Plantings at the White House

Over at the White House, we have been busy planting rather than tweeting or blogging. So it is time to update.

Around 6 August first batch of pototoes (ones that sprouted in the cupboard) were planted, in my mega black tube. This was followed by proper seed potatoes from Richard on 13 August - they have taken a long time to break the surface, only just coming out this week.

Carrot, beetroot and celery seed went in on 20 August. Beetroot came up first and then belatedly the carrots - last week.

Two advanced tomato seedlings (pink pearl and trussy -keeping the experiments going) went in on 27 August - I have put a plastic "jacket" around these to protect from weather. See how that new technique goes.

Pumpkin seedlings and corn seed went in on 3 September. Corn yet to emerge and pumpkin looking OK but no new growth.

Spring onion, shallot and silverbeet (swiss chard) seeds planted over this weekend (11 September).

On 11 September planted advanced seedlings of tomato (truss sweet), 2 x capsicum (bell pepper ) - sweet mama and long sweet yellow (bit of a theme going there!); eggplant (Aubergine) x 2 - black and small purple - be lucky if eggplant makes 2 January deadline.

The Planting Begins

Spring has sprung. Well sort of. It's been a cool, cloudy week with lots of scattered showers moving through off the Southern Ocean. pushed along by some moist south westerly and westerly winds. The data for the week off the weather station adjacent to the vege plots are shown above.

But spring means planting. Monday saw 7 sweet corn seeds Variety "Teriffic F1" go into the back corner of the western plot. I've never planted sweet corn before mainly due to the amount of space they use up, and the relatively low return for that space. But I thought that they would provide a welcome sweet change from all the green shit that I'll be eating. Allegedly they will be ready in 12 weeks which by my reckoning is the first week of December, but I'm tipping a cooler spring than usual so I planted early. Time will tell if its too early, and I'll be making popcorn instead of eating corn on the cob.

Today I planted 4 Celery "American Stringless". Celery is a mongrel to grow. It sits there for ever and ever apparently not wanting to do anything and just when you are just about to give up on them, they grow like the clappers. But then again, sometimes they just continue to sit there. Again, a few bushes should add some good flavours to the vegetable soup that I envisage will make an appearance during the challenge week.

Also a single Chilli Var "Caysan'. "A high yielding hot cayenne style" according to the nurseryman. I thought I'd try a few different varieties with varying heat and hopefully different maturity times this year. Nothing could be more depressing than not having a good stock of chillis to spice up everything during the challenge week.

Last but not least, I planted my first tomato. If you plant now in Adelaide, you typically will get tomatoes in the first week of December - which is a month earlier than the challenge week. But my family needs tomatoes before January, so a row will have to go in sometime this week. The will probably be one of my favourite varieties, the early to mid season "Improved Apollo". But the one I put in today was the prize find from JenkoBianco's random plot from last year. He likes to plant a bunch of varieties to see what does well. Most are found to be duds, but he stumbled upon the new cherry tomato variety "Pink Pearl" which was a standout. Dozens of trusses with dozens of pink to red coloured cherry tomatoes. The thing cropped for months. A bit bigger than the usual types too. So I planted one for those early summer salads that my family enjoys. It went in the front of the tomato plot where the soil temperature is the coldest, so it might take a little while to get going.