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.