the radish trees come full circle

Let me tell you a story about the radishes that went to seed.

They turned into tall and pretty radish trees.

Then they turned into a mess.

 

I chopped them all down. And spent the next three days taking the 5 or 6 seeds out of each pod. The barrow of pods never got any smaller. There must be a better way.

We took all the pods off the plants.

We put the pods into the cooler. I got in with my new blue shoes and started to smoosh the pods hoping to release the seeds. A radish pod poked through my shoe and hurt my toe.

Nigel got his bare feet in the cooler and carried on where I left off.

We put the smooshed pods though the colander. Hoping to end up with seeds on the other end.

We ended up with more than we bargained for.

Blow Dryer to the rescue!

And we have seeds.

Lots of radish seeds.

the news from the garden 2

Lots of blooms, The peas, the potatoes, the zucchini, the pumpkins, The peppers, and the tomatoes!

The round garden is going nuts. The tomatoes dont seem to be doing much since we moved them out from the green house. But they are defiantly surviving. Mustard greens are hard to keep up with. You cut the leaves off and they are back the next day. The garlic seems like it must be almost done! We hear you are supposed to harvest on the longest day. It takes all my will power not to pull one up and see what is happening under there.

Some of our carrots are going to seed, so i pulled them up to see what was happening. We ate these ones last night! These are the carrots that we planted a bit late last winter. Aprilish. I think they have been in the ground too long. Will be interesting to see how the ones we planted this spring do.

And....we have a constant battle with the aphids and whitefly. The dill is not doing well as it has been attacked by both. The green house is constantly being infiltrated. I think we have it under control.
We have lettuce coming out of our ears.
Radish trees are just starting to dry out.
Pumpkin are finally starting to grow. There are two signs of fruit on the Sunshine plant.
Okra is coming up slowly.
Beans are sending out curly tentacles.
Spinach is all gone to seed, new batch started in the green house.

the pods

radish pods I mentioned earlier that we have been letting our radishes go to seed. It has been so interesting to me.
They are such little plants and yet they have shot up 4 times their original size. And they have these dainty little pink blossoms waving in the wind up the top. I have been watching them daily wondering what they will do next. There had been no sign of any seeds. I thought maybe they would show up somewhere when the flowers fell off.
silverbeets gone wild and lettuce blossoms Little did I know!
Pods!
The radishes are forming little pods. Inside which will be the seeds.
Of course! What was I thinking.
I guess we wait until they dry up and then crack em open.

Watching our plants go to seed is a bit of a journey for me.

It is a slow process in this fast paced life of ours. It would be much more "efficient" to just buy some new seeds from the shop and plant them than to wait the months for these plants to produce their own.

Now beside the fact that buying the seeds from the shop is not the best long term. Dont get me started on seed companies!

There is something about the letting the plants go through their natural process.

The journey of planting a seed.
Watching it grow.
Enjoying the fruit from the plant.
Watching the plant grow some more.
Enjoying the beauty of the blossoms.
Watching the plant grow more.
Harvesting the seed.
Planting a new seed.
There is more sometimes in the slow journey.

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the radish trees

We are loving having a garden. This is the first time since we have been married that we have been in one place long enough to plant and watch grow and enjoy the fruits or vegetables of a garden!
Spring is slowly on its way and we are waiting a bit impaitently to get stuff into the groud. There is still a bit to keep us busy.

We have let some of our winter radishes go to seed. It is interesting. You dont usually see vegetables in their flower/seed form. I have yet to see the seeds, but the little pink flowers are pretty. And they are so tall! Little trees.

Nigel built us a pea wheel for the circle garden. I think it is going to look great once the peas start climbing.
 We have tried some mulch on the onions and carrots. After a bit of research we have decided to use dried pine needles from the paddock which have the added benefit of being laced with sheep poo. Nice right? And on top of this we have sprinkled coffee grounds which I collect from the cafe. I found a blog where this woman tried a bunch of different mulches. I might do some testing of my own!