DISPATCHES FROM THE FARM

In a few weeks we'll be picking an abundance of cucs. daily!

I know some folk manage to grow cucumbers around here in their back yards without any form of covering/temperature control but we can only guess their yards or a particular spot there in present a good little micro-climate for their cucumbers to grow well. The farm is much more open than that and because we rotate crops, we couldn't keep replanting them in the same location year after year even if we did have a specially protected location outdoors.

We planted the zucchinis back in November and they have just started to fruit. 

Zucchinis are also know by their French name 'courgette' in some European countries, NZ & the U.K.. 

They are actually a summer squash. They can be yellow, green or light green but we are only growing the dark green ones this season. They are rich in vitamin C and other anti-oxidents. 

They have gorgeous golden, edible flowers (more about that another time). Botanically, the zucchini fruit is considered to be the 'swollen ovary' attached to the female flower. The flowers occurring on stalks without zucchinis are the male flowers. Plenty of bees are needed for pollinating zucchinis for the squash to be produced and to grow healthily. The bees pollinate from the male flowers to the female flowers, fertilising the seeds in the immature fruit. If the seeds aren’t pollinated, the plant won’t waste energy growing a non-viable fruit, so it just withers and drops off, and the plant tries again with a fresh flower.

Anyone who has ever grown zucchinis or cucumbers for that matter, knows they go mad with very quick growing fruit (& can be master camouflage artists!). Unless you want large gourd-type zucchs. and cucs., you really need to harvest them daily to get to the fruits before they become huge...one more day can result in zuch/cuc-a-saurus! Personally, we prefer the flavour of smaller-sized zucchs. and cucs..

So between the zucchs., the cucs. and then the tomatoes when they arrive in the next few weeks, we'll be busy each morning picking their fruits whilst it is at its best, ready for the chefs, local shops and of course our farmers' market stalls each week. 

There are a number of ways for plotting out your planting beds and seed rows. We mainly rely on our drip irrigation 

tape, to form the straight lines and then plant at the intervals we want each seedling to grow at along the tape, marrying each seed/plant with a drip hole.

The small-seeded rocket isn't sown on a 'plant-by-plant' basis, just more thickly in general rows and so absorbs the required moisture from the soil saturation.

 

The shallots have been largely irrigated by the winter rains but now need to be watered via our low-set overhead sprinklers when required. 

  

Lavender at Lavandula (photos courtesy of Lavandula)

Behold, a snapshot of the  life cycle of the joyful sunflower:

  

 

  

 

Sunflowers are a summer flower and take a few months to mature in these parts - we planted these in October. They have really prospered with the regular rain we've been getting, followed by sun and humidity.

They are natural weed suppressors (although a few still get in, partic. the wild radish!), so they can be handy planted prior to other crops for helping break the weed cycle.   

We sell our sunflowers from our farmers' market stalls - Collingwood Children's Farm this Saturday or on Sunday at the Lavandula Summer Harvest Picnic (Shepherd's Flat next to Hepburn Springs)