December 2011 - Summer Update

17 December -

-Removed more plum tree branches to stop possum invasion.
-Netted grapevine.
-Repotted comquat calamondin.
-Harvested more pioneer green beans, strawberries, tomatoes, thai basil.
-Cucumber, kang kang (water spinach) & eggplant sped up in growth.
-Chilli fire fruits growing fast and chilli padi plants growing young chillies.
-Figgy has 20 figs growing!
-Corn almost ready for harvest.
-Weeding

21 December -

- Harvesting plums, tomatoes, thai basil, kaffir lime, lemongrass, pioneer beans

22 December -

- Sprayed grape vine with sodium bicarbonate+soap+oil+water.
- Installed thorny devil possum spikes.

Three watermelon Candy Red looking strong and healthy so far.

Diggers' Sunflower pollenless plants are larger than I have expected.

Diggers' Tomato silvery fir are ripening.

Figgy out of my dining window with lots of figs (brown turkey).

Another shot of Figgy from my dining area.

Finally I see pomegranates. Out of at least 30 flowers, I see 3 fruits.

Kang Kong (water spinach)

Hubby found an Aussie website selling possum deterents called thorny devils. They are rubbery spiky products which we can screw onto the top of our fence. I went down to the stockist (Pinewood Nursery) and bought some home. On the left side of my back garden fence, we screwed in some L-shaped thorny devils.

On the right side of my back garden fence (next to the shed where the possums came from), we installed some thorny devils and nails.

This is a picture of how one type looks like. It fits nicely onto a fence with wooden capping.  So far for the last three nights, we have not had the pests (possum mum and baby) visit our garden and eat our things.  I was very relieved my plans had worked but I was at the same time feeling like a villain.  Honestly, I am one big animal lover. I love possums too.  Moreover the ones which visited are a mummy and a baby. One night they came and I saw them up on the plum tree out of my son's window. I actually went out in my bathrobe shooting a jet of water onto them with a strong nozzle.  The baby tried to jump from the plum tree onto our roof but fell to the ground and scrambled up the fence and escaped.  Sigh...I want them to survive and find food but I just cannot have them eating up my things. I do hope they can find other things in nature to eat other than my fruit and vegetable crops.  My son asked me to feed them but I cannot afford to do so. I will encourage them to be dependent on us and even attract them to live in our roof! There are just too many good reasons not to have them around our property. I already have a dog, several fishes and the pigeons to feed and they are very harmless, but possums are just a bit risky to invite.

Harvested another lot of beans and tomatoes. The tomatoes are really juicy.

A dish of beans and minced pork.

Finally I bought a cheap vase from IKEA to display my hydrangeas on the dining table.

Garden Gadgets, Possum Problem

12 December
- milk spray on grapevine
- bicarbonate spray on pak choy pods, destroy fungi-infected pak choy pods (hot water treatment)
- weeding around patch at front of house

14 December, cloudy with sunny breaks, 21 deg max
- watering the garden
- harvesting pioneer beans, tung O, strawberries, kao kee

15 December, sunny.
- milk spray grapevine, kao kee, hydrangeas

The naughty bush-tail possum nipped and ate the young shoots of my choko vine.

Here's another shoot eaten. On Monday night, my boy and I camped in our back garden and for the first time, I saw the 'burglar' jumping onto my plum tree and walking on our fence and on our shed.

I have been harvesting pioneer stringless beans for freezing as the quantity was not enough for cooking.

The bean plants, about 5 of them, are growing beans at different speeds.

My wisteria in the pot climbed up the beam in a clock-wise fashion. Not too sure if I would get any flowers.

A yummy bunch of Tung O (edible chrysantemum) for soup.

Beans and a fig (brown turkey).

Made a few cups of lemon balm tea this week. Refreshing!

A bunch of kao kee for soup too.

Steady supply of strawberries every day.

Here's a look at 3 of my wonderful gardening gadgets : Left to right - 1. Handsfree nozzle 2.Green Spray head. 3. Blue fireman nozzle. They are precious to me for watering my garden since I suffer from shoulder and neck problems, as they are handsfree and the sprays are adjustable.  Care to be taken when using them as if they are dropped, they can damage quite easily.

I bought this cheap spray unit from Bunnings for $7, the cheapest displayed. It actually works wonderfully. This morning I used it for the first time for milk-spraying my grape vine, kao kee and hydrangea. It really beats using 500ml spray bottles which really aggravates my shoulder/neck problem. It is also fantastic for large quantity of solutions.

A Night of Downpour to Refresh a Week of Sunshine.

8-9 December - warm and sunny days up to 32 deg celsius.  Thunderstorms in the evening.

9 December -cool change
- collected 3 buckets of worm casts from worm farm.
- checked hydrangeas.  Milk sprays seem to have worked to rid powdery mildew.
- removed powdery mildew-affected grapevine leaves (still manageable).
- removed powdery mildew-affected kao kee leaves (milk spray didnt  work). Applied more milk spray.
- lots of pomegranate flowers dropped.
- collected pak choy pods.

11 December - Rain last night.
- Worm casts to kang kong on Patch F.
- Worm casts to kao kee and strawberry pots.

One of the cucumber vines which I have planted here (Patch B) took off well and is having cucumbers already. Two others died.

I planted 4 more pot-germinated seedlings in Patch B.  These are cucumber (burpless).

Several chilli padi seedlings emerged in Patch B where I placed the pot to over-winter.  The seeds must have survived winter from dropped chilli fruits.

Patch B+C has kang kong (water spinach) and carrots growing.

Patch F has kang kong (water spinach) and Tung O (edible chrysanthemum).  It is also where my Carolina Black Rose grape vine is.  This picture is taken before I applied worm casts.

This raised vegetable patch looks a little run down.  I cannot really plant much as I am still waiting for pak choy green seeds to dry.  The brocoli greens did not do well. I think the seeds are dodgy as this is not the first time I am unsuccessful despite changing planting sites.

I got my boy to casually sow pak choy seeds out on the front vege patch and amazing lots of tiny healthy pak choy are growing.

Yummy, fresh strawberries every day!

This summer, I have 4 cally lily Majestic Red  blooming in our front garden.  How exciting to see them returning year after year!

With an overnight downpour, the duckweeds in the water chestnut tub  multiplied like crazy covering the whole surface.  The colour contrast of green and blue is very nice.

Guess what I found? A ginger shoot! That's from last summer!  Ginger (the common one that I use for cooking) actually survived our winter and has emerged! Wow! I feel so excited and hopeful growing ginger. 

This ginger shoot recently emerged from some stems which I planted in  two 40cm diameter pots.  Hoping for good results.  So far so good.

Here's another shoot in the other pot.

The galangal ginger which I planted here looked withered, not a pleasing sight. However I strongly believe the underground stems are alive.  Time will tell.

While I was preparing dinner, I looked out of my kitchen window very often.  We had a wonderful downpour last night and this really refreshed the whole garden.  The greenery looks greener, the plants look more alive and beautiful as ever.  I love this view so much.

 

Early Summer - Newly Mown Lawn & Harvesting a Fig.

5 December - sunny day with strong wind. Had to secure Figgy to stakes in case its branches break.
6 - 7 December - sunny days with mild breezes - 28 deg celsius
6 December - sprayed diluted full cream milk onto grapevine, kao kee, pak choy, hydrangea infected with mild powdery mildew.

I had to water the garden all these few sunny days.  This is  important because we have just mown the lawn and trimmed the lawn edges and I have to keep it from drying out too much in the sun.  The bare patches on the lawn are filling up with new growth and looking beautiful again.

I also dusted some pesticide on the front lawn two weeks ago as we found some African black beetles. They feed on the roots of grass, mainly Kikuyu. We have Buffalo Sapphire but I reckon if they are hungry, they will eat the roots of our grass as well, cause the grass to die and therefore bare patches.

The beetles were good specimen for us to study during homeschool.  We also caught stink bugs on our eggplant, white cabbage butterflies and caterpillars on our pak choy and grapevine moth caterpillars on our grapevine.

I found a few egg clusters on the pak choy this week. I left one cluster in a plastic tub and they hatched into some ant-like insects with wings. I have no idea what they are but I do believe they are good bugs.

I thought I have settled the possum problem for good but I still found nipped off plum tree shoots and peach leaves on our lawn. How frustrating! I am wondering if some flying animal visits our garden at night and did this. Gardening isn't an easy hobby. It takes a lot of brain power. Surely a hobby that helps keep human beings from dermentia.

At least I got to harvest our first fig from Figgy. Very big and sweet but a little dry (due to my under-watering). I was really upset with my dog on Sunday because he toppled my pixzee peach tree and ate one of the two beautiful pink peaches on it. The other peach dropped off and I had to throw it away. They were of good size but not ripe yet. I waited for one whole year and now I don't get a single pixzee peach!

Big Fig on the front garden has finally produced a fig!!! 

And the cut branch has produced new buds and leaves. It is possible to trim deciduous trees in spring or summer.

 We have been harvesting strawberries almost every day.  

This is one of my silvery fir tomato plant. Lots of tomatoes and I sighted one ripening already.

 The golden sheen hedge has been trimmed too. It was a lot of work! The corn patch is doing well. We could harvest sweet corns soon.

The is eggplant hand-grafted bonica which I bought from Bunnings and planted on the front garden. I was impatient waiting for my eggplant seedlings to germinate. The weather was really too cold to help with germination.  I would lose a lot of time. Hopefully I get some eggplants this year. The ladyfinger plants are very hopeless. They are only 5cm tall at the moment.

Summer 2011 - December - Woo Hoo for Grapes!!!

I am so happy looking at the bunches of carolina black rose grapes every day!!! Our first since I planted the vine (bought from Daleys' Nursery) in Oct 2009. It did quite well all along except being seriously pruned by my dog two autumns ago (leaving it fruitless last spring) and getting downy mildew last autumn. I really really hope I will get to pick my own ripe grapes this autumn. Should get the vine netted very soon. 

Some of the grape leaves seem to have powdery mildew. I am getting this fungal problem on my pak choy seed pods, kao  kee leaves, hydrangea leaves and now my grape leaves as well. It is still mild and manageable but I need to find out an organic way (checking up on skim milk) to treat this as I am not happy using commercial fungicide anymore.

What a pretty ball of pink!!! Although I would love blue hydrangeas, they still came up pink this year. I will accept it. They are still pretty.

                                   

My son snapped a picture of this couple basking in the sun on our neighbours' roof. I am sure none of them is Mr Spotted Neck which we have been feeding regularly. We are loving watching pigeons. We find them so gentle, and they do not come pecking at our strawberries or kicking our mulch all over the place.