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.