My South Australian vegetable garden.

Marika

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Well it’s the last week of Summer and I thought I’d share my veggie garden in here, with some things growing in it now and some of our harvests over Spring and Summer :)
This garden was my 40th birthday present and we created it 8 months ago. Previously it was an unproductive backyard full of old diseased and invasive trees that needed more work to maintain than it does now! Crazy.

And for years I was stuck growing our produce in pots against the house (the only spot that got full sun) and in one Birdies Raised Bed.

Now I have space, sunlight and so many ideas to improve these growing areas! It is very much shaping up to be my dream vegetable garden

You may have guessed, but I seem to be have a ‘thing’ about Sunflowers and also Pumpkins
I have two Pumpkin patches, a smaller one and a larger one.. and there are 19 different varieties of Pumpkins growing in these!

ETA, I grew everything from seed that I’ve been collecting for the last 7 years.

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This is the first pumpkin patch along with two varieties of corn ^^^
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The second pumpkin patch when we created it back in October ^^^
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And now, with vines covering everything :yahoo:
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Bottle gourd growing up the Chicken house
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Tromboncino growing up the children’s playhouse :)
 
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Marika

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And some of the things currently growing...

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Jack be Little and Small Sugar pumpkins growing up the arch trellis
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Rouge vif d'Etampes pumpkins above and below, these are a French variety
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This big one is wider than my Hori hori!

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Cherokee Purple tomatoes
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Pimply Squash Australian variety I think...
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Flat White Boer Ford pumpkin - a true white heirloom variety from Africa.
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Musquee de Provence pumpkin, another French variety
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Futsu pumpkin a Japanese variety

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Ironbark, an Australian heirloom (well they’re all heirloom varieties that I sowed)
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Turk’s Turban, an American variety

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Red Kuri, another Japanese variety of pumpkin
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Bottle gourd!
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Tromboncino, was going for an Australian record length with my son this year but we were about a metre short :D
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Lots of chillies
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More chillies
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The capsicums are doing well
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Moon and Stars watermelon, very excited to taste this one!
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Sweet Siberian watermelon
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Japanese cream watermelon growing up the arch trellis!
 

Marika

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And some of our harvests :)
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I know next time to sow muuuch more onions! And some hardneck and soft neck garlic here
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These potatoes were harvested two days ago and I was so pleased with this haul!
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Lots of differed varieties of tomatoes here.
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Marika

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And the sunflowers that I grew this spring and Summer :heart:
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These ‘Mammoth’ Sunflowers got to 11.5 feet tall, or 3.5 metres.
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A bit of fun with my hat and sunnies
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Giant Russian opening
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Teddy bear Sunflowers
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Double Dazzler
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A close up of that big Double Dazzler with me in it for scale (sorry can’t seem to turn this image)
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You gotta love the Fibonacci Spirals in the seed figuration, nature is amazing!!
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My 6ft3 husband (who doesn’t want to show his face online) with our largest sunflower.
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The biggest bloom I grew, around 40 cm.
The damage to this was from Cockatoos when it was only an unopened bud. Despite my efforts at bird scaring the cheeky buggers still ate the rest of the Mammoth flowers just as the seeds started to dry. Man was I upset at that!
 

daveb

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beautiful :) well done . the one flower with you posing it next to face . is that the teddy bear sunflower
 

Marika

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Wow, what a beautiful garden you have created!

I grew pumpkins for the first time this year & definately want more in the future. What are your favorite varieties?
Thanks Andrew, it was a busy winter, I worked everyday through rain and sunshine but I’m so glad I did!
I’m looking forward to a quieter winter this year though - growing our cold crops and planning improvements on these spaces for next years main growing season!
I’ll let you know which pumpkins are the nicest to eat, but for aesthetics , I can’t get past the Flat White Boer Ford, the Rouge vif d'Etampes (Cinderella), the Red Warty Thing (not pictured) and the Ironbark pumpkins! These are all beautiful while growing and I hope they taste as good as they look!

What varieties did you grow?
Pumpkins are AWESOME!
 

Marika

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beautiful :) well done . the one flower with you posing it next to face . is that the teddy bear sunflower
Hi Dave, thanks, that Sunflower is called Double Dazzler - very similar to the Teddy Bear variety but it was MUCH bigger. I did remove all the side shoots from this one so that I could have a larger, single bloom and it worked a treat.
I bought the seeds online from the Diggers Club. :)
 

daveb

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thank you ,,,so far not finding any in sellers list in the states
 

AndrewB

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What varieties did you grow?
Pumpkins are AWESOME!

Just butternut here, it has taken over an entire corner of my jungle & it still spreading. I'll take some inpiration from your photos & build something for them to climb over next year.
 

Marika

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Just butternut here, it has taken over an entire corner of my jungle & it still spreading. I'll take some inpiration from your photos & build something for them to climb over next year.
Yum! I’ve heard that Butternut vines can be very prolific, I hope you get heaps of fruit!

I just love watching pumpkins climb over everything, they’re so beautiful and whimsical :heart:
Oh yeah, and even with the structures that I put in the pumpkin patch mine have still decided to climb up and over the banksia rose arbours and into the chicken’s yard :D
 

daveb

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a friend here in states grows his butternut squash over what looks like an oversize arched grape arbor as he calls it, i would call it more a pergola , he has raised beds on each side of a patio area, the vines get trained up over the top so in affect in summer it shades a small sitting area. his arch over his back entrance has same thing but he grows bottle gourd.

growing up on grandparents farm we had butternut squash a lot, it was basically a staple like potatoes , slice in half scoop out seeds back with brown sugar pour some water in bottom a baking dish bit of maple syrup mixed in cover bake until tender, dab of butter pepper salt ... grandma also canned the butternut and a couple other squash cook the same way skin an cube , pack into jars pour some of the liquid in to cover and water bath process as normal canning.

another meal we had on farm simple and good , what we referred to as an eating pumpkin not a pie or jack o lantern type. you want a nice size about 8 inches ( 20 cm ) roughly with nice thick meaty flesh, cook up a bit or ground beef , mash potatoes , and dice up some onions cut top out so will have a plug lid to put back on, scoop out seeds and clean the inside, stuff with layers of potatoes and the cooked ground beef and onion place lid back on top , wrap in foil place in backing dish bake until tender. i wipe down the outside with a olive oil before wrapping in foil to keep it moist and so foil doesn't stick. slice down through so its in wedges serve with butter salt and pepper to taste ...... 325f 160c degree until cooked but you can go a little cooler it's all personal preference. i have done variations of this also with tomatoes bell peppers carrots added along with the onions. On the farm often left overs from a meal were used you might have boiled potatoesfrom one night or a roast that would get sliced for sandwiches for the field and left over bits ground up so it was potluck the pumpkin just became the pot
 

Marika

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another meal we had on farm simple and good , what we referred to as an eating pumpkin not a pie or jack o lantern type. you want a nice size about 8 inches ( 20 cm ) roughly with nice thick meaty flesh, cook up a bit or ground beef , mash potatoes , and dice up some onions cut top out so will have a plug lid to put back on, scoop out seeds and clean the inside, stuff with layers of potatoes and the cooked ground beef and onion place lid back on top , wrap in foil place in backing dish bake until tender. i wipe down the outside with a olive oil before wrapping in foil to keep it moist and so foil doesn't stick. slice down through so its in wedges serve with butter salt and pepper to taste ...... 325f 160c degree until cooked but you can go a little cooler it's all personal preference. i have done variations of this also with tomatoes bell peppers carrots added along with the onions. On the farm often left overs from a meal were used you might have boiled potatoesfrom one night or a roast that would get sliced for sandwiches for the field and left over bits ground up so it was potluck the pumpkin just became the pot
Now that is something that I’ll definitely try, it sounds delicious Dave, thank you!
I’ll have over 50 pumpkins harvested soon, so this is very welcome!
 

daveb

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if only serving a couple people you can use a smaller pumpkin 8 inch will feed a decent family size with leftovers :) i normally use 6 to 8 inch pumpkin 15 to 20 cm. i.ve used ground beef, sausage meat, venison , even cooked bacon and layer that in, like i said its a pot luck meal you just stuff with what you feel like. i think i saw a recipe section in forums so going to find my cake recipe and post it in there. link a recipe here i had a scan of the recipe for some pickles very simple straight forward recipe it was my grandmothers
 

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