Who Grew The Biggest Broccoli? - Jul 24, 2025
Dear gardening friends
My Lemons are frozen this morning, I was picking them for my mum. They are so frozen they are rock hard.
I've got this amazing Lemon Tree in my garden it supplies three families with fresh juicy Lemons.
It gets several hundred fruit every winter.
It's a select form of Meyer Lemon called "Kevin The Lemon". It was named after a former politician who turned out to be a Lemon. It's our biggest selling Lemon still today.
Kevin has a very thin skin and it's incredibly juicy.
The fruit is almost the colour of an orange. We had a tradie work at our house who complained about how sour our Oranges were. "We don't have an Orange tree" was my reply.
This dwarf Citrus tree is very hungry now. After producing so many fruit it's going to need feeding to get those leaves nice and green again in spring. I usually feed my Citrus trees with Tim's Cow manure.
This natural fertiliser greens up the leaves and promotes more flowers in spring. The fragrant white flowers are an extra bonus when you grow Citrus trees. We sometimes forget to mention they have amazing fragrant flowers.
I'm using Lemon juice in all my dishes over winter. Last night I cooked Pork chops in lemon juice, Rosemary and Olive oil. I removed them from the wok then cooked Hayden's Broccoli with Mushrooms in Oyster sauce. It was amazing.
My Lemons are frozen this morning, I was picking them for my mum. They are so frozen they are rock hard.
Hayden just said he was going home to get something. I was thinking lunch maybe?
But he's turned up with this Giant Broccoli, he's such a show off. Every year we have a competition to see who can grow the biggest.
He's cleaned me up again this year.
What's your secret Hayden? He smiles, "Tim's Cow Manure and Chicken manure this year." He's only telling half the truth, yes he's a green thumb but he adds other secret ingredients that he's not going to tell me. He might tell you?
Then you can tell me?
It's not too late to plant Broccoli and Cabbages etc. Winter is still here, you may have noticed that around 5am this morning.
I've grown Giant Cauliflower this year. Hayden's not interested. I might post a photo. It's slightly bigger than this Broccoli just to give you an idea.
We are always looking for the best products so when a supplier said they had a great compost we thought we'd put it to the test. We put drainage holes in the back and planted Johnny Jump Up Violas in the front.
Now Compost isn't potting mix, it's a soil improver, but the quickest way to test it was to grow seedlings. The results for both products has been good, but Super 6 Compost has grown bigger plants with more flowers.
It's a rich 6‑in‑1 blend that contains Cow manure, Poultry manure, Blood & Bone meal, Compost, Fishmeal and added Trace elements.
It's safe to use on vegetable gardens.
We are now stocking this amazing product. Dig it into your gardens before planting or use it as a soil improver or as a mulch around existing plants. It has a nice country smell.
Best not to use around native plants in the Proteaceae family but fine for Lillypillys and rainforest plants.
It attracts worms into your garden. It adds microbes to your soil. It makes your plants grow faster.
We are always looking for better products here and we test them. We want you to have success, we are gardeners too.
I've become an accidental collector of Onkaparinga blankets. It all started with a visit to Lifeline in Camden. They had two on display in the window, one even had the family's name on the tag "Jensen".
I bought both.
One stayed in the car and I use it every morning to keep my legs warm while I'm having coffee. It's had a hard life with many tassels missing.
I bought this one recently, it's got beautiful colours and it's much thicker than my original favourite and it's heavier wool. It's so warm, it's crazy.
It came with Pumpkin soup spillage, i gave it a scratch, you can wash them on wool wash and lay them flat to dry, in the shade.
Onkaparinga is one of Australia's longest-standing and most trusted bedding brands, with roots stretching back to 1869 in Hahndorf, South Australia. Founded by German immigrant weavers, the company became the Lobethal Woollen and Tweed Company, and later the South Australian Woollen Factory, producing local woollen goods.
I've just looked at their website, the factory is in Melbourne now, the colours have gone, everything's in the three colours, that everyone buys. You can guess them.
But you can still buy them on Facebook or EBay second hand. They come in amazing colours.
Check the size, I recently bought one described as a picnic rug, but when it turned up it was a Knee rug. It will be perfect when I'm in a wheelchair.
I've pushed the price up, they were about $45.00 now they are $65 plus. Almost everyone has an Onkaparinga story, I just love the name.
Onkaparinga.
Happy gardening
Tim