A white Christmas in Melbourne + Summer (ahem) Garden Update

Well Christmas Day sure was a surprise in Melbourne this year. Instead of the expected scorcher, we ended up with what one could almost call a White Christmas! Hail stones the size of ping pongs rained down at us over in Coburg, and as you can see, my veggie patch copped a fair beating.

Thankfully, I didn’t lose too much. The tomatoes lost a few branches, with a bit of fruit being knocked off/bruised. Everything else, apart from a few torn leaves, is pretty good!

Anyway – a bit of a update about what the patch is doing this Summer.

At the moment I’ve got six tomato plants in; mortgage lifter, principe borgehese (mini roma), lemon drop, red fig dwarf, black russian and tigerella. They are doing amazingly well – lots of flowers and green fruit at the moment, just waiting for those warm summery days to ripen.  I also have a couple of heirloom eggplants, mini sweet mix capsicums, heirloom beetroots, heirloom carrots, all season carrots, french breakfast radishes, miniature snow peas, heirloom pumpkin, cucumbers and black beauty zucchini – all grown from seed.

The radishes just grow so darn quick, and they can go from beautiful, crips tender little things to……

….monsterous inedible behemoths.

On the potato front, I’ve just harvested my first lot of nicola potatoes. They were just so wonderful boiled and dressed simply with olive oil, salt, pepper and parsley. I also roasted them with a topping of fresh breadcrumbs, parmesan and pine nuts on Christmas day which turned out spectacularly.  I’ve also got some purple congos and kipflers still growing, and some NZ Oca, which are like little tuberous yams.

Out the front of the house I’m actually growing Golden Bantam sweet corn along the fence line, which seems to be doing quite well. The ears have just started to form, and I very much look forward to throwing those on the BBQ.  I’m still undecided about what I’m going to do with the front yard.  I want it to be edible, but at the moment it is just lawn and some odd shrubs (…and my corn).

Also, I am awash with lettuces and leaves; crisp mint, amish deer tongue, cos, flame, gold rush and some Italian bitters from the Diggers Italian Lollo Seed Mix. Sorrel and Bloomsdale spinach round out the mix as well.

Photo taken by @essjayeff

Oh. And two strawberry plants, which are sporadically producing the most sweet fruit. I tend to get a singular strawberry every few days; which is nice as I eat it still warm from the plant. However, I’m not going to get a bowl of strawberries and cream in a hurry. I think I need more plants.

Photo taken by @essjayeff

So, while I seem to have a lot in the garden at the moment, the only thing I’m really harvesting are the lettuces, nicola potatoes and snow peas.  I’ve also already harvested some borlotti (thanks to @essjayeff and @injerarufus for helping me pod them!) and flageolet beans, but for everything else, well, it’s all still growing.  But I just so love watching it do exactly that.