic design from caterpillar and you only worry about snail and slug. Personally, I think growing broccoli and cauliflower are much more easier than cabbage. I wish for nets but with the layout it is not that easy to set it up in our place. One more thing that I observe from this patch is not to grow cineraria near the brassica as it is also a favourite playground for the caterpillars just look at those leaves.

When they are small it is easy to check underneath the leaves whether they are butterfly eggs or not. But when they already grown so many leaves its hard to check every single leaf. I tried chili spray but it is not effective.

Sometime the earliball cabbage produce the size of a tennis ball or even brussels sprout which made me think I better plant brussels sprout rather than this variety. Considering the time and space to grow this variety, I don’t think it is worth to grow it anymore. I thought of not growing any cabbage this cool season but I just called my mama and she said my brother asked why I did not give him any cabbage seeds from all the seeds I sent back home because it is one of his favourite vegetables. Now, I have an excuse to buy cabbage seeds for autumn planting and give some to my brother. No more hybrid cabbage they give mixed results. I am still undecided which type of cabbage to grow, I think I can afford to grow medium size cabbage since I have expand our space to grow by using the space at the other side of our backyard fence. Or if I am ambitious a big one.LOL. Earliball cabbage in the stage of forming head.

After the first time we grown our cabbage we dare not buy any cabbage at the market again as we experience it is not easy to grow perfect cabbage without using any chemicals. Maybe under nets it will be easier to grow them. Even in organic stalls it is written that cabbages they are selling use minimal spray. I prefer our ugly cabbage than the one that has sprayed. Cabbage is one of the vegetables that I am not good at growing it.