Showing posts with label capsicum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label capsicum. Show all posts

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Cool weather change and some intermittent drizzle this morning. I did 2 hours of work. Applied large pots with sugarcane mulch, added water crystals to some pots which tend to dry up fast, applied more organic fertiliser to some pots and planted out my buk choys. Time to harvest the two ripened yellow capsicums for beef tonight : Purple king beans are growing on the vines :
Tomato (silvery fir) growing bigger and more by the day :
These are buk choys...normal ones from my shepherd and purple ones from Diggers :
I had some planted in Patch B (where snowpeas used to be), between the bitter melon on the left and cucumber (burpless) on the right :
They are each protected by this plastic punnet which I keep after eating supermarket vege/fruits :
A light plastic punnet will get a rock resting on it :
4 other buk choys are planted here in planters, making it a total of 8 :
The cucumber (burpless) are producing baby cucumbers but I suspect the female flowers attached to the ends of them are not even opened yet. Must continue to observe :
The vines are a pretty sight at the moment and I managed to protect them under a piece of white cloth pegged on the trellis :
Lots of male flowers :
The eggplant supreme has two large purple (my son said violet) flowers opened. Very pretty! :
It started to really pour from noon onwards and last through the evening. I love the rain!!! My son said if I kept saying that, it was going to flood.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Yellow Capsicum, Cucumber Burpless & Strawberry Delight

Tomorrow's weather is going to be really hot and windy, 39 deg cel. I have already put up most of the white cloth I have. I cannot cover the whole garden and only can do so for as many plants as I can. Here seems to be a baby cucumber (burpless). I have two on the vines : My beautiful to look at Strawberry Delight has produced a fair number of strawberries. Here's some more to be harvested :
Yellow Capsicums are ripening on the plant. So beautiful :

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Summer...What's Happening in the Garden?

It's my second summer doing gardening. I welcomed some good rainfall on Tuesday and it is showering a little again today. Samuel and I found a ladybird on one of the chilli padi plants. I am not sure if that is the one I rescued from Coles supermarket few weeks back. It could well be. It seems comfortable on the plant and then I realised that there were actually aphids on the underside of some leaves. Good fellow..hope you have a great feast and get rid of them!
All my five calendula plants are doing great, flowering. Also some withered flowers have already produced seeds.
The two common mint cuttings took off fantastic and are growing fatter each day.
One nasturtium seedling emerged.
One strawberry delight runner growing into a new strawberry plant after I buried it in a small pot of mix. This way, I can keep having new plants without having to buy them. More runners developing from the mother plant.
A baby cucumber emerged from the vine. Several male flowers also have bloomed. I am trying to expose the two cucumber vines to buzzing bees for pollination as they are quite obscured by the pots and netting.
Another capsicum ripening to a bright orange. The smaller ones are ripening first. The two larger capsicums will get to grow larger before ripening. Cannot wait to snap a picture of that happening soon! Meanwhile more capsicum flowers are developing.
My purple king bean plants are also producing flowers.
And a baby purple king bean too!
Strawberry delight...yum...I harvested them before the earwigs did.
All three tomato silvery fir plants are doing great and putting on fruits. I had to prune off a lot of leaves to allow better air circulation.
I hammered a nail on top of the fence and used a string to secure the trellis for the bitter melon and cucumber (burpless). In summer during heatwaves, the wind can be extremely strong.
Also mulched the cucumber vines and bitter melon vine with sugar cane mulch.
Between the bitter melon and cucumber vines, I am preparing the soil for my buk choy and silver beet. Not a lot of space but I will try to squeeze in space for some leafy vege.
Buk choy seedlings waiting to be transplanted.
Purple buk choy seedlings.

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, 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