The Garden of Woz...

[Whwoz]

Lucky last for now is the Russian garlic I picked up on our Tasmanian trip nearly 2 years ago

Ashgrove Giant Garlic.jpg

[GoDawgs]

Lots of garlic! How many did you plant this year?

[Whwoz]

Cannot really say for sure [mention]GoDawgs[/mention] , but a number of varieties did not do any good and won't be harvested. Probably a third of the way through the patch now, but some of what's left I only have two or four plants of. The Artichoke group plants, which I will lift in a week to 10 days have done really well, as has the silverskin Lokalen. Full list is in post 196. Must get another Rhubarb photo for you, plants are looking fabulous

Forgot to mention that the first fruit are on the tomatoes.

[Whwoz]

Planted out the bean and pea trellis today. Not a lot of each variety, about 10 seeds but 12 varieties, 6 peas and 6 beans went in, climbers all.

From the south, which is the end furtherest away from the house we have
Jupiter, purple snow pea
Lazy Housewife bean
Golden pod pea, not sure if shelling or snow
Mantequilla bean
Heather, purple snow pea, grown previously
Blue pole bean, maybe should read as Blue Lake
Golden Mangetout, Yellow snow pea
Italian Flat, suspect that this is the Romano bean that I have been buying and mentioned in another thread
Lord Leicester's pea
Gold Marie Vining bean, a yellow Romano type
Exhibition Pea
Kentucky Wonder Wax bean
Joni's Taxi, Yellow snow pea, grown previously
Purple King bean

Took the opportunity to widen this bed by moving a foot wide strip from the bed to its east. This will allow the planting of a row of bush peas and beans next to the trellis.

The narrowed bed will have a trellis run down its middle, allowing for more peas and beans to be planted, a few extra climbing varieties that did not make this frame, with extra space for favourite varieties. Might even try some snake beans, the few that we tried went down well with all and I can get 8 or so climbing varieties plus a few bush varieties here, may take a couple of years to trial all.

[Growing Coastal]

Nice to read about your fresh start on a new planting season as we slip out of ours into the harsh time of year.
That's a geat many types of bean. I trust that some images will follow in time and look forward to seeing some of these new to me varieties.

[Whwoz]

Planted out the row of bush peas and beans today, from the south end again

Snowie snow pea
Bonaparte bean, well liked when grown last year
Greenfeast pea,the old shelling standard
Sugar Ann snap pea, reliable producer
Brown Beauty bean
Sonestra bean
Gourmet Delight bean
Slender Wax bean
Mendoza bean (bush Romano?)
Shiraz Purple snow pea
Avalanche bean
Bountiful Butter bean
Ruthless pea
Kelly Lake bean.

Now to build that second frame.

[GoDawgs]

You have a nice bean trial going there. Are these all varieties you've grown before, maybe looking to replace some you've usually done or adding to the flock?

[Whwoz]

Most of them are actually new to me this year [mention]GoDawgs[/mention]. In the climbers Lazy Housewife bean, Heather and Joni's Taxi snow peas have been grown before, rest new. In the bush varieties Bonaparte, Greenfeast and Sugar Ann have been grown before, the rest are new to me. More of the old standards are too go on a second climbing frame still to be built.

[GoDawgs]

How has Lazy Housewife done for you? I tried it two years ago since you can eat the beans in the green, shelly and dried stage. Sounded handy to me! But all I got was foliage and a few flowers. Very few beans. The other climbers did just fine.

[Whwoz]

Lazy Housewife generally does well for us. Not unusual to be able to pick a shopping bag full from 30 or so plants twice a week

[svalli]

Lucky last for now is the Russian garlic I picked up on our Tasmanian trip nearly 2 years ago

That looks like the elephant garlic with those corms on the roots. In your climate you could grow those as perennial plants and it would keep up dividing and multiplying also from those corms. The corms have hard outer shell and I read that those can take even two years to sprout, if left in the ground.

I have experimented with elephant garlic few years. Our winters are too cold for them to survive well. This spring only two of the ones planted in the field came up and did not grow well. The ones planted during spring to my city garden, did not grow well either, so I finally gave up and will save the effort for growing other crops.

[Whwoz]

[mention]svalli[/mention] some people around here do grow them as a perennial crop. Some also treat them more as an ornamental rather than an edible. At this stage I am not worried about keeping the bulbils going.

[bower]

Your creole garlic is very pretty and nice size bulbs. Overall you got quite a few varieties that did well and beautiful bulbs in spite of any climate or weather issues, good to see! I love the names of your peas and beans. Ruthless. I had a watch once and I called it Ruthless (and it was very useful too until it gave up).

[Whwoz]

Thanks [mention]Bower[/mention], more garlic still to harvest with the Artichokes, Silverskin and Purple Stripes still to go. As a group the Artichokes are probably the best this year.

Agree with you re pea names, certainly some different ones about

[Whwoz]

The inch of rain we had the day after I planted the peas and beans was perfectly timed and enough without being too much, started the peas and beans off germinating nicely, some up yesterday

[Whwoz]

Picked nearly 50 lb of cherries at the folks yesterday, all bottled and cooling now, 29 bottles of yumminess

[Ginger2778]

Time has been a bit limited here in the Garden of Woz of late, but have managed to get a bean frame up and started lifting some of the garlic. Bean frame is going to be permeant, the first of two, maybe three.

Bean Frame.jpg

Frame is roughly 12 meters/40 feet long and just over 2 meters/7 feet high. Have had to run water down the row where I want to plant the peas and beans that will go in on it

tomato stake forest.jpg

Just a few(!!) tomatoes, with beetroot, carrots and parsnip in the lighter grey sand to the right of them, Peppers and corn fill those rows with some Pontiac potatoeson the edge of photo

I'm just getting back to your thread. I can't get over how beautiful your property and the view are. You are going to be so happy with that bean frame. (I must start a thread becsuse my garden is kicking in now.) It's been hard to find the time. Now that things are calming down, I will be able to devote myself to my somewhat neglected garden. Loving yours!

[Whwoz]

Thanks [mention]Ginger2778[/mention], your kind comments are much appreciated, looking forward to seeing a thread from yourself and here's to a more normal 2021

[Whwoz]

Youngberry season is here, in 3.5 hours I have picked 10.5 kg/23 lb so far, yummy. Folks and a mate will be here to pick tomorrow, aiming to get the patch picked fairly hard before a couple of days of rain and wind. With luck won't be to bad on the plants as there are a lot more coming on still.

[Whwoz]

2 hours saw 5 people pick at least 22 kg or 48 lb. Now just depending upon how much rain we get over the next couple of days determines how many more we get