Thursday, December 17, 2009

39 Degrees Celsius & Windy!

I was kept rather busy yesterday with the hot and windy weather. Was better prepared this year but still not good enough. Probably because I am now on a new property. The night before this hot day, I had moved most portable/lighter pots into shelther : I did not have enough white cloth so I could only shield part of the patch next to the garage :
Ended up using my hubby's old work shirt to shield my bitter melon but it worked now that it is still short :
Kaffir lime, eggplant supreme, lemongrass at Patch C & cyclamens at Patch D were also shielded by pieces of white cloth :
Patch A has a piece of beige tablecloth and I used it on my purple king. Not on the tomato beef steak since it has not produced a single fruit and taking up so much space :
Some heavier pots were under white cloth and a layer of netting. The strong wind beat at the cloth and I had to secured the four corners with strings :
Patch F was also protected by white cloth :
With this, the whole garden did not suffer a single casualty. The front garden was not covered but I had hubby watered the whole of it first thing in the morning since we were within water restrictions time. By 6pm, the air was still hot and stuffy. I went out to remove the white cloth as the next day was a real change of weather...cloudy and possible thunderstorm! Think the weather here in Melbourne changes faster than a woman's mood haha...

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

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 :

Monday, December 14, 2009

Fig (Brown Turkey)

Remember the brown turkey fig tree which I mentioned looked dead? The top 10cm shrivelled and died and I cut it off. I pulled the whole tree out of the potting mix one day and regretted and planted it back, because I was not about to give up. And that paid off! Flemings told me that by November if there is no sign of life, it is probably dead. I waited and waited and it is already mid-December. But wow! Some of the buds are growing! So obvious that I know the stick is not dead yet!!! Can't wait to see the buds grow into leaves :

Thursday, December 10, 2009

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.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Lilium LA Hybrid and Onions

Cool and windy day. I prepared the patch where I am going to plant more lemongrass as well as planted one rosemary shrub into the ground. The second Lilium LA hybrid flower has opened. It is gorgeous compared to the first one because it is a single flower. See http://organic-is-better.blogspot.com/2009/11/sweet-potato-creepers.html for the first Lilium LA Hybrid.
I pulled up the onions which were dying down and revealed four shallot-looking onions. I think I can eat them as shallots in my cooking. See http://organic-is-better.blogspot.com/2009/07/one-more-month-of-winterhows-are-some.html on how they originally looked like.
"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