The muggy heat has arrived in my part of the world with an intensity that makes it difficult to believe that we get zero degree nights here. It has made gardening during the day not so fun – and because we are super busy in the office this time of year, time is limited as to when I can actually get out and potter in the garden.
There is simply no pottering in the garden during the middle of the day this time of year. But what I can do is be up very early in the morning and listen to the world wake up while I do my pottering. This allows me to enjoy the freshness of the day before the mugginess kicks in a couple of hours later.
Snake beans enjoy the climate here in summer. I put some seeds in and they have taken off. What I love about the snake bean plant is the speediness that the beans appear on the plant. One day, there is nothing. The next day, I look and there is a bunch of long beans that have formed. I must remember to pick them while they are young, as I find them a bit tough to eat when I let them grow too long.
My Sunray bush beans seedlings are not doing so well right now. After their seemingly fine start, I have noticed their leaves getting yellow patches on them and shriveling. This is not good. I have just been learning about plant pests and diseases at TAFE and I fear they have common bean blight. However, I do have a climbing bean that seems to be happy in its home (by the way it has grown up the stake). It looks super healthy as well, which is great after watching my sunray beans go downhill. This climbing bean plant is located away from the sick bush beans in my veggie patch.
I have been disheartened this past month after reading and learning about bacterial bean blight. Once it is present, I should no longer grow bean plants in the infected area for three years, as the bacteria can remain in the soil just waiting for the opportunity to strike. I’m more disappointed with myself, as I had grown some of these Sunray bush bean seeds before and had the same thing happen (hich is how common blight occurs – through infected seed)! Lesson learnt.
This summer I have decided to grow Gympie Gold Cucumbers. They have good disease resistance and how could I resist growing Gympie Gold cucumber seeing when I live close to the town of…Gympie! I can’t wait to try them.
I’m also trying to grow carrots for the kids They absolutely love watching them grow and are always asking me to pick carrots – not that I’m complaining. They have been picking a few here and there this month. I grow my carrots in a container filled with potting mix, as I have found success this way – the carrots grow nice and straight.
My fig tree leaves were also getting munched by something this past month. When I checked the undersides of their leaves, I found patches of small black larvae. I considered the larvae to be the culprit, as those leaves were the munched ones. I then noticed a couple of brown beetles on the tree and recalled reading something about a beetle that affected fig trees. Unfortunately, I had returned the book that I read this information into the library. The closest thing I found on Google was the dried fruit beetle. But I don’t know if that was it – all I know is that after picking off the two beetles and removing the larvae (I squished them) the leaves no longer are being munched!
Finally, one of my happy moments in the veggie patch this past month was finding some small strawberries and letting my little one pick and eat them. She was so excited and that made me smile!
WHAT HAVE BEEN YOUR NOVEMBER HAPPENINGS IN YOUR VEGGIE PATCH? WE WOULD LOVE TO KNOW! PLEASE LET US KNOW IN THE COMMENTS BELOW.
Sorry, blurry strawberries!
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It’s great to read of other gardeners’ experiences in other parts of the country – both their successes and failures, as when things go wrong after you’ve put so much love and effort into your patch – never mind the money! – it can be mighty depressing. I’ve often caught myself saying “Why am I bothering?” when the plants look green and healthy when I leave for work, but over the course of one hot day I come home to blackened things that look as if a malicious person has taken a blowtorch to them.
On the subject of snake beans, I put in some seed I had from 2009, without great hopes, but most germinated. I use a plastic meat tray and wet paper towels to start the germinating process, and then carefully plant out the successful ones. Of those, a couple died, and the rest are alive and green but haven’t grown beyond about 8cm yet. They’ve been in for about a month. What on earth are they doing down there? They’re in reasonably fertile soil and they’re watered every two or three days as I don’t want them to rot. They’ve been ‘seasol’-ed and ‘powerfed’. The weather has been fairly consistently warm to hot. I haven’t got them in totally full sun – they would get a few hours full sun per day, but they’re sheltered by a rose in one of the spots, and some other variety of climbing beans in the other spot. I did this because of the fierce intensity of direct sunlight here in Wagin WA. Have I done something wrong? Is there some trick I’ve missed?
I am still picking strawberries from my patch. I bought Joy as they were developed by the CSIRO for South East Qld conditions. They are sweet and juicy. Strawberries are listed as one of the ‘dirty dozen’, in that it is important for them to be grown without pesticides. Soft skinned fruit and veges absorb poisons more readily than bananas for example.
As long my plants have moist soil they are flourishing. They’ve set multiple runners now, so I’ll be setting up another bed for these. Previously the bed was used for a crop of buckwheat that I dug in for organic matter.
Hi Virginia
I have heard that about strawberries as well…we have a local strawberry farm that is spray free so if I have to buy strawberries I will buy theirs. Happy gardening!