New Buk Choy, Snow Pea & Spinach Seedlings...Daffodil Bulbs.

Recently after my Tassie trip, I planted two purple buk choy seeds. They have since germinated but growing really really at snail-pace. Same goes for my chilli padi seedlings. After the 'demise' of my first set of snow pea seedlings at the vege patch, I decided to grow them in pots for the first part of their life till they are well-established to be planted at the patch. And this round, I planted Digger's seeds instead, which are resistant to mildew. I learn that snow peas pods as well as the leaves can be eaten. Markets are selling at $11 per kg, not mentioning the supermarkets, so I am really keen to grow some, especially when my family does love them. The 3 new ones germinated after ten days in the pot and the pot is usually in the mini greenhouse except during the day.

I have also sown two spinach seeds in a green planter but only one germinated.

One of the few plants left at the vege patch - mint and the avocado below.

I have worked the soil on the left side of the vege patch and added aged cow manure. Planted daffodil bulbs, watered and covered with a layer of water-saving mulch.

Buk Choy, Spinach, Snow Peas

On Saturday, I used skewer sticks to support the four snow pea seedlings. They seem to be taking the support well. When they have grown longer, I hope to bring them to the sunflower stalks behind them.

This new snow pea (above) was sown after those which germinated on 7 April and yet it is growing faster. Strange!

The spinach seedlings have emerged after a mere 7 to 10 days (instructions stated 14 days). I have sown them together with spring onion (which have not germinated) in a large new pot with premium potting mix, compost and cow manure.

The two buk choys left after thinning out the seedlings are not looking good. Somehow there are holes on the leaves and they looked bruised too. I credited that to the tiny black flies (which crawled around on the potting mix). I have sprayed with pyrethrum+white oil mix to curb the flies and hope the buk choy will develop. If not, time for new seeds!

Back From Easter Trip.

We were away on Philip Island for our church's Australia-wide Oceania Convention during the Easter holidays. It was a refreshing time, though there were moments I missed my garden and wondered if the two dogs had destroyed it.

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Fortunately, they did not. And thank God I had discovered the caterpillar eggs under the radish leaves just one day before I left and was able to take measures. Or I would have come back to be heart-broken. The pot of nasturtiums showed great growth after dressing with vermicompost from my worms. And it was peace of mind for me now that they are under the safety of the net. The whole of nasturtiums can be used in salads and I can see why they are easy prey of caterpillars.

The three oriental radish seeds I have sown on 9 April to replace the three uprooted have germinated when I returned on 13 April. Very fast!

My cayenne peppers are fat and long! Wondering if I should harvest them for pickled green chillies.

The tiny calamondin limes are growing steadily. Haha at times they looked like they are going to drop off.

Congratulations to me! The chilli padi seeds have finally germinated and so many are sprouting. They did take a long time to do so, observing only two on 2 April and now about eight on 16 April.

The pot of mint which I have propagated from the original black pot from Kmart has been planted at the vege patch. I have treated it for mildew twice and hope it will do well. So far so good!

One of the two lots of new buk choy seedlings have sprouted when I came back.

Also sown on 9 April to replace the three which were uprooted due to caterpillar attacks. Will thin them once they are bigger.

One of the three existing oriental radishes. Note the little weeds around. Have to do weeding regularly.

Three out of four sweet pea seedlings. As soon as they are big enough, I have to train them around the sunflower stalks behind.

My two wonderful capsicum plants are producing three or four capsicums. Again, great peace of mind with them caged from possible possums' burglary.

The capsicum plant in the pot is not losing the race either, producing three fruits. Somehow the fruits are not as big and do not have a regular shape as those in the vege patch.

Signs of life after the re-potting. Aloe vera seems to grow rather slow in this weather but steadily producing new pups. It has been the mini greenhouse most times to keep it warm.

Vermicompost from my worms works wonder! My curry plant looks very healthy and flourishing after the castings were added.

Same goes for my thyme! Even the stems look thicker.

My divided lemon grass in two pots did not look too good after I potted on last week. Perhaps scorched by the sun while I was away. I have since fed another round of seasol. Not sure of its fate.

The original pot which I bought from Flower Power.

The potted on mint is growing gloriously - potted on successfully! Large leaves and strong. Now I truly believe in Premium potting mixes as Kevin Hendreck mentioned in his book 'Gardening Down-under' - the best gardening book I have ever read so far. It is certainly better to start plants with a good potting mix.

One of the two smaller pots which I have to pot on soon. I have given away the other small pot to my life group mate for her dish.

This is the pot of common mint which I bought from Kmart for $2.50 and since then, I have propagated 5 pots of mints from it. Quite a sense of achievement to me, having failed once from the pot I bought from Ikea when I started out gardening.

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Easter Sunday is not about Easter Bunny or Easter Eggs. It is about Jesus Christ rising from the dead and conquering death so that we are free to connect with God.

Urrrrghhh!

I spend one hour in the garden this morning, not exactly intended to do so but was given a shock when I spotted a caterpillar on my growing oriental radishes! The same pesky green caterpillar with a light yellow stripe along its back! The same one which attacked my buk choy! The same one which attacked my nasturtiums!

Caterpillar eggs and some bugs which look like aphids on the underside of radish leaves .

I pulled up the three buk choys because it seemed that one of the leaves still looked chewed on (with many holes) despite having a cage over the whole pot. Inspecting closer, which any organic gardener must always do, I found many caterpillar eggs attached to the underside of the leaves. An awakening! I was reminded by the bunch of buk choy leaves I cut and fed to the worms in the worm farm sometime last week. Few days after that, I kept seeing caterpillars in the worm farm. I realised that the eggs were still attached to the leaves and they were hatching into caterpillars! Also the bucket of water which I washed the buk choy leaves contained dislodged eggs, which hatched baby caterpillars but they were drowned in the water!

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Recalling all that, I decided it was no point keeping the buk choy as the eggs on the growing leaves would continue to hatch! It is a never-ending cycle since I do not want to use pesticide. Anyway, I have harvested several rounds out of these three buk choys. It is time to sow new seeds. This knowledge helped me! I quickly inspected all the under leaves of the radishes and sure enough, three radish plants had loads of eggs attached. I had no choice but to pull up the radishes or I would have a continual flow of caterpillars. Urrrghhh!!! I noted that the eggs were on the smaller radishes and the larger, healthier, stronger ones are spared. I have sown seeds to replace the pulled up ones.

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Next action was to net the whole area! I was already contemplating that a while ago to deter possums which might dig, but now I am detering the butterflies! I managed to do so quite easily, all thanks to my tall sunflower stems! I also placed the nasturtiums under the netting on the radish patch because they do get attacked by the caterpillars too.

Netting over the radishes with support from the sunflower stems.

The pot of lovely nasturtiums under the net's protection now. The three buk choys were pulled up and made way for new ones, under the netting.

The cage was used on the capsicum plants instead against possums.

In the afternoon while the weather was warm and sunny, I potted the kaffir lime stem cuttings in a mixture of premium + regular potting mix and propagating sand after coating them with rooting hormone powder. If this works, it will be a long wait and I have to keep the potting mix warm and moist all the time. I also sowed more buk choy seeds in the same pot where I have pulled out the existing ones.

The Neighbouring Onion Has Sprouted.

Fine sunny weather today. Went to the library with my son and did reading up. Got a parking fine because I was two mins late. :( Anyway, I did a little gardening work today. I used Mancozeb Plus Garden Fungicide on two pots of mints which were having powdery mildew here and there since the day I potted them. Even with pinching off affected leaves, it did not help very much so I resorted to fungicide to salvage the mints. As I was inspecting the plants, I was happy to announce that the 'neighbour' has finally sprouted too...I mean the left onion. :) I also finally got down to making a cage for my buk choy which were always attacked by egg-laying white cabbage butterflies. I cut down the leaves today and fed them to my earthworms. I am pretty sure it will deter the butterflies now unless they are going to bomb my buk choy mid-air with their eggs! The cage is made of galvanised wire and is rust-proof. Here's how the cage looks like :

I just read a book about the importance of standing large pots on bricks or any support you can find. This helps with proper draining of excess water during watering :

Botanic Gardens, Potting On

Autumn has arrived. This week has been quite cool, some days a little too cold for my comfort. I wish I had many waterproof cloches of various sizes to house some of the plants that love warm sunshine. Yesterday, our family had a wonderful time at the Royal Melbourne Botanic Gardens, before taking our little one to his surprise Motor Show. Weather was marvellous - warm sunshine and not too windy. I also visited the Herb Garden with Samuel while Hubby lay on his picnic mat doing nothing. Here are a few pictures which I have taken :

Thai basil flowering. Thyme

Common basil

Capsicum

Oregano

Evening gardening work : The curry plant has overcrowded its little pot and I have potted it on using a 30cm pot. I used premium potting mix + 1 spade coarse sand + 5g slow release fertiliser all mixed in. After potting, I watered the pot thoroughly to give it a good soak of seasol.

Tip : Water soil where existing plant is in, thoroughly at least 2 hours, before potting on or re-potting, to soften the soil so that the plant is easily removed from its pot.

Curry plant after potting on.

I bought a netting which covers part of the peach tree. Fruits are getting larger but at a snail pace. I did not get to eat a single pear on the tree...all eaten by birds but do hope to taste the peaches.

The vietnamese mints in the 30cm pot which grew from two cuttings (http://organic-is-better.blogspot.com/2008/12/summer-warming-up.html) have becoming trailing and spilling over the edge of the pot. Recently their leaves did not look as green and healthy. I left the pot without watering for a while, fearing that I have waterlogged the potting mix. Their leaves were not as limp after several days. Today I decided to turn it out of its pot to check after deliberately watering the mix.

Growth spilling over the edge (above).

The roots are not potbound yet I think, but there are a lot of roots at the base (above). So, I potted it on into a 40cm pot, just with normal potting mix and 20g of slow release fertiliser. Also trimmed off the roots right at the base. Watered the mix to moisten it and I shall add some seasol tomorrow.

This tomato sucker (below) which I had rooted from the parent Mighty Red tomato is sprouting new growth in the vege patch. Of course it is really a little late experimenting this as it is already beginning of autumn. I am really trying to compare growth in either soil or potting mixes (in pots). So far two similar suckers which were potted into potting mixes did not grow. I am still trying to work out the reason.

The vietnamese mint cutting which I have planted in the vege patch is also showing new growth.

Buk choy is growing fine except that white butterflies love to lay eggs on it. Probably a wonderful food for its caterpillars.

Look at how the caterpillars have munched away edges below. I have to check this pot every day :