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.

 

A Quick Update.

9 Nov 2011 -  

Thunderstorms and heavy downpour with light hail overnight.
New kangkong / water spinach seeds germinated
Kangkong seedlings transplanted to patch B.
Coriander harvested. Coriander flowering.
Sown more pak choy, corn, spinach, carrot seeds.
Tung O / Edible Garland Chrysanthemum plant flowering.
Water chestnut plants taking off.
Harvesting rocket, spinach, snow peas, coriander and pak choy.

White flies problem.

Grapevine moth caterpillars on vine leaves.

The snow peas are slow to flower but once they do, their flowers quickly turn into pods and grow to maturity very soon.

So this (above) are unopened grape flowers of my Carolina Black Rose.

And this (above) is the flowers blooming. I could see both male and female flowers.

And this (above) is the cluster of grapes!!!

My pyrethrum daisies are a pretty sight.

They are the daisies which produce this chemical 'pyrethrum' that kills garden pests. I guess no insects will come close to them.

Never be sick of admiring my strawberry flowers - such daintiness, such sweetness in smell.

My hydrangeas are flowering soon but their leaves suffered burns by spring sun.

The lilies look even better this year, more blooms!

The Tung O / Edible Garland Chrysanthemum has flowered. I read that at this time, their leaves will be bitter. I hope the plant will self-sow before it dies.

Coriander flowers - I never knew they would be great at attract useful bug predators to my garden.

I am successful at growing choy sum (above) this round.

The pak choy and gai choy are allowed to flower so I can have new seeds, millions of them. Really enjoyable to watch bees clumber over the flowers out of my kitchen window.

Hooray that my water chestnut plants are growing!!! Hope to harvest some nice fresh crunchy corms in autumn!

Bird Watching & Flowers

Recently, my son and I have gone more into bird-feeding and bird-watching. We have scattered some seeds around the grevillea tree (back garden out of the kitchen window) and also under the plum tree (front garden out of my son's window)

So far we have attracted two spotted-neck pigeons which come regularly.

And two non-native mynahs. Here is a picture of all four under the grevillea tree feeding.

One of the mynahs decided to take shelter on my neighbour's toilet window when rain poured.

Then yesterday we had two honeyeaters feeding on the grevillea flowers.  I only managed to take a rough shot of one as the other decided to fly off.  They are fast-moving birds.

I have many flowers in bloom now but I want to highlight a few here :

This is my pyrethrum daisies in a rough terracotta pot.  I bought the seeds from Diggers' Club. They did not flower last year but this spring they have rejuvenated and are putting on flower buds. Fortunately I was patient enough not to throw it out.

I harvested my first proper artichoke green globe flower  for salad last Saturday.  Not bad testing especially the heart. I ate it with whipped mayonaise and white balsamic vinegar.

 This is a picture of my edible Chrysanthemum (Tung O) plant. It survived winter very well and growing taller. It also started to form flower buds but I had to remove them in case flowering affect the leaves.  The leaves are what I harvest for soup (esp in steamboat/hot pots) or miso soups.

Some of the leaves have a funny curvy track on them.  I reckon it is some leaf miner?? Not a big problem as I removed most of the affected leaves.

 My two 'rescued' Tomato Silvery Fir are getting stronger and are having flowers.

Here is an inedible flower.  My first few Dutch Irs Bronze Perfection from Tesselaar have bloomed. Pretty things!