Tom-ar-to, Tom-ay(as in hay)-to

Yep tomatoes.

The cheapest exclusion bag.

If you got them in early enough and depending where you are by the time you read this you may well be eating them, hopefully you have avoided spraying them with copious amounts of chemicals to keep bugs that love them more than you do from eating them. If they are still green and the birds haven't found them and you are looking at spraying them, well STOP NOW, go down to the shops and buy yourself a packet of brown paper sandwich bags, if you happen to have "Tims Taurus" tomatoes growing your going to have to buy exclusion bags possibly.


Tigerella and Cherry tomatoes.

OK once home open the sandwich bags up and take one out, place it over the fruit (on the vine) or some of them, you may end up with a couple of bags per truss, scrunch up the top of the bag and then grab a clothes peg off the line, or the lawn if its like my place :) and put it over the scrunched up bit closing the bag off, this will stop the fruit fly getting in, the bags wont rot off in a hurry with rain and your fruit will continue to grow and ripen, if you have put them on a bit early you may find them bursting from the bags, in this case just re bag them with more bags, every few days check the bag for its contents. Your tomatoes will taste like they should or like they used too and not like some genetically modified orange or red shape full of mush. If you need exclusion bags, try the likes of Greenharvest, they sell a range and can be mail ordered, alternatively visit your nearest specialist garden supplier and ask for them, if enough people want them they will be sure to get them. The bags will not only keep out bugs but will trick the blackbirds into avoiding them, one thing they won't deter is Cockatoos, so good luck with keeping them out.

The other thing to consider seriously is companion planting with tomatoes, check the following link for a great comprehensive listing Permaculture news, breaking this down even further, some crops will encourage growth, some inhibit some improve flavour check the link Tomato Companions who list specific benefits or pitfalls. As this was typed in the blackbirds discovered my tomatoes that i hadn't quite got too with paper bags, so its blackbirds 2, me 5 :)

Autumn or is it Summer.

Autumn in Camden Community Garden, and an update


Hawk Moth Caterpillars

Summer became Winter and now Autumn has become Summer, it certainly has saved us watering over Summer but its played havoc in the gardens, feathered freinds have a veritable smorgasboard of bugs to choose from with these big fat juicy caterpillars turning up in thier droves to munch on sweet potatoes, we have sighted several forms of these mass defoliation critters, 2 forms are pictured, but the local magpies and butcher birds have finally found them.



Harlequin Beetles

Thankfully they seem to have limited their diet to sweet potatoes, although snails have had a field day on beans around the gardens.



Harlequin Beetles just seem to be everywhere and if we can find a biological control now would be the time to implement it.

All the rain and humidity through summer had a detrimental effect on the likes of pumpkin, cucumbers, and watermelons, powdery mildew was rampant and alot of plants ended up rotting off. We have managed to get a batch of Qld Blue pumpkin in the ground and these have taken off, we hope to have this cropped picked going into winter, sadly not in time for the Camden Show.