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!

All the Creepers and Climbers.

I have great love for climbers and creepers especially when they look beautiful and produce edible food. My six sweet potato creepers have taken over most of the mulching among the golden sheens. It is almost time for some harvesting of their leaves : I have fallen in love with growing cucumbers. They are such joy! These two vines which I grew from seeds have started producing cucumbers from the bottom and now up. Once there are new shoots, new female flowers developed. This specie I have is called cucumber burpless and has no bitter taste. I am having more cucumbers to eat soon :

My grape carolina black rose is climbing up the trellis and looking really pretty. Need to research more on its pruning and training it up my pongola :

Passionfruit Panama Gold is doing well up its trellis in front of the shed. Rough start I had with it due to pest attack but hopefully it will grow well to produce lots of yummy passionfruits :

This bittermelon which I grew from seed is very gorgeous because of its decorative leaves. Unfortunately the melons it is producing are remaining small. I havent got a single mature melon so far. Well, at least it looks too pretty for me to pull it off :

Fruits of My Labour.

The four peaches (after doggy picked off the rest) on my peach (Pixzee) have turned reddish. They are still gettting bigger and not ready to be picked yet. The chilli (fire) which I bought from bunnings is really doing well after I treated it with fertilisers. Its leaves have gone from pale green and sickly-looking to dark green and it has put on flowers too.

My Lemon Eureka has grown taller as well and putting on lots of new leaves. The recent two tiny lemons have dropped off without getting bigger.

I planted the passionfruit (panama gold) right in front of my shed after working the soil and raising the area. So far no earwigs or weevils have found their way to eat its leaves. Hope that it will establish itself well here and grow :

Tender Loving Care is Important.

A gardener must pay close attention to her plants. And I love spending time just doing that - lots of attention...lots of tender loving care. When this is done, I can make sure I prevent lots of bad things from happening. Close observation of a cluster of strawberry delight flowers (even though the pot is netted) shows that some caterpillar activity. The flowers and buds were kind of white-webbed together and upon peeling them open, two caterpillars were found. After squashing them, I had to remove some buds and flowers as they were already damaged by them :

I have since propagated five pots of strawberry delight plants :

My second try at planting Thai basil from nursery purchase is not looking so good. Leaf edges turning brown. I wonder why :

Worrying about the cucumber pollination was unduly indeed. Actually bumble bees do visit the flowers. How wonderful! I have at least five developing cucumbers and they are growing fast :

My yellow capsicum (officially calling it yellow after the green ones ripened to yellow recently) plant is making more flowers and fruits after some of their lower older leaves fell off :

I had to remove some little fruits and lower suckers as I did not want so many fruits. I want larger fewer fruits :

Chilli Padi plants are growing taller and flowering more but still having blotchy spots on their leaves :

Harvested some mint for omelette from the recently propagated mint :

Harvested three calamondin comquat limes and purple king beans :

Passionfruit Panama Gold is putting on new young shoots well here. Good thing I dug it up and potted it :

This is the spot I am going to plant it. Now working on it :