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Home » Edible Gardening Blog for Melbourne Based Gardeners » 2015 » September » 24

Daily Archives: September 24, 2015

How to Grow Cucamelons in Melbourne, Mouse Melon, Mexican Sour Gherkin. — Cucamelons are becoming an increasingly popular edible plant in Melbourne. More and more people are asking me how to grow them, and from where to source the seed. Last summer, I grew cucamelons for the first time, they were amazing. Here’s our guide on how to grow them, it’s pretty […]

How to Grow Cucamelons in Melbourne

This entry was posted in How to Grow on September 24, 2015 by Leaf, Root & Fruit

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Plant Soil Conditioner Trial March 6, 2019
Spring Planting Guide for Melbourne August 22, 2018
How to Grow Great Tomatoes in Melbourne August 16, 2018
Day Length and Plants (Photoperiodism) July 30, 2018
How to Grow Raspberries June 6, 2018

leafrootfruit

Our first asparagus harvest of the season. Two wee

Our first asparagus harvest of the season. Two weeks earlier than last year.

Asparagus is such an easy plant to grow. It's perennial, so plant it, feed it occasionally and water it well and you'll be rewarded with an abundance of spears.

This will be the first of many harvests over the next few months. With much larger and plenty more spears in each harvest.

#asparagus #perennialveggie #homegrown #frommygarden #edibleforestgarden #permaculture #twoweeksearly #spears #organic #isogardening

Last week we were busy preparing soil, forming bed

Last week we were busy preparing soil, forming beds and planting seeds for some trial root crops.

I have a lot of experience growing veggie crops in Melbourne. However, Kyneton is a different climate o Melbourne, so in some aspects I'm re-learning to garden all over again.

To speed up the learning process we are sowing some trial root crops this spring. Flavour, disease resistance and yields are very much linked to the specific varieties of each vegetable that you grow. So running this trial will enable us to select the best varieties for growing in Kyneton. We have sown 13 varieties of carrots, 10 varieties of beetroot, 3 varieties of parsnip, 4 varieties of onion and 5 varieties of radish.

After sowing the seeds I watered them in well (the beetroot seeds were also pre-soaked in water for a few hours before sowing). I place some old sheets of polycarbonate sheeting on each bed. This will help to stop the beds drying out and also warm the soil. In the past I have used cardboard to help germinate carrot seed, but notice that slaters and earwigs congregate under the sheets of cardboard and can make short work of germinate carrot seedlings when they emerge. They don't seem to be congregating under the polycarbonate in the same way.

I'll monitor these crops to see which varieties grow best in our local climate. This will enable us to narrow down a smaller range of varieties to grow in future years.

For those of you in Melbourne, my go to varieties for growing there are: Top Weight Improved Carrots, Beetroot Di Chioggia, Hollow Crown Parsnip, NZ Creamgold Onion and Watermelon Radish.

What gardening experiments and trial crops are you planning for the season ahead?

#springplanting #rotaryhoe #roots #gardentrial #rootcrops #carrot #beetroot #parsnip #radish #onion #experiment #dig #tastetest #kyneton #melbourne #lockdowngardening #bedforming #tilling

Happy first day of spring! May your season ahead

Happy first day of spring!

May your season ahead be as productive and happy as this little native bee. It seems to be out and about a bit early on in the season. It sure did like the flowers on our bolting wombok today.

What are you looking forward to about the season ahead?

#spring #inmygarden #bolting #wombok #nativebee #idplease #yellowandgreen #ecosystem #savethebees #veggiepatch #beemagnet #foodforusandthebees #sunshine #excitingtimes

It's the last day of winter and I've almost finish

It's the last day of winter and I've almost finished my winter jobs. A bit later than I expected, mainly due to the suspension of our internship during the current lockdown.

Today I finished our fruit tree grafting, which has been going for months. Such a relief to have them grafted and planted out. We find it difficult to source or plants from external suppliers, in the quantities that we need for our landscaping jobs. It can be especially challenging to find them on the correct rootstocks. To increase the resilience of our supply chain, we propagate as many of the plants, including fruit trees, as possible.

Only one more sleep until spring!

https://www.leafrootfruit.com.au/choosing-the-right-fruit-tree-rootstock/

#grafting #fruittree #backyardorchard #rootstock #coxsorrangepippin #winterjobs #onemoresleep #springtime #permaculture #resilience #supplychain #landscape #foodscape

Caption this image for us! A bt of a queue at the

Caption this image for us!

A bt of a queue at the nest box this morning.... Always a good sign!

There's two perfectly good nests there, but they all prefer the one on the right. I think it's because the box on the right is a bit darker.

Home grown popcorn! We trialled growing a few dif

Home grown popcorn!

We trialled growing a few different types of corn last summer. One variety was a popping corn. It's the first time I've tried to grow it. We allowed the cobs to dry on the plant and then brought them inside to dry further once the weather turned cold.

We tried popping the corn about 6 weeks ago, and although it was noisy, the kernals didn't invert fully. Instead they just cracked open slightly. Rather than give up on the crop entirely, I placed the cobs on the top shelf of the pantry to see if further drying could improve our success.

Excitingly it has! This afternoon we popped two cobs of corn. It came out perfectly.

This is a heirloom variety. I was careful to grow this crop well away from our other corn crops. We also sowed this crop last in the season and it flowered much later than the other varieties. So we can plant some of the seed this summer and should have plants that are true to type. If the crop has been cross pollinated, or if it were a hybrid corn like most sweet corn, then seed saving would be a water of time.

What exciting crop trials have you done? Are you looking forward to growing anything for the first time this summer?

#popcorn #homegrown #fromourgarden #organic #heirloomseed #sundayarvo #childrensgarden #seedsaving #selfsufficiency #windpollinated #growyourownsnacks

Some parents sit through singing, dance concerts o

Some parents sit through singing, dance concerts or plays that their children put on in the living room. Our 3yo Angus chooses to share gardening workshops with us instead. He runs a very informative workshop full of explanations and demonstrations. Today was a workshop on growing nasturtiums, including saving and sowing seeds.

Yesterday, Caryn and I were invited to a workshop on grafting fruit trees. Angus has put together his own grafting kit. I've never specifically demonstrated to him how to graft, but he's certainly got the right idea. The loungeroom is scattered with sticks wrapped in sticky tape "grafting tape".

How do your children (or grandchildren) like to get involved in the garden?

#likefatherlikeson #theappledoesntfallfarfromthetree #workshop #grafting #nasturtiums #children #prouddad #cleverkid #gardeningwithangus #graftingworkshop #rainydayfun

Chopping board art... Beetroot Di Chioggia What's

Chopping board art... Beetroot Di Chioggia

What's your favourite artistic vegetable?

#dichioggia #beetroot #veggieart #frommygarden #growyourown #heirloomseed #roastroots #choppingboard #bullseye #organic #veggiepatch

The bees were loving today's warm, sunny weather a

The bees were loving today's warm, sunny weather and our trailing blue rosemary....

Feels like spring is nearly here!

#rosemary #savethebees #beegarden #ecosystem #edibleforestgarden #herbs #blue #honeybee #blueskies #springtime #lockdowngardening #pollinator

Have you noticed some of your vegetable crops gett

Have you noticed some of your vegetable crops getting a bit long and leggy in the last week? Perhaps some of them are even flowering?

This process is known as bolting. Essentially it is the plant flowering in an attempt to set seed and pass on its genes. It is regulated by day length in a phenomenon known as photoperiodism. Leafy greens such as rocket, kale, bok choi, parsley, corriander and silverbeet are all susceptible to photoperiodism. Bolting veggies often results in bitter and or tough veggies that are not very palatable.

See our blog post for more information on this phenomenon: https://www.leafrootfruit.com.au/day-length-and-plants-photoperiodism/

#photoperiodism #bolting #veggiepatch #redbokchoi #gameover #daylength #vegetablescience #flowering #settingseed #brassica

Our tomato seeds have germinated and the seedlings

Our tomato seeds have germinated and the seedlings are looking healthy.

This year we have sown 18 varieties to grow in our mini-market garden. We hope that restrictions will allow us to run our March 2021 session of the Science of Edible Gardening Workshop Series. That particular session involves a tomato taste test of as many different varieties as we can grow and rustle up!

Have you sown your tomato seeds yet?

#tomato #seedling #springplanting #heirloomseed #organic #growyourown #scienceofediblegardening #tastetest #permaculture #growgreattomatoes #veggiepatch

Our first fruit tree blossom of the season! This

Our first fruit tree blossom of the season!

This is a blood plum called Narabeen. Although technically a blood plum, it has red skin but yellow flesh. This blossom is on a small tree that I grafted only last year. I've never tasted this particular variety so am looking forward to hopefully sampling the fruit in the new year.

How are your fruit trees coming along?

#blossom #spring #springhassprung #bloodplum #imadeitmyself #narabeen #grafted #plum #backyardorchard #permaculture #selfsufficiency #edibleforestgarden #fruittree #blossomporn

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