After all the stuffing about with illness, trying to find an aged care facility for the MIL at short notice should finally be able to finish cleaning up the other half of the pea bed tomorrow and get some bush peas in. Plenty of varieties to choose from in seed stocks, may look at half height bars as well. Then onto cleaning up the next beds, some of which will be done with hand mower and rotary how if ground not too wet for it. The next land has uprights for trellis so will run a loop of mesh down both sides to help keep plants upright regardless of wind direction

Pea planting time here too, Whwoz. We're just in sync, with the frosty nights and bed preps.

Whwoz wrote: ↑Sat May 28, 2022 5:13 am 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.

The pepper in question is Chili Pie. Will be growing more next season

Speaking of peppers, went to harvest the ripe chocolate peppers under the cover today only to throw a bucket full into the compost. Blasted four footed imported fur balls had eaten a hole in each one and eaten the seeds out of the centre. Not happy!

Pea planting continued today, a short row of Hadspen snow, Delta Louise another snow and Sugar Snap. Longer rows of the purple snow Shiraz and garden pea Ruthless.

Talk about garden seasons in 180 degree opposition, you're planting peas and today I picked the last ones, pulled up the plants and took down the trellis.

While getting some ground ready for the old pea seed today, I came across one of the bulbils from the elephant garleek that I had missed collecting when I lifted the garleek from that area.

Big thing for me was that this one had actually shot, first time in 7 or so years growing it that I have seen one do so. Back in the ground with it and marked it's position so I don't weed it out unintentionally.
Most surprising was that the roots and shoot came out of the one spot.

Wow, that’s interesting!

So rats like pepper seeds? I hate rats! Curses to whoever let those off the boat way back when to infest Oz.

I live in a relatively rural setting. The barred owls and gray foxes seem keep the rat population to very low, undetectable levels, I’ve yet to see any sign of rat damage in the garden. Tree rats, a.k.a. Squirrels, yes, those are a menace and just rats with better clothes. Be thankful those daylight feeding rodents haven’t made it to Australia. Or maybe you have squirrels also? Did some squirrel lover decide to “bless” Australia with squirrels and clandestinely smuggle in a breeding pair?

I’m surprised the various reptiles, snakes, big lizards, in Australia don’t put a healthy dent in the rat population or is your area too temperate and not tropical enough to have an abundance of rat eating reptiles. Surely, some of the various indigenous snakes of Australia would feast on rodents even if rodents aren’t natives?

karstopography wrote: ↑Sat Jun 04, 2022 5:46 am So rats like pepper seeds? I hate rats! Curses to whoever let those off the boat way back when to infest Oz.

I live in a relatively rural setting. The barred owls and gray foxes seem keep the rat population to very low, undetectable levels, I’ve yet to see any sign of rat damage in the garden. Tree rats, a.k.a. Squirrels, yes, those are a menace and just rats with better clothes. Be thankful those daylight feeding rodents haven’t made it to Australia. Or maybe you have squirrels also? Did some squirrel lover decide to “bless” Australia with squirrels and clandestinely smuggle in a breeding pair?

I’m surprised the various reptiles, snakes, big lizards, in Australia don’t put a healthy dent in the rat population or is your area too temperate and not tropical enough to have an abundance of rat eating reptiles. Surely, some of the various indigenous snakes of Australia would feast on rodents even if rodents aren’t natives?

Yes @karstopography , it would appear that rats love pepper seeds, must have been 40 chocolate peppers in that bucket that were cleaned out, the Purple Bueaty's were barely touched in comparison.

We see a few snakes around, about 1 every three years on average. As we live in dairy farming country, the whole area was pretty much bulldozed when cleared and surface drainage established to keep this old swamp usable as farmland. So not a lot of cover for snakes, the big lizards love the bush and are of no help either. The furballs are a down right pain as I don't like to bait a lot due to the presence of various native hawks and kites, but unfortunately they don't get enough to make a difference.

Foxes are vermin here, less popular than small furballs and are actively hunted, we only have the red fortunately, they do more than enough damage to the native furballs. Tree rats fortunately have not made it down under, although some City folk may think that our native possums deserve that title. Brushtails can be agressive, Ringtails are down right cute and cuddly.

The first of the peas are poking their heads up in spite of all the rain we've been having so hopefully I can get time tomorrow to finish mulching that bed.

Went to the freezer to grab a bag of cut up garlic scape for the stir fry for dinner and what! Only three bags left, thinking that I might have to plant more garlic next year for the scapes. Just as well I have people who want a bit.

Thanks for the reminder. I need to cut more (maybe the rest?) of the garlic scapes this morning.

In between showers I have managed to get a second bale of sugar cane mulch on some of the peas, still one to go to finish bed. Fortunately Inspite of all the rain we've had (154 mm/6.16 inches in 12 days) since I sowed the pea seed in it has not rotted, with only Sugar Snap left to start showing. Have not attempted to germinate the old seed and will not do so until I can get the mesh up for them and ground can drain a bit.

Whwoz wrote: ↑Sat Jun 04, 2022 3:47 am While getting some ground ready for the old pea seed today, I came across one of the bulbils from the elephant garleek that I had missed collecting when I lifted the garleek from that area.

Big thing for me was that this one had actually shot, first time in 7 or so years growing it that I have seen one do so. Back in the ground with it and marked it's position so I don't weed it out unintentionally.

IMG_20220604_141059_279.jpg

Most surprising was that the roots and shoot came out of the one spot.

This plant has broken through the surface and is about one inch tall.

Elephant garlic bulbils aka corms have so hard shells that those may take more than a year to start to grow. I once found an YouTube video where an older man in Spain was growing Elephant garlic and he was peeling the corms before planting them.

Thanks for that information @svalli , I have plenty of corms/bulbils in the shed from various clones and I may peel a few to try. Agree that skins are very thick and hard but had assumed that they weren't growing down here due to summer storage conditions.

I have been sent some old pea seed, which following advice from @Bower was soaked (5 seeds per var, 12 vars). These I have listed below with what little information I have on them. More info on this thread old-pea-seed-best-way-to-plant-t3540.html


Delta Dusk: planted 18/6/22, 5 out of 5 seeds shot

Snowman: A Oregon Giant Selection? approx 1 m tall

Salahi: No info/germation as of yet (18/6)

Oregon: from Eden Seeds, probably a snow pea approx 70cm high P 18/6 5/5 seeds

Jupiter: Purple podded Snowpea, supposed to be 1.5 m tall. Named after former Ozgrow member Jupiter by fellow Ozgrow member (and later owner) Templeton aka Gregg Muller from whom I got these seeds. Have grown 3 times previously,.

Lacy lady: Dwarf Tendril Snow? planted 18/6. 4/5 germ

Swiss Giant Snow: approx 1.5m tall. May well be "Schweizer Riesen", a highly regarded old Swiss variety. Planted 18/6 5/5 germ

Anglea's Blue: no info, planted 18/6 5/5 germ.

Mukta: Field Pea, assume short , probably shelling, time will tell. Planted 18/6 5/5 germ.

Kaspa: Field pea (Kaspa Dun Snow?) planted 18/6 5/5 germ

Chinese Snow #2947: No info. planted 18/6 3/5 germ.

Roide Carouby: Carouby De Maussane? planted 18/6 4/5 germ

.

In post 563, I mention some sweet potatos that I was sent to grow on, the following is a summary of what I have found so far, aiming to keep slips going over winter for spring planting.

An update on the above mentioned sweet potatoes, which were sent to me with a note saying that they were from a project on here (being the OSSI forum) aimed at turning them into a seed grown annual. As a result, the 7 tubers and resulting slips will be referred to as SSR1 to SSR7. Events got on top of me and I never got the slips into the ground before our first unexpected light frost, which tickled up some of the leaves, hopefully they will carry through to spring in a mini-greenhouse outside on the deck. When the tubers arrived, most of them had started to shoot and due to limited time and space were potted up, tubers vertical with shoots at top, into a community pot. One had not shot, so it went into and individual pot horizontally. Tubers were covered in soil in which they had been growing and I was unable to make any real assessments about the tubers at that time, not wanting to wash them in case I upset them leading to rot. Individual comments follow and where I have them, photos from when I knocked out the tubers and potted up individual slips. Upon knocking out the tubers, it soon became obvious that I could make basic colour assessments for each tuber

SSR 1.

This is the tuber planted horizontally, it produced green heart shaped leaves, had a purple skin with a purple or mottled purple flesh. Rot had started so not sure if what I was seeing was true or artefact.

SSR 2.

Tuber planted vertically, it produced green palmate leaves. Tuber fully rotten.
2nd Photo showing plants 2 to 7 after knocking out of pot, but before disturbing roots