Yellow Capsicum, Cucumber Burpless & Strawberry Delight

Tomorrow's weather is going to be really hot and windy, 39 deg cel. I have already put up most of the white cloth I have. I cannot cover the whole garden and only can do so for as many plants as I can. Here seems to be a baby cucumber (burpless). I have two on the vines : My beautiful to look at Strawberry Delight has produced a fair number of strawberries. Here's some more to be harvested :

Yellow Capsicums are ripening on the plant. So beautiful :

Summer...What's Happening in the Garden?

It's my second summer doing gardening. I welcomed some good rainfall on Tuesday and it is showering a little again today. Samuel and I found a ladybird on one of the chilli padi plants. I am not sure if that is the one I rescued from Coles supermarket few weeks back. It could well be. It seems comfortable on the plant and then I realised that there were actually aphids on the underside of some leaves. Good fellow..hope you have a great feast and get rid of them!

All my five calendula plants are doing great, flowering. Also some withered flowers have already produced seeds.

The two common mint cuttings took off fantastic and are growing fatter each day.

One nasturtium seedling emerged.

One strawberry delight runner growing into a new strawberry plant after I buried it in a small pot of mix. This way, I can keep having new plants without having to buy them. More runners developing from the mother plant.

A baby cucumber emerged from the vine. Several male flowers also have bloomed. I am trying to expose the two cucumber vines to buzzing bees for pollination as they are quite obscured by the pots and netting.

Another capsicum ripening to a bright orange. The smaller ones are ripening first. The two larger capsicums will get to grow larger before ripening. Cannot wait to snap a picture of that happening soon! Meanwhile more capsicum flowers are developing.

My purple king bean plants are also producing flowers.

And a baby purple king bean too!

Strawberry delight...yum...I harvested them before the earwigs did.

All three tomato silvery fir plants are doing great and putting on fruits. I had to prune off a lot of leaves to allow better air circulation.

I hammered a nail on top of the fence and used a string to secure the trellis for the bitter melon and cucumber (burpless). In summer during heatwaves, the wind can be extremely strong.

Also mulched the cucumber vines and bitter melon vine with sugar cane mulch.

Between the bitter melon and cucumber vines, I am preparing the soil for my buk choy and silver beet. Not a lot of space but I will try to squeeze in space for some leafy vege.

Buk choy seedlings waiting to be transplanted.

Purple buk choy seedlings.

Chilli Padi Flower Buds...Tomato Silvery Fir Fruiting...

My three chilli padis are having a growth spurt! I think they will soon overcrowd this pot.

One of them is having flower buds already! Yippee! Chilli padis!!!

One of the capsicums on the plant seems to be ripening. If it does, it will be my first time seeing it ripen as last season, it fruited too late and could not ripen in autumn-winter temperatures.

My strawberry delight has developed a runner. Hmmm....what should I do with it? I have to check with the nursery. I am happy...it means more strawberry plants!

I trimmed down the large pot of mint as the infestations with tiny caterpillars seem out of control. Will net it after feeding charlie carp.

The lucerne seedlings are everywhere on this patch F. I have decided to plant them and use them as either mulch or fertiliser for my garden.

I cleared Patch B of the snow peas...into my compost bin...and the matured pods for seeds.

Irritating weed sprouting up everywhere among the golden sheens.

My tomato silvery fir in the pot.

Tomato silvery fir #1 on the front garden. Got to erect protection over it soon or I will lose the fruits to Marco my dog!

Tomato silvery fir #2 on the front garden.

Here's two tiny silvery fir tomatoes! Looks like once the flowers go, I should see fruits...which is not like that for my tomato beef steak...I am beginning to wonder if I have a sterile plant!!!

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.

Today's Work.

Strawberries in the pot are growing well. One seems to be ripening but it is a little small. I mulched the two strawberry plants that are on the ground. I use sugarcane mulch as according to the staff at Bunnings, it is excellent in reflecting the sun's light and it returns carbon to the soil.

Out of the three strawberry plants I have, one has not produced flowers until yesterday. And suddenly flowers are popping out of that last plant :

My traps of oil and water was good in catching earwigs (pests). However, there are many more under pots and I had to manually remove the pots from their positions to reveal loads of earwigs scurrying away. Last night, I found an earwig trying to gnaw on one strawberry and another parked on a strawberry leaf!

The three slow growing chilli padis have put on more growth. Yippee! Hope to harvest chilli padis soon!

This morning, I trimmed much of the two smaller pots of common mint.

The large pot which I have trimmed is putting on new growth.

However, I have found lots of caterpillar poop.

Searching got me two fat caterpillars.

This pot of bay has many leaves now. I am going to wait till the leaves mature more before pruning the plant.

Same goes for this pot.

Tomato silvery fir #1 at frontyard is growing fantastic after transplanting.

Tomato silvery fir #2 is also doing great.

This rose shrub which I have spared when I pulled up the rest are producing tiny pink flowers...not too pretty by me.