Before the travelling started, 7 crystal apple cucumbers and 3 continental cucumbers were potted up into 4 inch pots. Also managed to get 49 zinnias potted up into individual pots, two are slow starters so maybe doubtful, rest have fully expanded cotyledons and some are starting to show leaves. Probably a few days early to be potting up this bee fodder, but better early than late.

Bees are doing well, so good that owner has dropped in 2 capture boxes in case bees start thinking about swarming. Idea is that bees will hopefully explore new boxes and if they do swarm they will move into one or both of them.

Forgot to mention that there were 32 seedling plugs in that sweet Alice mega punnet, each with 4 or 5 small seedlings in it, no time to get fancy this year but maybe next I will soak and split into individual pots a mega punnet. Will probably get a second mega punnet when we get home to finish the border and stagger plant the zinnias behind them. Lots of other daises coming up, both native and exotic with Asters taking place of zinnias on heat mat.

Arrived home late last night from our travels. Seedlings looking good thanks to a workmate. Three zucchini seedlings planted under plastic have really taken off.

Knowing that the dried basil stocks are getting low and will need replenishment this season, I grabbed a punnet of seedlings today. Massive germination in some places, so split up and report into single pots, 70 plants later and I think that will cover our needs.

Also potted two sweet potatoes into mix and have them on heat pad for at least 24 hrs.

Went through the seed heat pad today, potted up the 10 watermelon seedlings there, killed the 4 slugs that had decided to make it there home and inspected the sweet potatoes planted for slip production. One of the sp has shoots starting, the other smelled funny, so over to the compost heap with that. Get there, what the....what are those shoots? Back with gloves to pull things apart a bit and 27 sweet potato slips later,. Yippee. More will come too, so enough for self, folks and several friends

Is the rain letting up there yet?

@MissS Next week is only a low ( less than 25%) chance of about 2 to 3 mm ( say 0.1 inch) per day which will make a big difference to our local rivers. Floods inland Victoria will be moving along the Murray River from the Echuca area towards Swan Hill by now. There is a chance of thunderstorms.

Cut the first of the garlic scapes today, two turbans which probably should have been cut last week to maximise bulb size and Printanor....*Bleep* hold on a minute a quick check and that's what I thought, Printanor is softneck and should not be putting up scapes, back out to the patch and yep, there's scapes on some more plants just starting. Will leave these on and see what becomes of them.

Planting day for the first of the tomatoes today, about 50 plants in 3 short lands.

A bit warmer today, actually in a run of days around 25C/77F for about a week, with very little rain forecast until Friday, with 6 mm/0.24 inch forecast for Friday and Saturday before stepping up to closer to 0.75 inch Sunday. Hopefully I will be able to get some more ground dug over before then.

Forgot to mention that when scooping some water out of the dam to water in the tomatoes, I caught a Needle bug, close relative to water scorpions

Went to top up the compost heap today, having to add to where the sweet potatoes were coming up, so started scrambling around the area and wound up with another 50 plus shoots, but not sure if all will make it. Going to be interesting to see what comes out of the bin when I empty that area.

The three Zucchinis that went in the ground before we went away are starting to produce a good crop of flowers and resulting fruit. The first one was a short stumpy thing that got thick on me quickly
All 1.472 lb of it, will get grated up and turned into Zucchini fritters for the young fellow.

Some of you maybe aware that I have attempted to keep some sweet potatoes that were sent to me out of season going over winter as plants. This has worked to a varying extent, with one line lost completely, a couple of others doing poorly but surviving well enough to be kept going and one or two really taking off. These plants come from a project aimed at returning the ability to flower to Sweets, ultimately looking at having them as a seed to edible tuber and back to seed crop within one season. Tuber comments are based on observations of old tubers and may not be 100% reliable.

SSR 7 is the one that differs the most, with a pale yellow flesh and light pink skin with green heavily divided leaves.
SSR 1 - 6 appeared to be very similar, with purple skin and mottled to solid purple flash to varying degrees, need to see fresh tubers to be sure of color here.
The outside plants are SSR 1 and are growing well with no sign of buds yet. The single plant, 3rd row of pots in is an SSR 3, which struggled overwinter but is now doing very well with buds in most leaf axils.
SSR 6 has had several slips survive, with this one taking off the quickest. this is the remnants of the 3rd flower for season so far, with lots of buds visible in he leaf axils.

Now I just need to get them in the ground for the bees to have a play or maybe do so myself.

Whwoz wrote: ↑Sun Nov 06, 2022 4:08 am IMG_20221106_131823_871.jpg

Forgot to mention that when scooping some water out of the dam to water in the tomatoes, I caught a Needle bug, close relative to water scorpions

I just had to look this up to find out more about it and found that they are here in the southeast US! Florida Texas, Louisiana and Virginia were named. There are 100 species across Europe, South America, Asia and three of the species in Australia. Who knew?

https://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/AQ ... natra.html

Wet, wet, wet here, nearly 100 mm/4 inches in last 4 days just as the ground was drying out from the last lot. Water lying everywhere, even raised beds are beyond saturated but are the only reason any veggies are still alive. Even wood chip filled walkways have water on top of them.

Picked another 700 grams of garlic scapes and put them into the freezer over last day when weather allowed one outside.

You sure are getting more than your share of rain this year. It sure does make it hard to grow things. You could certainly use a few rays of sunshine from what I have been hearing.

MissS wrote: ↑Tue Nov 22, 2022 8:35 am You sure are getting more than your share of rain this year. It sure does make it hard to grow things. You could certainly use a few rays of sunshine from what I have been hearing.

Yes @MissS, we are not seeing too much of that big yellow ball in the sky unfortunately. Water table above ground level for days now to the point where raised beds are full of water too. But things could be worse, all those folks living along the Murray seaward of Echuca know that they will be flooded at some stage over next couple of months until the waters meet the sea. Getting water in the house is not something we have to expect due to built up pad and house being raised on stumps.

That's good to hear. Now I know that all of my friends that live there homes will be safe. When a home floods it is devastating.

Yesterday was go over the zucchini afternoon, a lot of small ones that probably wouldn't have come to much due to the weather. Wound up turning all of these plus a couple of previously picked ones into zucchini fritters.

Today was weed the zucchini and about 1/3 third of the bed they are in, time limits prevented the rest of the bed being done,slow process in areas due to cooch roots down deep, double digging to get them out in places.. Watermelon seedlings planted in weeded area under plastic, they did not like the cold weather we have been having so hopefully they will pick up. Mainly Stars and Moon with a couple of Sugarbaby.