Showing posts with label calendula. Show all posts
Showing posts with label calendula. Show all posts

Monday, November 30, 2009

Sweet Potato Creepers

A windy and cool day with sunny breaks.
By far this calendula flower is the largest bloom and it is produced by one of the calendulas at the patch next to the garage. Great stuff!
One Lilium LA Hybrid flower has opened. Was not as white or spectacular as I had imagined.
I found and bought four sweet potato creepers from bunnings. I thought it is a wonderful idea to grow them on the mulched areas where my golden sheen hedge is. My original intention was to either leave the areas mulched with red gum bark chips or grow some succulent crawlers to control weeds but having sweet potato creepers to do that would be even better. They can weed control when they spread out and they can be eaten too. The only concern would be winter as sweet potato cannot withstand cold. I will have to protect them when the time comes if they survive summer and autumn.
Lemon verbena which I transplanted into the lavender area outside my bedroom window is doing well. It is really a good idea to minimise root disturbance and plant the whole rootball + potting mix in. The plant did not show a single sign of transplant shock.
My sunflower Sun king...5 of them...do not look very fantastic this season. I think the soil here is not very good and I have to improve it after this. I have added more composted rooster manure and watered them with charlie carp today and hopefully they can grow bigger. At least they survived because in the beginning, they did not even look like they were going to make it.
I worked on this mulched area behind our bedroom wall. I removed all four existing shrubs which did not look fantastic nor were useful. The area has a lot of pebbles. I am beginning to understand that the pebbles were added by the landscapist to curb potentially extensive/invasive root growth since the plants were so close to the house. Strange that the lavender area has not a single pebble. Since this area is pebbly and does not get lots sunshine, I contemplate planting aloe vera here.
Two holes around the dripline of the plum tree area were further deepened and I put in a soft drink bottle tube (cut at both ends) each for watering/fertilising purpose.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Warm and Still Day...

A warm and still day with UV so high I did not want to stay out in the sun too much. It was tempting though upon coming back with my son from sports class to have a peek at my beautiful garden and snap a few shots. One of the five calendula officinalis plants...the leaves really looks like vegetable for soup. I wonder how it tastes like. The plants are all flowering and have many buds, and tiny caterpillars for me to pick and squash too...Obviously the leaves and flowers are yummy to them.
Since my tomato beef steak has no fruits even with clusters of flowers, I bought two cheap pots of bee-attracting flowers to help the situation.
I had a few pots of plants under this makeshift netting which helps with fluttering butterflies (in day) and moths (at night) looking for leaves to lay eggs on. It came a bit late but I never calculated that this property have this particular problem. I did not include the large pot of common mint as there were already eggs and caterpillars hiding somewhere in its leaves. I thought the two smaller pots are safe but sadly, they also showed signs of caterpillar damage. :(
My eggplant supreme is growing well but still the leaves are munched on at night. I must get my butt moving and come out in the nights to look for the culprit...potentially earwigs.
My passionfruit panama gold is looking hopeless as its growth cannot keep up with its leaves being eaten. I am fed up with what has been having it for supper.
The two caterpillars (http://organic-is-better.blogspot.com/2009/11/todays-work.html) which I caught, fed and cocooned, have turned into moths!!! So they are the ones which laid eggs on my mint!

Friday, November 20, 2009

Patches A, C, D & E

The recent warm and long day time have made growth explode in my garden.

At patch A, the three purple king bean plants and the tomato beef steak plant are growing. I cannot seem to see any tomatoes developing at the moment even though there are flowers. I did not remember having trouble with my Mighty red tomato. Puzzled, I consulted fellow blogger 'Scarecrow' and she gave me this useful link : http://www.grow-tomato-sauce.com/tomatopollination.html

Putting veges and edibles aside, I am feeling really proud of this pot of Annabel daisy. It has grown in size about 6 times.
My beloved capsicum plant is developing its fruits steadily. It is ahead of most plants because this is its second season. Feeling more secure with it in a larger pot.
This is one of 5 calendula officinalis plants I have germinated. They are subject to caterpillars like many of my edible plants in the garden but with much vigilance, I have picked and squashed most of them. This one is budding already!
My strawberry delight at Patch C is doing well in its pot although also subject to caterpillars. Its strawberries are very sweet!
Lemon Verbena at Patch C is also doing well and I have allowed one stalk to flower just to see how the flowers look like.
Wow my lemon grass at Patch C which initially did not look like it was going to make it, has actually gone into growth spurt! Hopefully the eggplant supreme and passionfruit panama gold will speed up in growth as well or they could be overtaken by the lemon grass!
After treating my kaffir lime plant at Patch C with chelated iron (not much organic solutions for this), it leapt into growing beautiful healthy-looking new leaves and more fruits and flowers almost immediately...indeed it was iron deficiency!
Eggplant Supreme at Patch C is also doing well except having its leaves munched on probably at night by some insects. In the day, I cannot find any bugs on it.
This is Patch C : strawberries, kaffir lime, eggplant supreme, lemon grass, passionfruit, lemon verbena, capsicum and pixzee peach. Quite an assortment of plants cramped together.
This is Patch E : coriander and continental parsley both flowering and seeding. I did not care as I am surely alright for them to seed and grow new ones, which means new supply of herbs. There is another clump of lemongrass and my pot of bay plant there.
I was cleaning the dusty leaves of my three cyclamens when I saw this. A search reveals them as the fruits of the cyclamens. I read that using seeds is tough so I am just going to leave them alone. I wonder if there are corms in the soil. Hopefully! So that cyclamens can cover the whole of Patch D and under my pomegranate tree and grevilia. They have glorious blooms! See http://organic-is-better.blogspot.com/2009/09/golden-sheen-pittosporum-and-cyclamens.html or click on 'cyclamen' label on right side of my blog.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Patch Next to Garage...Spring's Ending.

This patch next to the garage has been a challenging one and I have spent intermittent periods of time working on it. So far so good. Results are slowly getting better. The plants went through a period of establishing themselves in the poor clay soil, looking not too good and then now looking much better. There is still space for more work and more plants. Colour theme here is a mixture of yellow, white, pink, orange and blue (if everything flowers at the same time). View from the back. Daffodils (dying down), Diosma Sunset red, Lilium La Hybrid, oregano, rosemary, blue maguerite, annabel daisy are all mulched with composted pinebark (ornamental mulch).
View from the front. The whole patch is surrounded by strings looking like a boxing ring because my dog would trot on it and even nip off my plants. The two candy tuft plants (front right with tiny white flowers) have bounced back and doing well. :)
This rosemary which I have propagated from the original pot looked really bad some time back but it is now doing well especially with the addition of mulch. I did find one caterpillar wrapped up among its leaves. The same caterpillar which I have been finding among many plants in my garden recently.
Oregano too is doing wonderfully on this soil and has been growing. Also found one or two caterpillars here but all is well besides that.
The two Lilium LA Hybrid plants are doing well and have put on some flower buds. The third one was nipped off by my doggy and will not flower.
I planted one calendula seedling here just to see if it will survive the soil here. As last two days were scorching, it withered in the heat. However, with constant watering and application of Seasol, it is doing fine and will bounce back in the evening. If this one does well, I will probably plant a few more seedlings into this soil.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

What's Happening Recently in the Backyard?

Recently, I have been doing gardening in starts and stops and have not recorded much of what I had done. Besides being unwell physically, the weather has been rather scorching for much to do in the day time. I tried as much as possible to do gardening when the sun sets yet still bright enough. I have used some pieces of wood which was left by the previous owner to build a little vege patch just next to the back pongola (if I have named it correctly) :
Before weeding & filling up with soil (above) After (above)
The black carolina rose grape vine is growing well at the spot where I just put in the vege patch. My next 'challenge' would be to erect some support for it as it grows.
My capsicum plant in the pot has put forth several fruits, with me wondering how large they will get since the plant is confined in such a small pot.
Three tomato plants are growing in a larger pot since transplanting from their little pot. Where in the garden can they go? Or they would have to grow in a large pot.
The few calendula plants are growing faster with the warmer weather.
Strawberries are developing in two of the three strawberry plants in the pot and on the ground.
Protection against birds half-way there.
My passionfruit panama gold is still surrounded by a tree shield. Fortunately the leaves are not being eaten anymore since I surrounded the skirt of the tree shield with soil.
Peach (pixzee) fruits growing bigger. Just wondering where's the space for further enlargement since the branches are so close. I never thought about that when I bought it.
Snow peas are still fruiting but slowly dying down. Go to the compost soon!
Tomato beef steak has grown a lot, some flowers but no fruits yet.
Purple king seeds have germinated and are this big now! They are actually in a more shaded area and thankfully with more warmth and sunshine recently, they are steadily growing. Lots weeding to be done with the unmulched areas.
The first patch of grass has grown well and is now looking like this...good!
I have germinated some cucumber (burpless). Well germinated. Trellis and space to figure out.
I really have no idea how to care for this pot of kalanchoe. So I decided to prune all the dying flowers. New leaves have grown and I shall see if it flowers next season.
Kaffir kaffir...since into the ground, it looks a little better but still leaves still drop. Here showing some tiny fruits.
The apricot (Moorpark) which I pulled out of the ground and pruned still does not look too good..drooping leaves...may or may not survive me.
"All that mankind needs for good health and healing is provided by God in nature...the challenge of Science is to find it." - Paracelcus, the father of Pharmcology, 1493 - 1541