Three reasons to buy from farmer's markets

Seasonal fresh produce from Flemington Upmarket

Aren't these beautiful? Bought today from the Flemington Upmarket from the farmer who grew them at Werribee which is only 30 km away so very few food miles involved. I doubt if I can emulate that quality in my veggie plots; the red Werribee soil must be very special and the climate just right for brassicas.The cabbage only cost a dollar; that doesn't seem fair does it? Tonight I cooked a delicious meal from a recipe in the "River Cottage Veg Everyday" cookbook using some of the broccoli and half the cabbage. The vegetables must have been picked last night, they were so fresh.

Garlic

ANZAC Day and  the weather in Melbourne is perfect; sunny and 21 C. The large garlic bulb I saved from last's year's tiny crop of 3 plants is sprouting, telling me the time has come to plant garlic again. I chose the four biggest cloves for my Farnham St. plot; no room for more. I haven't quite decided what to do with the remainder so I am storing them in the shed in damp coconut peat for a few days. I think I might plant the smallest cloves in a pot and harvest the green shoots for winter salads. Pat is preparing a communal garlic bed under the Lemon Scented gum tree so the rest might end up there. I'll wait and see where they are most needed. The purple garlic in the middle is left over from organic garlic I bought for our other garden; more about that in a later blog post. I have just come back from measuring that garden to the last inch, literally, as I have scaled  graph paper marked out in inches. I can tell you, translating the measurements using my metre ruler into a foot x foot  planting grid gave my brain a good work-out. Whilst walking the dogs today Thomas and I saw an Egret, a rabbit and a fox; I don't know if that is a good thing as foxes hunt rabbits but also native water birds.Perhaps it will all balance itself out.

Coffee Cup Pots

I bought some silver beet and broccoli seedlings in punnets from the Kensington Garden Center and planted them in my plot at Farnham Street last Monday. I had leftover seedlings to give away but I ran out of plastic pots and was too impatient to start making paper pots; besides I was standing in the rain so I looked about for the nearest receptacles-discarded take-away coffee cups. I punched some drainage holes in their bottoms, filled them with home-made potting mix and watered in with some added seaweed emulsion. The seedlings have already started to put on growth in just 48 hours! The little cauliflower on the right was rescued from my plot after being eaten by a snail but even it is has grown a bit. I think I might have found the perfect seedling pot. This blog post must seem very ordinary compared with arriving in New York for the first time. I hope you have somewhere safe to pitch your tent tonight.

Carrots

Carrots: According to the Moon Planting Chart, yesterday and today are opportune to plant root vegetables; the moon is in its waning gibbous phase following the full moon on April 15th. An old Italian gardener first told me about moon planting. His wisdom was passed on from generation to generation to generation but I couldn't hold it all in my head so my thoughtful daughter gave me a moon planting chart.
I was also keen to try a practical idea I have read about for evenly spacing carrot seeds.I have been waiting to find the perfect seed dispenser and I must admit I bought "Clive of India" curry powder in a simple cardboard cylinder with a dispensing hole in the plastic lid, with carrot planting in mind. It's easy to remove the lid and drop in a mix of carrot seeds, sand and radish seeds then evenly pour it into shallow prepared drills and fill in with 6mm of sieved soil or compost. The next step is to gently water (use a watering can with the rose attached) and to place a thin piece of wood over the seeded area so the germinating seeds don't dry out. Carrot seeds take 10-21 days to germinate. Planting with radishes has the advantage of clearly marking the row of germinating carrots that can look so like tiny grass weeds. The nifty thing about radish plants is that they are ready to harvest long before the carrots, leaving, hopefully, the correct spacings between the carrot plants.