Cool Summer & Garden Update.

So far our summer 2010-2011 has been cooler than previous years. We had one day of 40 deg celsius but that's it. Other days are cool and sunny or cloudy. So some of the garden crops are growing seriously slowly such as my yardlong beans (long beans) and eggplants. I am certainly thankful for the weather because I dont ever want heat waves. The patch right out of my main door is filling up with foliage and fruits...tomatoes, corns, spagetti squashes and soon, okra (ladies' fingers).

The pumpkin vine has crept onto the lawn and I spotted a little pumpkin with its female flower. So far lots of male flowers were produced.

The one and only gorgeous lemon verbena is thriving outside my bedroom window. The only issue is it is growing out of the garden edge and soon it may sprawl onto the lawn. I want it to grow taller and bushier so I probably have to give it a prune asap.

The peach tree out of my bedroom is laden with peaches. Just waiting for them to ripen!

9 sweet corns are growing on three corn plants!!!

A male pumpkin flower.

I realised I actually have more pixzee peaches than I thought. They are so prettily pink.

Spagetti squashes are growing fast. This is one of the three.

Drooling as I typed. I pickled a big harvest of green chillies.

Here's my gorgeous grapevine Carolina Black Rose crawling both ways on the pergola.

Why gorgeous? Because it looks so from my kitchen window! I will never get sick of this beautiful picture from my kitchen. I know that trellis isnt pretty, but who cares?

Carolina Black Rose Alive!!!

How exciting! I am totally over the moon as if I have struck lottery. That was how my hubby described me. My Carolina Black Rose Grape vine is alive! I found 3-4 green buds on it. A while ago, it looked like a dried forked twig and I have sort of lost hope that it would live. I will have to fertilise it and plan the support soonest, oh as well as protection against my golden retriever Marco. The pomegranate, which I have no clue about its name, is putting on beautiful red leaves. I plan to spray it with a mixture of pyrethrum and white oil in case of white flies or scale attack as last seasons.

I have propagated two pots of Aoenium. As I am clearing up more planting areas with my lawn revamp, I may need new plants.

Planted a little pot of coriander here in Patch C after the seeds germinated.

Most of the seeds - kang kong (water spinach), chilli padi, tomato silvery fir, cucumber, bittermelon - I have planted and pots kept in this plastic container (to imitate greenhouse environment) have germinated. It has been a really cold spring start and they are growing very very slowly. I wish I have a glass or green house to speed up things.

The pot of chives has also germinated. It is doing better out in the cold.

A new pot of thyme germinating too.

I had to remove growing pups from my original aloe vera pot as they were overcrowding the pot. This two are some of the babies I have removed. I think soon I can start some plant sale?

My Poor Grape Vine!

My third? fourth? harvest of sweet potatoes. I was almost to tears when I found out my dog, Marco, has 'chopped' off my grape vine (carolina black rose)! It was growing so well! I was angry with my dog for a whole day! I hope by trimming off the rough ends, it will survive and resprout. It was an extremely 'hard prune'. Fellow blogger Scarecrow and another gardener on the forum gave me some hope that it could survive. I have since fenced it with chicken wire and mulched it with bark chips.

The pot of daffodils which did not flower last season finally resprouted! I left the whole pot in the garage, covered with a plastic bag eversince the leaves died down completely. A few mornings ago, I took the pot out and yippee! A daffodil shoot...looks like the complete dying down really regenerated new bulbs as books stated.

I bought and planted some daffodil bulbs under the plum tree (right outside Samuel's bedroom). The ground has turned soft enough to dig eversince we mulched the plum tree canopy heavily.

This tuft of iris was given in a pot by Fina, a life group friend. I have planted it in front of the blue and white daisies at the patch next to the garage.

Snapshots of my Garden Babies.

It's been quite a while since I spent some good time doing gardening. Our family had spent some time grieving the loss of our second baby because we had a miscarriage. We were thankful that it happened early pregnancy but still we were sad. And thankfully it is autumn and most work had been done. I spent little bits of time doing harvesting instead. The garden does need some tidying up and today I did just that as the weather was warmer. The chilli padi plants are doing well and the chillies are steadily ripening. My mum, who is here for holiday, has been the sole customer of my chillies. :) The three cyclamens which I have planted last year are coming back well. I cannot wait for them to flower and bloom :

And amazingly, they have sent out bulbs somewhere else and new cyclamen plants are sprouting up 1 metre away :

My calamondin comquat tree in its pot is doing great too, producing many bunches of fruits. Hoping to make belacan chilli out of them :

I have propagated some cuttings of sweet potato, hoping they can last through winter and be replanted next spring. Here is one successful one :

These few oriental radishes are doing fine under neglect at Patch A:

Recently I picked one brown turkey fig off this tree and it was a bit fleshy and pink. It was quite large. Here is another one waiting to be picked. This tree has produced a dozen of figs but so far only two are a little edible, the rest were dry and yucky :

My Flemings' brown turkey has several small figs. Hoping that they will be better in quality. So interesting to have figs in pots! :

Here's a tuft of chives which I bought and planted where the passionfruit panama is :

And here's the beautiful passionfruit panama gold. It has sent out so many new growth despite me pruning it again and again, cos I really dont know where to encourage it to head. I did not want it to climb up the shed's roof or in summer, it will be cooked :

Strawberry delight...dangling strawberries... :

I have this plant growing in the calamondin comquat pot. It looks like a marigold :

Today, I finally did some work to protect my chilli fire with plastic in preparation for winter. I hope it can survive the winter. This plant has given me loads of green chillies for pickling :

I transplanted the five snow pea seedlings out on the front where the sunflowers used to be. They are doing well :

A friend, Li, passed me some mustard and I planted them in the frontyard. I have not found out much about this vegetable but will soon :

Another friend, Eliada, gave me two pots of chives. They are looking the same after two weeks in the ground.

Today, I pulled up all the lucerne growing in this patch F. I am intending to use it for vegetables? Still thinking. Added some black gold compost to it. Notice one leading branch of my carolina black rose is missing? It was up the pongola ceiling but when I returned from Lakes Entrance, it was found broken. Not sure if the wind or Marco was the culprit. Anyway, I had to cut it down completely and now there is only one leading branch left.

A Solitary Lazy Morning.

Yes as the title says...after sending my little one to full day kinder, I had a nice solitary walk with Marco around the neighbourhood..well not exactly solitary since Marco is with me...but he doesnt talk! Of course I love having hubby and little one with me! But sometimes it is nice to have a walk so leisurely...not rushing to anywhere...not having an agenda to finish...These whole week's weather has been very merciful...20 t0 30 deg celsius...so that makes my work light...not much watering and no sick plants...things are pretty much under my control... My passionfruit panama gold is growing excellently at this spot...I have just pruned off the two leader shoots hoping lateral shoots will grow instead...The vine is growing taller and taller and I really wonder how I am going to train it...have to come up with a solution soon.

My carolina black rose grape vine from Daley's fruit is also doing fantastic at this spot. The eureka lemon tree however was not so fortunate. I dont think I would get any grapes this year but hopefully with a good pruning, I will next year.

These are the beans of (stringless pioneer) from Diggers Club. If not for the nets, I think the two plants would not have such nice leaves. Waiting to harvest beans!

Look at my Flemings' Brown turkey fig tree! Full of life! It looked really dead few months back...nearly got binned!

Hooray! Two of the cyclamens sort of died down and I wondered if they are coming back at all...the wonderful news is they are...little leaves and stalks are emerging from the ground meaning there are corms developed underground...Expecting beautiful blossoms out of the kitchen window in winter to come!

Yum...been harvesting a few sweet strawberries (strawberry delight) every alternate day....

Yippee! First ripened chilli padi!

My two new Purple king bean plants are doing well under the housing of netting! Away pesky butterflies and moths!!!

Samuel and I counted...7 cucumbers growing on the vines!

Two swelling bittermelons!

Two of the propagated strawberry delight plants are having flowers and fruits! So happy!