Bay - A New Candidate in the Garden.

I caught this bug climbing up a wall in the house and wondered if it was a lady bug since it really does look like one except the strange brown-gold colour. I wrote to 'Ladybirds of Australia' and Adam told me that it is a leaf beetle of the family Chrysomelidae feeding on eucalyptus.

http://www.ento.csiro.au/biology/ladybirds/authors.htm is a good site to identify lady bugs in our gardens. This one is a good one which feeds on fungus. I found it on my vegetable patch! :) http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2408773.htm is another great site to learn about lady bugs - the good and the bad and the evil. And I thought all of them are good!

Harvested 11 pieces of my precious vietnamese/hot mint for a meat dish. Yum!

Very pleased to say that my lavender is a survivor in spite of being under the hands of an inexperienced non-green-fingered gardener like me! I think the pyrethrum I gave it could have really burnt the leaves. Could have been too generous and too near with the pyrethrum when I tried to deal with the pesky whiteflies attacking it. Brutally chopping much of it, though it was already summer, proved to be a good thing (kept my fingers 'crossed')(Refer 9 Jan 09 - Keeping Check). It survived and has been putting on green healthy leaves. I never gave up on you. Please dont give up on me. :)

Bought this bay from Flower Power...only $2. No harm trying to grow it. I have re-potting it inot a gigantic pot, being hopeful that it is going to grow into a potted tree for my new house! In cheap potting mix + blood and bone + seasol + dried danelion leaves (at base). It was shaded by a large box for a few days before being fully exposed to the summer sun.

A few of the Mighty Red tomatoes are turning orange. It is really exciting to see that and I hope possums would not ruin my joy by stealing them in the night. Look at the shine! No pesticides or chemical sprays on the skin!

My largest Sun King Sunflower is due to open its flower soon, revealing its yellow petals today. Interesting to find out that they will face the rising Eastern sun each day.

Mixed basil germinating well in the pot. It will interesting to find out what sort of basils I have got and how they finally look like.

The two groups of capsicums are doing fine. This clump has been thinned out severely. The other clump has been attacked by grasshoppers or some leaf-eating insects but are good still.

This Purple King bean plant of two is doing well. I think the other one is going to die, looking at the way it is developing.

Keeping Check.

Sam and I harvested some more of the greengages. They are quite fragile and since the tree is tall, some fell onto the ground and the impact caused broken skin. Given that to doggy which happily ate them up.

Thought this oregano is fighting space and nutrients with one of the melons close by, as the melon did not seem to be growing healthily and turning yellow, so I have dug the oregano up and potted it. It did amazingly well even in 37-39 deg celsius weather in the potting mix with seasol. I made sure drainage is good by placing the planter box on a sloped ground.

My two beautiful Laksa plants (vietnamese mint) are flourishing, growing taller and having more baby leaves. One thing for sure is to keep watering them :)..at least I am sure they thrive with lots of water!

Rosemary is truly strong, not even showing any fuzz after being repotted in new potting mix! And seems to be growing, having more stems appearing.

The two potato plants in the pot are growing stronger day by day, with new baby leaves growing on the stems, which is a good sign of health. Leaves are also firmer now.

Thyme continue to flourish in the pot. Hoping to see some flowering soon before I cut them back.

All the four Buk choy seeds germinated. I should have placed all four separately instead of pairing them up. :( good lesson learned.

Tip : If soil is dry, water before sowing. Use a watering can which allows gentle watering. Never sow and then water as the soil may form a crust over the seed and prevent entry of water to the seed or even prevent seedlings from breaking through to the light.

The bare lemon mint stem is doing so surprisingly well, growing baby leaves even in the seemingly dry soil.

I have pruned many leaves off the tomato plant and tied drooping branches to supports. Also pruned off some flowers so that the existing tomatoes would get most of the nutrients.

The mint cuttings have rooted well so I planted them into the potting mix yesterday evening, with mulching and kept them indoors overnight, with lots of watering and seasol. They have been taking it in and are out in the sun this afternoon when the sunshine is not so harsh.

Cut the lavendar back and hope that it will grow better from below. Also tested the drainage of the soil. Quite sure drainage is fine. Hoping that the leaves will revive and not continue to turn yellow brown. Not sure if the pyrethrum spray has caused the yellowing and browning of the leaves.

Both purple king have emerged! This morning this one could not be seen and in the afternoon, I was shocked to see that it has come out! Driven two supports into the ground.

This potato plant looked like it was going to die few days back but it survived!

Summer - Warming up... ...

The pot of lavender bee pretty seems to have grown but are attacked by whiteflies. I used the yellow sticky trap which was quite good but no good with controlling them. So I did a pyrethrum spray and the flies were gone. The new flower buds have grown.

Mint given by a friend standing in jar of water (Christmas Day) waiting to root. Roots appeared 5 Jan 09)

I have harvested lots of plums. They turn from green to yellow to deep red. Taste sweet in terms of pulp but have sourish bitter skin.

The sunflowers are 0.5m tall for the tallest! Growing fantastically. Waiting for giant sunflowers!

An orange has germinated. However, I cannot remember which type it is. :(

I accidentally pulled out this plant but the smell seems so oregano. I replanted it and it is growing fine again. I hope it turns out to be some yummy wild oregano.

A friend has just given me two twigs of vietnamese/hot mint and I have re-planted them (26 Dec 08) in this pot with a thai basil which rooted while kept in a glass jar of water. The former needs lots of water. This time, I made sure I gave them Seasol to help with any shock. I kept the pot indoors and gave it lots water. So far so good.

I bought these two cheap pots of flowers ($2 each) to attract bees to come and pollinate my melons.

The Mighty Red tomato plant is doing well and have produced more than 10 fruits so far. These are the largest so far.

Clump of melons before thinning out.

Melon yellowing after thinning out.

Surviving melon plant with flowers. Seasol came a bit late on 22 Dec 08 but at least rescued most of them.

In my last blog, I mentioned that my peppers died of shock during re-potting. So, I have since sown some on 14 December after cooking some yellow and red ones. I also thinned out the clump of melons but they too went into shock despite my very careful job. Their leaves were turning yellow and thankfully I got some advice from a fellow blogger to add some fertiliser. So I did, with Seasol and they have survived. Some died but a good number survived. A few of them have flowered and I am so pleased to see bees coming to them one early morning on 27 Dec 08. That means pollination! I wonder if the two little cheap pots of marigolds are doing their job attracting bees on the vege patch. I hope to see melon fruits soon, either rockmelon or honeydew. I am not exactly a fan of them but it is fun just to see them grow.

My Garden Babies

Chilli seeds germinating.

Lavendar Bee Pretty Mighty Red Tomato plant.

Thyme before re-potting.

Sunflower seeds sprouting and growing.

I have many things in the garden but I have not got time to record most down. Finally!

The thyme in the 10cm pot are growing well..about 6cm tall right now and I already can smell the sweet aroma from it. Just re-potted them this morning. Wow, their roots are a lot compared to how tiny plants they are! I cant wait to harvest them. First, I must find some recipes that use thyme. I started a new batch of thyme on 3 Nov and they are germinating well.

Hope for some sun as it has been a bit gloomy weather recently. With more sun and warmth, my chillies (planted seeds on 4 Nov 08), which just sprouted, can grow better. They took a little while to germinate, probably as the weather was not warm enough. My five sunflowers too (planted 3 Nov 08)! They are just 6cm tall too. Grew them so that I can give some friends cheerful sunflowers!

The rosemary, lavendar and mint are doing well after re-pottinging larger pot. However, the mint are really prone to pests! I have got white flies coming and I know it because when I gently shake the stems, I can see insects flying out. Thanks to the Christian forum on herbs which I have joined recently. I managed to get some good advice on how to handle the pests! Got some good ladybugs adults and larva from the peach and pear trees and left them on the mint. They should be able to eat up the white flies just like how they did to the aphids on the trees. The trees are totally cleared of aphids now. Ladybugs, cute and pretty and good bugs to have! My favourite garden friends!

Well, the mint is also subject to many other problems like rust. I had to manually and regularly inspect the plant and pluck off those affected leaves. This morning, I found a horrifying tiny caterpillar in the midst of the mint - on the shoots. There is web as well. I removed the whole shoot. I also found some spiders on the mint - good things to have - so I left them there. Amazing eco-system in a pot of mint!!! Mint goes great with freshly-brewed Japanese green tea. How refreshing!

The Mighty Red tomato plant is also growing fabulously after being re-planted from the pot to the soil directly. I understand that tomato plants are prone to pests too. Have to take all precauctions! Prevention is always better than cure!

Those yellow sticky traps which I have bought from Bunnings Warehouse are fantastic! Easy to set up, just staple onto a skewer stick and just poke it through into the soil in the pot. They really work to attract nuisance flying pests. The one I bought is called Trappit sticky insect traps from UK. Cost slightly more than $10. You can cut the size you need with scissors and the glue is effective in trapping insects. Insects are very attracted to the bright yellow of the traps. Good distraction from attacking my plants instead!

Oh I may have rockmelon in my garden! I buried some of the rockmelon pulp with seeds in the vegetable patch in winter. Thought of just fertilising the soil but it seems like the seeds have germinated. Well, hope they are some rockmelon plants instead of weeds! Time will reveal.

I read that I had better trim off peaches while they are small. There are so many on the peach tree. So, I removed peaches and left each 5cm away from each other on the branches. This is important to get larger fruits. Information from http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/basics/techniques/growfruitandveg_growingpeaches2.shtml

The other day I bought some thai basil for cooking. I left a few stems in water to let the roots grow at the same time removing most leaves to stop transpiration. Yeah it worked. After a little bit of the roots came, I dipped the end of the stems in some mild hormone rooting powder (just in case!) and planted them into the soil. Left the pots in the house for a few days near the sunny window so that the plants would not be system-shocked. Today, they are out in the sun. Hope for a prosperous growth! Leaves are already growing!