Produce gardening

Well I set out this afternoon to tidy up and rotary hoe 4 beds down the back. Bed 1 is a funny triangle bed that grew broad beans, jerusalem artichokes & cabbages last year. Broad beans were self seeding already, so I dug them up and set them aside, raked off the straw, sidestepped the JA's (you really don't want to rotary hoe them!) and turned the rest of the bed over. Nice and moist and looking good. Lots of well broken down straw mixed in with it. I raked up 2 long beds down the long side of the triangle for peas, and made a middle wedge shaped bed. Planted the BB seedlings back in the middle, and popped in some more BB seeds to fill up the bed.
Thought I would start on bed 2 before planting the peas. I was just going to rotary hoe the ends, and weed all around the beetroot and kohl rabi and leave them be. Well the dandelion seedlings outnumbered the beeds about 20 to 1, so in a fit of I don't know what - I dug up my precious beetroot seedlings and transplanted them to one of the pea beds. nearly 100 seedlings! Then I dug up the 3.5 kohl rabi seedlings (I don't think .5 will survive ) and transplanted them. I finished off the pea bed with purple cabbages and broccoli seedlings. Planted the other pea bed peas and watered the whole lot in. The peas were labelled plant by 2002. I'm taking bets on the sruvival of the beetroots, and the germination of the peas.
Not a bad effort as the bed had been earmarked for Louisana irises. LOL
The second bed I raked up the straw and dug thoroughly. I'm debating whether to plant it with green manure and turn it over again, or cover it with straw and compost and let it sit until Spring.
Bed 3 was last years Bearded iris seedlings, which i had prevously removed. Only 1/2 a bed really but nice clean soil, with a bit of rotted straw in it. I thought it might be good to plant with onions. I have 3 packs of seed. white Lisbon, early Californian red & cream gold. I haven't grown onions for years, and would like to bunch some up and store like I used to.
Bed 4 - well I didn't get that far. Tomorrow, time permitting. That will be for Siberian irises that need transplanting.
It was a lovely afternoon and nice to get away from the bookwork for a while
Cheers, Jan

Sounds like a very busy day

Very impressed. All I managed was to clean the oven (stinking mess left by previous tenants that I'd been putting off and putting off), take my chilli and tomatoes outside for a bit of sun (lovely day) and feed them with KFF (kelp, fish emulsion, fulvic acid - wish I hadn't now that they're back in the living room, boy, are they on the nose!!!).

I hate cleaning my oven , not much here when I got home, just watered a few plants, cooked dinner, that's all, too cold when I get home and it is getting dark so early that is why I love DLS

You did well!

I took the string off one row of tomatoes, wound it up in a big ball. Still a few green toms on the Tommy Toe, but the others are toast.

Dug over where last year's Broad Beans were, thought about shifting my potato onions and shallots there, but came inside and finished fringing a scarf instead. Heated the ministrone I made yesterday. Yum, found a couple of ok zucchini, some silverbeet and a nice capsicum to go in the pot. It always amazes me how good the capsicum plants look long after the tomatoes are mainly just memories.

Today, I transplanted celery and leeks into their final spots and sowed a bed densely with fenugreek as a green manure crop. DOesn't seem much, looking back on it. Tomorrow I'll be sowing more collards, pak choy, Ethiopian cabbage and perhaps some spinach, though I'm beginning to think spinach needs to be sown early spring here, or perhaps just after the summer solstice to let it get some size before the winter hits. Only trouble with that of course is that it tends to bolt just after it emerges from the ground!

I have to confess that I gave up on English Spinach for just that reason. I stick to Chard and Silver Beet which has a more robust flavour anyway. If I really have to have spinach I succumb and buy the packet stuff. Then curse at the price after it cooks down to nothing!