What Are You Growing in Your Balcony/Garden/Greenhouse etc This Summer?

gimli on 13/02/2022 - 20:16

Just curious what ozbargain gardeners are up to this summer in their balcony/garden/greenhouse. (Probably best not to post about your hydroponic doings)

Been growing some cayenne chillis and cherry tomatos in a few pots. Finally having more success than previous years but pretty small crop but hopefully get bit more fruit next month or two. I have to say the taste is so much better than store bought.

For those chilli growers out there curious what varieties people are growing. I find my cayennes are much spicier and flavoursome than store bought which I don't find spicy at all.

Home & Garden

Comments

  • bobbified on 13/02/2022 - 20:25
    +1

    (Probably best not to post about your hydroponic doings)

    Not sure if you'll be getting very many replies then.. haha

    • gimli on 13/02/2022 - 20:29

      People are well come to but we all know ATO/AFP/FBI/ACA regularly monitor ozbargain forums. :P

      • popsiee on 13/02/2022 - 20:34

        Whatever weeds /seeds the winds and the birds bring to may balcony I will grow .
        Its amazing some of the stuff that grows with no proper soil on concrete and cobble stones .

      • AustriaBargain on 13/02/2022 - 23:19

        Not to mention the NSA has a supercomputer that already knows if we are growing weed or not just based on our psychological text language fingerprint.

  • pyramid on 13/02/2022 - 20:34
    -1

    Weed

  • kizzy on 13/02/2022 - 21:09

    I have chillis and tomatoes. I've got habaneros, jalepenos, cayenne, birdseyes, and dragon rolls.
    Not much success on the mexican varieties, the best bang for buck is definitely the birdseyes.

    • gimli on 13/02/2022 - 21:10

      Are habaneros super spicy? Always too scared to try it.

      • kizzy on 13/02/2022 - 21:13

        Yeah they pack a real punch. Good one to make into chilli sauce

        • gimli on 13/02/2022 - 21:14

          But you would need to grow heaps to make sauce i assume.
          Do you grow in pots?

          P.s. have you eaten a whole habanero?

          • kizzy on 13/02/2022 - 21:15

            @gimli: I've got them in a garden bed. You don't really need that many for sauce, you can use tomato as a base and then add nice hot chillis to taste

            • gimli on 13/02/2022 - 21:19

              @kizzy: Thanks. I should look up sauce recipes.
              Also do you replant chillis every year?

              • kizzy on 13/02/2022 - 21:22

                @gimli: Yep, I just keep some seeds and go again the next year

              • Qazxswec on 15/02/2022 - 11:03

                @gimli: yeah make like a chilli jam with tomatoes, onions, sugar, vinegar and habaneros, plus and herbs and spices you want to add

      • Qazxswec on 15/02/2022 - 11:00

        habaneros are hot but they have a really nice flavour, probably my favourite chilli, same with ghost chillies and scotch bonnets, super fruity taste for the later

  • atris17 on 13/02/2022 - 21:40
    +2

    Try sweet potato
    And harvest the leaves, love them for my Asian cooking
    They grow really fast
    Got an unlimited supply of green veges
    Just need to make sure the soil have enough nutrient
    I throw in some banana skin

    • leelemon on 13/02/2022 - 23:06

      sweet potato

      This ^^
      Seriously, he's right -
      I have a 2.4x1.2m bed dedicated to sweet potato that I rarely ever water, but somehow magically gives me a veggie dish (for 2+ people) pretty much every day during Spring/Summer.
      The leaves taste like 'Kong Xin Cai' to me, but is much easier to chew.

      • EightImmortals on 14/02/2022 - 09:17

        For real?
        How do you cook the leaves?

        • lgacb08 on 15/02/2022 - 10:53
          +1

          Stir fry, or just boil/steam and season with sauce on the dish

  • dogboy on 13/02/2022 - 21:45
    +1

    Chillies, Capsicums, tomatoes and Sugar snap peas

  • pegaxs on 13/02/2022 - 21:51

    Limes and going to give pomegranates a crack again this year. The damn slugs demolished my petunia garden.

    • gimli on 13/02/2022 - 22:05

      Pomegranate would be awesome!

  • Ugly on 13/02/2022 - 22:37
    +2

    Nothing officer.

  • ddhar on 13/02/2022 - 23:47

    I've been harvesting Mortgage Lifter tomato I planted last November. These things are huge and juicy. I have to pick them semi-ripe though as they spoil easily and/or burst from inside.

    For chillies, I've been growing the Thai varieties for years. I only consume these ones as I don't find Jalapeno and Cayenne anywhere close. Currently growing some south american types (forget what they are called); still waiting for those bell fruits to turn red/black.

    I've been enjoying fig fruits as well. I thought birds would be a problem but apparently the fruits spoil easily if left ripe on the tree. Unfortunately my tree is the green fruit type so they are hard to spot and determine if ripe. Is anyone here experienced with pruning fig tree? Any tips to share? Mine is growing a bit too tall for me to reach the top.

    • gimli on 14/02/2022 - 08:18

      Yep. I want to grow some bigger tomatos next summer. Just googled mortgage lifter. They look so good!
      No idea re:figs but im sure others will have fig trees.

    • sam-1966 on 14/02/2022 - 17:57

      How are the mortgage lifter tomatoes for disease or insects? In Qld, we've found the cherry tomatoes great with the slightly thicker skin and the bigger varieties a bit prone to issues.

      • ddhar on 15/02/2022 - 09:09
        +1

        They're very prone to spoilage. They're very juicy but that makes them really soft and prone to blemishes. I find picking them just before ripe stage (colour still orange-red, not bright red) and letting them ripen on the shelf works best.

  • leelemon on 14/02/2022 - 00:03
    +5

    I have a small yard (probably just over 100sqm) so I generally picked high yield, smaller varieties and grew vertically whenever i could
    It's my first proper vegetable garden because we only just bought our house about a year ago. I sourced a lot of my seeds from family and friends, otherwise got them from seed collection and diggers (mostly pumpkins from diggers) + my beds were mostly made from free heat treated pallets from the pet store and cheap/free wood which saved me a lot of money.

    tomatoes (yellow, black krim, grosse lisse, san marzano, amish paste), zucchini (would recommend cocozelle), cucumber (double yield - taste is a bit like continental, but 4 plants (3 healthy ones) gave me 2+ cucumbers a day at one point), pumpkins (butternut, japs, random heirlooms ones), watermelon (sugar baby), beans (purple, yellow, blue), squash (spaghetti and tromboncino mostly), silverbeet (rainbow), mizuna, lettuce (mostly italian varieties), eggplant, artichoke (hopefully can harvest it next year), corn, grapes (still growing, need a bit of time for harvest), strawberries (bit finicky for me - probs not again next year), okra (not sure if ill do that again - not much harvest for the space I've given it), radish (easter egg, watermelon), chokos, sweet potatoes, warrigal greens (would recommend for eternal salad - grows anywhere and neglectable lol), rocket (wild, standard), spring onion, rosemary, basil, chili

    trees (mostly dwarf) - not all of them fruited, but hopefully will have better results next year!
    peach, avocado, almond (really pretty), (2)plum, orange, (2)lime (kaffir), tangelo, mulberry (in a pot), fig

    Trust - I'm a really shitty gardener. I pull weeds when I remember to water and made a LOT of mistakes but I've somehow not had to buy vegetables this season (minus a bag of carrots and a celery heart, but who is counting lol) + grown enough to give away stuff every time I see family.
    My ""success"" is probably because of the excess rain we've had this year, so I'm installing some drip irrigation when I change over to cooler season crops (very soon) to cover me when it dries up.
    I'm pretty excited for next season!

    • gimli on 14/02/2022 - 08:15
      +1

      Wow thats impressive.
      My yard is 50m2 max. Mainly grow in pots.
      Might invest in a garden bed if im succesful.

      • leelemon on 14/02/2022 - 19:04

        Go for it ! I use up way less space than my yard. I have 6 beds -
        (4)1.2x2.4m beds
        (2)0.9x2.4m beds

        It's just my artichokes and most of my fruit trees that are in pots, that don't take much space.

        It's easy to recoup the costs (considering how expensive vegetables can be these days), especially if you do things on the cheap like getting free mulch from fb or gumtree.
        The most expensive thing is to fill the bed - you can do things like 'no dig' if you're bothered where you can salvage a lot of the stuff for free, otherwise it cost me just over $200ish for garden soil + delivery to fill them (plus extra a lot extra I had left over that I'm going to use in grow bags for potatoes and carrots)

    • sam-1966 on 14/02/2022 - 17:54
      +1

      Digger's Moon and Stars watermelon is worth a go - just gorgeous in looks and taste.

      • leelemon on 14/02/2022 - 18:22
        +1

        The name has sold me - I will give that a go next summer :D

        • sam-1966 on 15/02/2022 - 17:06
          +1

          It was what started the seed savers network in the US - the founder took forever to find the seeds, which are a huge heritage variety. Literally have a big yellow moon and small spots like stars on a deep green skin. And delicious.

          • leelemon on 15/02/2022 - 17:42

            @sam-1966: I ordered some yesterday! They really do look beautiful from the photos ~
            I'm building a walk through squash tunnel so I reckon these will look awesome on it (and taste great)
            Thanks for the tip !

  • ms_caz on 14/02/2022 - 07:11
    +1

    I've just pickled the last of the beeetroots and made another five or so litres of tomato passata over the weekend. I've also made relish and tomato sauce a couple of times. I have a range of cherry tomatoes that are still going strong. The bigger tomatoes just didn't really thrive this season although there were plenty enough for us and the birds. We harvested all our corn a few weeks ago and have been eating through it and zucchinis. We have had buckets of beans but unfortunately our sugar snap and snow peas just didn't thrive. Will plant again in a few weeks. Last year we had a random birds eye chilli self seed and we nurtured it to a very large plant giving us more dried chilli than we could ever possibly want. This year my husband really wanted to grow jalapenos - unfortunately the plants labelled as jalapenos turned out to be capsicums. We will try again with some kind of spicy peppers in the future.

    • gimli on 14/02/2022 - 08:14

      I thought beetroot was more a aumtumn/winter crop. But that reminds me i should start planning for autumn haha.

      Really want to grow beetroots. Not sure how is it is to grow in pots

      • ms_caz on 14/02/2022 - 18:30

        we've grown beetroot pretty much all year round. It has grown easily for us and i think would grow well in pots. You can harvest the leaves when they are tiny for salad leaves and leave the bigger leaves so that the roots grow and ball up. YOu can pick them at any size - if you are growing in pots I would imagine you pick them much smaller than if growing in a garden bed. Our beetroots were grown deliberately to be really massive spheres, so that when I pickled them, I could have sandwich sized slices.

  • Tiffany57 on 14/02/2022 - 09:21

    Butterfly Pea flower for diy Ink Gin. Red papaya, soursop, lady finger bananas, tropical peach, limes (kaffir and the usual ones), masses of betel, basil, rocket. Snake beans grow really well up here, too.
    Must try sweet potato for leaves….thanks for the suggestion.

  • Cheaplikethebird on 14/02/2022 - 09:38
    +1

    Key Limes, Tomatoes, Capsicum, Pickling Cucumbers, Carrots, Tons of Basil, Dill, Chillies - Jalapeno, Guajillo, Poblano, Catarina, Pasilla, and Scotch Bonnets.

  • Nugs on 14/02/2022 - 10:34

    Carrots and tomatoes still going strong. Favourite toms are cherry ones, but the grape sized ones have strongest flavour. First year of in grind blackberries are OK. Strawberries in both raised beds and pots. Peaches are getting colour so should be ready soon and lime & lemon looks a good crop this year
    .

  • Lastchancetosee on 14/02/2022 - 11:00

    Courtyard garden with three raised garden beds. Three trees - lemon, pomegranate, and Lillypilly (for the birds and bees). Over the last two years, have harvested lettuce, tomatoes (almost never need to buy any for the season), herbs (culinary, not hallucinogenic), French beans, broccoli, cauliflower, eggplant and zucchini.

    Some not too successful or took up a lot of space (zucchini) so this summer only tomatoes and lettuce. Will put in baby broccoli and maybe French beans for the autumn.

  • Showmethebargains on 14/02/2022 - 12:34

    We have capsicums, chillies, tomatoes, eggplants, strawberries, blue berries and mint in pots and in the garden we are growing zucchini’s and two types of pumpkins. Plus we have some fruit trees that mostly feed the possums.

  • Archi on 14/02/2022 - 15:57

    we have
    - 2 calamansi trees
    - bucket loads of lettuce in different varieties.
    - heaps and heaps of asian herbs.
    - ginger
    - cucumber
    - tomatoes
    - green onions
    - birds eye chilies
    - kaffir lime
    - curry leaves
    - pandan
    - rasberry bushes
    - pineapple plants (haven't fruited yet, and probably wont for a few years.
    - strawberries

    snow peas at the end of winter

    most are in pots and raised garden beds,

    • Cheaplikethebird on 15/02/2022 - 10:46

      Any tips for the Calamansi's? Got a dwarf Calamansi on the way currently.

      • lgacb08 on 15/02/2022 - 11:20
        +1

        Probably the easiest to grow in the citrus family along with pomelo, just don't overfeed them to start with and regular watering in summer.

      • Archi on 15/02/2022 - 11:32
        +1

        i don't do very much…

        when it flowers, i'll throw down some fertiliser.

        i have a worm farm, so worm tea and castings, plenty of sun. and get a citrus fruit leaf spray

  • randombrick on 14/02/2022 - 16:54

    Tomatoes, Spring Onions, Beans (lots of them - green, yellow, etc.), Malabar spinach

    Trees - Nectarine and Persimmons. All the nectarine got eaten by our resident possum + a rat that I haven't been able to trap/kill. I have lived here 7 years and haven't had a single nectarine in all this time. ;;( Pretty sure the persimmons will be gone too when they ripen. :-(

    • leelemon on 15/02/2022 - 17:49

      How do you think Malabar Spinach tastes - is it comparable to English spinach from the shops?

      also how long did it take for your persimmon tree to give fruit? I planted a dwarf fuyu last year (about 1.2m tall now)

  • sam-1966 on 14/02/2022 - 17:56

    If you are looking at something to grow over winter, plant leeks - we use them in place of onion and shallots. So great to pick as babies or fully grown. And roasted leeks are something else altogether!

  • macfudd on 14/02/2022 - 20:30
    +2

    We moved house last year and now have a place with a dozen vegetable garden beds and multiple fruit trees. I enjoy getting out in the garden but damn if it isn't expensive and frustrating.

    -There's a huge nectarine tree - cockatoos utterly destroyed every one of them while still green. Then they moved on to do the same to both peach trees and the plum tree. I did at least get lots of lemons from the lemon tree.
    -Planted a bunch of strawberrys but bugs and birds got all but 2 strawberrys (despite netting). About $40 in plants and $30 of netting to get 2 individual strawberrys:(
    -Planted a couple of blueberry plants that wanted 'full sun' - turns out that was a lie and they burned to near death so another trip to bunnings and $60 of wood and shadecloth to give them shade and they're recovering. Hopefully they'll survive being moved somewhere else in the garden once the ground softens.
    -Planted corn, half of it got destroyed by the heat, the rest is half the size of the supermarket stuff.
    -Tomatos are doing well. Had great success growing a couple more plants from suckers so next year I might just get 1 plant and grow the rest from suckers. That'll save a lot of $$. Or might give seeds a go.
    -Broccoli went great, wife loves it at least though I'm not a fan.
    -Beans went well, though the bunnings seedlings produced about 4x the crop compared to the ones planted from seeds. I'll do them again next year now I've dropped a bunch of money building climbing frames for them.
    -Capsicums were a bit of a disappointment and will apparently die over winter.
    -Potatos…the plants are dying back but never flowered so not sure if they'll work out.
    -Lettuces were a disaster- tried some of that 'seed tape' It's expensive and gave me literally 1 lettuce from the whole roll.

    Really want to try sweet pototo next time, I hear it copes well with the heat. Maybe grapes too and some raspberries. Also want to try passionfruit in a back corner where the fence is low as a bit of an edible wall.

    • ms_caz on 14/02/2022 - 21:14

      We’ve had a few hits and misses with corn over the last couple of years. This year was a bumper crop. We planted in a grid so they cross fertilised well, and most stalks had at least two major ears plus the runts. Corn does need a lot of water.
      Capsicums were so so for us - were very bitter when picked green, and withering before they reddened. Potatoes aren’t supposed to flower. If you do see flower heads then pick them off. If they are dying back, it will soon be time to lift your potatoes. We had about 13 kilos of them last year from one raised bed.

      • macfudd on 15/02/2022 - 12:46

        That's good to know about the potatoes. Could have sworn the video I saw on youtube about it talked about flowering but I could have misunderstood. Might try a bit of digging in the weekend on a couple of the plants and see how they're looking.

        There used to be PVC irrigation pipe through this garden but most of it has cracked or filled with dirt. This winter I'll pull it all out and have a go at building a new system, think that'll help a lot with the hotter weeks.

    • lgacb08 on 15/02/2022 - 11:26

      Fyi, capsicum can survive winter, at least all mine did in Melbourne winter. In the second year they actually bounce back pretty quick. If you want to be sure, dig them up and put in pot inside the house. Same as eggplant (this one even less cold tolerant than capsicum)
      as for lettuce they do best in spring/autumn as the summer heat kills them. Unless you have misting system and shades.

      • macfudd on 15/02/2022 - 12:55

        We're country VIC so the winters apparently get a little colder with more frost. That was the what the bloke at the local garden centre said anyway, haven't had a winter here yet to see for myself.
        Might try shifting a couple inside as you suggest and see how the others go.

        I planted the lettuce about Spring before the summer heat started. Could have been a bit late or those particular garden beds weren't quite right. Trying to have the motto of 'If it doesn't work, just try something else'.

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