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.

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!

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 :