Scorching Summer but Happy Plants

Before we moved, I gave away my Chilli Fire plant. It was already 2 years old and I did not want to keep it. I did stash away some of its seeds and sowed some at our new rental property. Amazing 4 plants sprang up. 3 of them are in the vege patch while one is in a pot. They are all doing well. I am even getting some chillies now :

Succulent green chillies @ vege patch.

Green chillies popping up in the potted plant.

Now to my chilli padi plants. The previous 3 plants were also old so I had to throw them out. One stray seed landed in my brown turkey fig's pot and came up over autumn. Though it was not growing great in winter, it was a survivor. It underwent the cold winter without any protection and even had a few rounds of aphid attack. When spring came, it came back to life. I then moved it to a separate pot where it flourished! I bet there are at least 100 chillies on it now :

And I finally have the authentic lemongrass in my collection of garden babies. All 6 pots which I got from Flower Power at a dear price were fakes! A previous neighbour gave me some to grow and then I got a pot from a friend in Sydney. Yay!!! I always have wanted to plant lemongrass. The only thing is I have to do them in pots. I am not sure how 'fat' they will get. Being in the ground is the best but we are currently renting, and I am too lazy to prepare the ground and then dig them up eventually :

Thai basil. This one came up on its in the vege patch. I am just letting it flower and get more seeds. Given it a round of liquid fertiliser hoping it gives me great seeds :

And my beautiful garlic chives are needing a hair cut :

Rhubarb. Hmmm...I havent used any at all. I dont really know what to do with them. So they are growing and dying down. It was dug up from my previous garden and potted but it is doing better than ever being in a pot! The leaves are green and large.  The stems are fat too but just not red :

I am exciting to share this photo of my brown turkey fig. It's Figgy. It has at least 40 fruits on it. I was really surprised. I pruned this fig heavily as I thought I would not have time taking care of it this year. Yet it gave me even more fruits. However, being in a pot does it an injustice! It would do well in the ground. I am not sure how many figs I will get to eat cos I am not sure if the fruits will get to grow well with limited nutrition I am providing, and with possums active in this area :

Here's my Carolina Black Rose grape vine. Or do you call that a grape tree?? Well, I did not remove my whole grape vine from my previous garden. It has gone too big for me to remove it. I left it for the new owners and they loved it.  This plant decided to come alive from a stem which I cut to use as a snow pea stake at the previous vege patch. I have let it grow, potted it when we moved and it is gloriously growing! I even had to constantly trim off the shoots coming up. Not sure if I will get any grapes but I am just happy to keep it growing cos it looks so pretty! :

December 2011 - Summer Update

17 December -

-Removed more plum tree branches to stop possum invasion.
-Netted grapevine.
-Repotted comquat calamondin.
-Harvested more pioneer green beans, strawberries, tomatoes, thai basil.
-Cucumber, kang kang (water spinach) & eggplant sped up in growth.
-Chilli fire fruits growing fast and chilli padi plants growing young chillies.
-Figgy has 20 figs growing!
-Corn almost ready for harvest.
-Weeding

21 December -

- Harvesting plums, tomatoes, thai basil, kaffir lime, lemongrass, pioneer beans

22 December -

- Sprayed grape vine with sodium bicarbonate+soap+oil+water.
- Installed thorny devil possum spikes.

Three watermelon Candy Red looking strong and healthy so far.

Diggers' Sunflower pollenless plants are larger than I have expected.

Diggers' Tomato silvery fir are ripening.

Figgy out of my dining window with lots of figs (brown turkey).

Another shot of Figgy from my dining area.

Finally I see pomegranates. Out of at least 30 flowers, I see 3 fruits.

Kang Kong (water spinach)

Hubby found an Aussie website selling possum deterents called thorny devils. They are rubbery spiky products which we can screw onto the top of our fence. I went down to the stockist (Pinewood Nursery) and bought some home. On the left side of my back garden fence, we screwed in some L-shaped thorny devils.

On the right side of my back garden fence (next to the shed where the possums came from), we installed some thorny devils and nails.

This is a picture of how one type looks like. It fits nicely onto a fence with wooden capping.  So far for the last three nights, we have not had the pests (possum mum and baby) visit our garden and eat our things.  I was very relieved my plans had worked but I was at the same time feeling like a villain.  Honestly, I am one big animal lover. I love possums too.  Moreover the ones which visited are a mummy and a baby. One night they came and I saw them up on the plum tree out of my son's window. I actually went out in my bathrobe shooting a jet of water onto them with a strong nozzle.  The baby tried to jump from the plum tree onto our roof but fell to the ground and scrambled up the fence and escaped.  Sigh...I want them to survive and find food but I just cannot have them eating up my things. I do hope they can find other things in nature to eat other than my fruit and vegetable crops.  My son asked me to feed them but I cannot afford to do so. I will encourage them to be dependent on us and even attract them to live in our roof! There are just too many good reasons not to have them around our property. I already have a dog, several fishes and the pigeons to feed and they are very harmless, but possums are just a bit risky to invite.

Harvested another lot of beans and tomatoes. The tomatoes are really juicy.

A dish of beans and minced pork.

Finally I bought a cheap vase from IKEA to display my hydrangeas on the dining table.

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.

Calendar of Garden Activities.

17-19 October 2011 Lawn and garden watering in the mornings due to hard windy weather.
18 October 2011 New top soil (free from neighbour!) for two areas of garden.
18 October Planted yellow capsicum seeds.
19 October - Scorching windy days. Leafy greens and hydrangea mild wilting.
19 October 2011 Fish fertilizer for calamondin cumquat and eureka lemon.
19 October 2011 Epsom salts for calamondin cumquat (testing for Magnesium deficiency)
20 October 2011 Lawn and garden watering in the morning. Temp 30 deg cel, windy and hot - sown    Peacock's ladyfinger/okra seeds - sown more coriander seeds.
21-22 October 2011 Cloudy and drizzles and at times showers. Hooray!!!
22 October 2011 Pruned Big Fig (Fleming's Brown Turkey fig), Yellow Peach tree and Carolina Black Rose Grape Vine. Wanted to experiment with pruning deciduous branches apart from winter and see the results.

While we were looking at our yellow peach tree few days ago, we spotted a lovely lady bug. We welcome lady bugs but that made me suspicious. Upon closer examination, I realised that most young shoots of my peach tree have been infested with green aphids (pests) :

I took a few days to think about what actions I should take to destroy them. The tree is a little big for pyrethrum spraying. This morning as I was examining the leaves again, I found baby lady bugs (pic below) on the leaves.  They were not a great number compared to the aphids but I was very pleased to see them. I read they eat even more aphids than their adults. I showed my son how the lady bug babies looked like, much like some spidery creatures :

'Big Fig' (Fig brown turkey) was naughty this year, not a fig in sight. So I decided to chop off one branch :

 And watch what the cut branch will do :

I think I have successfully propagated my Thai Basil from cuttings.  They are not withering since propagation at least 2-3 weeks ago. And if I am not wrong, some stems are actually growing new leaves. Celebration!!!

Today's harvest : a basketful of pak choy for chix macaroni soup. The picture uploaded could not be rotated. It happened to a picture of spinach recently. Hmmm same basket...maybe that's the problem?!

These are the tender flower stalks of pak choy. Yesterday my friend Fina came for morning tea.  She brought her parents to see our garden.  Her Dad pointed out that the flower stalks are very tender and delicious, so I harvested them too.  I have too many pak choy flower stalks and they will give me way too many seeds (perhaps millions!) so it is good that I can eat them instead!

Our lunch today : Chicken macaroni soup.  In the pot are my wonderful tomato silvery fir which I have frozen from last summer/autumn and bay leaves from my garden. Yummy!

Both Clementis The President Flower...Yummy Brown Turkey Figs...

On the fifth day after transplanting into a larger pot, both my newly acquired Clementis The President have their single flower buds open. Such a beautiful colour. It reminds me of both my blue Senetti which sadly died after planting into the ground.

Out of the all the figs (brown turkey) that I have picked this season, these two have those 'scar-like' marks on them. I believe this is known as 'split fruits'. Too much watering can cause this. Fortunately they have not split open yet and we still could enjoy eating them!

I am obviously not looking forward to finishing my figs on both trees. They are so delicious I wish I have more. Hopefully next year. I shall give the two trees a good fertilising with compost soon. By the way, we have decided to name one fig tree 'Figgy' and the shorter Flemings fig tree 'Big Fig'. The former is named by me and the latter is by my son.

It's Been A While.

It's been a long while since I last updated my blog. I have been rather ill-motivated recently due to some incidents regarding a neighbour who was renting the next house. It's nothing to do with gardening, just really affected by her character especially when we treated her like a sister. Anyway, she has moved out and our lives' sort of back to normal except some losses we have suffered. I had been doing a little here and there whenever necessary. I finally went back to my garden in full swing yesterday. I have been waiting for these two larger strawberries to ripen under the bare sunshine we were receiving lately. Finally my boy and I harvested them and each of us had one. So sweet having sun-ripened strawberries. The thought of it makes me drool!

I do have more strawberry flowers blooming. Such dainty flowers, so sweet and pretty as usual. One of the tasks for winter would be to divide all my strawberry clumps up. I have 8 pots to do and that's a big job! But if I dont divide the plants up, I wont get big berries next season.

My 5 Stringless Pioneer bean plants are fruiting, beaning?! These bean plants take up very little space. They dont need staking because they are dwarf and dont climb.

A plateful for lunch today.

I was extremely excited discovering a few of my fig (brown turkey) swollen and ripening two weeks ago. Since then my boy and I have eaten 3. This tree is in a large pot out of my dining window and it is in its 2nd summer. Last summer I had figs from this tree but they were dry and yukky. As this tree has a really tall and slender trunk, I chopped it down but it regrew in spring 2010. (See http://organic-is-better.blogspot.com/2010/09/fruit-trees-update.html )This summer, with ample watering, I have managed to eat some yummy, sweet and juicy figs. There is another fig (brown turkey) in my front garden, also confined to a pot, and is having figs that are also swelling. Can't wait to eat off that tree because this one was bought from Flemings Nursery!

There were some days when it was quite cold. My water spinach (kang kong) and Thai Basil suffered some 'burns' to their leaves and I had to resort to covering them with fleece. I expect to do a lot of frost protection this coming winter and have already starting work now in early autumn, driving stakes into the ground where frost-tender plants are.

This pest is the caterpillar of the grapevine moth. I have had quite a number eating the leaves of my Carolina Black Rose. Squashing them is the only way and I had to reach the leaves by climbing the ladder. The leaves are also having mild Downy Mildew which I need to treat with fungicide again.

The grapevine is doing very well growing everywhere on my back pergola roof. I had to add new strings across to support all the new growth. Soon the leaves will turn an autumny colour before shedding. Meanwhile I am enjoying this living green frame out of my kitchen window.