Harvest Time – The second harvest

Our first harvest

Well I have been back up in Darwin for almost a month now which means I haven’t seen how our small garden plot in Kensington is going. What I have seen though is that there have been two harvests of salad from our small plot. In both cases the weight was about 200 g. Although one could argue that it might be more efficient to walk down to Woolworths or Coles and spend two or three dollars for the same vegetables, there are a number of things that make this quite special.

Firstly the garden is 12 m from our front door about the length of a 40 foot container. From our balcony we can see the garden with its various plots and the vegetables growing in those plots provide a sense of satisfaction to us and all who participate in this project. Despite the onset of winter the vegetables have thrived. Our dill is going crazy as is the basil in the plot next to ours. The greener lettuce leaves are growing more prodigiously than the purple lettuce leaves. The small leaf spinach one of my favourites is doing quite well.

My lack of engineering skills in constructing a trellis for the climbing beans is quite obvious and I might need to call in an expert.

To be able to harvest produce which we could never get to grow in Darwin is a lot of fun. The relative ease of simply adding water to a single cistern at the end of the garden beds is also great. More time spent on enjoying the garden and less spent on tending the garden. We have noticed that we haven’t had any weeds growing in our plot and that is probably because there is no room for them to grow because we filled it up with vegetables. The single chili bush in our plot is not doing that well however that is to be expected. I will be bringing down some Carolina Reaper seeds which I will plant into the plot as well.

Our plot with a dodgy trellis made from deadfall twigs in our park

As you can see from the photographs the plots are doing very very well despite the fact it is winter. One thing that Helen has observed is that although there has been a lot of planting, harvesting hasn’t kept up with the growth of the plants.

2016-05-29 The second harvest

Here is the complete album of photos… Just click on the salad… most taken today [29 May 2016]

I’ll be back down in Melbourne in a couple of weeks and I look forward to trying some of the fresh vegetables harvested directly from our small plot in Davis Street.

One of the other great things about the garden is that it is a local talking topic. If you stand out near the garden you’re guaranteed that a passerby will stop and have a chat to you about the garden. And that’s really what was intended by creating this garden-creating community.

At the other end of our continent in Darwin I have been advised that I will be able to participate in a sentinel planting of banana plants. Our department of primary industry had to mount an eradication program when banana freckle was discovered in the top end. This led to the destruction of thousands and thousands of plants. With the all clear given the next phase of the project is to reintroduce plants to replace those that were destroyed but also to ensure through observation that banana freckle has been completely eradicated.

Although you can grow banana plants in Melbourne and I have seen them, they generally do better in Darwin.

This is our second harvest collect 28 May