The Patch

Strawberries … Euw!

Bruce Tonkin — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 03:46:45 +0000

We just ate the first two strawberries of the season, and they were disgusting. Edible, but dried up. They’d been borderline red for a couple of weeks now and warmer weather arrived yesterday, making them red enough to eat. Sadly they were a bit second rate. Dried out, no crisp taste, bit white in the middle, sad looking.

Better luck next time.

Didn’t like the greenhouse …

Bruce Tonkin — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 13:50:10 +0000

After I had ‘Stucco’ (the kids name for the single Hokowase strawberry plant) nearly die on us it was time to move the 50+ strawberries I had purchased from Diggers a month or so ago into the ground. They didn’t like the greenhouse and it probably wasn’t a good idea to have them in there for so long. Lots of them have been through flowering already and are producing fruit.

Going strong …

Bruce Tonkin — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 13:39:40 +0000

Raspberry seems to be going quite strong. In fact all my berries are. This one notably so. There wasn’t much to this a month ago. I have two raspberry plants (is that what they’re referred to as?). An early producer and a late producer. I’m guessing this is the early one.

Spuds

Bruce Tonkin — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 13:29:50 +0000

One of the reasons that I wanted to formalise garden management was that a bird (probably a teenaged bird, drunk on causing trouble) came along and ripped out a couple of tags where I’d recently planted some potatoes. I had no record of what went where other than these tags. This picture (on the right) is the layout of my potato patch.

Not sure how they’ll go. This bed started off it’s life as about 60% sheep poo and not much else. I didn’t notice this until I planted the second patch (left column) two weeks after the first. Packet suggestion is to dig them 10cm down. I dug the second batch 15cm down and found the ’soil’ rather damp and boggy. This is down hill a bit and we’ve had a fair bit of rain recently so maybe it just hasn’t drained properly.

I purchased a mixed bag of potatoes from Diggers (right column and part of the left) and the others (Pink Eye, Bismark, Bintje & Pink Fir Apple) I acquired from trading with someone else. That’s 10 different types of potatoes.

Found an interesting site outlining the pros and cons of each kind. Covers most of those. I’m most looking forward to the Nicola (excellent for mashing, gnocchi, boiling, chips, roasting with a very buttery flavour) and the Cranberry Red (red all the way to the middle). As for a name, got to love the Kipfler or the Spunta.

And here’s a couple of photos of where it’s at …