MO URBAN FARM’S MOST SUCCESSFUL HARVEST YET!
by MO Farmers Leah & Meg
15 August, 2024
Autumn was the MO Urban Farm’s most successful harvest season ever! The mild sunny days and cool nights were a lovely change not only for our plants, but for us as well.
We had plenty of success with cucumbers climbing up a trellis. After not much success with cherry tomatoes, we replaced the area with a few cucumber seedlings as an experiment. When the first cucumbers were ready they looked and tasted great. They were really thriving so we planted two more sections. The recent rain did water log and rot some of the fruits, but the plants are back on track now and producing lots of little babies. We have been adding cow manure as a fertiliser for these hungry plants to keep the soil healthy and ideal for their growth.
Around March we ended up with a bunch of sprouting garlic from a southern grower. I'm sure when the truck drover over the QLD border the garlics immediately felt the Queensland heat, decided to start growing again and popped out a shoot. Although these will probably never grow into typical garlic bulbs, they are great at repelling many pests and are fantastic companion plants for a wide range of autumn plants. Each of our raised beds have a pretty border of garlic cloves which we are hoping will also grow into single bulb garlics over the next couple of months. These are just like regular garlic, but the whole bulb is just one massive clove.
It’s our second year growing chilli's and this year they have really been in full bloom. To offer something for all chilli enthusiasts, our mixed punnets contain any mix of trinadad (inferno rating, 1 million scoville rating), habanero, birds eye and/or jalapeno. We recently made a hot chilli jam recipe which you can find on our website called ‘Fiery Chilli Jam with Rosella’. If rosella are finished by the time you get to read this, raspberries are a delicious substitute.
Our neighbours have some banana trees that we were jealous of so we went and got a couple of dwarf lady fingers. Nobody told our trees they are meant to be dwarf because they are loving the space and growing a lot taller than promised. No bananas yet.
On the other hand, our pumpkin vine nearly took over the whole property, went over the fence, up through trees and started taking over the neighbours too. Compensation came in the form of pumpkins with bright orange flesh and delicious flavour. It’s prime Jap pumpkin season right now and we have also been getting lots of delicious pumpkins from our amazing local growers.
Winter brings much needed relief to the never ending weeding and mowing of summer and autumn. With the extra time we can focus on preparing another section of the property for spring crops. We are looking forward to enjoying a cold winter with a roaring fire and a good bottle of red!
