Hot, hot and more hot!

With yet another sweltering day here in Victoria Australia, it is more about survival of existing crops, plants, pets and people rather than establishing new plantings and doing succession crops. The temperature hit 38 today and is forecast to hit 39 tomorrow. Up until now the evenings have been dropping back to 18-20 so the house has had a chance to cool, the crops have been able to drink up their water  the wicking beds have stored and we have been able to get a decent (relatively) nights sleep. Changing now though, with the current temperature still at 28 and not predicted to drop until early morning. Not looking forward to a hot day at school with tired and hot kids and staff and no way of cooling off.

Seed Saving

I was suffering from a bit of a troubled tummy on Saturday so I was happy to just sit inside and do some seed storing from collected plants. Take my hat off to the way mother nature creates poppy-seed heads, they are beautiful artistically designed heads with little holes under the umbrella top so that seed can scatter. I stored some purple hollyhock, coriander, oriental poppy and a couple of varieties of Aquilegia (granny’s bonnets) seed for both starting new plants and using the surplus for swapping.

I also planted up some beetroot seed I had started inside that have sprouted. I never seem to have a lot of luck with getting beetroot seed to germinate in the garden beds so I thought I’d try starting off inside first. I have read that they don’t like transplanting much but I’ve got nothing to lose by trying and if I do it when they are still really little it may work better. Interested to hear if anyone else has had any luck with this. I soaked the seed for 24 hours then put onto damp paper towel for a few days and I have had a great success rate. Will be interesting to see how they go once I transplant them!

New Sweet Potatoes (hopefully)

I posted on another blog the other day that “I was having a go at starting some sweet potato plants. Not that positive it will work, as the tubers are from the fruit market. I suspect I may have more success sourcing some organically grown ones, but well give it a crack!”

Well, I have roots appearing and the little nodules on the main body are swelling o I just may be lucky!

Yay, some tomatoes!

We are finally getting some tomatoes coming in. I am a little concerned that unless the weather changes we will have a very short season. I would like (Santa) for the temp to just drop to a consistent 25-30 degrees for several weeks (about 12) so the flowers actually develop into fruit and don’t just get fried! My issue of losing name tags early in the season is now rearing its head. What I thought were cherry tomatoes are huge and what I thought should be huge are small. Don’t think I’ll rely on seed saving this season!

Ive also harvested some zucchini, shallots, strawberries, chillies, spring onions, cucumbers and various herbs.

Cool relief!

We are so lucky to have a friend whose farm allows access to the loveliest little oasis which is perfect to go to when the weather is so bloody awful. We spent today playing like kids in a delightful lolly shop, good food, great company, bad outboard motor on the HMS Hunter, but the tyre tubes and air boat came good!

It was such a lovely night on the river bank that we didn’t want to leave!

But we did and I’m here doing this blog post in a hot house, but at least the outside temperature has dropped to 24. Stay cool everyone!