Summer Update - Mid February

Harvesting veges :

Water spinach/kang kong, pak choy green, choko shoots, eggplants, carrots, cucumbers, chillies, spring onions, beans, lady's fingers/okra.

Harvesting fruits : figs, grapes.

The thirty figs on Figgy are not developing well. I am totally puzzled as the fruits were small, hollow and turned yellow before they got bigger. There goes hope of eating more figs this year. The tree is very tall and leafy for its pot, so I am unsure if it was not able to draw up enough nutrients or water from its potting mix.I placed a saucer under the pot and watered daily but nothing seemed to work.

On the other hand, Big Fig which did not put on any figs early this year, has finally grown some. The figs look like they are going to be fine for eating.

Big Fig (brown turkey) with its fruits protected by organza bags which I bought from Ebay. My son says Big Fig 's a boy.

We harvested some carrots. Our first try at growing them. Fantastic result!

Pesky black birds have been trying to go for my Carolina Black Rose grapes even though I have netted my vine. So I resorted to organza bags which is very effective.

These flowers have bloomed. They are called pigface.  Definitely dont look like pig's faces.

The pathetic-looking passionfruit vine outside my garage is finally growing. I think if it survives, it will be really slow-growing, I dont mind as long as it greens up this brick wall.

The other passionfruit vine next to my patio is also growing, but better.

Eggplant Bonita's 2nd fruit and several more to come.

More sweet corns at the patch in front of our garage have all been harvested. I grew lots of corns this season and am sick of eating them already.

Early Summer - Newly Mown Lawn & Harvesting a Fig.

5 December - sunny day with strong wind. Had to secure Figgy to stakes in case its branches break.
6 - 7 December - sunny days with mild breezes - 28 deg celsius
6 December - sprayed diluted full cream milk onto grapevine, kao kee, pak choy, hydrangea infected with mild powdery mildew.

I had to water the garden all these few sunny days.  This is  important because we have just mown the lawn and trimmed the lawn edges and I have to keep it from drying out too much in the sun.  The bare patches on the lawn are filling up with new growth and looking beautiful again.

I also dusted some pesticide on the front lawn two weeks ago as we found some African black beetles. They feed on the roots of grass, mainly Kikuyu. We have Buffalo Sapphire but I reckon if they are hungry, they will eat the roots of our grass as well, cause the grass to die and therefore bare patches.

The beetles were good specimen for us to study during homeschool.  We also caught stink bugs on our eggplant, white cabbage butterflies and caterpillars on our pak choy and grapevine moth caterpillars on our grapevine.

I found a few egg clusters on the pak choy this week. I left one cluster in a plastic tub and they hatched into some ant-like insects with wings. I have no idea what they are but I do believe they are good bugs.

I thought I have settled the possum problem for good but I still found nipped off plum tree shoots and peach leaves on our lawn. How frustrating! I am wondering if some flying animal visits our garden at night and did this. Gardening isn't an easy hobby. It takes a lot of brain power. Surely a hobby that helps keep human beings from dermentia.

At least I got to harvest our first fig from Figgy. Very big and sweet but a little dry (due to my under-watering). I was really upset with my dog on Sunday because he toppled my pixzee peach tree and ate one of the two beautiful pink peaches on it. The other peach dropped off and I had to throw it away. They were of good size but not ripe yet. I waited for one whole year and now I don't get a single pixzee peach!

Big Fig on the front garden has finally produced a fig!!! 

And the cut branch has produced new buds and leaves. It is possible to trim deciduous trees in spring or summer.

 We have been harvesting strawberries almost every day.  

This is one of my silvery fir tomato plant. Lots of tomatoes and I sighted one ripening already.

 The golden sheen hedge has been trimmed too. It was a lot of work! The corn patch is doing well. We could harvest sweet corns soon.

The is eggplant hand-grafted bonica which I bought from Bunnings and planted on the front garden. I was impatient waiting for my eggplant seedlings to germinate. The weather was really too cold to help with germination.  I would lose a lot of time. Hopefully I get some eggplants this year. The ladyfinger plants are very hopeless. They are only 5cm tall at the moment.