Scorching Summer but Happy Plants

Before we moved, I gave away my Chilli Fire plant. It was already 2 years old and I did not want to keep it. I did stash away some of its seeds and sowed some at our new rental property. Amazing 4 plants sprang up. 3 of them are in the vege patch while one is in a pot. They are all doing well. I am even getting some chillies now :

Succulent green chillies @ vege patch.

Green chillies popping up in the potted plant.

Now to my chilli padi plants. The previous 3 plants were also old so I had to throw them out. One stray seed landed in my brown turkey fig's pot and came up over autumn. Though it was not growing great in winter, it was a survivor. It underwent the cold winter without any protection and even had a few rounds of aphid attack. When spring came, it came back to life. I then moved it to a separate pot where it flourished! I bet there are at least 100 chillies on it now :

And I finally have the authentic lemongrass in my collection of garden babies. All 6 pots which I got from Flower Power at a dear price were fakes! A previous neighbour gave me some to grow and then I got a pot from a friend in Sydney. Yay!!! I always have wanted to plant lemongrass. The only thing is I have to do them in pots. I am not sure how 'fat' they will get. Being in the ground is the best but we are currently renting, and I am too lazy to prepare the ground and then dig them up eventually :

Thai basil. This one came up on its in the vege patch. I am just letting it flower and get more seeds. Given it a round of liquid fertiliser hoping it gives me great seeds :

And my beautiful garlic chives are needing a hair cut :

Rhubarb. Hmmm...I havent used any at all. I dont really know what to do with them. So they are growing and dying down. It was dug up from my previous garden and potted but it is doing better than ever being in a pot! The leaves are green and large.  The stems are fat too but just not red :

I am exciting to share this photo of my brown turkey fig. It's Figgy. It has at least 40 fruits on it. I was really surprised. I pruned this fig heavily as I thought I would not have time taking care of it this year. Yet it gave me even more fruits. However, being in a pot does it an injustice! It would do well in the ground. I am not sure how many figs I will get to eat cos I am not sure if the fruits will get to grow well with limited nutrition I am providing, and with possums active in this area :

Here's my Carolina Black Rose grape vine. Or do you call that a grape tree?? Well, I did not remove my whole grape vine from my previous garden. It has gone too big for me to remove it. I left it for the new owners and they loved it.  This plant decided to come alive from a stem which I cut to use as a snow pea stake at the previous vege patch. I have let it grow, potted it when we moved and it is gloriously growing! I even had to constantly trim off the shoots coming up. Not sure if I will get any grapes but I am just happy to keep it growing cos it looks so pretty! :

My Baby...and Vegetables Update.

Hello! It's been a long long time since I last posted. Life has been very busy with my new baby, and lots of changes along the way. We went for a holiday, moved house and then had our baby. Baby S (yes, another S) is already 15 weeks. He's such a joy and I am savouring every moment being a new mother once again.  Here is a picture of him :

I havent been doing a lot of gardening compared to before.  We moved house, so there is less to maintain but still, my garden of potted plants/veges/trees demand attention every now and then. I have been harvesting a good amount of green veges esp garlic chives. I am very excited to share that the gorgeous black seeds I have collected from my very first planting back in our old property, have grown into beautiful garlic chives successfully. I recalled busy bees working on the chive flowers back then and was wondering if I would get seeds. And yes I did! And yes, the seeds are of fantastic quality too! Here's the first new crop :

Another exciting thing to share. Thai basil! The last few plants I had (which I rooted from market cuttings) died down last winter and their seeds survived the cold winter and starting growing in the pot. So I am getting thai basil leaves now! I really love thai basil. Though I have been too busy to do any cooking (been catering food nowadays) and usethe leaves now, I am still excited. I plan to store these basil leaves in olive oil so if I need them, I can always have a stock of them! Here's some of them drying :

I also have some tomato silvery fir to harvest. They have all sprung from seeds blown into pots. A few grew in the pot of the Kaffir lime tree. I pulled up some and left two to grow. Had to net the plants as caterpillars attack them, those which burrow and make holes in unripe tomatoes, I cannot recall the names now.

 A while earlier, I also harvested green buk choy. Amazing they sprang up from seeds scattered by wind on my previous property. Smile....It's just wonderful to be able to harvest edibles without having to even plant them!!!

A New Season For Our Family & Saffron Crocus

I have not been blogging for a while. This is because our family is expecting a new baby. We are all excited once again, especially after I suffered a miscarriage two years ago. From 5th week onwards, I was feeling nausea and strangely, depressed. I also lost my appetite and ended up lying on the couch every day. It was towards the 9th week that I was more back to myself. I ate more, had more energy but still could not do much. Currently I am going 16th week and feeling much better. Also, we are expecting a baby boy! Little Man is so excited cos he really wanted a baby brother over a baby sister.  I feel rather weird as I have lost all my interest in gardening. But I still have a fair list of to-dos before winter sets in. The garden still needs quite a bit of attention and thankfully, Hubby is helping me with most of the work.

By the way, we had Saffron blooming this year. Such beautiful flowers with edible orangy-red stigmas. I did not harvest any stigmas this year, I just admired the flowers and took in its mild fragrance.

This will be the last post from me at least for the time being.

Scorching Temperatures and Then Lots of Rain - End February

We experienced very hot scorching weather from Friday till Monday morning. It has been a lot of sun without rain this summer in my area.  And there is one casualty out of my garden. My beautiful creeping watermelon vines have succumbed to the heat and withered completely and I expect the unripe watermelons to die as well. There is a large fruit and two smaller ones. :( This year I did not put up any protection against the heat. I have not been feeling very well so have to ignore my gardening and do only the minimal for a little while.

Watermelon and dead vines around it.

My yummy grapes. A lot of them are splitting and I found out it was due to over-watering.

Sweet potato vines.

Back garden view 1

Back garden view 2

Water chestnut tub

Our recent harvest

Lady's fingers...this year's harvest has been better.

Lady's finger's flower.

Success at growing Lebanese eggplants using seeds.

More harvest.

Summer Update - Mid February

Harvesting veges :

Water spinach/kang kong, pak choy green, choko shoots, eggplants, carrots, cucumbers, chillies, spring onions, beans, lady's fingers/okra.

Harvesting fruits : figs, grapes.

The thirty figs on Figgy are not developing well. I am totally puzzled as the fruits were small, hollow and turned yellow before they got bigger. There goes hope of eating more figs this year. The tree is very tall and leafy for its pot, so I am unsure if it was not able to draw up enough nutrients or water from its potting mix.I placed a saucer under the pot and watered daily but nothing seemed to work.

On the other hand, Big Fig which did not put on any figs early this year, has finally grown some. The figs look like they are going to be fine for eating.

Big Fig (brown turkey) with its fruits protected by organza bags which I bought from Ebay. My son says Big Fig 's a boy.

We harvested some carrots. Our first try at growing them. Fantastic result!

Pesky black birds have been trying to go for my Carolina Black Rose grapes even though I have netted my vine. So I resorted to organza bags which is very effective.

These flowers have bloomed. They are called pigface.  Definitely dont look like pig's faces.

The pathetic-looking passionfruit vine outside my garage is finally growing. I think if it survives, it will be really slow-growing, I dont mind as long as it greens up this brick wall.

The other passionfruit vine next to my patio is also growing, but better.

Eggplant Bonita's 2nd fruit and several more to come.

More sweet corns at the patch in front of our garage have all been harvested. I grew lots of corns this season and am sick of eating them already.