The Garden of Woz in the land of OZ

[Whwoz]

While cleaning up a bed found another clove of an un-named garlic that had shot, suspect this one is from another parent whose kids go to the same school as mine do. So final tally is 29 varieties of true garlic plus one Russian/elephant garlic

No worries you would have any problem making chicken with 40 cloves of garlic, lol.

[Whwoz]

Lol. Might even make chicken with 40 globes, if I could find a bird big enough, might have to settle for a turkey.

[Whwoz]

Our youngest's teacher at school decided that she would have some Leafy Stick Insects in the classroom. They lost the adults but the female laid eggs before she died and some of these have hatched. Meet Bingo and Jojo, two young female who we are looking after over the school holidays. Bingo is the older and larger of the two, who are sitting on Cootamundra wattle leaves while we changed over their cage leaves for fresh ones

[Koala Doug]

Awesome!

[GrowingCoastal]

Amazing looking creatures.

[bower]

Oh wow. If I saw those in my pile of leaves I'd think I was hallucinating!
Whwoz I have totally lost track of your garlic season, just saw your update. Are you on the planting or the harvest end of it now?

[NicolasGarcia]

I love the photos, incredible.
Thanks Whoz for sharing.

[Whwoz]

Originally Posted by bower

Oh wow. If I saw those in my pile of leaves I'd think I was hallucinating!
Whwoz I have totally lost track of your garlic season, just saw your update. Are you on the planting or the harvest end of it now?

Still at the growing stage. All in and up, last varieties were planted around the end of May, probably 2 or 3 months off harvesting the first, which will be Monaro Purple. Harvested these and the Italian Stripe, which were the only two varieties deliberately planted last season when we planted the tomatoes last year, early November, which was later than it should have been for MP as about half had side shot.

[Whwoz]

forgot to mention that we cut the second of the round squash from the butternut patch last night, as expected very similar to the first one, with flesh about 1.5 inches deep. Have kept seeds of both. Suspect maybe a chance cross between Waltham and what is known as Kent or JAP (Just another pumpkin) down here going by the colour on the ones at the Folks

[Whwoz]

For those whom are curious:

Plants are now all well up, final tally I believe to be 61 out of 63 planted. The first lot are the largest, with leaves upto 1 foot long and in some cases upto 5 or 6 clusters of leaves per corm planted. Not sure how this will translate into multiplication, but expecting to recover around 200 corms from the 3 pots and 4 boxes they are in.

[Whwoz]

An update on the garlic for comparison for those of you who grow it up north.

The first photo is of the two plants of Monaro Purple that arose from broken off cloves, they were moved into there current position from the bed next to this one and continue to do well.

the next is a mix of turbans in a raised bed 2 foot deep, the top 4 inches under the mulch are straight compost, the balance subsoil.

The third photo is the balance of the Monaro Purple that was planted after we returned from Tasmania, doing well but still behind the missed plants.

[bower]

Doing very nicely, Whoz. Those turbans are quite early I hear. We are a month or more from harvest here, so actually we are ahead of you. Too funny, this is our consolation for barely being started when our friends down south US are done and cured.. We're just ahead of the Southern Hemisphere.
Those saffron are looking lovely as well in the middle of your winter. You're going to have a field of them! (Which is great because they don't produce a lot per plant.) Well worth it.

[Whwoz]

Thanks Bower, we are probably 3 months off starting to harvest the turbans, with the other varieties to follow, taking us up to Christmas roughly. The Saffron are certainly doing well, I very interested in seeing how well they multiply. Have a spot picked out where I can set up a bed just for them.

[Whwoz]

Started Sowing seed today as well, 36 varieties sown, more to come when I get more space on the heat mat.

Barry’s Crazy Cherry
Bloody Butcher
Blue Ambrosia
Blueberries
Brad's Black Heart
Carbon
Cherokee Golden
Chocolate Stripes
Costuloto Genovese ‘Sal Valente’
Dr Wyche’s Yellow
Duncan’s Egg
Dwarf LAY
Dwarf Orange Grosse Lisse
Earliana
Early Wonder
Gold Mini Roma
Grubs Mystery Green
Heidi
Japanese Black trifele
Jersey Devil
KARMA Pink
King of Siberia
Lithium Sunset
Malakhitovaya Shkatulka
Old Ivory Egg
Orange Strawberry
Pink Berkley Tie Dye
Pink Thai Egg
Red Mini Roma
Rosella Purple
Tasmanian Chocolate
Trout Cod F5
Wes
White Zebra
Yellow Pear
Yellow Striped Roman

The Blue Ambrosia, Yellow Pear and Pink Thai Egg are from our trip to Tasmania earlier this year.

Trout Cod F5 or is it F6, not sure, is a spin off from the Dwarf Project, grew some Beauty cross plants several years ago, really liked a couple of them and grew some more out last year. One was a dwarf that ripened one fruit while we were in Tasmania (plant went in late), so not 100% sure what it was really like.

Dwarf LAY and Dwarf Orange Grosse Lisse are plants from commercial plants that I kept seed from and turned out to have a dwarf growth habit last year. Very nice yellow-Orange fruit on both.

Duncan's Egg is seed from McSee, from his version of Duncans from last year.

Gold Mini Roma is seed from a punnet of Gold Mini Roma's or perhaps they should be called grapes

20 plus seeds of most were sown, most will head to the Yarragon Spring Clean as part of the Yarragon Primary Schools fundraising efforts