Touring 7 Nov 2014

A good rainfall yesterday meant the watering schedule is naturally done. I took this opportunity to have a little tour around my vegetables and take photos of notable things. Most of these crops are my first trials.
Coriander vs. Italian Parsley flowers/buds

Parsley flower heads, compared with those with coriander, have more buds in each cluster.

Coriander flower heads. The leaves that appear on the flowering stalk look similar to carrot leaves. 

 

Coriander flowers are like little dainty stars and highly scented. They attract bees.

Butterhead and Iceberg lettuce flowers

Butterhead

Iceberg

To me, they look almost identical. Iceberg seems to have a more loosely formed bunch of flowers. They both have little bright yellow daisy-like flowers.

Fruiting Eggplants

I tried trimming my eggplants to three main stems this year. At the moment the three plants each has at least 4 fruits growing.

We ate two eggplants last week, each around 15cm long. It looked like they were picked at a good time, with no tough seeds and the flesh was juicy and tender.

The long producing Chilies

To either side of the cloth are two hot chilli plants that I have had for the 6th year. They have been over-productive for our household use, and as they are supposed to slow down in production as they get older, I am perfectly happy to keep them.

Bush Tomatoes 

'Beef Short'

'Health Kick'

Before I knew much about growing tomatoes, I failed for two or three years. As I was about to give up, I decided to study up and give it another go. 

This year, I am growing two bush tomatoes. There have been no disease noticed, and I am very happy with that.

About the varieties: The 'Beef Short' cannot be found anywhere online, but presumably it is a bush type of beefsteak. These are fruiting at a height of about 40cm, much shorter than the height they are said to reach, which makes me wonder if the pot they are grown in might be too small?

Crowded Celery

When these celery plants were transplanted, we didn't have enough space in this area, hence the crowdedness. They have grown a bit taller recently and I am hoping they will still be ok for a normal harvest. 

The occasional Corn

I didn't expect my corn to perform well. I was merely growing them to suck up the extra nitrogen in my soil. They are skinner and shorter than ones of serious growers, but nevertheless, they are still giving me some sweet cobs! As can be seen at the back of this picture, there is another lot gone in recently and I hope to plant some heat-susceptible greens once the corn get bigger.

Capsicum, hopefully?

Similar to my tomato failings, I failed two capsicum plants for unknown reasons. Their health went downhill from the time they were transplanted. Since I had some great harvest in this plot earlier in Spring, I am more confident about this year's soil and have decided to try again. This plant currently have two developing fruits.