A Long Long Entry...

Harvest a good handful of tomatoes from the bush. And several chillies (gone into dishes).

Harvested a lot of vietnamese mint from the flourishing herbs.

The little bay tree has been repotted again. I was greedy and had repotted it into a really large pot and then read that it was not good for a little plant to be in an oversized pot, just because I wanted to save some work later. So now it is in a 30cm diameter pot and still doing fantastic...showing some new leaves actually. I had harvested 3 for my chicken breast roast.

My friend Fina gave me these pears which fell off her tree prematurely during a very strong wind. I could not feed my worms since they were so hard. Blending them would be too tough, so I decided to experiment by soaking them in a pail of water and standing under the sun. Not sure what I will get in the end, probably some rotten pears soon.

Some leaves on the Cayenne Pepper are showing this - yellow spots, yellow streaks along the vein network. Not sure if it is over-fertilising, nutrient lack or? Anyway, noticed this after repotting the plant into a large pot as the one it came in was getting too small for it.

Apart from the yellowing leaves, there are quite a few chillies.

Wow! My ever-wonderful Vietnamese Mint and thai basil are doing so well. They flourish more with harvesting. I am waiting for the mint branches to lengthen before I do cuttings out of them. Harvested some thai basil for my chicken mince dish.

The mixed basil are doing fine in the pot. Hope those growing slowly will eventually grow bigger and stronger.

Yesterday's weather was milder...about 30 deg celsius and windy. I had to relocate the portable pots again against the wall to avoid the wind. That is the advantage of growing things in pots.

My lavender bee pretty has produced lots of green tender new growths but the back was not and I cut it back further. Hoping that the growth will balance out.

The largest sunflower I had was cut and placed in this vase. I gave it to my mentor today and it created a positive commotion in church. Hehehe..as it was indeed a very large one and some of my church-mates thought it was fake!

These are some of the harvest from my little garden. From left : Rosemary, thyme, few bay leaves on the tomato, tomatoes (which did not look as good as I wished) and thai basil.

The melons are extending out a lot at the vege patch, lots of flowers. The fruits are very tiny and I have a feeling they will probably not grow. I did not provide the sufficient nutrients for fruit production and I know to have reasonable fruits, there must be some input. It's okay. I am happy enough seeing them growing and bees visiting at the vege patch.

The other pot of thai basil did not have very good leaves so I just let it flower. At least 5 stalks of flowers now. Above's one of them.

The largest tomato from the bush. Not sure why it did not turn red. It was orange and already soft. I plucked it and shared it with my golden retriever who finished his portion with one gulp. Sweet!

The caterpillar (pests) has nice colour right? Soft cute little thing. And a yellow line running down its back. Found it attacking my pak choy. Poor pak choy has been subject to various caterpillars. I found another four similar ones today and got them in a box with some of the pak choy. Going to feed them fat and use them in the spray. Heard this long-ago method works to repel caterpillars.

On the second and third day of the heat wave reaching 43 deg celsius, I relocated the smaller pots to the left side of the house where they coped better out of direct scorching sunlight. This move proved to be a wise one.

The capsicum plant - one seedling which I potted and doing well. Some of the leaves were eaten by probably a grasshopper before the potting.

A fellow blogger has two worm farms died in the heat wave. So sad!!! I was concerned and hurriedly checked my worm farm in the garage. Thankfully, they were coping fine. Found some in the collecting tray and some in the liquid! Quickly drained the liquid before any drowned. Found a dead one but just one! Fewh! I dug through the contents and were glad that they were found. All my precious ones and costly too haha...

My thai basil close-up...looking good! The successful one out of five which I grew from stem-cuttings.

Hottest Week of the Century

Weather Forecast says this week could be Melbourne's hottest time of the century! Temperature is expected to be 41 degrees celsius today. I woke up really early despite late shopping the night before. Had to give the plants a good watering before the heat came. Yates Multi- Nutrient Plant Food was on sale and I bought a bottle for my garden babies. It is made up of Chicken Manure, Blood and Bone, Seaweed extract and Fish emulsion and providing Nitrogen, Potassium, Phosphorous for good plant health. I prepared 10L of it and fed all the plants before the sun came up fierce. Here's a picture of my first sunflower :

Here's the two gorgeous Mighty Red ripening daily :

The shallot in the pot has produced two clusters of flowers on tall stalks. Before the sac burst, it really looked like an alien waiting to erupt. Here's a close-up after the sac burst and I am anticipating the look of the opened flowers.

Surprisingly, found a caterpillar feeding on the potato leaves which I thought are poisonous.

The buk choy look so much better now since their growth is not hindered by tiny caterpillars feeding on them.

Bay - A New Candidate in the Garden.

I caught this bug climbing up a wall in the house and wondered if it was a lady bug since it really does look like one except the strange brown-gold colour. I wrote to 'Ladybirds of Australia' and Adam told me that it is a leaf beetle of the family Chrysomelidae feeding on eucalyptus.

http://www.ento.csiro.au/biology/ladybirds/authors.htm is a good site to identify lady bugs in our gardens. This one is a good one which feeds on fungus. I found it on my vegetable patch! :) http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2408773.htm is another great site to learn about lady bugs - the good and the bad and the evil. And I thought all of them are good!

Harvested 11 pieces of my precious vietnamese/hot mint for a meat dish. Yum!

Very pleased to say that my lavender is a survivor in spite of being under the hands of an inexperienced non-green-fingered gardener like me! I think the pyrethrum I gave it could have really burnt the leaves. Could have been too generous and too near with the pyrethrum when I tried to deal with the pesky whiteflies attacking it. Brutally chopping much of it, though it was already summer, proved to be a good thing (kept my fingers 'crossed')(Refer 9 Jan 09 - Keeping Check). It survived and has been putting on green healthy leaves. I never gave up on you. Please dont give up on me. :)

Bought this bay from Flower Power...only $2. No harm trying to grow it. I have re-potting it inot a gigantic pot, being hopeful that it is going to grow into a potted tree for my new house! In cheap potting mix + blood and bone + seasol + dried danelion leaves (at base). It was shaded by a large box for a few days before being fully exposed to the summer sun.

A few of the Mighty Red tomatoes are turning orange. It is really exciting to see that and I hope possums would not ruin my joy by stealing them in the night. Look at the shine! No pesticides or chemical sprays on the skin!

My largest Sun King Sunflower is due to open its flower soon, revealing its yellow petals today. Interesting to find out that they will face the rising Eastern sun each day.

Mixed basil germinating well in the pot. It will interesting to find out what sort of basils I have got and how they finally look like.

The two groups of capsicums are doing fine. This clump has been thinned out severely. The other clump has been attacked by grasshoppers or some leaf-eating insects but are good still.

This Purple King bean plant of two is doing well. I think the other one is going to die, looking at the way it is developing.

Keeping Check.

Sam and I harvested some more of the greengages. They are quite fragile and since the tree is tall, some fell onto the ground and the impact caused broken skin. Given that to doggy which happily ate them up.

Thought this oregano is fighting space and nutrients with one of the melons close by, as the melon did not seem to be growing healthily and turning yellow, so I have dug the oregano up and potted it. It did amazingly well even in 37-39 deg celsius weather in the potting mix with seasol. I made sure drainage is good by placing the planter box on a sloped ground.

My two beautiful Laksa plants (vietnamese mint) are flourishing, growing taller and having more baby leaves. One thing for sure is to keep watering them :)..at least I am sure they thrive with lots of water!

Rosemary is truly strong, not even showing any fuzz after being repotted in new potting mix! And seems to be growing, having more stems appearing.

The two potato plants in the pot are growing stronger day by day, with new baby leaves growing on the stems, which is a good sign of health. Leaves are also firmer now.

Thyme continue to flourish in the pot. Hoping to see some flowering soon before I cut them back.

All the four Buk choy seeds germinated. I should have placed all four separately instead of pairing them up. :( good lesson learned.

Tip : If soil is dry, water before sowing. Use a watering can which allows gentle watering. Never sow and then water as the soil may form a crust over the seed and prevent entry of water to the seed or even prevent seedlings from breaking through to the light.

The bare lemon mint stem is doing so surprisingly well, growing baby leaves even in the seemingly dry soil.

I have pruned many leaves off the tomato plant and tied drooping branches to supports. Also pruned off some flowers so that the existing tomatoes would get most of the nutrients.

The mint cuttings have rooted well so I planted them into the potting mix yesterday evening, with mulching and kept them indoors overnight, with lots of watering and seasol. They have been taking it in and are out in the sun this afternoon when the sunshine is not so harsh.

Cut the lavendar back and hope that it will grow better from below. Also tested the drainage of the soil. Quite sure drainage is fine. Hoping that the leaves will revive and not continue to turn yellow brown. Not sure if the pyrethrum spray has caused the yellowing and browning of the leaves.

Both purple king have emerged! This morning this one could not be seen and in the afternoon, I was shocked to see that it has come out! Driven two supports into the ground.

This potato plant looked like it was going to die few days back but it survived!

Summer - Beautiful morning!

A day late for this. Yesterday had a beautiful morning! Sun's not exactly out. Not gloomy. Not sunny. Not exactly breezy. Just very beautiful to be out in the yard doing gardening. Checked my herbs - thyme, rosemary, mint, thai basil - checked my tomato plant, sunflower plants, melon, chilli and lavender for signs of pests. Could see the regular white flies. Found a really large ladybug on a blade of grass while feeding my dog in the yard. Brought it to my tomato plant which has grown really well from a small plant. Found a ladybug larva on the peach tree and brought it to my tomato plant too. I have got yellow sticky trap over the tomato plant but the plant has grown so much the trap would probably be a bit out of sight for the existing white flies who love hiding among the leaves below. I am taking all measures to prevent my wonderful tomato plant from being overtaken by pests, excluding pesticides for the time being. The pear and plum trees are not doing exactly very well as their leaves are being fed on my Saw fly larvae - slug-like creatures. I tried to manually squash them to death but they are a lot. I guess I could not do very much especially higher up the trees. Wondering if I would get any pears eventually at the rate they are feeding! They are really pests! Yet to try out the pyrethrum that I have bought. Did some fruit-wrapping work - using plastic bags and stapling them to individual peaches and pears. Hoping that this would help prevent birds from feeding on the ripening fruits. Harvested some plums - sweet and sour at the same time. Since that wonderful morning, it has been raining cats and dogs till now.

Pear slug (Sawfly larvae) on a plum leaf.

A gigantic ladybug on the tomato leaf.

Yellow sticky trap traps a lot of flying insects - unfortunately good & bad - indiscriminate Tomato flowers - flowering in a few areas on the plant

Flourishing tomato plant

The same plant a month ago...wow!