Finally the mini-capsicum was ripe for the picking.
It was delicious. My husband ate his half with a sprinkling of salt.
Mulching the VegTrug April 3, 2013
I have not been entirely happy with the growth rate of the vegetables I have planted. I water them everyday (and it has been raining on and off as well) but the plants have been showing signs of heat and water stress. My lettuces in particular have not grown very well and the edges of some of the leaves are yellowing. So today I decided to add more compost and soil to the VegTrugs and mixed in some water storage pellets. On top I added some sugar cane mulch which I am hoping will significantly improve water retention in the soil. Before I added the mulch I watered it well and also watered in some “Yates – Multi-nutrient Plant food”.
While I was doing this I put up a green shade sail over the VegTrug which made gardening a lot more pleasant under the hot sun (otherwise I would have been burnt to a crisp). I’m thinking of leaving this shade sail up over the VegTrugs during the middle of the day – I’m not sure whether this is a good idea or not but I’m thinking it may help to reduce the amount of heat the plants are exposed to.
I also planted out some lettuces into the hanging baskets I bought 2 days ago. I also transplanted the choc-mint from the VegTrug into a hanging basket. I covered the top of the baskets in sugar cane mulch also.
Below are some photos of the corn plants and the capsicum which has begun to change in colour from yellow to orange.
I purchased some heirloom vegetable seedling 2 days ago as well. There were four seedlings in the punnet which included: “Cucumber – Mini white”, “Cucumber – Spacemaster”, “Pumpkin Buttercup” and “Zucchini Tromboncini”. The only problem is I’m not sure which seedling is which as the label fell off the punnet which showed the order of the seedling in a particular cell of the container.
I planted out 3 of the 4 seedling types in the VegTrug but I’m not sure what they are.
Can you identify this plant?
or this one?
or maybe this one?
And of course it rained again today. Whenever I plan to do some gardening it always rains! At least it’s good for the plants.
Vegetable Gardening April 2, 2013
I didn’t do any gardening today, however I did buy some books on vegetable gardening. I skimmed through the contents and they looked very informative.
Harvest Time April 1, 2013
My husband and I were very excited today to be harvesting our first lot of tomatoes that we had grown in the VegTrug.
They were absolutely delicious. They were so flavoursome. So much better than store bought tomatoes!
I went to Master today and bought a few items for the vegetable garden. I bought some sugar cane mulch which I’m planning to add to the top of the VegTrugs soon. I’m hoping this should help with water retention in the VegTrug as the sun has been so scorching lately.
Below is a photo of my pea seedling that I grew from seed. It’s growing quite nicely.
I couldn’t resist buying a hanging tomato planter today from the reject shop. It was on sale for only $2 and I have always been keen to try one out. I bought two different varieties of cherry tomato plants from Masters and planted one out in this upside-down planter and the other in one of the VegTrugs. It’ll be interesting to see how the one in the upside-down planter goes. To be honest I think it is much much easier to plant a plant the right way up in a garden bed than it is to plant them upside down in this types of planter.
I also bought some wall planter baskets. The baskets are made of black steel with a coco liner. I bought six 40cm ones and two larger ones that are 60cm wall troughs. I plan to hang them along the sides of the VegTrug with S-shaped hooks. I got the great idea from reading the blog “Containerized“.
In addition to the baskets I bought some Wettasoil which I plan to water into the VegTrugs, and some “Weta Pot and Basket” water storing granules that I plan to add to the soil in the baskets.
Ripe and ready March 31, 2013
I got up early this morning and went out to look at my vegetable garden. The tomatoes are looking ripe for the taking.
The capsicum is also colouring up. It’s slowly changing colour from green to yellow. My capsicum seedling is also getting bigger.
It was nice being out and about so early in the morning. I took this shot of the shadow of the metal bird ornament that I have in the VegTrug in the early morning sun.
Interestingly I discovered lots of little mushrooms growing in the soil of the VegTrug the other morning. But later that day they had all wilted and disappeared due to the heat of the sun. Which was one of the reasons why I was so keen to look at the VegTrug this morning to see if there were any new mushrooms growing. More mushrooms had indeed sprouted so I took some photos of them. I am surprised how tall some of them were considering they had just grown up overnight.
There was also some interesting looking small yellow and green roundish fungus growing.
The corn continues to get bigger by the day.
I noticed that the flower on the apple cucumber has closed up over the last few days.
Here is a photo of the shallots. 
I’m really not sure what this seedling is. I’ll have to wait and see…
Hungry hungry caterpillars March 29, 2013
While I’m waiting for my vegetable plants to grow an army of caterpillars decided that my broccoli and apple cucumber plants are already mighty tasty.
I was disappointed today to find that they had chomped their way through a few of the leaves of the broccoli plant that I have growing in a container. As you can see in the photo the caterpillars were quite small.
Another larger caterpillar also had a snack on the leaves of an apple cucumber plant that I have in the VegTrug.
But on the positive side of things I now have a flower on my apple cucumber plant!
Isn’t it pretty…
I am surprised that this plant is doing so well because as a seedling the stem was damaged and it was in a pretty sad state. You can see below how the stem is bent at an angle.
Changes in the VegTrug March 24, 2013
The tomato is becoming more noticeably red!
I had been disappointed that the tomato appeared to be damaged and could be inedible. But then I came across some information about catfacing. Catfacing is the term that describes the disorder where tomatoes (or another type of fruit) develop puckered surfaces and distorted shapes as a result of poor environmental conditions and so the fruit develops scar tissue. I’m not surprised that the tomato plant had copped some damage – particularly with the amount of rain we have had the last few months. You’ll notice also that the condition of the plant’s leaves isn’t that great either. So whilst the tomato has catfacing I have read that the rest of the tomato is still edible. So I still plan on eating it. (I’ll most likely share eating it with my hubby who has also been watching it’s development in anticipation)
There are two tomatoes growing next to each other. One of the them is wedged in between the stem and the other tomato so it’s growing with an irregular shape due to being squashed.
The apple cucumber is developing tendrils and more leaves.
The central section of this corn plant now has two thin tendrils. I wish I knew more about corn anatomy and reproduction. I’m guessing they are the corn tassels. You can clearly seem them in the pictures below.
I’m worried about my lettuce. The outer edge of the leaves have gone brown. I’m guessing it may be due to the scorching sun and perhaps not enough water (although I have been watering the VegTrug everyday).
Here’s a shot of the two VegTrugs.
I was extremely disappointed yesterday when my husband came and told me that he had just been looking at my VegTrugs and noticed that the there was no plant within the dove soap cardboard box that I had put my tomato seedling in. Sure enough when I went outside and had a look for myself there was no longer a tomato seedling there! I guess a bird or something must have ate it. I hope I don’t start having trouble with birds eating my produce!
So I moved the cardboard box and placed it around the smallest pea seedling instead. Fingers crossed that will still be there tomorrow.
Corn and tomatoes March 22, 2013
I took some photos of my corn and tomato plants today. You can see that the stems of the corn plants have become thicker. I liked this shot because you can see the sun setting through the crack in the fence palings.
The tomato on the left is starting to change colour. Yipee!
My tomato seedling has grown slightly.
The beauty of nature March 21, 2013
I had a bit of fun on the weekend playing around with the new camera app I purchased for my phone. It was fun playing around with the different filter options.
Spot the lizard…
Another lizard…
Tales of growing in the VegTrug 
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