cabbages
Autumn seedlings are in the ground
We’ve had more luck with our seed raising this year, and last week I transplanted a whole pile of seedlings out into the garden. The beds are looking pretty bare at the moment, but we have a huge crop ahead of us:
- Carrots
- Silverbeets
- Turnips
- Snow peas
- Sugar snap peas
- Peas
- Leeks
- Beetroots
- Spring onions
- green
- red
- Kale
- green
- tuscan black
- red russian
- Broccoli
- purple sprouting
- di cicco
- romanesco
- chinese (broccolini)
- Cabbages
- mini
- chinese
- red
- sugarloaf
That should keep us going for a while! This time around, I’ve avoided mass planting, and have instead mixed everything together (except the root vegetables). Hopefully I’ve got the spacing right, but only time will tell…
Chinese cabbages and more
It’s surprising how much can be grown during a Sydney winter. With no frosts (at least near the coast), and less bugs, we’re getting plenty out of the garden each week.
The chinese cabbages are my current pride and joy. These grow very quickly, and are just about ready to be harvested. They have, however, had a mixed track record to date. Last year, they rotted in the ground, after non-stop rain for a month. This year I protected them with plastic, but the slugs have found them. Picking 3-4 slugs off them each day has meant they’ve been growing faster than they’ve been eaten, but it’s a close-run race.
I’ve also tried a different approach to climbers. The teepee structures I used last winter were fine, but took up a lot of space. So this time around I screwed together some garden stakes and attached wire mesh. So far the sugar snap peas are very happy!
These are just two of the above-ground plants we’re growing this winter. In addition we have:
- savoy cabbages
- mini savoy cabbages
- purple cabbages
- silverbeet
- warrigal greens
- pak choy
- bok choy
- kale (two varieties)
- snow peas
- rhubarb
- salad greens
- herbs (various)
(I’ll list the root vegetables in the next post.)
The first savoy cabbage
With the unpacking of boxes in our new house, the autumn planting ended up being very late. So quite a lot of things sat in the ground during winter, waiting for some warmer weather.
It was therefore with considerable excitement that we harvested our first savoy cabbage on the weekend. It was huge by our measure, even though it’s really just a baby compared to the store-bought variety.
Still, it made for a very nice cabbage gallete (layered cabbage, baked with a pastry top). We still have 3 or 4 in the ground, steadily getting bigger…
Lewisham House and Farm 