Friday, March 24, 2017

Well, It Was Worth a Try.

I'm talking about the milk spray I used on the pumpkins for powdery mildew. Unfortunately it hasn't worked all that well but I'm pretty sure it's because I had left it too late. The fungus was well established and, although I took off as many of the affected leaves as I could as soon as I saw the tell tale spots, it reached a point where I would have had to denude the whole plant. Ah well, a lesson learned for next year since I have no doubt that the same will happen again climate change being what it is. I'll just have to remember and spray early on.

The good thing is that, although the plants are slowly dying, they have already produced a decent crop of fruit which is already nearly mature. I counted 14 plump little pumpkins already changing colour this morning so we should have a reasonable amount for our winter stores.

I still have zucchinis and capsicums ripening, there are snake beans too, as well as spring onions, silverbeet, rainbow chard and a bumper crop of basil ready to pick - and there will be sweet corn for lunch tomorrow. The tomatoes are dying back already - they haven't been as prolific as they usually are this year for some reason - and the eggplant has been a major disappointment. They've flowered profusely but only two fruit have appeared.

As far as the fruit garden is concerned, the rock melons (cantaloupes) are doing well and are close to ready to pick - and we still have some grapes on the vines. This is a real surprise since they're usually finished by late February. There are a few blueberry and strawberry stragglers and the goji berry bush is looking healthier than it ever has. The fruit aren't that exciting but I grew it because I like a challenge - and that's why I've been growing pineapples, too. There are three of those with young fruit at the moment so I'm hopeful they'll ripen well.

I guess it's time to be thinking about winter plantings but it's far too hot to even consider planting anything yet. I did invest in some flower bulbs when I was at the shops earlier this week and they're sitting chilling in the fridge so maybe it's time to head to the seed catalogues. They make interesting reading if nothing else and with some help from Pisces I should be able to get some planting done in a month or so.

2 comments:

Jo said...

It's very rewarding doing all that gardening, but what a lot of work. Wish I was a neighbour of yours.

Helen V. said...

It's really doing a little every day that keeps it ticking over, Jo. I wouldn't be able to keep it up otherwise and I've just taken a bag of zucchinis into our neighbours this morning. My kids have been making noises about how much work it is and that maybe we should downsize but I get miserable if I can't go out and play around in the garden so that's not happening any time soon.