Zantedischia

Exotic Arum lilies. The one on the left, Majestic Red, was only planted a week ago.

Update 2015/12/20:

Tomatoes not in tyres

This is the set up between the outside room and eastern wall bordering the railway line. Planted in black bags full of compost, and fed by drip irrigation. A few cloves of garlic in each bag, but not yet any basil. I might transplant a few seedlings of this from their tyre, where they're flourishing.

On the right are mixed youngberry/booysenberry, doing reasonably well, even though they get about 30 minutes of sun a day, when it's briefly overhead on the north east axis of the wall.

Reaching eagerly for their trellis system.

Every other bag is - I think/hope - a small tomato called "Little Wonder", which did really well here last year. The balance are larger types of tomato, but they took so long to sprout I re-sowed, and there's a bit of confusion.

The other varieties I tried last year struggled along, getting mildew and aphids and what not. Maybe a function of air circulation and humidity? It was really windy last night, yet only one plant in this row was blown over.

These are all grown from seed, and for the second year have taken a lot longer to get going than I would expect. Being a 1.5 metre wide passageway running north east, the black bags tend to be shaded while the wall they're growing against gets full sun until about 13h30, so maybe the soil temperature in early spring is too low for proper germination. These plants are all quite small in comparison to the seedlings planted out into tyres, and the ones in the northern end haven't yet cleared the top of their bags.

In a way, this is an ideal use for otherwise wasted space, so I need to discover what will work.

Update 2015/11/03:

Have transplanted basil seedlings from the tyre garden into most of the bags.

Update 2015/11/12:

Still no aphids, and I've done nothing special. Maybe the garlic I planted last year, which is getting quite large by now?

Update 2016/02/09:

Still no aphids, lots of cherry tomatoes:

Lettuce

Several varieties, mostly planted in interstitials between tyres. All from seedlings.

Head lettuces

The crinkly sort.

The red oak leaf sort, by far the most successful - and tasty.

Brinjals

Black Beauty, eleven seedlings in three tyres.

Update 2015/11/15:

All three batches in different rows of tyres, different irrigation conditions and sun exposure.

Update 2015/12/20:

Flowering!

Update 2016/01/28:

Basil

Pretty much 100% germination rate. Also planted with tomatoes, but those are not as advanced as this batch, presumably because of shading effect. Will have to thin these out - fortunately they transplant well.

Update 2015/11/15:

Update 2015/11/18:

Update 2015/11/22:

Update 2015/11/27:

Update 2016/02/29:

Bush beans

Contender, a couple of baby beans visible.

There's another tyre of them, and another of Dwarf Wintergreen, both planted a few weeks after this batch.

Still struggling with runner beans - can't get any Witsa in town at the moment, but asked Sunnyside to order. The other varieties - Lazy Housewife etc - aren't really worth the effort.

Here's a nice article about growing beans.

Update 2015/11/15:

"Contender" batch 2.

"Dwarf Wintergreen".

Update 2015/11/22:

Update 2015/11/24:

One harvest from a tyre of Contender, ready to eat with a couple of lamb chops. This is the third crop, and it's still going well. The other tyre of Contender is just showing some baby beans, and the Dwarf Wintergreen is flowering.

Parsnips

These are from seedlings.

Kale

Something is eating the leaves, but I can't see what. Yet.
Experience shows that they'll probably outgrow whatever it is.

A nice story about kale.

Update 2015/11/15:

Weekly status of tyre garden - update 8

Everything doing OK other than the Okra and one of the brinjals - no other fatalities despite high temperatures early in the week. Mostly overcast with fine drizzle once or twice. Heavier rain expected this evening.

Need to supplement tyre numbers, and dig holes in order to plant grapes.

21h00 - It's raining reasonably hard, and there's a lot of wind. Hopefully nothing gets too damaged.

Update 2015/11/02:

02h00 Still raining, windy.
06h30 Weak sunshine and light breeze, but more rain predicted for mid day.

10h00 Intermittent sunshine. Just finished tidying up the (easterly) wind ravaged garden - tomatoes, globe artichokes, horseradish, and bush beans knocked over.

Even the beetroot had a hard time.

Tied up what I could, pruned the rest to decrease wind loading, still blowing but not as strongly as last night.

Unopened pecan nut catkins strewn all over the place. Will this affect their fertilisation?

13h40 - A bit of rain, but didn't amount to much.

Green peppers

California Wonder, in their second year - the first after having been transplanted here.

Update 2015/11/22:

Beetroot

An example of why cutting out the rims would give better planting density...

Need to find hook type blade for box-cutter.

Update 2015/11/02:

After the rain and wind last night.

Update 2015/11/03:

Two tyres that had radishes in are free.... one was great, Cherry Belle, but the White Icicle didn't work at all. Time to get the next crop in - beetroots.

Detroit Deep Red.

Crimson Globe.

Update 2015/11/11:

Update 2015/11/27:

Small, but edible...

Burgling bird

A red headed barbet pecking furiously at the window, trying hard to break in. The pecking was quite frantic, woodpecker like. It eventually got scared off when I got close, but returned several times.

These usually hang out in a raucous flock of about six birds.

We've had a goose perched on that window sill for several hours before - about 2.5 metres off the ground.