Showing posts with label carolina black rose. Show all posts
Showing posts with label carolina black rose. Show all posts

Sunday, October 23, 2011

First Strawberry Delight, Rocket & Spinach.

Hooray! I harvested my first ripe strawberry delight yesterday before going to church. Super sweet and juicy! Cant wait for more to come!
The free rocket seeds given by Bunnings have provided us with yummy salad greens for sandwiches.
Kao Kee Vegetables.  They are growing well and I harvested the tender shoots for stir-fry together with my spinach so that the plants can become bushier.
One of the many clusters of Carolina Black Rose grapes.  I gave the whole vine a good trimming so that the larger clusters can grow better :
The spinach this year is doing very well. Very big and leafy :
 Here's the basketful of spinach and the kao kee vegetables on the left :
We had the spinach stir-fried with garlic, shitake and golden mushrooms.  Hubby said 'Yummy!'.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Edibles Update.

The last three days have been sunny and warm with temperatures between 21-23 deg celsius. So, every day, we spent some time out in the garden doing things. The work really does seem never-ending.
Common Onion Chives /Allium Schoenprasum
Two evenings ago, I went out to the front garden to harvest some chives for a pasta dish. It was then that I realised I have two types of chives growing at the same spot. I did some researching and found some info on http://www.herbsociety.org/factsheets/chives.pdf. The picture above shows the chives used in western cooking. I have grown these from seeds. These chives have leaves which have hollow cylindrical interiors. I did a check and am quite sure that they are called Allium Schoenoprasum or common onion chives.

Chinese or Garlic Chives/ Allium Tuberosum
The chives in this above picture is actually Chinese or Garlic chives, Allium Tuberosum. My friend, Eliada, gave two small pots of these to me. They were given to her by another friend. As the chives looked very similar when young, I thought they were onion chives. Now that they are older, I can actually see that these two tufts are Chinese/Garlic chives. In dialect, they are called Gu Cai. These have flat leaf blades. I am actually very happy knowing they are Chinese/garlic chives, as I use them in Chinese cooking and need larger amounts. Onion chives are used as garnishes and only small amounts required.

Yesterday, I repotted the  Kao Kee cuttings. They have 100%  rooted as each stem cutting is putting on new leaves. Now I will wait and see how they grow.
Water chestnuts! It's been a headache trying to figure how I should grow them. I dont like failed experiments but how can experiments always be 100% successful? The styrofoam tub where I first planted the corms is covered with a layer of algae. After chatting on http://www.daleysfruit.com.au/forum/, I dug out the corms, prepared a few pots (potting mix+fish fertiliser), planted them in, topped up with garden soil, stood them in a tub of water. Here goes the experiment... The corms which I have harvested are really small, about 1 to 2 cm in diameter. I feel cheated by the company where I bought them from. I dont hold much hope that they will grow well.
Here are  some carrot seedlings.  Free seeds from Bunnings Wareshouse. It is my first go at it.
The rest of the seedlings (eggplant, okra/lady'sfinger, capsicum etc) are growing really slowly, even though I put the pots in a styrofoam box and cover well to get as much warmth from sun. I do not have a green house or seed propagator tray, which will speed growth up. At the local nurseries, I could already buy bigger plants.
My white currant plant has put on its green leaves and clusters of flowers too. Looking forward to having white currants. The blackcurrant plant is just beginning to catch up but no flower clusters in sight yet.
The Carolina Black Rose grape vine has produced lots of shoots. It is amazing to see new shoots sprouting every other day. And there are lots of flower clusters. I contemplate pruning off shoots to allow for fewer but stronger flower clusters but did not get down to it in case it is a mistake. I have not seen bees visiting my back garden but thankfully grape flowers are bisexual so they are self-pollinating.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Carolina Black Rose Grape Vine

Is that a cluster of future grapes?? I am not sure as I have never seen grape flowers before. But it is something which I have never seen before on my grape vine so I assume this is a flower cluster. Anticipating my first crop of grapes this year!
I pretty much pruned my grape vine based on my instinct in winter.  Obviously I have made some mistakes. Some of the new shoots that emerged are growing against the overhead beam and I had to adjust the branch to give the shoots room to grow.

I take pictures of new shoots as references so I can look back next winter to improve my pruning work.
Here's another shoot growing against the beam.

Here's how my grape vine is growing along the beams.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

It's Been A While.

It's been a long while since I last updated my blog. I have been rather ill-motivated recently due to some incidents regarding a neighbour who was renting the next house. It's nothing to do with gardening, just really affected by her character especially when we treated her like a sister. Anyway, she has moved out and our lives' sort of back to normal except some losses we have suffered. I had been doing a little here and there whenever necessary. I finally went back to my garden in full swing yesterday. I have been waiting for these two larger strawberries to ripen under the bare sunshine we were receiving lately. Finally my boy and I harvested them and each of us had one. So sweet having sun-ripened strawberries. The thought of it makes me drool!
I do have more strawberry flowers blooming. Such dainty flowers, so sweet and pretty as usual. One of the tasks for winter would be to divide all my strawberry clumps up. I have 8 pots to do and that's a big job! But if I dont divide the plants up, I wont get big berries next season.
My 5 Stringless Pioneer bean plants are fruiting, beaning?! These bean plants take up very little space. They dont need staking because they are dwarf and dont climb.
A plateful for lunch today.
I was extremely excited discovering a few of my fig (brown turkey) swollen and ripening two weeks ago. Since then my boy and I have eaten 3. This tree is in a large pot out of my dining window and it is in its 2nd summer. Last summer I had figs from this tree but they were dry and yukky. As this tree has a really tall and slender trunk, I chopped it down but it regrew in spring 2010. (See http://organic-is-better.blogspot.com/2010/09/fruit-trees-update.html )This summer, with ample watering, I have managed to eat some yummy, sweet and juicy figs. There is another fig (brown turkey) in my front garden, also confined to a pot, and is having figs that are also swelling. Can't wait to eat off that tree because this one was bought from Flemings Nursery!
There were some days when it was quite cold. My water spinach (kang kong) and Thai Basil suffered some 'burns' to their leaves and I had to resort to covering them with fleece. I expect to do a lot of frost protection this coming winter and have already starting work now in early autumn, driving stakes into the ground where frost-tender plants are.
This pest is the caterpillar of the grapevine moth. I have had quite a number eating the leaves of my Carolina Black Rose. Squashing them is the only way and I had to reach the leaves by climbing the ladder. The leaves are also having mild Downy Mildew which I need to treat with fungicide again.
The grapevine is doing very well growing everywhere on my back pergola roof. I had to add new strings across to support all the new growth. Soon the leaves will turn an autumny colour before shedding. Meanwhile I am enjoying this living green frame out of my kitchen window.

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Carolina Black Rose, Pak Choy, Spinach & Oregano

I must admit I have been very very busy and have been neglecting my blog for a long time. Then the laziness got into me because I felt that I have so much to update and I have been procrastinating and procrastinating the many things I have to write. Anyway, I am really very excited about my Carolina black rose grape vine. It is growing mightily. Right now, it has gone up the trellis I have tied to the support of my pergola. I cannot wait for grape bunches to appear!!! Every time I look at the leaves, I feel happy. They are so healthy and large. I am even imagining using them to wrap glutinous rice!
I have harvested loads of green and purple pak choy seeds from their pods. It was an enjoyable experience.
Loads of oregano early in spring.
And fresh spinach for frying too.
"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