Showing posts with label chrysanthemum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chrysanthemum. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Bird Watching & Flowers

Recently, my son and I have gone more into bird-feeding and bird-watching. We have scattered some seeds around the grevillea tree (back garden out of the kitchen window) and also under the plum tree (front garden out of my son's window)
So far we have attracted two spotted-neck pigeons which come regularly.
And two non-native mynahs. Here is a picture of all four under the grevillea tree feeding.
One of the mynahs decided to take shelter on my neighbour's toilet window when rain poured.
Then yesterday we had two honeyeaters feeding on the grevillea flowers.  I only managed to take a rough shot of one as the other decided to fly off.  They are fast-moving birds.
I have many flowers in bloom now but I want to highlight a few here :
This is my pyrethrum daisies in a rough terracotta pot.  I bought the seeds from Diggers' Club. They did not flower last year but this spring they have rejuvenated and are putting on flower buds. Fortunately I was patient enough not to throw it out.
I harvested my first proper artichoke green globe flower  for salad last Saturday.  Not bad testing especially the heart. I ate it with whipped mayonaise and white balsamic vinegar.
 This is a picture of my edible Chrysanthemum (Tung O) plant. It survived winter very well and growing taller. It also started to form flower buds but I had to remove them in case flowering affect the leaves.  The leaves are what I harvest for soup (esp in steamboat/hot pots) or miso soups.
Some of the leaves have a funny curvy track on them.  I reckon it is some leaf miner?? Not a big problem as I removed most of the affected leaves.
 My two 'rescued' Tomato Silvery Fir are getting stronger and are having flowers.
Here is an inedible flower.  My first few Dutch Irs Bronze Perfection from Tesselaar have bloomed. Pretty things!

Friday, August 26, 2011

Busy Saturday

It was a really busy 3 hours I had out in the garden last Saturday.  I :
  • pruned my chilli padi plants.
  • thinned out my pak choy and gai choy/mustard green seedlings.
  • built a shade for my transplanted green globe artichoke plants & trimmed them.
  • sowed sweet corn and other vege seeds.
  • sowed lucerne seeds for green manure.
  • did watering.
  • deadheaded my daisy bushes.
  • deadheaded my King Alfred daffodils. 
I told my boy that this spring I would not grow any tomatoes.  We ate the frozen ones from last season really slowly.  One reason is that the frozen tomatoes thawed really badly.  They are so mushy that I could only use them for soupy dishes.  I have spoken too soon.  I found a few tomato seedlings growing in the big fig's pot and in the pixzee peach tree's pot. That was mid-winter and they were looking really purple and frozen.  They must be from seeds from the compost bin.  And they must be tomato silvery fir since I only grew that variety.  My first instinct was to let them die in the cold since I had no intention to do tomatoes.
But then two of the seedlings caught my eye, I knew I had to keep them. They were the two strongest seedlings. They looked really healthy, though purplish out in the freezing cold. What a tragedy to let them die when they were trying to survive!!! So I prepared two pots and pulled them out and planted them. I placed a newly-bought plastic cloche on them and let them get some sun.  With a little tender loving care, they are now no longer purple and looking even better.  Okay, tomatoes for the next season...
New chives emerging from the soil. Oh I just loving seeing life spring forth from the dead ground!
Our only plum tree has the whole tree full of white blossoms this year.  I sure hope to eat more than 10 plums this summer/autumn since we really did only had 10 or so each of last two years.
Very pretty white flowers lightly perfumed.
My Tung O plant (edible chrysanthemum) survived winter unscathed.  I gave it a light prunning to open the plant up and remove the browner branches.  I use this vege for steamboat/hot pot or Japanese Miso soup.  It is nice by me but my hubby doesnt want too much of it.
This is the shade I have set up for my green globe artichoke plants.  The weather forecast a really warm end to winter and I knew that my divided artichoke plants could not make it if I do not build them a shade.  Imagine, a shade in winter! Sounds crazy! Well, they have been recently divided and replanted and kept wilting in the day, so I knew a whole week of warm sunshine would do them in. After building the shade, I also remove more whole leaves and halved some of the leaves, leaving only baby leaves behind.  I also watered them with a few rounds of seasol during the week and checked them every few days. That should make sure they really survive.  Now I am glad to have divided them in winter.  Imagine doing so in spring or summer, they would have die for sure.
A really trimmed artichoke plant, staked.
Here's the patch where I have sown sweet corn.  I used plastic fruit containers as cloche and weighed them down using decent sized white stones.
I deadheaded the King Alfred daffodils right out of my son's bedroom.  Now all they need is some good fertiliser to help them make bigger prettier flower heads for next season.
My chilli fire surived winter with the plastic protection.  Since it has now turned warmer, I removed the top plastic for it to get some sunshine.  I did that for my chilli padi plants too.
I had to thin out the pak choy and gai choi seedlings heavily in this raised vege patch because greedy me oversowed by a great deal! The remaining seedlings here are just about 1/5 or less than what I have removed! The work almost killed me.
I sowed some yellow capsicum, kang kong (water spinach), egg plant, cucumber and lady's finger seeds.
"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