Well here we are almost at the end of October – this month seems to have flown by pretty quickly. I guess that happens at this time of year. There has been lots going on, but I can’t for the life of me think what it is in any coherent way. Term 4 started and my son is doing his final exams. I feel like I’m just as nervous about them as he is! And he’s my eldest so of course I’m all emotional about my baby finishing school!
What else has been happening … I’m going to have to look back on my FB pages I think! Ah yes, my San Marzano tomatoes… Well I am just about to rip them out. After taking for ever to actually produce anything every tomato either succumbed to blossom end rot, had something nibble it or it was struck by fruit fly.
Will I try again? Yes. But I’m going to sow the seeds in early Autumn and get them started in a green house situation before planting them. Actually I might experiment and sow some in March, some in April, some in May and see which works the best. Apparently when planting out tomatoes you can plant them right up to their seed leaves as they will develop roots along their stems which makes them stronger, so I will do that as well. For now I have some Mini Amish tomatoes coming up that have self seeded so I will see if they produce anything.
Other than the tomatoes everything else has been growing along fine. I thought the pak choi I put in was all going to get eaten, but turns out if you plant enough there is enough to share with the garden critters 😉 The zucchini and beans have produced well, although I put too many zucchini plants in (we really don’t need more than 1 or 2) and so many just rotted before I was able to pick them. The zucchini plants died with the recent heavy rain so I will take those out and put in the two seedlings that I prepared earlier.
The asparagus hasn’t done much so far which is a shame, we’ve had a few small spears come up but we normally have enough to harvest for dinner at this point. Hopefully something will happen soon! And after I harvested the garlic last month I sowed some kidney bean seeds but none of them have come up! Even the ones I sowed in a punnet didn’t appear – well one did but that’s it. I remember I had given up on them last time before they appeared as well so you never know.
I’ve got some beautiful flowers around the place, and my foliage plant bed at the side of the house is starting to look quite nice too. I was taken by surprise the other morning – I went outside to have a wander around the garden and saw a flower that was stunning but I didn’t recognise it at all! Turns out it was the walking iris that has been here since we moved in, I have just never seen it flower before.
Our water tank ran out of water this month but then over the past week and a bit we have had lots of rain and it’s full again! We also had lots of water in the buckets and tubs that I left out so instead of wasting it I grabbed the mini water tank that’s been sitting around the side for about a year and manually filled it up. I used a towel to try and filter as much dirt and stuff out as possible and I managed to pretty much half fill it – so that 50 litres I can use to water all the plants I’m propagating before I even need to touch the tank water. I was pretty proud of that idea! The tank is destined to be installed to catch rain water from our courtyard roof, but I think I might get another just so I can manually fill it.
Talking of propagating – I’ve been doing a lot of that with pretty good success. I’ve actually started to label things, and write the dates of when I pot them up so I can keep track of how long I have grown them on for. I like to keep them for a few weeks before putting them on my honesty stall, just to make sure that they are growing well.
My honesty stall is going really well and I am loving it. I get so much enjoyment out of putting plants out, tending to the stall and even seeing it as I drive in and out of the house. It’s been well received by the local community as well which makes me feel rather proud 😊
I need to update my sign though. I mention produce on the sign because originally my aim was to put any excess produce on the stall but I am finding the logistics of that a bit hard. Things aren’t going to last well on the stall in the heat and if no one picks them up relatively quickly they will just end up as food waste, which defeats the purpose! So I think instead I will share any excess via the Homegrown 4178 & 4179 Facebook page.
I also want to modify the stall in some way so that I can put shade plants on there and possibly the craft items I make. It’s easier to sell things that way – otherwise I never get around to taking photos, listing items, etc. I’m not sure exactly how to do it – for the craft stuff I imagine I’d need some kind of cupboard type set up or even a perspex box with lid. Alternatively I could have a garage/craft sale every so often… that might work even better. I’ll have a think on that because in a way it is good to keep the stall simple.
The other thing that has kept me busy this month has been the virtual admin work I’ve been doing. I was covering for someone on leave and it was great to have that 2 weeks of work coming into the end of year period. I am hoping to keep doing some VA work in the future because I’ve found that it really suits the way I want to work. At the same time I want to make sure that I leave myself time to do what I want to without having to rush around. I’ve done enough of that over the years. I like moving much more slowly now 😉
Bayside Homestead 