Spring is Almost Here.

Last night, our little family went to Bunnings to get some roundup and stuff as we are planning to poison our weeds and grass to make way for a brand new lawn which is to die for. I also came across a flowering plant with such gorgeous blue flowers. It was so irresistible that hubby gave me the go ahead to buy two pots. Even he liked them. See the two brightest blue pot of flowers? They are the senetti. I have not decided where to plant them yet. Seems tempting to plant next to the blue daisies.

Out of our main door, the pittosporum golden sheens are growing well. I am looking forward to cutting their 'hair' in spring because I am looking forward to seeing them bush up.

Out of my bedroom window this morning, I snapped a nice picture of my french lavender as the sun rises over my neighbour's roof. How wonderful to wake up to this picture right out of your window.

And just as planned, the peach tree out of my bedroom window is flowering pink! Unfortunately and yet predictably, we have few blossoms this year due to pruning before and after planting. It's okay, next year will come!

Progress in the Garden.

Pot of pretty nasturtiums still flowering. Makes a really pretty entrance statement every time I come home. Lavender bee pretty is also making flowers after the aphids were gotten rid of by intensive pyrethrum treatment. Fortunately my lavender leaves were not burnt by the sprays.

Wise for me to leave the rosemarys out in the open where it got sun, rain and wind. The powdery mildew is well under control.

Daffodils at vege patch will be abandoned by me at the end of the month when I move.

Chilli padis growing well and took a long time to reach this stage.

Oriental radishes growing steadily and too will be abandoned at the end of this month.

Pixee peach is producing flower buds.

Kaffir lime is finally producing new leaves. Purple ones??

Potted capsicum producing new leaves too. Spring, come soon!

Lamentations!!!

I wish I have a huge greenhouse for my gardening. Melbourne's notorious weather is wearing me down as I scampered about trying to salvage my plants. I was even on the verge of giving up...first such thought since I started gardening seriously last winter. Today's wind speed went beyond 45km/h and mercilessly beating my plants in all directions. Potting mixes on the surface were being blown away. Plastic protection beaten left right centre. Some of my plants (especially my lavendar and mint at the frontyard) were obviously dehydrated as the wind carried whatever moisture the potting mix had. They looked limp. The first thing I did was to take cuttings of vietnamese mint and common mint to propagate new plants just in case the existing ones die or be destroyed.

This pot (above) of common mint was limp and terrible-looking (did not take pic). After some deep watering (plus standing on a tray of water), the leaves came back looking well. Fewh! I just lost one pot to possums, not another one!

The lavendar came back alive after watering. You should have seen the plant before watering (which I did not have time to take) It does not need water most of the time but the winds are too much for it to bear. I shifted it away from the windy front patio to a more shelthered area.

I think the only potted plant that is still thriving is my thyme!

I re-did the protection around my snow pea plants because the guard sleeves were bashed by the horrible wind. This protection should be better off. My original rosemary plant was in bad shape again - attacked by another round of powdery mildew - the recent dry windy weather provides very good condition for mildew growth.

Back from Tasmania

Back from Tasmania! Glorious time I had! I came home to a little bit of nightmare - my purple king bean plant has mysteriously disappeared from its ground without a trace! See here before it was gone. No roots no leaves no beans left, except its stake still standing on its spot. I wonder if possums have done the deed. My spinach and rocket did not take off. Neither did the new snow pea seeds I have sown. Two small pots of vietnamese mints are dying and the oregano and lemon grass are not looking very well. However, things were not as bad as I had imagined. I managed to harvest some stuff - large bunch of thyme, some sprigs of rosemary, chillies and spring onions. What a pleasant surprise I got from my pot of nasturtiums! It has grown so much and so well and are flowering. In Tassie, I have seen beautiful nasturtiums at various locations and was wondering to myself how mine were doing. It was great coming back to a pleasant greeting from them.

My lavender bee pretty is well too. Just on the day I left, I sprayed the potting mix with pyrethrum+white oil mix because I spotted so many ants. Was a little worried about the lavender but came back to a blessing of bushy green growth!

This little small pot of mint is growing so prettily that I can resist admiring it. I cannot even remember how it looked like before I went for my holiday.

My most worried candidates turned out to be doing exceptionally well! The common mints and vietnamese mints all did fine.

My potted capsicum has four developing fruits when I returned.

One of the two at the vege patch has three developing fruits.

The other is have two developing fruits. Wow...three small capsicum plants produce enough for the family for months!

The mint (given by a friend and grown from a bare stem) is doing fine at the vege patch except that I discovered lots of bug?eggs? on the young shoots. All these were cut off and soaked in boiling water to kill them.

Similar things happened to my calamondin shoots and curry plant shoots.

The leaves of my oriental radishes were eaten down to the main stems by some creatures/bugs even though they are under net protection. Under the leaves, I can see the radish growing, still tiny.

The leaves of the oriental radishes

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.