Preparing for winter

Winding down summer is always a sad feeling, especially for us when we have grown up with sunshine all year round in India. The plants make up for it by giving us vegetables that last us for a while.

The newest addition to the veggie patch was the Brinjal (Eggplant/Aubergine). We harvested two really nice ones, though I had to watch out for the hidden thorns on the green part of the vegetable! There are a couple more that are developing, but not sure whether they will make it before the cold arrives.

Brinjal

The potatoes are still faithfully providing us some every year. They tend to start sprouting from a new spot in the vegetable bed every year, so I really have to watch out for them through the mulch!

Potatoes

Next up are the various chillies. I had planted three varieties last summer and had over-wintered all of them. They did well, though not as much as last year. This season will be their last in my garden.

Chillies

I also harvested the various herbs and a single bhindi (okra). Obviously the bhindi needed more heat than our so-called summer gave it.  In the picture below, clockwise from top, are mint, cinnamon basil, capsicum, chilli, jalapeno, large chilli and bhindi in the middle. The final harvests were done, summer was over.

Last summer harvest

To cheer us up, we thought of trying out our hand at some easy to grow winter veggies. Winter is a cold, damp and windy time in Melbourne, so we were not looking for something that needs a lot of care. We settled on Kale, Spinach, Garlic and Peas.

Winter veggies

While we were there, we also picked up a vertical herb planter. Our wall gets the sun in winters, so I thought this might work. We got Coriander, Parsley, Rosemary and Chives. We filled in the other spaces with Basil, Mint and Strawberry cuttings from our existing plants.

Vertical planter

Updating the veggie bed

When we bought our veggie bed, we did not have enough soil to fill it all the way to the top. To fill it to the top needed at least 40 bags of soil, which was back breaking work. Hence, the first year, we only filled it halfway. Every year after that, we raised the level of the patch in part. This year was the final raise to bring the entire patch to a workable level. It did mean transplanting some plants that we had growing already and not being able to increase the height of the asparagus side.

Raising the level of soil

We added some seasonal vegetables like lettuce, spinach and eggplant to the mix. The potato on the right, and the chillis and capsicum on the left are from last year.

Last summer, we had bought 6 chilli plants. I wanted to try my hand at saving the plants from the frost, to see if they would survive. I am happy to say that they did. We covered them with a shade cloth throughout winter and pruned the dead branches at the start of spring. I later learnt that this process is called "overwintering".

Hot chilli

Jalapeno chilli

Mild chilli

This year I also tried  my hand at raising some vegetables from seeds. A couple of years ago, we had a basil plant from BAAG, whose dried leaves lasted us for two years! We wanted a new one this time, but were disappointed that the season was not hot enough for them to stock the plants. Instead we picked up seeds of a "cinnamon basil" plant. I planted it September, it has just started to show some leaves.

Cinnamon basil

Finally, we picked up Bhindi (Okra) seeds too.  I do not have much hopes with this vegetable as it needs heat. Our veggie patch gets direct sunlight only in peak summer (2-3 months) for 4-6 hours per day. Anyway, the seed did sprout and I planted two of them. There is a sign of a fruit/flower in the plant already, will have to wait and see what it develops into.

Bhindi plant

A substantial harvest

Season 2 of garden harvest was more consistent. This year we had planted lettuce, capsicum, tomato, potato, strawberries, mint, cucumber, coriander, carrot and three kinds of chillies. Our veggie patch was groaning under the weight of all the produce!

Roma Tomato

Cucumber

Capsicum

Lettuce

The potatoes were our oldest plants. They were shooting up from leftover spuds in the ground. Compared to last year, we lost fewer to rot.

The strawberry plant was also from last year, having multiplied. Unfortunately, this season we have had an ongoing battle with a strawberry thief. We were unable to beat him to the fruit! Despite covering the plant with a cloth, the rat/possum/bird/whatever it was, still ate all of them.

This year we harvested the first of our asparagus. There was only one thick enough for eating. All the others grew side shoots very quickly, which is what sets the roots for the upcoming harvests.

Asparagus and few strawberries

Our most substantial harvest was from the chillies and capsicum. We had three varieties which had different levels of hotness. Hottest were the tiny ones, Jalapenos were less hot and the least hot were the fat ones. There were so many that I had to freeze them for use throughout the year and distribute them to friends!

Chillies in their full splendour

Mild chilly

The entire chilli harvest - ready to be frozen

We had a decent harvest of capsicums too. Most we ate while they were green, a couple we left to become riper and red.

Capsicum

Previous year, we had not liked the lettuce variety too much. This year we bought iceberg lettuce plants and harvested them in full before it became too hot and they started to bolt.

Iceberg lettuce

We harvested many more tomatoes this year, as we had planted them earlier in the season. They were Roma tomatoes, really juicy. The mint plant grew well and I dried a lot of leaves for the year.

Roma tomato

Mint for drying

I had also saved up coriander seeds from last year, which gave us some leaves. Frankly though, coriander needs too much work. One has to keep sowing them successively and can only harvest a few leaves per plant! Also, we got an odd carrot or two but most went to seed. The cucumber did not flower at all.

Coriander

Lone carrot

This season reinforced the satisfaction of growing our own vegetables. They were not as large as the ones in the supermarket, but were really tasty. Season 3 of our garden ended with a resolve to grow more next year!

Summer harvests

Following the relative success of the vegetables in the first year, we were really keen to try some more. BAAG was the place for some good veggie saplings.

Asparagus had recently become part of our diet and is easy to grow if you have patience. It takes two years to give a worthy harvest!

The other new addition to the garden was strawberries. The plant struck quite quickly and even gave out runners in a couple of months!

Strawberries

The other vegetables were a repeat of last year but started off earlier in the season. We got fresh plants of lettuce, chilli, spinach, capsicum and tomato.

Lettuce

Capsicum

 Meanwhile, the orange tree had some flowers which would soon turn into fruits.

Flowers in bloom on the Orange tree

Season 1 finale

By this time, we had quite a few vegetables that were ready for picking! Mint grows really vigorously and I had to start drying the leaves out for later use. The same can be said about Basil. It grew at a furious pace over the hot days, too fast for consumption. Hence, the Basil leaves were also put out in the sun for drying.

Mint

Basil for drying

Amongst the other vegetables that we had planted, the potato harvest was the most substantial. We did have isolated harvests of tomato, chilli, spinach and (a) capsicum.

Potato

A few tomatoes

Tomato harvest

Some chillies

Lone capsicum

Spinach harvest

But winter was approaching and Season 1 of Anshu-Pallo's garden show was over.