March

Lavender field as at end March 2011


Vegetable garden as at end March 2011

March has been a month of preserving. This month I have made:
* Two batches of blueberry muffins
* Pickled cucumber, cucumber jam, frozen cucumber (yes, sounds weird but it seems to work), two batches of tzatziki
* Zucchini muffins, zucchini and chocolate cake, frozen zucchini
* Apple jelly, dried apple slices

And despite all the preserving, the zucchini and cucumber plants just keep producing fruit. They do seem to have slowed down quite a bit in the last week but there are still fruit growing. Not much else is growing in the garden though.

Harvested a small amount of small potatoes. Think my experiment of re-planting last years spuds hasn't worked too well. Next year I will buy seed potatoes.

The pumpkin has slowed down its spread. It still has lots of flowers but only 4 pumpkins are growing. A lot of other people have also commented that they are getting lots of (male) flowers but no (female) fruit. It must be the weather I guess.

The corn I planted is not doing well, but I have noticed some growing wild in the compost, so what's up with that? The broccoli is full of holes. The capsicum was growing well and then I found the plant on the ground, the dogs must have knocked it over and broken it. I managed to salvage four small capsicums off it.

Have had a reasonable harvest of tomatoes from the plants on the deck, but not much from those in the garden. Don't think I'm going to do Roma tomatoes again. I planted them because I thought they were good for making sauce, but the fruit are all ready at such different times that I haven't been able to get enough to make any sauce with.

The passionfruit vine has not been doing well this year. All the leaves started dying off and I don't know why. I'm worried I may have accidentally sprayed it with weedspray, so I've been very reluctant to try eating any of the fruit (which doesn't look all that appealing anyway). The feijoas aren't fruiting either (but at least they're not dying).

We have had a bumper crop of walnuts this year and I've been checking every couple of days lately and coming back with armfuls. Don't quite know what to do with all these walnuts. It's not like they need preserving I don't think. But it's also not something we usually just eat (they're quite expensive). Maybe I should make some baklava.

During January I was busy with the kids and unable to mow the lawn. In February I mowed it twice to try and get it back into condition. And then the tractor broke down. It just won't start. Not sure how to fix it or who can do it. So in the meantime the grass is again growing longer, and longer, and longer. Not to mention the grass in the lavender field which hasn't been mown since the beginning of January. I did some weed eating but the grass is very, very long.

Have attempted to plant some winter crops. Cleared one plot of weeds and scattered mustard seeds, a winter cover crop. In another plot I dug two trenches and planted carrot seeds in one and spring onion seeds in the other. Have never had much success with seeds so am not sure what to expect. The trench seems like a good idea though, to funnel rain, water and dew towards the seeds that need it. And to mark where the vegetables are planted.

Autumn officially started at the beginning of March but it has turned out to be a lovely, warm month. The only hint of autumn has been a few very cold nights but these always lead into very hot days. In the last few days I have noticed one or two trees with leaves turning yellow which seems strange given the warm weather, but I guess it is a sign that winter really is on the way. I'm not looking forward to winter but I can't complain because we've pretty much had five months of summer this year.


Lettuce: 6
Brassica: 2 but probably won't eat them because of all the caterpillars
Tomatoes: Still growing but not much fruit
Zucchini: 1 plant and going strong
Cucumber: 2 plants and going strong
Pumpkin: 4 fruit growing
Corn: 1 in the garden which I don't think will grow any corn and some sprouts in the compost
Blueberries: Got one good harvest in February, then forgot about it for a few weeks and the berries were all gone.
Walnuts: Have gathered about 2-3 fruit bowls full so far


-M