The Veggie Patch...

My last blog post was about our quick visit to Toowoomba's Queens Park to look at this year's display there for the annual Carnival of Flowers. 

In other years that we've visited Queens Park, I was delighted to see the use of ornamental kale in the garden beds...as in these next 2 photos copied from blog posts in 2010 and 2012. 

A very clever use of vegetable plants in decorative gardens! 

Back home here, I've worked steadily away in my modest veggie patch this year, encouraged by the slightly higher rainfall during Autumn and Winter. No kale though, this year; instead I'd planted herbs, tomatoes, capsicums ( green peppers), eggplant ( aubergines), round zucchinis ( courgettes), sweet potatoes and regular potatoes. 

In the subtropical climate here in Brisbane, zucchinis can often be plagued by powdery mildew which usually kills off the plant if not controlled. I sometimes wonder why I 'torment myself' trying to grow zucchinis...it really is a 'battle'.  😒 But Nanette, a fellow blogger suggested placing crushed egg shells ( I put them in the little mini food processor and ended up with a nice fine white powder) in the hole when planting out the zucchinis...which I did. The calcium is meant to make the plants stronger to resist disease. 

I did find I had to use the 1:10 milk spray as the dreaded mildew did 'rear its ugly head', but I did have the mildew under control. Then we spent 2 weeks in WA and DsD3 was house sitting. Instructions and demonstrations of how to spray the milk solution on the leaves were given. When I came home, the veggies were all still alive unlike after our previous holiday...but...

Yep! A terminal case of powdery mildew I fear....but...there was one rather large zucchini that the girls had missed whilst watering...so it hadn't been picked...and had just kept growing. 

It was healthy...

And rather large. It weighed 400 grams. 

So all was not lost! And the good news continued. The Tommy Toe tomato bushes were covered with fruit...

But best surprise of all was the eggplant. For weeks before we went away it had been covered with flowers, but they would never ' set'. But when we came home it was a different story...

I counted 15 eggplants! 

So in the last few weeks I've been enjoying picking fruit/veggies and using them.

Some cooking...

That one zucchini was enough to make a zucchini slice...

Some of the eggplants were used in a family favourite, moussaka...

 

And my niece was thrilled when I visited her last Sayurday and handed over a bag of tomatoes and eggplants from my garden. Yesterday she sent me a photo of what she made with them.

So we will continue to enjoy the crops from the garden this year, as next year might not be as productive. 

Regular readers would realise that the bush turkeys have graciously not trashed the veggie patch this year, but I keep my fingers crossed that this state of affairs should continue. 😉