First tomato! January 19th, almost a month later than the earliest I’ve had something from this variety, “Gold Nugget.” I got the seeds from Southern Harvest in Tasmania, who are great at recommending varieties that do well in cooler climates. I’ve had Gold Nugget before Christmas in the past, but the slow rainy spring and early summer really delayed things. Ah well. There’ll surely be more along soon.

#gardening #gardeningAU #VeggieGardening #VegetableGardening #GrowYourOwn #EdibleGardening #permaculture #ObtainAYield #zone1

Anyway, I’m going to leave the other spuds there for now, and attempt to give them a bit more water. Fingers crossed.

But if you were wondering why #MinimumChips is looking so scant lately, this is why.

#gardeningAU #gardening #VeggieGardening #EdibleGardening #GrowYourOwn #permaculture #zone1 #ObtainAYield #LaNina #VicFloods #ClimateChange #FoodSecurity #FoodShortages

So, what did I get from 5 months of garden-bed space? These three spuds, which I’d estimate at a bit over half a kilo.

I’m not sure what they needed but didn’t get. Warmth earlier in the season would have helped, I’m sure. They weren’t bogged down by the rains as they were in a raised bed and hilled up besides, and the soil isn’t clay-y. In digging up the bed it was clear that the last few weeks have dried the soil out a lot, even though I’ve been watering. I guess it all runs off or evaporated from the hilling-up. Still, it should have been ok.

I didn’t amend the soil particularly, other than doing my hilling up with sifted soil from the next bed over, where prunings and other garden waste have been rotting down for years; it had more organic matter than the bed I started with, but wasn’t what I’d call incredibly rich compost. Nor did I do a pH test, though the weeds growing there (chickweed, fumitory, wild radish, black nightshade, cleavers, the odd dandelion) suggest it’s pretty neutral veggie garden soil. It’s not like spuds are usually super fussy, in my experience.

#gardeningAU #gardening #VeggieGardening #EdibleGardening #GrowYourOwn #permaculture #zone1 #ObtainAYield #LaNina #VicFloods #ClimateChange #FoodSecurity #FoodShortages

So you know how there’s a potato shortage across Victoria at present? I present: my first potato harvest.

I planted Dutch Cream seed potatoes back in August, in ditches in one of my veggie beds, then hilled them up with extra soil through spring, to a total depth of about 40cm. Just this last week or so they’ve been starting to yellow and die back, so I figured there’d be some to harvest.

I started by bandicooting around under the plants, but in the end I pulled a couple of them up and dug down properly. Here’s the space where they were, about 50x60cm.

#gardeningAU #gardening #EdibleGardening #GrowYourOwn #permaculture #zone1 #ObtainAYield #LaNina #VicFloods #ClimateChange #FoodSecurity #FoodShortages

Just a few pretty pics of the raised bed just outside our back door, and a “before” pic from a few months ago #permaculture #zone1 #ObtainAYield #UsefulPlants #VegetableGardening #flowers #wildflowers #gardening

@organicgay

Another tasty example of obtaining a yield. Medlar is an interesting fruit. My friends are growing a couple in this bioregion, too. I'm guessing you're growing several types of nut and fruit trees, so you always have a yield from one when another is slack? I'm also guessing you've read E. Tonnesmeier's _Uncommon Fruits_ ? (It's a treasure.)

#permaculture #ecologicalag #regenerativeag #obtainayield #careforearth