A year in our Vegetable GardenSpring and beyond..Late SpringLate October - Leaf Crops
It's now late spring in the Southern Hemisphere and we have just about harvested the last of the Broccoli. These have been a huge success and the flower heads have been HUGE. I put the Coke can in the photo to give you some size comparison. We have one more Cabbage to harvest and although that it is showing signs of "blowing" or going to seed, the central stalk can be readily removed and the balance will be very tasty. 
It's also Cauliflower time as well, we've picked one and two more are almost ready. Remember, to keep the heads nice and white, break the stem of one of the outer leaves and fold it over the top to keep the developing flower out of the sunlight. Update
Here's an update on the Cauliflower shown before. I have now picked all bar one of the Cauliflowers and have found as you can see here that they are HUGE, this one is just on 2kg's in weight.! 
Our Spinach has well and truly taken off with the increase in temperatures and sunlight. This New Zealand variety has been providing a constant supply of pick and come again leaves. We already have new seedlings of the same variety coming as well as an alternative climbing variety that will go into the bed as the Brassica's are removed. Root Crops 
In the root crops, the onion bed is progressing nicely. Here you can see the Potato Onions are well and truly divided and each of these divisions will now develop to form individual bulbs. We have already begun harvesting Spring Onions for early Spring salads and the garlic and leeks are fattening up.
In the potted vegetable gardens, the carrots are due to be thinned out to ensure their is enough room for the some good growth and the beets are already big enough to be harvested as baby beets, but, we'll let them grow up to adult sized roots.
Cucurbits, Tomatoes, Chillis and friends
These hedged beds are on the southern side of our house, so receive a good amount of sunlight in late Spring and through the Summer months, but not enough for a lot of crops in winter. Freshly manured, they will be left for a few weeks, then planted out with our Tomato, Capsicum, Chilli and Corn seedlings.
Now a few weeks later, the warmer weather is well and truly with us, even though it's not officially Summer and the manured summer vegetable garden beds have settled. Each of the Summer beds has been planted out with a range of imported Italian Tomatoe seed varieties, mixed Capsicums, a bed dedicated to Corn, co-planted with squash and another planted out with Cucumbers. As a newly 'resurrected' vegetable garden, there seems to be an army of snails and slugs waiting to attack. Everyday we remove at least 6 to 12 and have had to resort to a commercially available bait to cope with the onslaught. From previous experience, I have found that once the initial population has been controlled, beer traps provide an environmentally, pet and child friendly solution. Unfortunately, we still lost three tomatoe seedlings and two corn seedlings, but spare plants we raised quickly filled the gaps. 
Cucumbers
This year, we're growing a larger variety of vegetable plants than normal, so have relegated the Cucumbers to one of these new vegetable garden beds. Cucumbers can be grown across the ground, with the developing fruit lifted off the soil onto straw to minimise potential for rot and fungal attack, but, ever one for optimising space, I grow ours up a support. In a recycling effort, this is an old rural gate, propped up with stakes. Zucchinis
Over in the main garden beds, the Cucurbit bed is planted out with Zucchin and Corn and heirloom varieties of Cantaloupe (Rock Melon)AND Pumpkin, so this is going to be one busy bed. Part of the approach here is that Zucchini's are such prolific producers and grow so rapidly, that they can be removed once past their best to allow for the further development of the Pumpkins and Melons that thrive in the heat of Summer. This picture shows the development of the first flowers. Once fruit has set and is developing, the flowers can be snipped off and provide an additional, tasty burst of colour and flavour to your salads.
Summer's HereWelcome to Summer 2010. With Christmas and the New Year passed, the temperatures are still rising. January is a hot month here, although not as our hottest, February.We have seen average temperatures in the mid 20's (C), but also extreme storms and temperatures peaking up to 38!
Our leaf crops have changed, with the Spinach crop finished and cleared, our lettuce mix has really taken off, faster than we can eat it, so a successive planting has been made in another bed which also features a climbing spinach alternative that handles warmer weather. You can see that our celery is ready and is now being harvested and the empty areas of the bed have new plantings of root crops. This follows the crop rotation pattern, with this previously leaf crop bed changing to a root crop bed. 
Our Cucurbits (cucumbers, pumpkins and melons) have grown amazingly well. The Cucumbers have masses of flowers and we have alreadt harvested a number of continental and lebanese varieties, gherkins for pickling and will have apple cucumbers ready shortly. As our Zucchinis were producing profusely, one, that was displaying signs of a disease attack was removed, the second removed a few weeks later. It wasn't performing as well as the last and also enabled us to make more room for the encroaching rockmelon. The last is still faithfully producing more than we can manage to eat regularly.
Tomatoes 
This year we are growing our tomatoes using a different method, pruning out the lateral (side) shoots and allowing one leader to grow up a single stake. It is important not to remove excess leaves. Many think that the fruit needs to be exposed to the sun which is incorrect. Tomatoes ripen by temperature. Excess sunlight can result in the sun burning the fruit and ruining it. Here you can see developing Cuor di Bue tomatoes, a heart shaped variety that will be our fresh eating variety, with San Marzano, an egg shaped or Roma variety, grown in the next bed for bottling. Capsicums
Our Capsicum (pepper) plants are flowering well now, despite losing a few blooms in recent excessive heat. Several have set fruit and are not too far away from ripening and harvest
Mid SummerNow its mid Summer, the bulk of our gardens are producing to full capacity. Although we have had some extremes of heat that have caused some suffering and lost produce, we are now harvesting the Summer staples.
Tomatoes - Cuor di Bue This Cuor di Bue tomato is an old Italian variety, classified as a heart shape tomato, they are growing to around fist size and are starting to bare heavily. They ripen to a dark pinkish red. I've picked several kilos in one picking session alone.
These produce fruit to a size, just smaller than a golf ball. Not quite a cherry tomato, but not a full grown one either.
They bare masses of fruit, so we saved some seed and now grown them as part of our planned tomato crop each year as they continously fruit to very late in the season, with limited care.
Eggplants We have eggplants growing in both our potted gardens as well as our garden beds. The potted plants are a few weeks ahead and are fruiting already.
Harvest time
Sunday is harvest day for us. Being late summer, we have a multitude of things ready to pick. Here's the harvest from just one day of picking. The second photo is of our Tonda Padana pumpkins which originate from NW Italy. They're not quite ready for harvest yet as they are just starting to ripen. This one is about the size of a soccer ball.
Come back soon, there's heaps more to come
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