Pinepig's Virtual Garden

I found a website for that place that does the "boxed mushroom" kit I've been looking at and thinking of growing, Mushroom Gourmet. I'd probably go for the button, or field, mushroom. If you let them grow large enough they become the Portabellos. Yummm, we both do like Portabellos, especially during bbq season, brushed with some butter and fresh herbs. They all come at once, which is a down side since we'd have to eat them all up quickly or I could share them with friends. According to the FAQs, the flushes come between 7 and 28 days and you usually get 3 to 6 flushes per set. So at $40NZ per box, if I even just get 3 flushes that feed us for a week or two each flush then that's not a bad price.

Check out this clever idea for growing in limited space. These are cool! If you're the handy-person type you could make something like this yourself.

I stumbled across Bristol's Seeds. They don't ship outside NZ but have a great selection of heritage tomatoes. Check them out to get a sense of the diversity of tomatoes, but I suggest you set the "display #" to 50 because they have a lot! A tomato is more than just a round red globe!

I haven't gotten my seed order yet from the other day. I think I put the PO Box down, I hope they deliver to PO Boxes (I ordered some tea a few days ago and they don't deliver to PO Boxes because they use a courier service).

Weather was ok today but we did get a few rain drops off and on and it was breezy so I didn't get to spray to knock back the scale like I wanted to. I did harvest some of the worm castings (kind of hard when you try to not harvest the worms too!) and put them in a big ziplock bag. I also prepped another tomato pot like I did the ones last weekend, with some blood & bone, dried leaves, sheep pellets, coffee grounds and a bit of worm castings. That will give me 5 tubs and I've ordered 6 different seeds. One of the tubs is pretty large so I'll maybe do 3 plants in that one. I'm thinking of doing only one of the Great Whites and I'll put 2 of the White Cherry in with it. The other 4 pots I'll put 2 of each plant in. If I can be patient I'll try to start one set of seeds and when they are big enough to transplant then start the 2nd ones. That way I'll be able to have staggered fruit instead of all at once.

The garden book on tomatoes I have says they take about 10 days to germinate and the best way to do it is to put your seeds on a moist paper towel that you fold in half, put into a zip lock bag & put on the top of your hot water heater. Keep an eye on it, moisten as necessary and when the seed sprouts and has about a 5mm long white root carefully pluck it off the towel and plant it. I want to start the jicama too but want to do that in soil so am not sure if I'll try this method this year for my tomatoes or not. The book does say it's ok to start them indoors in Aug/Sept but not to plant outside until at least Labour Day Weekend. I've got a friend who also has a garden and I offered some seeds to him. I'll start them for him & he's going to be doing a swan plant or two for me (yay monarch butterflies!) so it will be a nice trade.

All the tomato seeds I picked up are for "indeterminate" toms. Indeterminates basically grow & fruit until the first frosts. Determinates are more busy and will produce one main flush.

Ah, and I picked up one of the usual NZ Gardener magazines. I stopped getting it because I have a lot from when I had a subscription and they tend to do a lot of similar articles year in and year out. I picked up this one though because it had some info on potatoes & I figured it would be handy to have. I'm glad I did, I thought I had to chite (sprout) the potatoes in semi-darkness so I had a couple tea towels over them (they are on top of the mini ice cooler, which is on top of the dehydrator, which is on top of the refrigerator). I pulled the towels off. :)

When I was out and about in the garden today, I also opened up one of the garden bags I bought to grow tomatoes in. I'll never get used to these darned metrics! I thought it was 1/2 the size it is. Instead I'd be able to cram all 4 of the darned cats into the bag easily! It's bigger than I thought! I'm debating using only one bag or 2. I will easily fit 5 potatoes per bag. I don't think I'll have room for 2 bags, but might try. I'll need to use bamboo to keep the bags more stable, it kept wanting to fall in on itself. I'm also thinking of getting slightly smaller bags and using them for the jicama. Or I might get the same sized bags and hope I can grow a huge root! :)

And here's the Red Rascals chiting. You might be able to just see the new sprouts.


I have a lot to do out there still, I do want to get one more fungus spray and one Nature's Way pyrethrum spray to knock back the scale on the roses. And the roses are starting to bud from the warm weather I think. The fruit trees and berries have little buds. The trillium has little bits of green thinking of popping up. Spring is around the corner I think, despite the still-cool weather!

Right now the garden is my saving grace, my sanity. It's frustrating that I can't get out there more often.