What have you got growing at the moment?

It's just going into winter here in Victoria and the first frosts of the year are coming through. I've just planted my first vegie garden in 15 years with broccoli, cauli's, cabbage, snow peas and honeypod peas, celery, carrots, radishes, mixed lettuce, brown onions and some asian greens. Everything is looking good so far and the pak choy is going great guns, I've just got to make a new spot for the potatoes.

What have you got going at the moment?

Summer here at latitude 53N. I've planted snap peas, lettuce (several kinds), bok choy, beans (although something other than me is eating them :( ), celeriac, brussels sprouts, basil, carrots, mustard greens, potatoes (5 kinds), onions (4 kinds), shallots, tomatoes, peppers, parsley (2 kinds), and radishes. The radishes are already done and eaten (late radishes get wormy so I don't bother with them after May/June) and lettuce I transplanted is ready to eat. The rest is coming along but not edible yet.

We finally got some rain last night but I didn't have time to check the rain barrels or the soil to see if it was actually a useful amount.

I don't know. Everything is covered with 18 inches of snow!

All kidding aside, I just discovered this group and hope to have more to say come spring. My husband and I did grow a vegetable garden this past year, the ups and downs of which I noted on a 7-page blog. Then I got tired of blogging. :)

Hello SqueakyChu, good to have you onboard. Lookig forward to a bit more interest and input to this group.

Just going into summer here, so no 18 inches of snow.

I've got potatoes that aren't as productive as I'd hoped but still taste good. The Pontiacs I'm starting to harvest and the Kipflers that went in a month ago are growing at a rapid rate. The tomatoes are just starting to set some fruit but it will be a few weeks before I get anything to eat out of them.

I planted some seeds in punnets the other week and I've got a good show of tatsoi, kale, pak choi, spring onion, Purple King beans and mustard greens coming on. I will have to look at potting up or planting out in the next week or two.

Thanks for the warm welcome.

Since Tim started group tagging yesterday, I added tags to this group. Feel free to do so as well in order to make it more well known. Too bad I didn't know about it this past summer or I'd have been following your group.

I'm sorry to say that I don't even know what punnets or tatsoi is. I also belong to a CSA (community-supported agriculture group) which supplied me this past year with (among other things) fresh, organic potatoes, tomatoes, kale, pak choi, spring onions, beans (mine were green), and mustard greens. I did receive some purple/black broccoli, though.

In Australia, is there a movement (like in the U.S.) for organic and locally grown produce? Do you also use the concept of CSAs in which individual households buy weekly shares of boxed organic produce from local farmers?

Punnets are simply small, plastic containers, usually rectangular or divided into cells, for planting seeds into. One would normally purchase a punnet of seedlings or they are good for growing small quantities of stuff at home.

Tatsoi is an asian green in the Brassica family, similar to pak choi or chinese cabbage.

There is a strong movement over here for organic produce and a growing (pun unintended) number of local farmers markets. There is a new market just started in my town/suburb earlier this year which is taking off well. The first one or two markets were virtually sold out of produce within the first 2 hours, so were a bit disappointing, but they are better stocked with a greater variety now.

I don't know about CSAs, I've never heard of anything like that, which is not to say it doesn't exist, I just haven't encountered it.

Welcome to the group, SqueakyChu! Thanks too Bernsad for giving SqueakyChu a warm welcome in my absence. I've been a little busy off the farm - we started an Op-shop and Health Food store in town. At the start of the season the pump also broke down and we let most things go wild. We almost harvested as many greens as if I had planted them diliberately!

In response to your question about punnets, SqueakyChu. I don't tend to use them as they dry out a bit too quick for my liking and they're a bit too fiddly. I use direct seeding for the root crops and sow other things in trays (it depends on the scale you need to grow food on - for us we need a fair amount). I've experimented a little with soil blocking too, but find it only of use in the earlier part of the season - it gets too dry and windy later.

Yes, Australia does have some CSA's but really we're a bit behind in some ways. There is at least one near Perth in Western Australia (Keysbrook or Mimsbrook? near Byford?). As for the other states I'm sure there is.
They've been popularized well in the states by the master gardener Eliot Coleman author of The New Organic Grower (see the touchstone) but really you guys are well ahead of us in this regard. See Eliot's book for details on soil blocking too.

Hope this is of some help. Happy growing!