Child of the Planet

Bit of a mixed bag this year. Plenty of plants but the quality ranged from decent bulbs to quite a few that were under developed.       Bee popped by to investigate. I sorted everything into big/small and how infected with rust the plants were. The garage roof seems to be a good place to store the produce.

This years garlic has been under cover since planting. The aim is to protect it from the winter westerlies, and to see if it has an effect on rust. A few plants have ended up growing outside the cover and I'm using these as a 'control' to see if there is any difference.     When I took the covers off, the first thing I noticed was that the plants have been bent by the cover. I'm thinking of buying taller frames for next year. There is a bad patch of rust halfway down the bed. Planted here was a small group of stiff neck variety. Each year that I've grown garlic, the rust mainly hits in December, so it doesn't have a big impact on the growth of the garlic. None of the garlic that was outside the cover was effected by rust. The rest of the crop is looking good, but the rust is spreading out from that small patch in the middle.    I pruned off infected leaves and burnt them.    

Spring has hit the berm and it's covered with flowers. One of the aims of planting the berm is to provide some wind protection for the garden behind. I've been told that flax are good for breaking up the wind so I've been re-planted a couple of plants here. A few manuka are hanging in there. I planted some sunflower seeds but they don't seem to have germinated.