This winter, our humble veggie patch is still producing nice zucchinis, silverbeet, boc choy, pac choy, chives, tomatoes, and capsicums as we speak this month. The broccolini are now forming nice flower heads as the climate has got considerably colder. It was a gamble planting zucchinis this late in the season as they detest moisture on the leaves and have developed signs of powdery mildew already from cold nights, as they also do in the humidity during our summer months. Tomatoes have slowed slightly with the cool winds about, but many fruits are still forming. I have applied an eco-organic fungicide called: ecocarb ( potassium bicarbonate ) made by Organic Crop Protectants- mixed with some eco-oil, to treat the leaves and stems of zucchini, then applying tonics to the soil to fortify the plant to assist in steady fruit production before the plants may finally succumb to the disease in the cool damp weather as harvesting the fruit is the main objective of course. Time to start sowing seeds ready for spring already.
We have harvested some 20 zucchini’s already this July from four plants and many flowers still forming. We use lots of Silverbeet and leafy greens in our diet, so our plants are trimmed daily, as we only use what we need and just cut the outer leaves leaving the plants to produce more leaves as we go. Our potted ‘Lots of lemons tree’ has thrown about 30 new lemons already about the size of grapes and powering along indeed. Our potted ‘Washington navel orange is still in mass flower with about 6 small new fruits on the tree. We harvested our ginger rhizomes from our large pots and harvested approximately 5 kilos- from 2 large pots, not a bad investment when the supermarkets are selling them at $40.00 + a kilo. I might try for 10 kg next year. Although planting seeds outside in winter in cold wet soils may cause them to rot, if you can get them germinated in a protective environment, its still possible to plant silverbeet, beetroot carrot, cabbage and kale, lettuce, radish, and peas if you like now, or perhaps sow seeds of tomato, egg plant capsicum or cucurbits in pots ready for spring planting. Hope you are all enjoying the fruits of your labour!
Our lovely broccolini, almost ready for harvest!
