Chookie wrote:
In article ,
"0tterbot" wrote:

happy new year everyone :-)

we are bringing in the new year with a lot of mulching, fertilising,
planting out and tidying up of dead things from spring (everything got out
of hand before xmas when i couldn't find the time to do anything much). the
veggie patch has had a makeover & is looking exceedingly organised & lovely
(i like an organised veggie garden, me).

Waaaah! Mine is being strangled by kikuyu! I have been hitting bits of it
with Roundup if I can manage not to kill food plants...

we are really pleased with how much progress we've made in the
nearly-year-and-a-half since we came here to a virtual dead-zone, & now feel
we can take things a bit more slowly. which is good, as the weather's turned
HOT at last.

so, what are you all doing in the garden atm? if you're all having beers on
the verandah & just looking at it's lush loveliness, i shall die of envy g

Having cuppas and morosely eyeing the rank kikuyu isn't what you meant, is it?

Though I must admit I am pleased by the cucumbers. And there are signs that
tomorrow might bring our first tomatoes -- just tiddlers, though.

You may have to move to Melbourne, Australian weather has turned itself
upside down. The part of the garden what didnt suffer has the cucumbers,
and theyve been good now for some three weeks.
I also picked my first tomatoes from a tomato plant that decided to
overwinter in a pot, and we nursed it till it produced the earliest
tomatoes 3 WEEKS before the Melb. show. Black Russian self seeded .
Theyre fast but still subject to diseases. It died after its humongous
effort of giving birth. I reckon a breach birth... We kept the tomato
for seeds...Better luck next time...
Kikyu should be let run riot all over your garden with lush growth, then
whne still green murdered with round up, letting it have all barrrels
two or three times in a season, digging the garden, composting it
fiercely, and any left over cooked by solarisation. IE Black plastic
left over the ground for a month, making sure the area is kept wet for
maximum effect, and for at least a month. Then send in the goats,
chickens and finally one more dig with a rotary hoe, then move...If you
havent succeeded. A person has to know when to give up....