Spontaneous Generosity!

Visiting North Rocks Greenery  on their second last sale day for pots and giftware, I picked up some great stuff...kid in a lolly shop kinda sensation, plus the Chinese element of me was satisfied with the 50% off!!!

• 4 wide, shallow terracotta planters perfect for strawberries and herbs 
  
• A special ceramic herb planter (4 circular sub-compartments, with one of them on top of the others)
  
• 2 large cafe-style glazed terracotta pots - their creamy colour and angular form will be a beautiful contrast to tulips
  
• A number of other cool pots, tools and seeds
  

Am looking to do proper seed saving and start a bank/co-op (have the fantastic book from Seed Savers) but haven't yet got started! I also bought all the posters for use in the classroom, but I have to think of a proper program that could be viable at my school before launching into such a significant, ongoing and labour-intensive project. 

Anyway, besides wanting to note my appreciation of the nursery's great service, a huge thanks to Genevieve for spontaneously offering the floral displays for use at my school. I'll definitely keep you updated on how we've been able to use them!

Training Time for Baby Strawberry Plants

For the last half year I have been highly neglectful of a small strawberry plant I got at Christmas. Over summer it had a few fruit (pinched out the majority) and sent out runners.

I'd secured some of the resulting new plants in pots but the runners continued! I'd wanted a few more from the parent and had about 8 but then it started going crazy and looking too Medusa-esque. Thinking it too massive a task, I kept putting off sorting it out.

So the air-borne leap-frogging clumps had to cope as best as they could on fresh air and water via the main parent. Two weeks ago I finally attacked the whole thing and the plants from the primary runners are doing really well (flowering already). The others are a little weaker (having a lot more trauma through neglect to recover from), plus I was a little scatty when planting them and have had an additional battle with their crowns below soil level!

Anyway, I'll pinch out all the buds once again and keep on caterpillar patrol. Speaking of which, there are these awful "fast" caterpillars - like the regular bright green ones that love basil and tomatoes, only a little darker, sometimes a bit of brown/yellow bits and possibly with small hairs. They look and behave like misbehaving, dirty versions of their bright green cousins. Any ideas on what they are? These renegades also create a webbing and stick leaves together.

Didn't receive the Five Colour Silverbeet as desired but instead I have Borghese tomatoes.

I can't wait to plant them out! And while on tomatoes, I found a packet of mixed heirloom tomato seeds in my bible case this evening. Mmmmmm, tomatoes!

I might start hothousing some seedlings from mid-winter onwards to extend the fruiting season. Much work to be done until then! 

Choosing Four Packets of Free Seeds

It's that wonderful time of year when the Digger's Gardening Club (based at two sites in Victoria) put out their Autumn catalogue and I get to pick 4 free packets of seeds! The problem is though, that with 15 varieties to choose from I can't make up my mind.



Which of the following should I pick?

1. Pea Greenfeast
2. Turnip Mini
3. Lettuce Australian Yellow Leaf
4. Kohhlrabi
5. Coriander
6. Gambler's Choice Broccoli
7. Five Colour Silverbeet
8. Red Pak Choy F1
9. Onion Barletta
10. Spinach Bloomsdale
11. Poppy Flanders
12. Parsley Continental
13. Nasturtium Scarlet Emperor
14. Radish Round Red
15. Gambler's Choice Sweet Peas

We get to choose 8 preferences and so far I'm set on:

** Five Colour Silverbeet (for the novelty - the stalk colourings include BRIGHT yellow, fuchsia and orange (not on the same plant, though. Now that would be something!)


** Peas Greenfeast (easy peasey!)


** Poppy Flanders (Been meaning to get a large area coverage quantity of these seeds to give to GK band members but I've never gotten round to it, so I might as well get a packet and trial them)


I'll probably use the free seed offer as an opportunity to try the things like Kohlrabi. May have to do a bit of research first!