The Garden of Woz...

[Whwoz]

Santa Fe Grande,

Small prolific pepper plants, three were planted and produced well, estimate around the 1.5lb mark per plant. Heat level varies across the three plants, two were to warm for the kids and Mrs, I did not really enjoy the heat either, getting soft these days considering I used to keep up with a couple of Sri Lankens whom loved there chilli. Will probably wind up pulling one plant, right at end of bed to make covering them easier, the two remaining will supply enough heat for next years Sweet Chilli Sauce.

Santa Fe Grande (2)a.jpg

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Some of the fruit off two of the plants, seperated by Marconi Rosso's, never did get around to working out which was the hottest.

[Whwoz]

A few extra tomato comments to finish off for the season. with the condensed nature of the season here this year, I missed making mental notes and taking photos of several varieties, mainly ones that I had grown before. Some that I made notes on for one reason or another are:

Elbonian Mudslinger: unlike its Mudball side kick, this one was an absolute flop. Cannot believe that any variety could perform that badly as a whole, so I suspect that it was just this one plant, which grew extremely slowly once in the ground, planted at roughly the same size as the two Mudballs, it struggled to gain height, would have been lucky to be two foot tall at seasons end, having produced only one or two flowers which did not set fruit. Fortunately @Tormato , I have more seed and will give it another shot next year.

Dana's Dusky Rose, this definitely got crossed two years ago when I first grew it. Something about it last year had me thinking it was crossed, then to produce red/pink fruit this year.....not happy...............but only got self to blame. I believe I kept seed from this year and it should be good.

Potatomatti and 42 Days got smothered by weeds a bit, did not realise just how small they would remain. Will be growing both again to better assess under my conditions.

Italian Flat and Perito Italian are two that are basically clones of the costuloto types. Need to get a bit more TLC to give them a fair shot to fully assess them. Have all the appearances of a good sauce tomato.

[Whwoz]

With the unexpected frost the other day and tonight's forecast getting very close to frost territory, as was this mornings 3.3C/38F it was time to get the covers on the capsicums. I had been working on the frames for a few days, and managed to get the plastic on today while no wind was about.

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covered capsicums 2.jpg

The boards and bricks will hold the plastic in place when the wind gets up. Hopefully the short cover will stay intact, it was last years cover and had a bit more damage to it that I thought. Hopefully duct tape will hold.

[GoDawgs]

"Garlic planting time here in the Garden of Woz."

I love it. You're planting garlic and it won't be long, maybe about 3 weeks until I'll be harvesting mine. What a variety of varieties you have!

I hope you successfully dodge Mr. Frosty.

[Whwoz]

"Garlic planting time here in the Garden of Woz."

I love it. You're planting garlic and it won't be long, maybe about 3 weeks until I'll be harvesting mine. What a variety of varieties you have!

I hope you successfully dodge Mr. Frosty.

I hope that we dodge Mr Frosty too GoDawgs, this morning was close enough thank you.

Final tally for the garlic is 35 varieties and 4 varieties of giant/Russian/elephant garleek. Must update the list. Have cut back from last year, some varieties did not do very well and have not been replaced. Looking at getting a couple of varieties from each group available here, do not have any Asiatics, only one in the country and I was too late to get that this year, will try next January as long as I don't forget.

[Whwoz]

Ok all garlic/garleek planted and most of it is starting to come up, the inch or thereabouts of rain that we have just had since Mr frosty put in his only appearance to date went down very well. Final complete planting list is:

Subtropical Silverskin
Italian Red

Turban

Iris
Master Jack
Monaro Purple
Traf White Turban
White Crookneck

Porcelain

French Ruski
Music
Susan Delafield

Artichoke

Bulgaria 49
Dolovosky
French Messidrome

Purple Stripe Crosses

Mild 180-4
Perhonnen Kahdesta (SPS x Mps)

Standard Purple Stripe

Shvelisi Chesnok Red
Tessa
Tryest
Tryfra
Trysa
Vietnamese Red

Marbled Purple Stripe

Dunganski
Marbled Blush

Glazed Purple Stripe

Pyong Vang
Vekan

Creole

Mariposa de la Tierra
Rojo de Castro
Violette d'Agen

Silverskin

Lokalen
Printanor
Wilde Silver

Rocambole

Spanish Roja Red
Chesnok Bogatyr
Deerfield Purple
French Red
Red Russian

Garleek

Ashgrove Cheesery Tasmania
Johnston Creek Giant
Pa's Mammoth
The Lost Seed

Final tally is 506 cloves planted, which will get spread out among family and friends as requested.

[Whwoz]

Not all the garlic planting maybe done yet. Wife took some over to her work and one or two of her colleagues really liked one of them. Not sure if it is one that I have in the ground or not. Not much left of the one that is not so it will all go in ground if it is that one, the other I will put in an extra 25 or 30 of if needed, fortunately plenty of that one left and still sufficient ground for another 6 rows if needed.

Thinking of doing a porcelain block to see if I can get seed.

[Whwoz]

Put in some extra garlic today,

Creoles

Vulcanite. 10
Dynamite. 28
Spanish Roja. 28

Glazed Purple Stripes

Vekan, 15 extra

These will be offloaded to wife's co-workers.

Also managed to get some shallots in today. Mostly mulched as well which is great.

Also put in four of each of the three porcelain garlics that I have in a staggered pattern to see if they will produce seed. I have had Magic flower here before without removing bulbils, aiming to remove bulbils on this dozen. May do the same with the two glazed purple stripe garlics that I have, just need a separate location , which is available.

[bower]

Will be eagerly awaiting your account of the true seed experiments.

[Whwoz]

It got rather windy here about 4am. Don't know if I am going to be able to keep the capsicum covered this year, Might just have to be a pull and restart.

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Not sure if I have enough plastic left for a recover job or not Short row cover is also split and overnight temperature getting close to frost early next week.

Not at all happy.

[Whwoz]

Jack Frost will come out to play tonight, forecast is for 1C, 33.8 F, but we tend to be a couple of degrees cooler than the local weather station.

Unrolled the last of the plastic, not quite enough to cover the full length of the row which split, so have laid the new piece under the old, which being on the south end should be on a position not to be damaged by the wind too much, at least I hope anyway.

Picked a basket full of peppers from the short row yesterday, mainly chocolates, plenty of Purple Beauty's on, just need them to ripen. Going to put in a polycarbonate green house for next year.

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[bower]

That's a lovely haul from a winter greenhouse, Whwoz!

[Whwoz]

That's a lovely haul from a winter greenhouse, Whwoz!

Thanks Bower, those plants went in late and probably had the best of the weather, the chocolates are fairly well loaded, upto 10 or 12 fruit on smallish plants but have only been ripening for the past month. Still plenty on some plants, but it is a pain to harvest on hands and knees. If we get a nice day will open them up and allow to breathe for 3 or 4 hours. Igloos make a big difference in temperature, would be 5 plus degrees warmer with only a couple of hours Sun.

[Whwoz]

Just checked the weather forecast, Jack Frost will be here for probably the next 5 nights, not happy about that.

[svalli]

I was already earlier going to comment that you need a real greenhouse where you can walk in for winter gardening. Your greenhouse season could then be at same months as mine

[Whwoz]

I was already earlier going to comment that you need a real greenhouse where you can walk in for winter gardening. Your greenhouse season could then be at same months as mine

What sort of temperatures do you expect during summer Sari. Over the next three to four months we will drop down to -3C on most frosty nights, -7C is the lowest we have experienced here. Maximums can range from 8 or 9C when a cold front from the west comes through to about 15C after a frosty night provided the sky stays clear. A southerly buster ripping up from Antarctica can see snow down to sea level occasionally.

[svalli]

Right now our or max is at about 15C and night time it can go close to 0. I have an old electric heater in the greenhouse for the cold nights, with thermostat set to 10C.

Usually in June we have highs around 20C and there may be some frosts overnight, but since we are close to sea, that usually does not happen here. I keep the greenhouse door open during day and also through night when night time temperature stays above 10C. In July we may get sometimes temperature above 30C. Greenhouse really helps stretching the season here with earlier start for planting and I can grow seedlings there to be planted out after last threat of frost has passed.

For cold nights you may need some way of heating the greenhouse unless it is well insulated. If the ground does not freeze, your greenhouse could stay above freezing even without heating.

[Whwoz]

Jack Frost will come out to play tonight.,....... Fortunately Jack did not put in an appearance overnight, so with the beautiful weather, cloudless sky and up around 17C 62 F, opened up the other end of the short igloo and picked another 20 or thereabouts chocolate peppers and a couple of Purple Bueaty's. With the high humidity I loose a lot to rots of one sort or another in these covers, so only kept about 12. May need to look at a batch of chocolate sweet chilli sauce to use some up.

More bean mulch spread about, aiming to mulch all lands as they get cleaned up and reshaped, hopefully minimising weeds for spring.

I have 5 different rocambol garlics and being in the process of reading the True Garlic Seed thread on the old HG site, noting that people have produced rocambol seed, decided to put in a semi randomised block to see if I can get some seeds. Some people in Tasmania regard these as the best of the garlic. We are borderline for there growth so if I can get seed I maybe able to select a strain that suits this area better than current stock.

Total garlic cloves planted approximately 620.

[Whwoz]

We have missed frosts on last 3 nights, very happy about that. Been able to clean up a fair bit of the vegetable garden and with help from the kids, have most of what has been cleaned up mulched. Managed to get 3 X 3.5 Meyer rows of climbing peas in today, the yellow snow Joni's Taxi, shelling pea Lord Leicester and the snap pea Sugar Bon, a first timer. These all went on the existing trellis with a second lot of mesh run down the west side of the supports so regardless of whether the wind blows from the east or west the peas will be blown into mesh until they are 2.5 feet tall. The other half of this bed will be planted with bush peas and then mulched.

[Whwoz]

One of the late planted red capsicums/ bell peppers got the Daughter's taste approval tonight, cannot remember which one it is, will get name tomorrow after it has warmed up. Looks like I need to do a harvest of the peppers tomorrow anyway.