It's the long holiday Labour Weekend here in New Zealand. Traditionally this is the weekend everyone cracks into planting their veggie gardens, especially tomatoes, since the risk of frost is meant to be past in the colder parts of the country.
Here at Struan Farm I cheated just a wee bit. I got started planting out my tomato seedlings on Friday. The weather has been sunny and warm, just perfect. Normally it rains Labour Weekend, so this was a pleasant surprise.
As you might expect, tomatoes do once again dominate the veggie landscape, even if they are technically a fruit. I've planted out 37 heirloom tomato seedlings (more on those in due course), beans, zucchini, pumpkin, spring onion, beets, carrots (yellow and purple), chiles, lettuces and mesclun, italian parsley, coriander, basil, dill and chives.
Where I planted potatoes last year I've planted out corn and a mix of edible flower seeds (viola, nasturtium, borage, calendula, cornflower). This is after I "cleansed" the soil by planting a green manure crop over the winter. Potatoes can do weird things to the soil.
I've also planted out some bergamot bee balm and hyssop seedings. The pumpkins have gone in their separate patch near the compost bins. After all this John and I had a discussion about what else, if anything, we should be planting. We love kale, cauliflower and broccoli, but the white butterflies and caterpillars are so bad that they are a waste of time (plus I hate coating things with derris dust, not sure about that). I may try some capsicum/bell peppers, and possibly also Japanese eggplant, which would be good on the grill. Maybe some day we will put in a separate bed of asparagus, but that's down the line.
So we've been busy on the veggie front here at Struan Farm!
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