My Garden Babies

Chilli seeds germinating.

Lavendar Bee Pretty Mighty Red Tomato plant.

Thyme before re-potting.

Sunflower seeds sprouting and growing.

I have many things in the garden but I have not got time to record most down. Finally!

The thyme in the 10cm pot are growing well..about 6cm tall right now and I already can smell the sweet aroma from it. Just re-potted them this morning. Wow, their roots are a lot compared to how tiny plants they are! I cant wait to harvest them. First, I must find some recipes that use thyme. I started a new batch of thyme on 3 Nov and they are germinating well.

Hope for some sun as it has been a bit gloomy weather recently. With more sun and warmth, my chillies (planted seeds on 4 Nov 08), which just sprouted, can grow better. They took a little while to germinate, probably as the weather was not warm enough. My five sunflowers too (planted 3 Nov 08)! They are just 6cm tall too. Grew them so that I can give some friends cheerful sunflowers!

The rosemary, lavendar and mint are doing well after re-pottinging larger pot. However, the mint are really prone to pests! I have got white flies coming and I know it because when I gently shake the stems, I can see insects flying out. Thanks to the Christian forum on herbs which I have joined recently. I managed to get some good advice on how to handle the pests! Got some good ladybugs adults and larva from the peach and pear trees and left them on the mint. They should be able to eat up the white flies just like how they did to the aphids on the trees. The trees are totally cleared of aphids now. Ladybugs, cute and pretty and good bugs to have! My favourite garden friends!

Well, the mint is also subject to many other problems like rust. I had to manually and regularly inspect the plant and pluck off those affected leaves. This morning, I found a horrifying tiny caterpillar in the midst of the mint - on the shoots. There is web as well. I removed the whole shoot. I also found some spiders on the mint - good things to have - so I left them there. Amazing eco-system in a pot of mint!!! Mint goes great with freshly-brewed Japanese green tea. How refreshing!

The Mighty Red tomato plant is also growing fabulously after being re-planted from the pot to the soil directly. I understand that tomato plants are prone to pests too. Have to take all precauctions! Prevention is always better than cure!

Those yellow sticky traps which I have bought from Bunnings Warehouse are fantastic! Easy to set up, just staple onto a skewer stick and just poke it through into the soil in the pot. They really work to attract nuisance flying pests. The one I bought is called Trappit sticky insect traps from UK. Cost slightly more than $10. You can cut the size you need with scissors and the glue is effective in trapping insects. Insects are very attracted to the bright yellow of the traps. Good distraction from attacking my plants instead!

Oh I may have rockmelon in my garden! I buried some of the rockmelon pulp with seeds in the vegetable patch in winter. Thought of just fertilising the soil but it seems like the seeds have germinated. Well, hope they are some rockmelon plants instead of weeds! Time will reveal.

I read that I had better trim off peaches while they are small. There are so many on the peach tree. So, I removed peaches and left each 5cm away from each other on the branches. This is important to get larger fruits. Information from http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/basics/techniques/growfruitandveg_growingpeaches2.shtml

The other day I bought some thai basil for cooking. I left a few stems in water to let the roots grow at the same time removing most leaves to stop transpiration. Yeah it worked. After a little bit of the roots came, I dipped the end of the stems in some mild hormone rooting powder (just in case!) and planted them into the soil. Left the pots in the house for a few days near the sunny window so that the plants would not be system-shocked. Today, they are out in the sun. Hope for a prosperous growth! Leaves are already growing!