Time to harvest vegies
VEGIE GARDEN: If you discover giant zucchini marrows hidden beneath the foliage save them to enter in the marrow section of the Armidale show.
The vegie garden is an exciting place to be at this time of year! It's important to keep harvesting all your vegies while the fruits are still young.
They have much better flavour and regular picking encourages more flowers and fruits to continue the crop into autumn.
If your cucumbers, pumpkins or squash are taking possession of your garden, you can prune them so they fill a suitable space. Most varieties will set 5 - 8 fruits per plant and once they have set that amount, you can start to prune to keep them from invading the tomatoes or beans.
Find the fruit that is furthest out on the vine, leave a couple of nodes (growing points) past that fruit and cut or pinch off the rest of the vine at that point.
While this will limit the number of fruits on the plant, the ones already growing will all grow larger. Gently moving the vines out of the way so they head off in a preferred direction is OK. If they have grown small roots along the vines, pull them up gently; they will wilt for a couple of days but then recover.
To prevent pumpkins and squashes from rotting on the vine, place them on top of a wooden plank or paving slab to lift them off the soil.
Zucchini are one of the easiest vegetables to grow, and one of the most popular vegies for the home garden.
They seem to mature in a matter of minutes and sometimes seem to be intent on overpowering everything close by.
You need to harvest them every second day and need a library of cooking and preserving recipes as well as plenty of neighbours and friends to bequeath the surplus to!
Check out the competition schedules for the Armidale Show, to be held March 5, 6 and 7. There are 79 classes for vegetables, and 76 for flowers, so there's something for everyone, including sections for junior growers.
Entries need to be at the pavilion before 8:30am on Thursday, March 5.
The first meeting of the Armidale Garden Club for 2020 is on Thursday, February 28, at 7.30pm in the Uniting Church Youth Club Hall. Everyone is welcome and supper is provided.