Hey everyone, this was very exciting indeed. Daily I inspect my vegetables and fruit, Melons are one of the most exciting fruit to grow, but more of that later.
I thought this below pic would be a great start to this blog. These Giant Glass Corn (Mielies) are literally around ten foot tall. I have never in my life seen a Corn plant this tall. NON GMO there must be something to this right? Another very interesting thing about this Mielie is that each separate seed on the cob is a different colour as soon as I harvest I will be sure to take and post pictures, it should be really festive, not too many folks have seen different colour corn cob one on vegetable I believe!
Taking a few steps back I took a pic of the whole garden with the Mielie Crop in the backdrop. Each Corn plant currently has between 2-3 Mielies per stalk, I planted around 200 plants so hoping to have an incredible harvest in the next few weeks.
I am around 6.3 tall, Reaching at my limit probably just over 7.5 foot. To give you an idea of how tall these plants are at least another 3 foot to go to the tip of the flower, amazing hey? Just call me Doctor Green Thumb ;)
We have been so blessed to get so much rain of late, the last two weeks has been incredible getting 30ml of rain some days. This can be seen by the incredible deep green on the plants and sunny blue African skies a much relieved respite from our 8 month odd drought!
This was rather strange. I purchased only Tahitian Butternuts online. The second picture I can tell you is a Tahitian butternut as it resembled the packet pics in which I purchased it. The pic below however looks like a traditional butternut and I did not plant 'normal butternuts' unless of course they got the species mixed up whilst packaging. I am not complaining of course the larger the variety of species I have the better!
Onto the next vegetable featured here, anyone know what this is? Aubergine also known as eggplant or brinjal, here a super cool article as per wikipedia for folks wanting to learn more about this bitter.sweet yet sweet (when cooked) plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggplant
I planted two varieties one white and one purple/black from what I can tell currently the white ones have started to bear fruit. They have a longer thinner body than the darker counterpart, it should be very interesting to see the taste difference if any? Both Heirloom as with all my other natural organic pesticide free veggies!
Back to the title of this blog. I recently purchased a ton of seeds both fruit and vegetables on www.livingseeds.co.za sadly I am not the most organized when it comes to keeping records, that been said when I planted these I knew they were either Watermelons, Spanspek (rockmelon) Tahitian Butternuts or Gems, which one however they are is beyond me at this point, however when they grow larger I am sure this will all become clearer. I have however never seen a melon like this with fur on it so at this point I really am 'bamboozled' Any ideas what this is?
We are blessed enough to have KIWI Fruit on this property too would you believe. Kiwi Fruit also known as 'Chinese Gooseberry' grow on vines so these certainly are not Kiwi Fruit, they also take much longer to grow, mature and fruit than this ground creeper, My Guess would be Spanspek (Rock Melon), but do check out www.wikipedia.org here for more on the kiwi fruit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwifruit
It really is like a daily Easter Egg hunt especially when looking for melons. The leaves of these plants are so broad, if nature could talk I am sure it would tell us the reason for such large leaves were two fold. One like large solar panels they suck up as might light for photosynthesis and secondly the large leaves render protection from the sun from excessive heat, they also supply great camouflage from pesky 'critters' that plan to eat them!
Here my one and only Watermelon (for now) but I am sure a few more will bloom soon as the plant looks just spectacular/healthy and growing really fast, incredible!
I once grew a Watermelon many years ago in my teens, what I know about them is minimal but as a second time around and so far seems to be growing really nicely. I can only imagine that at this rate should be able to be harvested and munched within two weeks. This fruit is literally 2 weeks old at this stage, I truly am amazed at how fast it is growing!
Can you spot something very interesting about this Melon? They normally grow in a horizontal orientation, this one for some strange reason is growing vertically, I never moved it, just left it as is from day 1 it will be pretty cool to see if it matures in this orientation and what it will look like once mature? I shall keep you posted!
My pride and joy above and below, any ideas what these are? My much loved and nurtured Carolina Reapers albeit small at the moment. I may have a few Ghost Pepper's in this mix too. The row on the left (greener leaves plants) are Cayenne Pepper's, Jalapeno's as well as Halapeno's. I am an absolute pepper NUT does it show? ;)
These Peppers are possibly Chinese 5 Colour, also notable how they grow vertically whereas their other specie counterparts sag and face downwards as they get heavier!
Here my oldest Mielie plant. I chatted to my Mom recently who also has 'green fingers' told me that when the 'hairs' die they can be harvested, based on this pic I am guessing another week out?
Nature truly is incredible and growing your own food really healthy, cheaper, sustainable, exciting and just generally super cool.
I trust you have an amazing week.
Cheer$;)
