Eggplant with Pork, Thai Basil & Coriander.

For lunch today, I just had one dish involving my harvested eggplant supreme...impromptu recipe! Eggplants go fantastic with pork mince and pork mince goes excellent with thai basil and coriander... Ingredients : Eggplant sliced into 1cm thickness and fried in a pan with some olive oil. Minced pork. Tea tree mushroom (washed, soaked lightly, remove stubs, retain a little water). Garlic chopped, coriander chopped, thai basil leafed, chilli cut. 1-2 tsp of Japanese miso paste. 1 tsp of oyster sauce. 1. Fry the eggplant slices in a pan of heated olive oil. Remove. 2. Fry garlic in more oil, add pork, miso paste and oyster sauce. 3. Continue frying, add mushrooms with its water. Simmer. 4. Return eggplant slices to pan to allow them to soak in sauce. 5. Add thai basil, chilli and coriander. 6. Stir fry more and remove from heat.

Tea tree mushrooms (available in Asian grocery shops) Thai basil, coriander, hot chilli harvested from garden.

The final look...taste even yummier!

Coriander, Yellow Capsicum, Cucumber (burpless)

I have forgotten about the coriander seeds which I had sown around my turkey fig tree...When they emerged, I realised it was them : My yellow capsicum plants is bearing more fruits. Never bored of snapping a picture of them...always so pretty :

How fast are the cucumbers growing! Here's #1 :

Here's #2 :

Here's #3 :

Here's #4 hanging upside down :

Garden, Bird Rescue & Heronswood Garden

The coriander that I bought has produced many seeds due to the hot weather. I dont mind since I do not use the herb every day so it will be good for it to self-seed and make new plants at Patch E. Same goes for the continental parsely :

I bought a malnourished-looking chilli fire from bunnings (since it was only $3) and hope that by putting it in the ground (front garden) and fertilising it, it will take off from here :

I am protecting it with a tree shield from my dog and pests :

My sun king sunflowers are growing strongly but the first flower that opened does not look too glorious :

Three pots of lemon grass planted next to the sunflowers are transplanting well. I have added rooster manure and mulched with sugarcane :

Bird rescue. Marco my dog found a baby bird in our front garden. Not really knowing what to do, I got it into a carton. Boy...his parents came and made a lot of noise looking for their baby.

I have no idea where the nest was and decided to take it to RSPCA. They said since it was not native, it would have to be put down. However, the nice guy also told me that this baby has already left its nest and its parents would be feeding it on the ground till it could fly. Cool lesson learnt. I decided to bring it back and return it where I found it, so that its parents can find it again and do their thing. This little bird got me really busy :

We went to Heronswood Garden again. Beautiful weather. Here's two pretty pictures, one overlooking the beautiful tranquil sea :

And an abundance of grapes :

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.

Miscellaneous.

I have been doing some miscellaneous work these few days - sowing, planting, potting on, weeding, pest control, soil improvement...etc. Fig (brown turkey with its beautiful leaves).

Sown some mixed basil seeds and passionfruit seeds.

Planting two tomato (silvery fir) in the front garden.

My trailing kalanchoe is under attack! Could be due to stress of no watering. I had to manually squash caterpillars wrapped up in its leaves. Also found similar caterpillars wrapped up in young leaves of strawberry plant, common mints and pomegranate. I have to be extra alert.

Sown some cayenne pepper seeds again. Last year's batch germinated but stunted.

The bitter melon germinated!

Potted on my precious pot of capsicum. A larger pot and hopefully the fruits will develop large.

Potted on my tomato (silvery fir).

My kaffir lime plant is still dropping leaves. The new fruits also dropped off. There are a few bunches of new flowers. Suddenly the young leaves look to me like they are lacking some kind of deficiency - light green leaf background with dark green veins especially on all the young leaves. I checked it up. It was quite confusing at first but I decided that it is iron deficiency. Time to go Bunnings!

The french lavender bush is blooming. Really gorgeous.

The sunflower seeds which I have harvested last season have sprouted :

Here is one of the first sunflower Sun King seeds which I have sown, growing slowly but steadily :

My big pot of vietnamese mint has yielded lots of sprigs for friends but sadly I found that a lot of tiny caterpillars have actually attacked it. I had to remove all affected leaves. Perhaps failing to water it on time and wilting on a few occasions have caused stress and invited pests :

This is one of the fatter caterpillars which I have spotted...really luminous green. I put several of the coiled up leaves (meaning existence of caterpillars) in a jar and shall see what they become :

Some yellow capsicum seeds have finally germinated. I recognized the seedlings as soon as they emerged :

Several strawberries emerged :

This native (I believed...left by previous owner) is having cute candyfloss flowers. Interesting to look at out of my kitchen window :

Eggplant Supreme is growing slowly. I have remove the tree shield around it and mulched the area. The holes on the leaves are most likely caused by European earwigs :

I have prepared a simple trap of vege oil and water and overnight it drowned a few earwigs. They are indeed the culprits :

My Peach (Pixzee) are growing well for now and I have to remove those leaves affected by leaf curl. Give me at least two full size peaches this season please! :

The coriander I bought from Ikea is growing fine. Harvested a little for a dish :

A pot of lemongrass given by my fellow gardener friend Nancy is planted at Patch E where the parsley and coriander are :

I removed more grass from around my Eureka Lemon and applied mulch :

This is a protea (Special Pink Ice). I like the beautiful flowers so I bought it for $17 bucks! Burnt a hole in my pocket :

Yet another hole in my pocket. Senorita...I saw very similar plants in Tasmania and really hope to have both of them...saw them in Bunnings and bought them. :P :

The rose bush which I spared has put on many many buds. Almost flowering. Wonder if the roses will be an achievement :