Comments on: Early harvest

By: Debbie

Debbie — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 06:59:50 +0000

Hi Duncan,

I'm a bit slow on he uptake, I know. Just wanted to say this page (and others recently added) look AMAZING (and that includes the photo of moi!).

By the way, I can vouch for the tastiness of Duncan's homegrown berries (thanks Duncan!) and macarons (double thanks) and other items (triple thanks),

Debbie

By: Stickyfingers

Stickyfingers — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 23:58:59 +0000

BTW, tomatoes are hungry. They will happily take a fortnightly feeding with worm juice or seaweed based liquid fertiliser.

By: Stickyfingers

Stickyfingers — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 23:56:12 +0000

Something that may help a lot of home tomato growers is to plant the seedling very deep. In fact you can bury the first few leaves on the stem of a seedling and the stem will send out roots in that area, making the plant significantly stronger and hardier, able to support more fruit.

If you find that they aren't producing many flowers as the plants mature, do as Duncan has done and water in Potash, which is the natural way to encouraging flowering on all plants. Another tip is that the plants like heat – if you don't have a warm enough flower bed, like us, put them in a pot in a hot place.

We love having our heritage plants and their fruit. We're not bothered that they are slower growing than commercial varieties, because they taste so good.

By: Y

Sat, 08 Dec 2007 20:19:47 +0000

We're still persisting with our tomatoes, even though we don't get much yield from them. I think we've maybe had a handful of puny Grosse Lisses to date. The poor plant always looks like it's practically straining to give birth to some fruit, any fruit.

Ellie : I haven't had much luck with big leafed basil myself, but what seems to be more hardy, is Greek basil, or baby basil – restaurants use a lot of these because the leaves are much smaller and they're great for presentation. I haven't managed to kill off my pot of that basil yet!

By: Duncan

Duncan — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 11:51:55 +0000

Strawberries bring out the vulture in us;) I had four superb babies yesterday. Must find the tag for the variety.

Congrats on the chillies, grocer! My bush died last year and I didn't get around to growing a new plant this year.

By: grocer

grocer — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 10:25:18 +0000

and the chilli's are flowering!!!

By: Amelita (Squishy)

Amelita (Squishy) — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 08:09:51 +0000

Lucky you with your strawberries. Looks like your doing a good job. I remember wandering around my Great Aunties yard when I was a kid picking all her strawbs and eating them. Then I remember being chased around the yard being yelled at for devouring them all Ha Ha. She had an amazing green thumb. Gorgeous photos Dunk!

By: Duncan

Duncan — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 04:45:03 +0000

@Ellie: I have to agree with stickyfingers — basil can be a real pain. You should avoid watering it in the afternoon/evening cos it doesn't like wet feet at bedtime. With mint, plant it in pots rather than in the garden, cos it is a very invasive thing.

@sticky and grocer: congrats! Sounds like lots of growing is happening out there! And Vida too…

By: stickyfingers

stickyfingers — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 12:46:13 +0000

Oh Ellie – Basil is so fickle, it's not the easiest herb to grow and so vulnerable to bugs. We also have a hard time growing thyme.

Best to start off with rosemary, oregano, chives and mint which are way more hardy.

Today we planted sage and lemon thyme, more tomatoes – Amish Paste and Ox Heart from Ceres – and strawberries in our self watering pots. Not sure whats happening with our garlic though, the greens are already wilting.

By: Ellie

Ellie — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 10:24:08 +0000

I envy all you lot with your green thumbs! Me, I just wish I could get a damn pot of basil to stay alive lost the fourth one last week after it put up a valiant effort to survive my killer hands :/ *sigh* home grown tomatoes and strawberries are just not in my future anytime soon, I'm afraid…

and $1 per strawberry? Yeouch!