Lady's Fingers, Eggplant Florianda, Yardlong Beans

I captured a picture of my ocra (lady's fingers) flowers. This plant belongs to the hibiscus family.

Wow...I thought I was having a small eggplant but when I checked today, it was a truckload! At least 10 and I am not kidding. The thing is this plant is really quite dwarf and I wonder where the fruits going to go being so low to the ground already. Perhaps harvest when still young. I am going to do my best to preserve this beautiful eggplant before winter comes. If I can keep my capsicum for 3 years and over-winter my chillies successfully, I am sure I can do so for my eggplant. ;)

My yardlong bean or long bean...I did not expect it to be so so dwarf! It is flowering. Only this plant is so far doing better than the rest. Kind of giving up hope of eating long beans.

Pretty lilac bean flowers.

My poor lilies. They are so fragrant and so pretty but their petals are all smeared with pollens due to the rain.

I captured a few pictures of bees visiting my pumpkin flowers. So cute seeing them covered with pollen when they fly out of the flower.

Tomatoes silvery fir are ripening unevenly. A bunch can have both ripe and unripe tomatoes. How on earth can I have vine ripened tomatoes? It seems impossible as I have to harvest any ripe ones before they become rotten in the rain or burnt by the sun.

Yippee! Another basket of kang kong (water spinach). I am truly excited! This is the second batch from the same plants!!!

Update of All Sorts...

It has been another busy week. There were a few chores I had to finish for the garden - providing support for the climbing carolina black rose grape vine, weeding, netting the remaining unprovided peaches (from feathery looters), preparing ground for a new passion fruit vine, staking bean plants, pruning tomato plants, fertilising, decorating for Christmas....on and on...looks like it is not a few chores after all! Well we are still enjoying the brand new lawn and will continue to do so. Here I snapped Samuel and Marco having fun together. They were so cute!

The dietes. Arent they gorgeous? They are very common natives planted in multiple clumps for mass display. From far, they look like fluttering white butterflies because you can hardly see the green slender stems holding the flowers up.

Rather orchid-like.

I have successfully propagated a few aoeniums (wonder if the spelling is right or not) before pulling up the mother plant which look ugly. I have not decided what to do with the new plants yet.

The brown turkey fig tree right out of my dining window looks very healthy and it is having figs!!!

Here's the two pomegranate flowers. I am not diehard to eat any pomegranate from this tree which was left behind by the previous owner. It is a young handsome pomegranate tree. I just bought 3 large pomegranates for $5 and that's cheap! They are from USA. I realise these fruits are rather troublesome to eat though I heard they are very nutritious.

All my three sweet corns are flowering. Male or female I dont know. Having corns' more important haha...

My two-year-old gladioli are flowering again!!! So pretty while blooming but not so when they start to die down!

Yummy heart-shaped strawberry due to cojoining work!

And I love strawberry flowers! So delicate, so dainty, so sweet, so pretty!!!

Almost all my tomato silvery fir plants (7 in all) are flowering and fruiting. Yum Yum...

The kang kong's growing well in the new vege patch. So are the potato plants. And burdock too (hidden by potato).

Chilli fire plant fruiting crazily. I am going to harvest a big number of green chillies for pickles!

3 more beans yardlong have germinated at the site where the snow peas used to be.

I happen to take a picture of these two calendula seedlings exploding out of their seed hulls. Very nice.

Tomatoes, Cucumber, Capsicum and Coriander

A cloudy day with predicted rain. It's indeed very rewarding to see the fruits of my labour. Two yellow capsicums are ripening under the last few days of hot sun : I harvested one capsicum along with a few tomatoes and a bunch of coriander. Hmmm...something for my lunch :

Few days ago, another batch of ripened tomato silvery fir and a large cucumber for dinner :

Looking forward to harvesting more greens such as buk choy, silver beet and sweet potato leaves...

Harvesting Peaches, Tomatoes, Eggplant and Buk Choy

My eggplant (supreme) had at least a dozen of flowers but only one eggplant maturing so far. In order not to have too many seeds forming in the eggplant, I harvested it together with a bunch of tomatoes (did not wait till fully ripen this time) and a bunch of delicious crisp green buk choy.

I usually hang out in the back garden and the two tomato silvery fir out on the front do not get enough attention from me. One inspection one evening showed caterpillars tunnelling through the tomatoes. I wonder if they are cornear caterpillars because they do look similar to the other caterpillars I had caught. I left two attacked tomatoes with the caterpillars in a jar and see if I can see any moths forming.

Samuel helped me to harvest one lone ripening tomato :

And I had these harvested as well...more tomato silvery fir (almost ripe ones) and three peach (pixzee). Yummy!

Windy and 43 Deg Celsius.

As the blog title says, windy and 43 deg celsius. Thank God for weather forecasts, I have done all the necessary preparations (putting up shades, watering, weeding...) before today. Besides all the light colour tablecloths, white cloths, I even borrowed hubby's white shirts! This morning I woke up not having the anxiety of a charred garden but leisurely did whatever little things I needed to do. Prayerfully, no casualty when evening arrives.

Back garden.

Front patio and front garden.

Sweet potato creepers taking over the mulching around the golden sheens.

New candidate in the garden. I decided to plant Diggers' Pioneer bean stringless (above pic) in this empty pot of mix (where my daisies used to be). A black pot over them to create a dark environment and moist potting mix saw them germinating just in four days!

Under the netting and shade, my buk choy (purple) and buk choy (regular green) are growing well. One silver beet among them as well and the bitter melon vine on the trellis.

Two more silver beets growing next to the lemon grass and under the shelther of the grevillea tree.

Once again a picture of the four peaches on my peach (pixzee). Just cannot stop snapping a picture of them. Beautiful considering it is its first season!

One eggplant supreme out in sight!!!

Nellie Kelly's hot chillies growing larger and more coming!

One bunch of tomato silvery fir ripening! Very exciting as this year, I managed to get the tomatoes to grow larger and it is really successful considering this one is potted.

I picked this first ripened and large-sized tomato two days ago in case it gets too scorched by the sun.

Also picked a large bowl of common mint yesterday morning. Time for some mint tea and omelette.

35 Degree Celsius.

The temperature will be 35 degree celsius these two days. Early in the morning within water restriction time, I watered the whole garden and covered up the vegetables in my backyard. Here is a picture of the backyard from my kitchen. The white cloths helped to reflect the glaring sun and keep my plants cool : The second sun king sunflower has opened...much prettier one :

My life group mate Li gave me two of this squash...taste yummy and looks like varigated zuchini :Another life group mate Chloe gave me a bunch of homegrown peaches...they are really nice even though they are not fully ripe yet. Homegrown always beats supermarket stuff. That green silvery fir tomato was picked off the plant by Marco...a bit sad cos we cannot eat it at all and it is quite big :