I cleared out the spent snow peas this morning and mulched up where they were ready to plant out some tomatoes next fruiting planting break. I ended up with this bowl of pea seed. Now the dilemma: should I save them to plant next year, or make hummus of them?
Conventionally they are planted in spring and harvested in autumn. But when I’ve had a patch established before, I’ve just let it go and dug up a sweet potato or two whenever I want one.
Yesterday’s planting. Note just three zucchini seeds, three tromboncino seeds, three cucumber seeds. I’m being restrained!
Today we pass the point on the day-length bell curve where it flattens right out. The days are now nearly as long in the southern hemisphere, and short in the northern hemisphere, as they will ever get.
The first compost pile of the season, and it’s a good one. It’s a lasagna pile with nice thin layers, with mulch from the Mulch Mountain every second layer.
Azolla is a really valuable plant. It’s a rampant native waterweed, that is symbiotic with a nitrogen fixing bacteria, so, like legumes, it is capable of harvesting nitrogen out of the air and putting it into a form that plants can use as a fertilizer.
Everything has lined up beautifully for a planting day today – no bottlenecks for once. I have old compost and creek sand for seed raising and potting mixes, seeds and seedlings for planting, a new bed just vacated by the chooks ready to plant into and mulch to mulch up the spaces in the old beds, a barrel of old seaweed brew, a dam full of water, a lovely cool,…
I like mowing. It’s just hard enough work for me to feel entirely justified ignoring the gym. A few kilometres of power walking, a bit of aerobic exercise pushing it uphill, a bit of weight training emptying the bag, a bit of stretching and flexing. The perfect workout.
There is a reason that Greek salads have no lettuce. Greece has a Mediterranean climate – cool wet winters and hot dry summers, and lettuce and hot dry summers don’t mix.
Jackie is sitting on 9 eggs. At least we think there are nine. Patrick and Trevor get very upset if we try to go near her. Geese are supposed to be monogamous (or at least “in an open relationship”) for life, but maybe because we have two girls and three boys, both Patrick and Trevor seem to have decided it’s a modern family.