Autumn in the veggie garden

Brrr... Autumn in the garden.  Things to do this week:  Pull out the last of the tomato plants, pick pumpkins (that's winter squash for you North Americans), pick the last few green beans (I might keep them in for a few more weeks since there are still some flowers), start digging in compost in for winter plantings.

A few images from the past week in my garden:

Eggplant 'Listada di Gandia'

Fireworks-shaped Parsley flower going to seed

I leave some of them to self-seed and then thin them out. The flowers attracts bees and other beneficial insects to the garden.  And they're pretty!

Seed Saving

It's that time of the year...saving and storing seed from my most productive veggies.  So far I've got corn, string beans ('Blue Lake Climbing', 'Purple King' and 'Rattle Snake' ), chives, and tomatoes set aside.  This will be my second or third season collecting from some of them and they have been very productive.  This year the beans have been less abundant than last with the rain we've had, but I'm not complaining!  I put more blood and bone on the veggie patch hours before the huge rain and hail storm in Melbourne a couple of weeks ago and I'm getting a second round of beans.  I'm going to have to net them though to keep the possums out!  It's the start of breeding season and they've recently started a full-scale invasion.  Think pub-crawl on a Saturday night.  Previously, we were living in harmony - I have been throwing anything with blossom end-rot developing (usually a few days after a big rain storm) up on the carport roof for them to eat and they only seemed to leave their little teeth marks in a few on the vine.  Now, they are eating any ripe tomatoes (well...eating a few bites and chucking the rest on the ground as they do) and all the young beans and flowers. Time for some netting.

Here are instructions for saving tomato seeds,