40 Hours Out

40 hours to go before the Man v Carrot Challenge begins. Midnight 1/1/12 is when @jenkobianco aka Pauly and I work towards the honourable goal of living off our 16 m2 of vegetable patch for 6 days. As I thought all along, the real challenge would be getting all the spring plantings to come on stream at the right time.

And a challenge it has been. The seed companies and punnet people have no idea as to how long things take to crop, well not in Adelaide anyway. Just about everything I planted matured weeks before it was supposed to. With the exception of corn, I’ve planted all the vegetables before, but I must admit that I never really took much notice about how long things took to come along. I suppose that Man v Carrot, if nothing else has forced me to take a lot more notice of what is happening out there in the patch.

So here’s the state of play.

Dwarf Beans: My 2010 selection matured weeks ago, so much so that I’ve already collected dried seed from it for next years planting. The other varieties were pretty ready a couple of weeks ago, but in the interests of survival I have let them go into that ugly lumpy stage. A bit like I look at the moment. A long slow cook in a crock pot will fix em. Either that or I’ll be grinding them up into French bean flour. Eewwww.  On a positive note, in desperation I planted half a dozen a couple of weeks ago. I spotted some tiny green beans on them this morning. So by the end of challenge week I may have supple young beans. But with 100F (38C) being forecast for today and 105F (41C) tomorrow, they may just crisp up and blow away.

Cucumber. They were disappointing. I think I harvested 5 off 4 bushes. I missed 3 hiding under the undergrowth, so they grew to the size of small badgers. Currently there is a single one hanging in there, but luckily it looks like it will be just right come challenge week. Back to the Lebanese variety next year rather than the long ones. I really need to find out how those Italians seem to be able to grow them up onto their rooves and harvest two or three tonnes off a couple of plants.

Corn: These look pretty good. They silked up 50 days ago and according to some site in Iowa dedicated to the worship of everything corn, they should be spot on. Pauly thinks that they will be overdone and I’ll be making corn fritters from the flour that I’ll be milling. Yes one did burst its pyjamas and turned into a really dried up skanky yellow thing that a Mayan peasant would be proud of, but I’m hoping that it was just an aberration.

Silverbeet (swiss chard). Who could go wrong with this weed. But even one of these has gone to seed. I planted tham as an insurance policy. I might be filling out a policy form later on in the week.

Carrots: Variable results. The round ones that I planted over the top of the early potato patch turned into little round balls of wood and went to seed, but there are a few that might be ok. The baby carrots won’t be that baby (so my decision to plant them later than @PMillerOZ advised was justified – it ain’t Melbourne Prez). The strange purple ones that I stole from my sister when they were half grown have slowly mulled along. I’m hoping there is something under the ground there. You never know with carrots. Sometimes the largest healthiest head of green hair up top means nothing underneath. Sock in the pants I call it. And yes I’ll get in before everyone else chimes in --- Aha.. I should know!

Spinach: Yeah right 'punnet man'. These were supposed to take six weeks. Make that two and half. Long gone. Popeye would be pissed.

Capsicum: Long yellow. Good choice. Lots of capsicums and whilst they were ready a couple of weeks ago (and I’ve picked quite a few as well), they appear to be able to hang on the bush for a long period. I can’t believe that I was worried that I planted them too late. Pauly’s have been hanging there so long they look like my wifes spray tan. Any longer mate and you’ll be checking them for melanomas.

Chillis: If I ever became a farmer, I’d grow these things. So easy! The Diablo was not that vigorous but has some nice red fruit. The Caysan looks great and has given me a dozen or more big ones already. Lots more there, and lots more to come. Medium heat, but nothing special. Paul has hardly any (none?), so I can see these being used as bargaining chips. One chilli for a kilo of tomatoes will be my ambit claim. Ahhh, what am I thinking he doesn’t have a kilo of ripe tomatoes. Cueys might be a better gardening chip.

Potatoes: I had a dream….. a bad one. Paul has been seeding my brain with the suggesting that my underground store or carbs that I cunningly produced shortly after announcing the challenge have gone green and are germinating again. In my dream I dug them up and they were spongey and rotten. I’m confident they are neither. Without them I think I’ll be emigrating to America to avoid the famine. Paul has a store 1/8 the size, so I’ve booked him on QF2 to LA next Wednesday.

Pumpkin: I’ve got a Queensland Blue on my carport roof that you could see from outer space, but as predicted they won’t be anywhere near ready. Paul has his green one with sectors marked on it, with each sector labelled Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday etc. He didn’t even need a calculator 360 divided by 6 and all. He’s been Googling green pumpkin recipes, but the only thing he found was a site that suggested that they were good to eat before having an enema. Helps things along apparently.

Spring onions: All good. Not the tender things you would normally pick, but the oniony flavoured bulb will be a godsend.

Tomatoes: My sister calls me “Master” (in the Kung Fu, grasshopper tradition). Yes, I’ve got a nice stash of Improved Apollo (mainly), but Money Maker and Mighty Red have also quite a few. Father Tom should be perfect at the end of the challenge week. My only concern is that the mass of brush tailed possums that have decided to call my roof home, have finally worked out that red doesn’t mean poisonous. Took them ten years, but why just now? Most nights they half eat one or two. Perhaps it’s Paul? That’s a thought. No he would make more of a mess. On the downside, they are succumbing quickly to fungal disease. Any ideas on organic control in tomatoes would be warmly appreciated.

My Own Private Idaho Potato Challenge

My usual approach to potatoes is as follows - take your rotten potatoes from inside the house and chuck them in the garden, if they come up good, if not - doesn't matter. If they find a good producing spot - dont take them all. That way you keep on eating for years.

Now my ag. science based disease freak of a mate (the stats! guy) - goes apoplectic about the above - disease, disease, disease.

Given that this challenge is getting serious, I discarded my hippy ways and went down a bit of a serious gardener path this year with potatoes. I have two plots. One in a big black tube - going for a bit of additional vertical height. The other - dug rows like you will see in any standard garden book.

So.. the challenge? Here is what I just pulled up from my very small feral spud zone. (no sticking these in the summer storage zone!)



2 ltr ice-cream container.

If my attempt at the serious gardener approach can beat that, then I will eat well. If not, then .... I'm buggered and in the future will be sticking to my tried and tested technique...

The long awaited tomato report

This year I planted a few of my favourites and a single plant of 5 others. Here is how they are progressing. Whether a sample size of one means anything I'll leave it to you.

Father Tom

This variety was strongly touted as being disease resistant, yet it diseased up first and to the greatest extent. However after pulling the fungally bottom leaves off it soldiered on. The leaves continue to skank up at the bottom, but the plant is beating that by its rapid growth.

The bottom truss of tomatoes were broken off in a teenage basketball accident. No worries I thought. Just wait a little while and more flowers will appear. Well I waited and waited and waited. The plant went through a growth spurt (now at 2 metres), and set some fruit set, but overall it still appears somewhat shy in the bearing stakes given its size. However, the fruit is of a good size. Ok it’s hard to tell as tomatoes can yellow up at a moments notice and don’t grow much if at all after that.

It is a very lean plant, upright without wanting to send out many side shoots. As such it has a very open canopy. Perhaps this is the reason for its alleged superior disease resistance. But at this stage I’d have to say that compared tom most of the others it’s a bit tomato resistant as well.

Planted: 15cm single plant

Position: North east corner (so should have an advantage re disease because of good airflow and a proximity to only two other plants). The plan is below

Growth: 8/10

Early disease resistance: 3/10

Flowering and fruit set: 4/10

Overall at this stage: 5/10

Comment: Note the openness of its canopy, with a small number of good looking matas.

Improved Bragger

I planted this one on the advice of JenkoBianco, on the basis of how well it went last year. With a name like that how could one resist! But they should have mentioned on the label that it was a bloody ornamental! It’s a big healthy plant that side shooted quite a bit. However it barely flowered and when it did and set fruit, many of them broke off half way up the rachis. I’ve seen this a lot before in other varieties in other years. But this year, only this variety has had this problem.

So at this stage it has very little to brag about. Perhaps it’s a later variety that needs a little more heat. It’s been cool in November with most days in the low 20’s so I’ll give it some more time.

Planted: 15cm single plant

Position: Outer eastern row.

Growth: 7/10

Early disease resistance: 7/10

Flowering and fruit set: 1/10

Overall at this stage: 2/10

 Comment: Look hard and you'll see..... bugger all.

Money Maker

Fruit everywhere on this one. It set early set and continued thereafter for a while. The top end of the plant doesn’t seem as prolific but it’s still acceptable. The bush grew like the clappers but it continued to side shoot. So much so that I now have 3 stakes holding the plant up. My only concern is that the fruit might come in rather small. Perhaps this should be expected due to the number of fruit. It also appears to be pretty disease resistant.

Planted: 15cm single plant

Position: outer eastern row

Growth: 7/10

Early disease resistance: 7/10

Flowering and fruit set: 8/10

Overall at this stage: 8/10

 Comment: Hard to see, but there's lots of bunches there. On all sides too.

Reggae Roma

I normally don’t plant the Roma varieties. Now I know why. This thing is pathetic. It is about 1/3 the size of the others despite being planted at the same time. The plant has an annoying habit of sending off thin weasally shoots from just about every orifice and in every direction but up. The shoots grow about 2 inches and then they shoot again. The end result is that I've ended up with a hedge rather than a tomato. It did produce a nice bunch of tomatoes on the very bottom truss, but other than that it appears to be a waste of space.

Planted: 15cm single plant

Position: outer eastern row

Growth: 1/10

Early disease resistance: 7/10

Flowering and fruit set: 2/10

Overall at this stage: 2/10

Comment: Reggae Roma is centre of picture nestled between Mighty Red (left) and Money Maker (right).

Mighty Red

In these them parts, this variety is the one by which the others are judged. From my experience, it produces large crops of flavoursome tomatoes that don’t have the thick skins normally encountered in shop bought swill. It also has excellent disease resistance. For these reasons it is easily the most popular backyard tomato in Australia.

I planted 5 this year - the fewest that I’ve ever done. In previous years I’ve allocated 2/3rds or more of my tomato space to the “Mighty One”. I planted these as small punnet plants. After a little bit of a slow start they have hit their straps and are setting well on good sized bushes. In fact I planted the runt of the litter from the punnet in the next to the Waste of Space Roma and in the same row as Improved Bragger and Money Maker. It’s looking good in comparison to most of them. I think in the variety competition stakes, Mighty Red will be hard to beat.

Planted: Small plants from a 6 plant punnet

Position: 1 corner, outer western row.

Growth: 6/10

Early disease resistance: 8/10

Flowering and fruit set: 8/10

Overall at this stage: 7/10

 Comment: On its way.

Improved Apollo

For years this has been a favourite of mine. It produces a very good crop of albeit only medium sized tasty fruit, and it’s early. I’ll have a few ripe sweet tomatoes by next week, with piles by Christmas. However, this variety despite being touted as an improved disease resistant variety does seem to fall over with vercillium wilt not long into January when the searing hot weather hits Adelaide. But that’s not my worry this year. I planted this variety in the middle row which puts it at a disadvantage when it comes to disease as the lower airflow and makes it more conducive to problems. However, some of this years inner row plants appear to have a viral infection (the leaves look like tobacco leaf virus). I hope not, as my two patches (that I can’t rotate frequently enough) have enough types of pox already.

Planted: Small plants from a 6 plant punnet

Position: Middle row

Growth: 7/10

Early disease resistance: 3-8/10 (some look good others not)

Flowering and fruit set: 8/10

Overall at this stage: 7/10

Comment: A better one at the front. The red tomato is another IA behind it. 

First Prize

I planted a few of these last year. It is a strange tomato appearance wise – short, bushy and with dark green leathery leaves. It cropped reasonably well and for a  long time. The tomatoes were medium to big with good flavour. Personally I think it would make a very good tub/potted variety due to its short bushy growth habit. But I accidentally partly ringbarked one of my Improved Apollo’s by roughly pulling off a side shoot when it was small. It looked pretty sick thereafter, so I pulled it and shoved in a First Prize in its place. Given that it is amongst a bunch of far more advanced bushes, it is advancing well and has set fruit.

Early days but overall rating 7/10

Comment: Planted many weeks later, it still has a really good crop on it.

Pink Pearl

I’m not much of a cherry guy, but after seeing JenkoBianco’s last year I just had to have one. My faith in it was not misplaced. Genetically this is a marvel. It has leaves about 3 times larger than the average tomato, it grew 3 times faster, set fruit time after time (and is still doing so), and no sign of disease. It has already ripened on the bottom trusses. It has 4 stakes and has reached the top of all of them. If tomatoes had a master race, this would be a strong candidate. As its name suggests it has strange looking pinky hued fruit, but they do continue to the usual bright red stage. While I believe that you can eat them at the pink stage, I tried and found that they were a bit tart and flavourless. In any case I strongly believe that tomatoes should be red!

However, even when red I found them to only have average flavour, and they seemed to lack the juiciness expected. But it’s early days. It will be interesting to see if the latter setting fruit will be any better.

Position: North Eastern corner

Planted: 15cm single plant.

Growth: 10/10

Early disease resistance: 10/10

Flowering and fruit set: 10/10

Flavour: 5/10

Overall at this stage: 9/10

 Comment: Just insane!

Here is a map of my tomato patch

FT=Father Tom

IB=Improved Bragger

MM=Money Maker

RR=Reggae Roma

MR=Mighty Red

IA=Improved Apollo

FP=First Prize

PP=Pink Pearl

Field of Dreams

Have I attended too many baseball games...?

For some reason, early in the design stage, a corn field beconed me in my dreams, I researched and got in touch with a bit of native american wisdon and next thing we knew - it wasn't just corn, but corn, beans and squash!

Stuff grew but where was the fruit. Such material was prime ground for a fair bit of ribbing over a beer or a bit chardonay (depending upon what side of the tracks you are from).

Each viewing of the corn field by Richard was a bit like a scene out of the The Castle... "tell them their dreaming".

However, good ol' Kevin Costner was right. "If you build it they will come" ... as you can see from the following photos.


corn starting to emerge.


purple beans, climbing up the corn, with flowers eager to turn into edible pods.



Oh yeah - have I got pumpkin!


Trouble is they only got 30 Days!

Don't leave your kids lights on at night mum

Number of Days until the Man v Carrot challenge begins: 35

A lesser known component of the Man v Carrot challenge is the psychological warfare associated with trying to freak out the other challenger so they will make a costly mistake.

About a month ago I installed a solar powered light above my cucumbers that bathed them in an errie alien white light all night long.  Jenkobianco would come over in the evening and ask what it was all about. "Never you mind Paully" I would say. "Just something I read". and I'd leave it like that. I knew full well that Paul would go home and frantically search for the source of my (bogus) information. Does the light ward off pests? Does it make them grow faster? What is it? I must find out!!. Paranoid bastard.

But like many cunning plans, it went awfully astray. The long green cucumber plants that were growing up the trellis flowered so much that they looked like an Afgani poppy field (albeit very yellow). Layers of bright lemon flowers, tended by hoards of bees. It was a joyous sight, as it promised a bumper crop of long green cueys during challenge week. But there was something wrong.... My mate Greg came around and said. "very impressive, but only if you're a florist".  "Did you notice that they are all male flowers", he added.

He was right. All but one was male.

In my rush to screw with JenkoBianco's highly competitive brain I had clearly toyed with mother nature too much. While I probably discovered an interesting scientific factoid for werewolves that grow cucumbers, it won't help feed me come January. As Dr Smith from Lost in Space would say... "Oh the pain".

As an aside, I bet his mum left his light on at night.

On a positive side. It was a glorious week for vegetable growing. Very mild for late November in Adelaide with a pleasant 12mm of rain at the end of the week. That's a good total for this time of the year. That same front merged with warmer air over the eastern states and dumped 100mm plus. Glad it didn't happen here as I don't have any rice planted.

The data from my dodgey weather station is below.

The promised and highly awaited tomato report is next.

Tale of Two Suburbs

NUMBER OF DAYS BEFORE MAN V CARROT CHALLENGE (BEGINS): 42

And I say 'begins' because "The Challenge" actually started in July when JenkoBianco and I agreed to try to live off 16 square metres of our vegetable patches during the first week of January 2012.

Consequently a lot of half assed planning occurred into what and when to plant things to ensure a good harvest of diverse veges to sustain a couple of George Clooney types for 6 days.

Tough decisions need to be made right now! If something that is currently planted matures too early for the challenge week then you will end up eating lignin and other long chain unbranched polysaccharides that make up wood. It could be pulled now, and replaced by quick growing veges like Chinese cabbage, radish, lettuce or silverbeet. But lets face it, they aren't great options. But starvation isn't that palatable either.

On the other hand, if the veges only reach the pre-nubile stage at challenge week, then one will have to result to eating male zucchini flowers, lettuce, green tomato chutney and boiled whatever can be foraged. Desperate times.

But an update of both gardens. Pauly hosted me this arvo, and I took some piccies while drinking a cheap Sauvignon blanc from somewhere in the 'Southern Hemisphere'. An hour later I recorded what my garden was doing.

Zuccini: One plant each. Who needs more? Jenkobianco first ..

And Mine...

Prediction:  While my zucch has already produced about 1.4kg of small to medium sized fruit over the last two weeks, I predict that both plants will be producing prolifically during the challenge week - and that good Australian extra virgin olive oil will be used to make what is a pretty bland vege pretty tasty. Both plants will be 6 feet feet tall and things will grow better at Chernobyl ground zero than in either "Ground Z" spots next year. But we'll think of something. Paul will use some version of worm juice, and I'll probably revert to organic seaweed stuff.

Pumpkins: In a previous post I alluded that Pauly's Queensland Blue pumpkin would never reach the end of the long bamboo pole that he trained it on. Well I have to admit I was RIGHT!! See... It hasn't made it.

But seriously Pauly's pumpkin has done the right thing by his ego and set a few fruit.

And my backward version planted a couple of weeks later after a gift from JenkoBiaco himself has grown to the top of the carport and is in the process of swamping that useless rose bush that spikes my head everytime I walk past it.

Prediction: We'll both be boiling up pumkin leaves if things get desperate. The amount of biomass these plants produce per day is nothing short of phenomenal, but no chance of any ripe pumpkin by early January.

Beans: I didn't take a picture of Pauly's beans because I couldn't find them, or when I did they were a bit embarrasing. They were at the two leaf stage. And my beans?

Prediction: I'm in trouble here. The predicted time to harvest on the seed pack was way too short. Adelaide is a bean growers paradise. Mine are flowering and setting pods now. Six weeks is a long time for dwarf French beans. They'll would have cropped twice and be long expired by January. I'll have a big unpreductive bare patch. Paul's teeny mob of randoms will be just on time.

Tomatoes: The bottom truss of my Pink Pearl cherry tomato ripened this week. Middle of November. Wow! It is setting huge truss after truss from the top, and is currently being held up by three stakes (and I'll have to tape some to the top as it's reached the 1.7 m mark). I'm convinced that it photosynthesises from the trusses, as it has more of them than leaves. Paul's PP is a little behind but looking very good, as is his other choices of cherries (help me out re varieties Paul!). Lots more to talk about when it comes to 'real' tomatoes, but that's a full post worth. Backyard tomato growing is very very serious business.

Here's Pauly's cherries....

And my Pink Pearl

Prediction: A little bit of disease showing up on both our tomato plots due to the mix of hot and cool weather interspersed by light rain. But as usual cherry tomatoes seem very immune to the usual skanky fungal stuff that dogs real tomato varieties. But we'll both have plenty of tomatoes for challenge week. In fact it will be our staple.

Stay tuned.... More about our cucumbers, corn and carrots soon. And if you can wait, a major tomato report. What's setting fruit, and what's barren. What's poxxy and what isn't. As every backyard vege grower knows. You are judged by your ability to produce full sized round sweet bright red tomatoes.

On a three year moving average, Paul has had the number on me in this regard. We're sharing notes already which is what the challenge is all about...

Warming up

Things are finally moving over this side of town, I definitely cannot be accused of peaking too early. In fact, I am begining to wonder, other than lettuce, what I will be eating during the first week of Jan. Below are progress shots of my 4 patches.

The NW patch - this is the latest to be brought into action - it was previously disparagingly referred to as the Mojave Desert. It is all in the timing I say. But got to agree with Richard, I'm going to starve, if I really think I am going to live off those peas. Therefore, gone back to an old favourite - zucchini. Hopefully, got the timing right.



The SW patch - salad staples - mostly lettuces and silverbeet (swiss chard) but also have carrots in there (of course!), beetroot, spring onions, celery and a nice volunteer tomato. Not sure that it is possible to survive on salad alone! In the left hand corner is my experimental black tube of patotoes, the plan was for soil to pour over the top as the spuds grew large - that hasn't happened (it is a bit like most of Richard's experiments - the evidence and observations are exactly opposite to the hypotheses), lots of subsidence going on. What is going on there?




The NW Patch - allegedly based on a bit of native american gardening - corn, beans and squash. Though I think people paid a bit more attention to timing. Climbing beans are climbing over the corn. Despite the detractors - welsh engineering is holding up and we will see the pumpkin climb up and into the apple tree, mark my words. However, no way will we see edible pumpkins by Jan.




The NE patch - Tomatoes finally coming on (still not as many as Dr Shevago), eggplant and peppers making good moves. A few cucumbers thrown in too (never had much success with them) - here's hoping.

How much difference can a week make?

For those who don't know Adelaide - home of the Man v Carrot challenge, it is a city of around a million people nestled on the shores of a large gulf of water with the Southern Ocean only 50km to the south. 250km to the North is the great Australian outback, virtually nothing except desert until you reach Alice Springs, and then sub-tropical Savannah onwards to Darwin 3,000 km away. During summer, the prevailing Northerly winds heat up over the desert and give Adelaide blasts of hot weather topping in the 35-42C (95-107F) for days on end.  (As I write at 4:40pm, my automatic weather station is saying that it is 31.6C with a NNE wind at 2km/hr). Pretty typical really except that the humidity is at a high 47%. Nearly all the rain falls from late May to Early September. After that pretty well zilch. So it truely is a Mediterranean climate. Adelaide rarely gets frosts - it's all time record minimum is 0.0C but that was not in my lifetime. So all round it is a great place to grow vegetables (except in the height of summer unless they are really well established and mulched).

So, in early November we are cruuently in the growth groove. Warm days in the mid 20C's to low 30's. Still a touch of sub-surface moisture, and warm nights. So everything is growing like there is no tomorrow

Hark back to last weeks post. Here is the zuccini wtih two nearly full sized zuches on it. In fact I picked them the following day but they were whisked into a vegetable pasta and drowned in good Australian extra virgin olive oil and devoured before I could take a picture. 

The Queenland blue pumpkin has gone insane like they do. It's the first time I've ever bothered with them after being kindly given a blue and a butternet seedling by JenkoBianco. I plan to train it onto my carport roof and see how it copes up there.

My "2010 Selection" bean is just killing the other commercial varieties in terms of growth and overall healthyness. Tender Delight didn't like the little bout of warm weather we had during the week with a lot of leaf crisping. I can't recall having trouble with it before. It always seemed pretty heat hardy.

I planted some summer spinach with an expected maturity date of the challenge week. As we affectionally say here in Australia ""Pigs Arse"... It's ready now! Only 3 and a bit weeks after planting. Now if I can only get my kids to eat spinach. Recipes anyone?

Lots more to talk about but I'll leave that to next weeks post. The tomatoes have progressed enough to give a progress report on the different varieties. There are some real duds amongst them. More later. In the mean time a picture of my dog who guards my garden unless there is a car tyre around.

Peaking too Early?

In the relentless battle that Man vs Carrot has become. Jenkobianco aka Pauly put the seed in my mind that I might have peaked too early. "Rumour has it that you peaked in your late teens"\ he would say. "A bit too early, just like your vege patch".

"Better to have peaked early, than not at all" I would lamely retort.

But I"m starting to wonder if he's right.

Here's my patch as at the 23rd of October taken from my new undercover pergola.

The tatas - Sebago's bred in Maine USA in the 1930's but now Australias most popular variety.

There's a crop of Pontiac under the ground behind these. The bushes have subsided and the globe carrot "Rolly Polly" planted on top. Hopefully the little stores of carb hidden under the carrots will become useful sources of energy and bartering (See the rules of Man V Carrot- bartering with appropriate grovelling is allowed and indeed expected).

The Queensland Blue pumpkin is away. This is it as of the 23rd. As I write this 4 days later it has doubled in size. I'm not expecting to eat pumkin during the challenge week starting 2nd Jaunary 2012, but I'm hoping that it will crawl up on the shed roof before too long and we'll have an autumnal feast of roasted pumpkin in extra virgin olive oil and pumpkin soup with EVOO drizzed on top.

Now the beans. The front row is my genetically chosen "Selection 2010". They look the part. Full germination and racing along. The row behind is "Bountiful Baby" and the back row looking a bit worse for wear at this stage is "Tender Delight".

Now to the main event - Tomatoes. I've got a mix of my favourite varieties - Mighty Red and Impoved Apollo, with a row of mixed untried varieties. More on these in the next post.

Here's an Apollo. Clearly an Apollo 11 in flower.

Be Afraid Pauly.... be very afraid.....

If this isn't the best cherry tomato ever bred I'll go he. Now over 4 feet tall and double the size of all others planted the same time, here it is.... Pink Pearl

And it's still going.

So my "Pink Pearls" may have peaked too early after all. But I can always let the fruit just hang there I suppose. It worked for me in the past.

If we had an award for the woggiest looking garden....

JenkoBianco would win it hands down.

After a 3 week search for feral bamboo growing along the local creek lines Paul finally tracked some down a bit futher afield up in the foothills of Adelaide. "Bloody hard to find these days", he lamented to me a number of times before his search was successful. "Those councils with all their weed eradication schemes. I wonder what the Italians do when they need to build a trellis?"

I remember my Polish father doing the same thing. We lived a hundred metres from Sturt Creek, which before it was turned into a concrete drain in 1967 was a waterway filled with critters- water rats, trout, and (I swear I saw one once), platypus. My dad used to trap rabbits for dinner, foxes were everywhere and even the occassional roo would wander down from the creeks source in the Adelaide Hills.

But along with the feral animals, there were lots of weeds... nastursium, fennel, olive trees and masses of bamboo. Dad used to them to train up his cucumbers and as tomato stakes.

Paul decided to follow in this fine woggy tradition.

Heres some pics from my fact finding mission of the 16th of October.

Another masterpeice of Welsh engineering. Paul proudly showiing off his dodgey trellis system constructed from creek-side bamboo.

Wishfull thinking indeed. Here Paul demonstrates to me where his pumpkin will climb. "Up this bamboo pole and up into the canopy of this apple tree here"   Ah-ha..  I think after a few lagers we'll probably end up using it as a catipult to fling dung into his neighbours back yard.

Corn in his South-eastern plot. Way behind mine at this point, but I prefer using the hose. Drip irrigation on corn? "May you live in interesting times" Pauly.

The North western plot. I've seen more edible stuff in the Nevada desert. Apparently if you look hard enough you'll see some peas that have just germinated. The challenge starts 2nd January, not the 2nd of June matey.

The north eastern plot. A nice crop of tomato bush and silverbeet. Not too many tomato flowers to be seen, but it's early days. When tomatoes finally take off in Adelaide, they just GO. Paul did show a great deal of concern about the flower to bush ratio on his quite well advanced tomatoes. I estimated it as about 0.0

And finally... just check out the internode lengths on this tomato. A little bit too much cow shit and worm juice perhaps. I might give Paul a gentle reminder that you grow tomato bushes to eventually pick and eat those round red globey things that show up a bit later in December.

Oh I guess that if all else fails, JenkoBianco may be the last custodian of the long and noble art of bamboo trellis construction. I can see it now. After he's long gone grey (that's a joke folks), he'll be passing down his knowledge to a new cohort of people of distant Italian and Greek decent who want to re-connect with their roots.

Panic Sets In

The visit to the other challengers plot on Saturday morning put the shivers up me. I came to the realisation that the challenge week (where we are to live off our vege patches for a week) was exactly 8 weeks away. 2 months.

The coolish wet weather experienced for most of last week meant that the summer vege crops barely moved. The tomatoes were a few millimetres taller than when first planted, the carrots were like fine hairs poking out of the ground, and the corn only to the second leaf stage.

On the upside the Sebago potatoes just went absolutely wild, doubling to full size with flower heads just poking through in a matter of a few days. But there was still a lot of bare ground and this worried me.

So I did what every home gardener would do. I panicked. A trip down to the garden part of a major hardware retailer saw me come home with 4 advanced tomatoes, a punnet of climbing cucumbers and a chilli.

I decided to try four new varieties for future reference and as a comparison with my long term favourites of Mighty Red and Improved Apollo:

Reggae Roma: An early maturing high yielding Roma type that is also claimed to be sweeter than regular Roma: I normally don’t bother with Roma types as they don’t make the greatest table tomatoes. Great for drying but I don’t normally have the time for all that stuff.

Money Maker: A medium to large fruited variety. With a name like that, how could I resist.

Improved Bragger: JenkoBianco seemed keen on this one, so I followed his lead and put one in. Claims of uber-large fruit of 500+ grams was an eye catcher. Early ripening variety too, which is what I need with only 2 months to go.

Father Tom: The tag boasted “Disease Resistance”.  Just what I need. As I only have 2 plots, I can’t rotate my tomatoes, so disease is always an issue. For some reason, the eastern plot where the tomatoes are going in is always more of a problem. So it will be interesting to see if this one holds up as well as the control group of Mighty Red and Improved Apollo.

I erected a small trellis thingy and planted 4 long green climbing cucumbers at the back of the western plot.

Three short rows of French beans went in. One row was my favourite “Tender Delight”. Ok they don’t have strange coloured beans, nor do they look like some anorexic model or piece of artwork. Just solid cropping, great tasting stringless beans.

The second row was “Bountiful Baby”. I tried these last year with good success. Similar to Tender Delight, but shyer in crop. Despite this I decided to put in a row just to spread the risk of maturing in time.

The third row was from seed that I collected from some very early maturing plants from 2010. I'll call them "Selection 2010". They came on nearly 2 weeks before all the others so I thought their genetics would be worth keeping. I thought that they were Tender Delight, but the seeds looked quite a bit different – larger and paler in appearance. So maybe they were just some ring in.

Finally, the second Chilli bush, Variety “Diablo” went in. No prizes as to what they will be like.

There is only a few square metres to go, plus a little more when my Tuscan Kale comes out. The dreaded Cabbage white butterflies are feasting on them relentlessly now and they are looking very poxy. What to do with the last remaining space? Thinking banana like capsicums. Quick growing and very reliable in the extreme Adelaide summer heat. The different flavour from the other green stuff that I'm mostly growing will be a welcome change. But with only 8 weeks to go, they are a bit touch and go. Maybe some silverbeet. Icky, but they could be a life saver. And besides good Australian extra virgin olive oil can even make silverbeet taste good.

A Saboteur in Our Midst

The Man vs Carrot challenge took on a sinister turn on Saturday morning the 1^st of October. It all started with JenkoBianco calling me to come over and see how his plot was progressing. While such invitations are clearly thinly veiled attempts of vegetable intimidation, the opportunity to pilfer some citrus from his trees is never lost on me. But others also had plans.

Hidden under the rug in the backseat of my gold Toyota compact was the “Saboteur”. Greying, innocent looking and female. The perfect cover. Who would have thought that she could even contemplate sabotaging JenkoBianco’s vege patch let alone actually doing it.

It went to plan. While JenkoBianco and I discussed the progress of his patch, she made herself at home playing with his retarded Fox Terrier Toby who just a few days before had been nearly torn apart by a Bull Mastif in the park. With surgery openings and stitches all over him, Toby looked like a Frankendog gone wrong. While the front was all about caring, and concern, the Saboteur was just biding her time. She didn’t really give a rats ass about the injured Toby. It was all a front.

Then she struck. While we were momentarily distracted by the machinations of JenkoBiancos neighbours house being torn down by a front end loader, she ran across his patch of newly germinated corn, silverbeet and tomatoes, each step tearing through the hair like developing roots like the Tea Party through the American economic recovery. Nothing was spared. Devastation reigned.

Her work was done.

But like all good Saboteurs she made it appear like it could have been an accident. That way she could get away without JenkoBianco giving her a swift kick in the ass – something that he became an expert in when rounding up his chickens (last one in always got a little ‘hurry along’ –That’s why they always race each other to get into the pen first, he would cheekily say).

It all went exactly to plan.

Here is the Saboteur on the morning prior to the act. A little nervous looking, but once you stop being nervous you should give the game away.

Months of training went into this. Here (below) is one (err actually the only) drill that were used to perfect the task. Simple but effective. An “Olive Press” dog biscuit made from extra virgin olive oil. “Crack for dogs”. All I had to do was to stand on one side of the plot and have Ollie the Satoteur move to the other side. The rest came naturally.

Finally, Ollie the evening after the deed. Exhausted yet quietly satisfied, and with JenkoBianco’s soil still between her toes.