February in my city farm - Garden Share Collective

This blog is part of the Garden Share Collective.

The Garden Share Collective is a group of bloggers who share their vegetable patches, container gardens and the herbs they grow on their window sills. Creating a monthly community to navigate through any garden troubles and to rival in the success of a good harvest we will nurture any beginner gardener to flourish. Each month we set ourselves a few tasks to complete by the next month, this gives us a little push to getting closer to picking and harvesting. The long-term goal of the Garden Share Collective is to get more and more people gardening and growing clean food organically and sustainably.

Let's get to it.

How's it all looking

To be honest, February is my I GIVE UP MONTH. We got a lot of rain (10 inches in 2 days), so everything was sopping wet, and humid. Ever since I have extensive issues with bugs and disease that I am just not bothering. That, and the fact that I have had no time or money to spend in the garden so I am just letting it go a little wild, ready for my favourite season Autumn.

Aquaponics system

We did a big clear out of the aquaponics system, and also installed a bio filter. The fish are getting too big and pooping so much that we don't have enough plants to convert the nitrate. So the bio filter is sorting it out for us. We pulled out the celery that was taking over (and rotting from the inside) and replaced with some quick turn over crops (lettuce). The eggplant has taken over in space, which is great, because at least we get to eat the eggplant as it appears to be the only fruit that isn't being stung by fruit fly. I also threw in some bean seeds that popped up and are going well. We've got a Nitrate issue, which essentially means the plants aren't using enough nutrient, so we need to top it up with some heavy feeding plants. So tomatoes and rock melons we're going to throw in and see how it goes.

New Garden beds

Well this was a disaster. Bugs, disease, and blah. All of my zucchinis died, All but one of my melons died. I have a feeling that the gardeners were actually spraying the garden so they didn't have to weed it, and hence residue ended up killing pretty much everything. That and all the rain.

The raised garden beds

The first bed we had to pull the kale as it just got smashed by bugs on the new shoots, it didn't look like it was going to recover so we pulled it out. The celery as well was rotting from all the rain we got, so it had to come out as well. All of the swiss chard got a fungal disease, only the perpetual spinach remains. I've chucked in a worm tower as well in this bed, I actually need to put worms in it!! The second garden bed I got rid of the beans and replaced with Luffa and Apple Cucumber and have just let the sweet potato go wild. The cucumbers aren't doing so great, but the Luffa is going nuts. My regular eggplant got wilt from too much rain so I had to pull him. A sunflower has popped up from some seeds I threw in and is going well. And I am letting the sweet potato have it's way with the patch.

Harvesting

Nothing but herbs, eggplants and chillies, we did get a good crop of San Marzano tomatoes but half of them had fruit fly (the ones we had were delicious so I am going to raise some more seeds ready for autumn).

What's up next

I am planning on cutting my losses and spending the next few weeks recovering the soil, adding to it and preparing for my autumn crops. A couple of bags of cow poo, mushroom compost, some potash, and 5 in one will be going in. I haven't decided on my autumn crops yet, need to have a good think about that. Definitely want to get some beets in as they were fantastic last year.

What I have growing

• Luffa
• Bush Beans
• Perpetual spinach
• Corn
• Thai Chilli
• Tomatoes (San Marzano, Yellow Pear, Timmy Toe, Tigarella)
• Eggplant (Lebanese)
• Lettuce (mignonette)
• Chinese Cabbage
• Strawberries
• Herbs (Sage, Sweet Basil, Thai Basil, Lemon Basil, Thyme, Lemon Thyme, Rosemary, Parsley, Mint, rosemary, vietnamese mint)
• Sweet Potatoes
• Spring Onions, Leek
• Lemon Grass
• Capsicum (Small yellow, Californian Wonder, Redskin, Chocolate, Patio)
• Melons (rockmelon or honey dew - not sure)
• Blueberries, cumquat, lemons, pineapple, avocado, pomegranate, fig, coffee beans, lime.

How is your garden going this summer?