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...
