15th & 22nd January, 2023

On 15th January, it was a sunny and warm morning in the garden with 25 adults and five children spending time working with the plants.

The following Sunday, 22nd January, was showery but 17 adults optimistically came to the garden. The showers persisted and not much gardening was done in the end!

Snapshot

On both days, plants that were past their prime or heavily attacked by pests or disease were removed. Sunflowers that overshadowed other plants and deprived them of light were also removed. Some sunflowers provided nice flower heads for a vase arrangement.

Harvest

As in recent weeks, we harvested some beans and green leaves (tatsoi, Cos lettuce, sorrel, mizuna, purslane, basil and some other herbs). We also harvested some tomatoes, although, without being netted, the tomatoes have been attacked by pests. When a tomato caterpillar gets into a cherry tomato, there’s not much left to eat! Mesh bags have been put over some clusters of tomatoes so, fingers crossed, some of them might be clean. Cucumbers are also starting to be big enough to harvest.

Sowing and planting

No sowing or planting was done in either week. The planned sowing of green manure was postponed.

Some of the earlier plantings of beans were removed as they had run their course and some were infected with rust. The tatsoi was infested with aphids and removed. Aphids were also on cucumber vines, which were sprayed with soapy water to remove and deter the aphids.

Coming up in the garden

In the warm weather, and the weather is finally becoming more like summer now, the garden beds are drying out quickly. We’re going to put down straw mulch to conserve soil moisture and keep the soil a bit cooler. The plants will appreciate it!

8th January, 2023

A fine morning brought out twenty-one adults and two children to work in the garden. It was great to see familiar faces again and to have a big group coming together once more now that lots of people are back from their recent festivities!

Snapshot

Some recent rain meant the soil in the garden beds wasn’t bone dry, so heavy watering wasn’t needed. Some plants that had come to the end of their prime were removed and garden beds were generally tidied up.

Harvest

As we have of late, we harvested some beans and green leaves (tatsoi, Cos lettuce, sorrel, mizuna, purslane, basil and some other herbs). A patch of baby carrots was re-discovered and harvested too! Some sunflowers that would go well in vases were cut as well.

Sowing and planting

No sowing or planting was done this week. Some mizuna and other mustard greens, a cucumber vine and some bean vines were removed, as they had outlived their usefulness. Some sunflowers were removed to give other plants (e.g. eggplant, okra, Thai basil) more room and light – sometimes there can just be too many sunflowers!

Special mention

Some sulphur-crested white cockatoos have found our sunflowers quite tasty (photo below)!

Sulphur-crested white cockatoos breakfasting on sunflowers

Coming up in the garden

We decided to plant green manure crops in one or two garden beds to give them a short rest and improve the soil in them by using the green manure crops to add organic matter.

It’s time to start thinking about our cool weather plantings. If there are any particular cool‑weather plants anyone would like to try, please suggest them but do some homework first on whether they’d be suitable for Sydney’s climate and our garden conditions and also where to buy the seeds.

1st January, 2023

It was a sunny and warm morning to start the New Year. Thirteen adults and two children spent time working in the garden.

Snapshot

Watering, applying worm juice and harvesting were the main activities of the morning.

Harvest

We harvested green and purple beans, sorrel, tatsoi, cos lettuce, mizuna, purslane, along with various herbs, including basil, sage, oregano and Vietnamese mint.

Sowing and planting

Some tatsoi seedlings were thinned out and moved to give them all a better chance to develop to a decent size.

Special mention

Michael has dug some compost into the bed we recently harvested potatoes from to help improve the soil.

The tomatoes are suffering a little from an insect pest, tomato caterpillar (a type of budworm) – see photo below. These pests burrow into the young fruit, feed on it and make it completely inedible.

Tomato caterpillar inside cut cherry tomato

There’s some information about this pest here. This linked article mentions netting the whole tomato plants as one way of trying to keep these caterpillars at bay (more specifically, by keeping the moths these caterpillars turn into away from the tomato plants so they can’t lay their eggs on the plants). Another method of control mentioned is to use a spray containing a bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis. This bacterium is a biological control agent and this method of control is an accepted organic control method. Because of the personal protective equipment recommended when using the spray, we will not be using this method. Now that we have had the framing for our tomato netting replaced, we can put up netting … next year!

Coming up in the garden

At the moment, given La Niña is still around, we can probably look forward to pleasant warm mornings on work days. The sunflowers are still putting on quite a show.