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Healthy Living starts in the garden...

Yeh I think it's an African Pride custard apple ~

no point making chocolate out of this Cacao (not enough seed), but the white flesh around the seed is yummy and good for you apparently (but not at ALL like chocolate) and the seeds are going down south to my families nursery

I'm in far-north qld, Australia :)
 
melo.jpg

25.9 the one on the right was 23. there were actually 5 total, once i picked too early, and the other was growing right where i watered alot, got attacked by bugs, and smelled really bad...
mel2.jpg

for three watermleon plants, i'm not too impressed! but I am happy with the results...

baby avocado...
av.jpg


pretty bad composition on the pics, i know. :D
 
ya'll are some very skilled photosynthesizers. heh, I have one tomato plant in a barrel and will hopefully have a planter box put together soon. I just moved to the "city" so I don't have to worry about deer anymore.
 
^^its in partial shade in a really foggy town, so i think this is preventing to much fruiting and causing the formed tomatoes from finishing. On the bright side, since the weather stays the same temp yet gets sunnier in the winter, it will probably live for a long time. Otherwise my current location can grow crops year around..the main crop is wine grapes however. During the summer it doesn't rain at all so everything is irrigated.
 
how's everybody's plants comin along? i'm about to start a bunch of broccolli, snap peas, and other cold weather stuffs. hopefully this heatwave kicks by the beginning of fall. right now my plot is a sad patch of weed infested dirt, with two solo tomato plants that aren't doing so well from neglect. :( i think i'm gonna take them out....anyways, here are two things that i'm extremely proud of:

coffee sprout.
NSFW:
out of about a zillion coffee beans, and 3 months or so of waiting this little guy finally came up.
coffee.jpg

trichocereus pachanoi bloom.
NSFW:
sp-bloss.jpg

sp-bloom.jpg


cummon guys...post pics!!
 
I don't grow anything of my own other than ganja, basil & lavender at the moment, but this is my list of stuff to grow as soon as I move into a new place (latest) end of november -

Potatoes, sweet potatos, chillis, tomatos, courgettes, sorrel, broccoli, peppers, parsnips, and take some cuttings of my wild strawberry bush from my old home.

After that I wanna start on a kiwi tree, a cherry tree, redcurrant bushes, a eucalyptus tree, apple tree, spinach, carrots, kale, and maybe lettuce :D

At the moment I do work 2 or 3 days a week at a cooperative where they grow courgettes, tomatos, butternut squash, carrots, and some others once I've gotten into the swing of things and settled down a little...
 
jam uh weezy said:
baby avocado...
http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w18/ralphwader/av.jpg
Click to expand...

I believe that seedling Avocados can take years and year (like 20?) to fruit. It's very unlikely you will find a seedling Avocado for sale in a nursery. Cool experiment though, you could always try grafting a known variety onto it.

out of about a zillion coffee beans, and 3 months or so of waiting this little guy finally came up.
http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w18/ralphwader/coffee.jpg[/NSFW]
Click to expand...

Coffee is an Environmental weed here, grows like crazy. Can't say I could tell you how long they take to germinate under better conditions, can say I have killed heaps of them though =D
 
It is always good to grow things from seed. The fruit growing landscape is populated with grafted trees-- I can't say what this does for a plant's ability to evolve or to continue being propagated effectively without man. Plants from seed do live longer too-- and I always say that it may take years to fruit, but someone somewhere has to go start it. While it does not bear fruit yet you can make some beans climb up, or something similar.

We grew a coffee tree from seed about 4 years ago and now it is full of green berries. I was growing fearful they wouldn't ripen, but apparently they take about 40 weeks to turn red. Then we will have our first batch of home-grown and home-roasted stuff!

Do you pick your own coffee, Klue? What varieties grow round there?
 
^Hi Detergent. This is very relevant to my interests, so I will try and be clear.

So it is important for a plant that you would grow in your garden to bear fruit to have a future as far as the evolution of it's species? I can imagine that within it's natural range (Argentina, for Avocados for example) the genetics and sexual reproduction, natural regeneration would be important. But as a plant grown in peoples back yards around the world? I guess you could consider a plants spread through continents over the last few hundred years as part of it's evolution?

My point was that you could spend 20 years growing and nurturing an open pollinated Avocado and then the fruit could be really quite average. People in Australia plant grafted, known varieties because they want a great crop of fruit for their family within a few years. A breeder has spent his/her whole life creating a variety that conforms to what suits people best in their 'American Dream' block of land. We, as a people rely on people like these growers as assumed knowledge. It may be different in your part of the world.


So, does any of that make sense?

Also, no I haven't personally grown any coffee. But, I do know they can be a weed problem here in Australia because they seed and germinate so readily.

Edit: :) :)
 
Bump.

Nearly finished my harvest for the year. Today I pulled a good 20 kg of potatoes out of the ground, along with at least as many carrots and again at least as many beets. Good thing I like beet and carrot juice!

Next week-- garden clean-up and prep for winter.
 
hey dave :)

I got a bunch of red potatoes coming out now too. Left em in the ground a little long hehe but im getting around to it.

What do you do with 20kg of potatoes beats and carrots? can you store them for months, or do you make preserves and juices? Im curious, cause i always over plant and end up having to give stuff away like mad before it goes bad.

My garden didnt go so well this year. We got a weird season. At first it was really wet and very little sun. Then it got really hot with little rain. The tomatoes seemed to get some blight, which according to an organic tomato farmer was nationwide this year for some reason. he said he got 10% of what he usually harvests. :(

Also my zuchinni, cucumber and squash all got hit hard by powdery mildew. it usually always comes in a bit, but hit extra hard this year. I think maybe all the rain spread the spores then when it warmed up they just exploded.

I only really got a couple cucumbers too, as they got some sort of disease or infection. Not sure if you can get cucumber blight.

My hot peppers, cayenne- ring of fire turned out very nicely though. as well as my purple basil lemon basil and regular basil.

Squash was a pretty small harvest too.

not sure whether i need to do something to my soil, but anything im in doubt of this year, im not composting but going right in the trash.

Im on the waiting list for horticulture technician in january, so hopefully i will be able to answer all my own questions soon enough hehe
 
Before you bring them in, let them dry for a bit in the sun. Not tons, but enough to get the surface water off. Then brush off most of the dirt, and store them as is in a cool, dark place. People keep potatoes, carrots and other 'root' vegetables all winter-- just make sure that they're dry, cool and not exposed to much light.

Keep in mind that if you keep potatoes all winter, they will be edible, but undedelicious come spring.

Composting is the bees knees, just be sure that you do it right. There are a ton of pages online with info about it.
 
Sadly, the Plums are now gone-
But our property has about 10 Plum trees- Shiro-Red-and Italian Prune.....
This photo is of the Red's

Here are some Blackberries :)

Yummy Tomato!!


We have a number of Almond, Walnut and Filbert trees.
Somewhere around 5 Apple trees, 2 Cherry Trees, maybe 5-6 Pear trees.....We have a massive Grapevine, more Blackberries than you could possibly need,4 tomato plants,2 types of mint,Golden, Greek and Italian oregano,pineapple sage, rosemary, and 3 types of thyme.
I know I am forgetting things. The trees were here of course, when we moved in- but the rest we planted. I can't believe that I missed this thread before!!! I have pictures of a number of my plants and trees.....I may post more later!
It sounds like everyone has great gardens!
I love hearing about what people are growing.....
And there are some GREAT photos in here!
 
Wow... I was completely unaware of this thread. I am in the process of starting a first garden this year. Started from seeds and I'm really hoping things turn out okay. The starting seedlings are looking great right now and pretty soon, I'll replant them and take pictures. Does anyone have any new updates for this thread? I'd like to get it started again! :)
 
Anybody here have a vegetable garden?

I do and love eating fresh from the garden produce. There is a certain appreciation to be had for well grown, nutrient dense, flavorful food, and it is as fresh as it can be... Happy happy joy joy!
 
I am looking forward to having one next summer. :)

I've never had the land for much more than a plant or two which inevitably failed due to a lack of adequate sunshine. :(

The closest thing I have currently is that I buy my produce from a local farmer, CSA fashion. Can't beat farm-fresh, organic produce. :D
 
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