Monday, January 30, 2012

Summer Update - End January

Since my birthday mid-January, we have not got much rain fall. The weather was dry and warm and we did have a few hot days. Finally we had a bit of rain fall last night and today, to freshen up the plants and the lawn. I love the rain because it has this magical power of making the lawn look really really green.

Out of the few seeds of yellow capsicum I have sown, two emerged and after re-potting twice, they are doing fantastic.

My little experiment to root market cuttings of sweet potato plants (even after placing in the  vege compartment for two days) worked. I planted four of the rooted cuttings into a large pot (50cm wide x 50cm deep) with loads of cow manure and potting mix. Last few days were hot and I shaded the pot with white cloth. They survived each day and are growing!

These are the same sweet potato cuttings and they are putting on new growth. I could not wait to tell hubby he was going to have sweet potato leaves for dinner soon!

I harvested our first cucumber (burpless). It is about 35cm long. It has a few bite/beak marks which I believe are from birds.
I decided to take my eureka lemon tree  out of its pot (where it was dying)  and planted it in my back garden along the fence. If it survives, I will try to espalier it onto the wooden fence. Amazingly after several rounds of watering on warmer days, it seems to be alive. It is throwing up lots of flowers and growing a few new leaves. Fingers crossed, I still have my lemon tree alive.

I commented about my galangal ginger plants in one of my previous blogs. Here is the picture showing new shoots coming out of the ground.
Gorgeous looking pak choy keeps giving us a constant supply of leafy green.


I am so happy to have homegrown cut flowers - sunflowers and white lilies.
These gorgeous white lilies have fragrance that permeate my house. It was almost bewitching! They last much longer when cut and put in a vase. Out in my garden, they wither within two days.

Woohoo! My Carolina Black Rose grapes are ripening! As the ripening is  not very consistent, I pick the ripe ones off the bunch rather than harvesting the whole bunch as grapes do not ripen once picked.  

When ripened especially by lots of warm sunshine, the grapes are really sweet.

Very happy to say that about 9 pomegranates are developing on the tree after loads of flowers.

1 comment:

Janette Kok said...

I love your lilies! I can imagine the wonderful scent. It's nice to visit your summer garden as winter goes through its last stages where I live.

"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