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This morning I removed the spent zucchini plants, amended the soil and replanted them with new seedlings.
The quality of the seedlings was substandard and I felt that the roots had started to rot from too much moisture.
I planted two zucchini seeds next to each seedling in case the seedling dies which I fully expect to happen.

Planted Sugar baby watermelon seeds directly out in the bed.
This is the first time I have tried direct seeding watermelon and I used all my seeds.
I'm praying hard they germinate.

I planted Rattlesnake beans against the same trellis I had the horrible sugar snap peas against.
I am not going to over water these and pray I don’t get dampening off issues again.

I cleared two spots to plant Kent pumpkins. Kents are a very, very tough variety.
Very good in the heat and humidity and the fruit fly leaves them alone.
They are dark dark orange inside with sweet flesh and the pumpkin stores really well if the skin is
intact.
I had to shift a compost pile and I expected the Brown snake that lives on the property to shot out at me with
all cylinders firing. Nope. Thank goodness. Johnny Death is reactive at the best of times.
When he's stirred up he's death looking for someplace to happen.
He's chased me up my back stairs before and all I did was walk out to the chicken pen with a bucket
of scraps and saw him on the path.
He really doesn't need an excuse to get ugly.

I am looking at a 3rd of my tomato trellis to devote to Suyo Long cucumbers.
These are a Asian variety so they cope well with hot, humid conditions. They curl and are spiney like a pickling cucumber and are resistant to
mildews and rots.
I'm planning on direct seeding these as well.

I have to direct seed loofah at the base of another trellis yet and put some chicken manure around my Muscadines.

I harvested the row of dying Irish potatoes. I did better than I thought I would with 15 kilos of usable potatoes harvested.
No scab on any of them and very few ant holes.
I dug up the sweet potato tubers I had planted for slips and replanted them in the now empty Irish potato bed.
There was no need to fertilize because I felt that there was enough fertility in the bed seeings how the Irish potatoes hadn't finished their
run before they died.
Sweet potatoes don't need as much fertility as Irish potatoes. You end up with huge amount of vine and leaf growth and precious little tuber.
 
Sounds like your gardens are powering @Tank-Girl :), wet weather can be a killer to lots of vegetables.

Last night I bought some heirloom corn and bean seeds to plant in the gardens and went through the saved seeds and other seed packets that we have and for now we will have enough to get our vegetable gardens up and running.

DH a couple of days ago put the heavy duty chicken wire across the front of the garden beds to keep out the roos and made swing gates for them so we have access for tilling and all the necessary things.
 
One cucumber plant is finished so I'm pulling it from its container. The other is still growing and putting off blooms so far. I plan on seeding some spinach in the empty container. The 2 "patio" tomato plants are still going so far

All of my tomato plants are finished so I need to pull those out. I want to seed kale in one of the containers
I have 2 window boxes that are empty of their onions ( they did ok for an experiment I used them all summer) and I will seed more carrots and some radishes
 
@Tank-Girl knowing there is a deadly snake hanging around in the yard, garden, or chicken pen...I can't imagine. But he's warning you or has something to protect? You need Tabatha, @Sewingcreations15 's kitty.:ghostly:

Eastern Brown snakes are very very aggressive.
Sadly they kill a lot of family pets because they can't get to the vets for anti venom quick enough.
A small animal like a cat would be killed very quickly.
 
Harvested the last of the poatoes.
I am very disappointed with the quality of the harvest as over half were attacked by ants
even though I kept the bed well watered and sprinkled a lot of diatomaceous earth on the bed.
I may have to use the old southern trick of sprinkling corn meal over the bed to kill the ants.
Apparently the ants eat the corn meal and it expands in their gut and the ants die. Good.

I replanted the potato bed with rooted sweet potato slips and watered them well.

Weeded the capsicum bed and harvested a nappa cabbage bigger than my head.
Yum I love cabbage pancakes and I can make them in my new frypan!
Absolutely learned my lesson about planting cabbage under or close to the mango trees.
They are setting flowers on flower spikes and each spike only sets one fruit so all the spent mango flowers drop off.
Mango flowers aren't like conventional flowers in that that they are small (the size of a match head) they're hard and gritty.
They are falling through the orchard mesh I have over my cabbage bed and falling down into the cabbage spoiling them
when the flowers rot.
Next year it'll be a case of using a finer mesh to cover them with or planting them somewhere else in the garden.
Still I am praying for a good mango harvest this year. The last 4 seasons have been a bust.

I have had dismal rattlesnake bean germination and I have no more seeds to replant them.
Maybe I should allow the ones that did germinate to set seed. I don't know.

My zucchinis have failed after a woeful 3 week run of fruit set.
These Bunnings seedlings were substandard to start with and now this.
I'm pretty certain these will be the last I buy from them.
 
Made bacon wrapped jalapenos tonight. Didnt even put a dent in the plants. Lol

39768.jpeg
 
So the green beans grow a second round here. I didn't pull them after the first round as the plants looked really healthy so figured I'd leave them until they started yellowing. They re- bloomed and I think are producing more than the first round. We need to pick again.
Also the one zucchini plant is producing enough zucchini for 4 families. Today was the third Thursday in a row that I took a zucchini in for each of the guys at work. We are working on eating our second one and have two more ready to pick.
 
Found the only supplier of Yates seeds within an hours drive so I could purchase their Summerstar tomato variety of seeds.
Regardless of what their website says Bunnings, Big W and Kmart do NOT stock their seeds.
I had to ring a small feed store 40 minutes drive away and then they have to order them in.
I have ordered 4 packets as a trial considering there's only 15 seeds per packet because they're a new release.
Summerstar is suppose to be developed as a summer tomato for hot humid climates.
I'll but that claim to the test.
Last summer's tomato crop was a complete fail. Plants got diseased and died before they even set fruit.

The Roma VF plants are looking good and are setting fruit. Trying to keep on top of the suckers is a huge chore
but it's good to chill out and engage in some tomato patch therapy.
The fruit is oddly shaped..sort of seamed and bunched in the middle like a waist.
I have been giving the plants a liquid feed every week in an effort to boost production.

The Big Beef tomatoes are still going strong but the stink beetles, thrips and fruit flies have found them.
I have had to use the last of my fruit fly exclusion bags on the young green tomatoes if I wanted unstung red fruit.
Ripe fruit started to rot on the vine from the places they were stung but the chickens enjoyed their tomato feast.
I have put in another order for some more bags from ebay because I won't have enough for the Muscadines when they come in.
I lost the whole muscadine crop last year due to the stink bugs so I'm going to have to bag each individual bunch this season.

My direct sown Asian cucumbers have germinated and broke soil. I got good germination which goes to prove, once again, that Boondie seeds are better quality than those from The Seed Collection in spite of the fact they carry the exact same varieties.

I got 2 Sugar baby watermelons germinate out of 10 seeds that were directly sown. Unhappy.
 
Feeling very rich atm because I had a huge harvest of red capsicums.

These are organic and spray free so I couldn't even hazard a guess how much in dollar terms
my harvest was worth but I'm guessing it'd be a lot.

Once again the small fruit fly proof draw-string bags I put on each individual fruit are absolutely worth the money, time and effort.
I am having red capsicums on my home made pizza, in morning omelets or in beef chili without stimping which is a luxury I have never had before.
Even sprayed red capsicums are very expensive here.

I cut them up into a dice and put them in the dehydrator for later with plenty left for fresh eating.

The plants are still setting fruit and flowers so now that I have harvested a lot off the plants I now have bags to put over the small
undeveloped fruit before they get stung.
 
Long awaited update on our vegetable gardens as we have to wait until after the frosts stop here unlike @Tank-Girl in a more tropical area. Congratulations on your wonderful supply of capsicum you picked :) .

Our sweet corn is up and a few inches high, our silverbeet likewise, the potatoes we planted are sprouting and ready to have more dirt heaped upon them in the trenches, some tomatoes have emerged, our heirloom beans are around 5" high, turnips have sprouted and some carrots.

Today we will separate out the silver beet too close together, plant a few more corn seeds in the areas they didn't come up in and probably replant a few tomato seeds that haven't emerged.

The kangaroo/wallaby enclosure held up and kept them out so we can now grow vegetables without them being eaten although the kangaroos still look through the wire lovingly at them but can't get in. The kangaroos/wallabies seem to love trimming our spider plants down to the ground but so far have not taken a liking to the hotshot canna lilies so we may yet see flowers. The 50% shadecloth is doing the trick to stop the heat getting to the vegetables and they are growing strongly.

All of the ornamental flower beds get watered via grey water pumped from the grey water tank, the established mulberry and fruit trees get watered using the next door neighbour's grey water pumped from her tank and the lawns and jasmine by grey water. The vegetable gardens only get watered via town water as we are in severe water restrictions here in drought.
 
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Finally getting close to the first broccoli harvest of the season.
I proved to myself last year I could grow really good broccoli and this year looks like another good harvest.
It takes up a lot of space and it's really slow but boy it's so worth it.
I trippled the planting because our season up here is so short so I wanted enough to get me through to next season.
The variety is called Green Magic which is adapted for hotter conditions and so far it's done well.
I believe Johnny's Seeds carries the variety if any American friends are interested in trying it.
 
@Sewingcreations15 Glad you aren't just feeding the wildlife:)
@Tank-Girl Where are you region wise? You say up here, but the variety is good for hot conditions. I'm in Washington state. Do you think it would be a good variety for here? The one year I had a long enough growing season up the mountain, the deer got the broccoli before we did. It was so disheartening.
This evening after work, I had lots to do, but one of the things was to pull the green beans and get the ginormous beans off them. It was beginning to rain so I got my big bowl and plucked and pulled using my body to protect the bowl and keep the beans dry. My back and backside got wet but I got it done. My fingers were freezing but it's done.
 
@Sewingcreations15 Glad you aren't just feeding the wildlife:)
@Tank-Girl Where are you region wise? You say up here, but the variety is good for hot conditions. I'm in Washington state. Do you think it would be a good variety for here? The one year I had a long enough growing season up the mountain, the deer got the broccoli before we did. It was so disheartening.
This evening after work, I had lots to do, but one of the things was to pull the green beans and get the ginormous beans off them. It was beginning to rain so I got my big bowl and plucked and pulled using my body to protect the bowl and keep the beans dry. My back and backside got wet but I got it done. My fingers were freezing but it's done.

I'm in a tropical region so I'm not sure what variety would work for you.
I guess the best bet would be to read the description of various broccoli varieties on Johnny's and see if one matches your conditions.
Plant breeders have been pretty clever in creating varieties that suit a range of different. Climates and seasons.
 
Time to adjust to changing conditions.
Seems the hot wet weather we've been having has brought out a new sort of fruit fly that can sting the fruit through the mesh bags.
Alright.
I just put on an order for 100 bags that are made of a heat molded cloth that doesn't have a weave.
It looks like heavy duty backing fabric that dressmakers use.
If these do the trick I'll be putting on an order for 200 more so I'll have them ready for when my muscadines set fruit.
The mesh ones are still awesome and did a fantastic job keeping the winter pests off my capsicums but they're just not an appropriate tool to use in summer.
I can't put a mesh low tunnel over the capsicums because I need to allow the pollinators access to the flowers.
 
Today I harvested the last nappa cabbage.
Yum.
I've been practicality living on Japanese cabbage pancakes and chowmein.
I have to harvest my European cabbages because all the rain is making them split.

I pulled up the hoops, insect netting and the weed mat from the empty rows and chipped out the few weeds along the edges.
The soil under the weed mat looks fanastic.
Very dark and rich looking.
I ran a long furrow down the middle and planted Kent pumpkin seeds.
Kent pumpkins grow very well in our tropical conditions and because the pumpkin is mostly a
very dark green color with paler stripes and it's skin is quite tough it doesn't have fruit fly stinging the fruit
that butternuts have.
Kents are a long keeper and the flesh is a dark, dark orange and it's very sweet.
 

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