Summer round-up – the positives
- Great salad greens, eggplants, squash.
- Prolific, tasty cucumbers.
- Good growth for onions and sweet potatoes.
- Visit from Bundeena Community Garden.
The photographs attached show the excellence of our salad greens, eggplants, summer squash, basil and tromboncini/zuchetta (those weirdly shaped zucchini, pale green in colour). Our cucumbers were so prolific that they appeared all over town. Onions and sweet potatoes also grew well.
A highlight for us was the visit from a delightful couple from the Bundeena Community Garden; their insights, hard work and terrific harvesting skills were inspirational. One of their hot tips was to freeze freshly dug turmeric and to simply grate it into whatever you are cooking, for example, scrambled eggs, curries, soups and so on.
The not-quite-so positives
- The tomatoes, while fairly prolific, were subject to splitting.
- Green caterpillars were unwelcome pests.
- The zucchini (the real ones) lacked joie de vivre, due to flowers failing to open to allow for fertilisation.
- The experimental summer planting of kohlrabi was unsuccessful due to hot weather, which caused splitting.
Into the future
The tomato beds will lie fallow and will be planted with a green manure crop. The winter vegetables have been planted and include cabbage, bok choy, cauliflower, broccoli and kohlrabi.
All feedback about the ‘not-so-positive’ points is welcomed.
Kate Holywell, volunteer – FIG – Friendly Inn Garden
