
Welcome! I am a stay at home mum of two gorgeous boys, proud owner of an online handmade store and an avid gardener. This blog records most of my gardening journey over a few properties. We have recently moved to a new permanent property and it's time to start gardening again! I enjoy time-out in my home garden looking at and photographing birds, insects and plants. It is also a haven for my sons and golden retriever. May you enjoy your visits here. :)
Showing posts with label thai basil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label thai basil. Show all posts
Friday, January 7, 2011
Our First Pixzee Peach for 2011 Plus Other Garden Updates.
Today's temperature is predicted to reach 35 deg celsius. Not a big deal as I believe this year's summer will be cooler and I doubt we are going to experience 46 again. Also, the garden is all mostly mulched up so the water retention will be good. Having said that, I spent one hour giving the whole garden water this morning. I have also put up some white cloths on three areas : over the burdock, over the hydrangeas and the ocra (ladies' fingers).
I was trying to show my son my dwarf peach (pixzee) tree with its five large fruits. We could smell the fragrance without putting our noses near. One of them felt soft and when my boy reached out to touch it, it fell. We realised that this one was ready and shared it. Yummy, sweet and juicy!!!
This little pot of strawberry delight is producing quite a few strawberries. And the other plants are also having lots flowers.
I germinated some lemon balm recently. It is growing steadily but slowly.
Clockwise from top : bitter melon (bittergourd), evening primrose, watercress and eggplant. I know I am extremely late planting the bitter melon and eggplant. I sowed them with experimentation in mind but all of them germinated.
These are four pyrethrum daisies which I bought from Diggers. They grow so slowly and wilt so easily. I have repotted them into this pretty terracotta pot.
A Vietnamese kinder mum gave me these two Thai Basil plants which I repotted in this large pot. It's been difficult growing this basil probably due to the climate. It flowers too easily which is not good for herbs.
Friday, January 22, 2010
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.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Chillies, Herbs & Vege.
My original pot of rosemary recently was in a poor state. The leaves were looking really skinny compared to its daughter rosemary shrub at the patch next to the garage. Compare them at http://organic-is-better.blogspot.com/2009/11/patch-next-to-garage-fresh-faces.html . I was not sure if it was too dry or the pot has gotten too small. I had actually gave it a root trim (See http://organic-is-better.blogspot.com/2009/11/catching.html) somtime back before putting it back into the same pot, so I believed it had got too dry in the hot weather. I began watering it more often which is quite strange as rosemary prefers it dry. Deciding to dunk n drench the whole pot in charlie carp helped. It looked better since :
I gave my second season thyme a good hair cut and it came back beautifully again :
Finally the three skyscraper-tall chilli padis are begining to fruit after some trouble with sickly spotted leaves :
And the sickly-looking chilli fire (see http://organic-is-better.blogspot.com/2009/12/garden-bird-rescue-heronswood-garden.html )which I bought from bunnings is also producing chillies :
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Tender Loving Care is Important.
A gardener must pay close attention to her plants. And I love spending time just doing that - lots of attention...lots of tender loving care. When this is done, I can make sure I prevent lots of bad things from happening. Close observation of a cluster of strawberry delight flowers (even though the pot is netted) shows that some caterpillar activity. The flowers and buds were kind of white-webbed together and upon peeling them open, two caterpillars were found. After squashing them, I had to remove some buds and flowers as they were already damaged by them :
I have since propagated five pots of strawberry delight plants :
My second try at planting Thai basil from nursery purchase is not looking so good. Leaf edges turning brown. I wonder why :
Worrying about the cucumber pollination was unduly indeed. Actually bumble bees do visit the flowers. How wonderful! I have at least five developing cucumbers and they are growing fast :
My yellow capsicum (officially calling it yellow after the green ones ripened to yellow recently) plant is making more flowers and fruits after some of their lower older leaves fell off :
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Some Digging and Planting - Apricot, Kaffir Lime, Egg Plant and Thai Basil.
It has been raining and raining and raining. I am grateful for the rains though not really for the chilly strong winds. The rain softened the ground substantially and provided lots of watering for my new garden. I managed to dig the hole on the front garden for my apricot Moorpark and planted it into the ground. Drainage over this spot does not seem excellent but I will have a go and see if this apricot will establish itself well :
As per my earlier entry, after coming back from 2.5 weeks of overseas trip, the pot of kaffir had produced lots of new leaves but at the same time, its potting mix has become home to thousands of ants which I had killed drenching the mix in pyrethrum. Older leaves were falling at an astounding rate and I assumed that the kaffir lime needed nutrients. I fed it with with Osmocote, a slow-release fertiliser with hope of easing its problem fast but soon the young leaves started crinkling. Gosh! Over-fertilising? Poisoning? Last resort : plant it into the ground! :
Friday, March 13, 2009
A Few New Candidates and Update
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"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