Herbs and Vegetables Update

My 6 snow peas are towering, flowering and fruiting.

The chilli fire plant looks a bit haggard but I think it will pick up when weather warms up. I have removed the plastic around it and the fleece above it which I used in winter to protect it from cold, winds and frost.

This little rosemary bush is doing well. I propagated it from my original rosemary plant. It does not get much sun and had powdery mildew at times. Not the problem has cleared and it is taking off at its site.

I harvested some yummy greens for dinner : silver beet

Here are the mustard greens (Gai Choy) and spinach growing under net. The spinach are so slow. I think once the weather warms up, it will take off and then start produce flowers instead.

I gave this tuft of lemon grass a hair cut. It was all brown and straggly. Wondering if it will be okay. Wondering if they will grow. All five clumps of lemon grass looked really bad after the winter. Come the next winter, I will have to protect them if they survive this season.

Planted coriander in Patch C where the kaffir lime and lemon grass are.

This little clump of chives (Gu Chye) is doing well and clumping after I harvested it. I intend to buy a few more pots to plant at this spot so I can cook up a dish with squids or fried bean curd.

One strong parsley seed has found its way next to the shed where it does not get much sun but it is growing well.

Chillies, Herbs & Vege.

My original pot of rosemary recently was in a poor state. The leaves were looking really skinny compared to its daughter rosemary shrub at the patch next to the garage. Compare them at http://organic-is-better.blogspot.com/2009/11/patch-next-to-garage-fresh-faces.html . I was not sure if it was too dry or the pot has gotten too small. I had actually gave it a root trim (See http://organic-is-better.blogspot.com/2009/11/catching.html) somtime back before putting it back into the same pot, so I believed it had got too dry in the hot weather. I began watering it more often which is quite strange as rosemary prefers it dry. Deciding to dunk n drench the whole pot in charlie carp helped. It looked better since : I gave my second season thyme a good hair cut and it came back beautifully again :

Finally the three skyscraper-tall chilli padis are begining to fruit after some trouble with sickly spotted leaves :

And the sickly-looking chilli fire (see http://organic-is-better.blogspot.com/2009/12/garden-bird-rescue-heronswood-garden.html )which I bought from bunnings is also producing chillies :

And my Nellie Kelly hot chilli are fruiting its heads off :

Thai basil has also grown and is smelling glorious. Maybe this is the first success I am having. However they are seasonal as they produce flower heads very easily and I have to keep up with the deflowering :

A recent hair cut for my vietnamese mint also see them coming back beautifully. The logic 'kill the top and leave the roots' does work :

Nice bunch of crisp buk choy for lunch :

Loving these buk choys :

Merry Christmas! First Gladioli Opens!

Yippee! My Christma present from the garden...the first gladioli has opened! Very pretty flower! Here's a picture of the patch taken from the road. This patch next to the garage was tough work but amazingly the plants are doing fantastic after a hard time establishing themselves.

The gladioli close-up with the matching orangy-yellow calendulas behind.

Here's the Annabel dwarf marguerite daisy shrub and two blue marguerites, oregano and rosemary.

I hope gladioli flowers will last long for admiring.

Patch Next to Garage...Spring's Ending.

This patch next to the garage has been a challenging one and I have spent intermittent periods of time working on it. So far so good. Results are slowly getting better. The plants went through a period of establishing themselves in the poor clay soil, looking not too good and then now looking much better. There is still space for more work and more plants. Colour theme here is a mixture of yellow, white, pink, orange and blue (if everything flowers at the same time). View from the back. Daffodils (dying down), Diosma Sunset red, Lilium La Hybrid, oregano, rosemary, blue maguerite, annabel daisy are all mulched with composted pinebark (ornamental mulch).

View from the front. The whole patch is surrounded by strings looking like a boxing ring because my dog would trot on it and even nip off my plants. The two candy tuft plants (front right with tiny white flowers) have bounced back and doing well. :)

This rosemary which I have propagated from the original pot looked really bad some time back but it is now doing well especially with the addition of mulch. I did find one caterpillar wrapped up among its leaves. The same caterpillar which I have been finding among many plants in my garden recently.

Oregano too is doing wonderfully on this soil and has been growing. Also found one or two caterpillars here but all is well besides that.

The two Lilium LA Hybrid plants are doing well and have put on some flower buds. The third one was nipped off by my doggy and will not flower.

I planted one calendula seedling here just to see if it will survive the soil here. As last two days were scorching, it withered in the heat. However, with constant watering and application of Seasol, it is doing fine and will bounce back in the evening. If this one does well, I will probably plant a few more seedlings into this soil.

Catching Caterpillars. Planting Cucumber.

Hot scorching week! Busy watering in the evening and at times in the morning. Several of the plants wilt in the heat including vietnamese mint, annabel daisy, thyme, rosemary, bay... I decided to plant the three gorgeous cucumber burpless seedlings in Patch B (where the existing snow peas are). If they survive, I will put a trellis up.

These three rosemary plantlets are growing but looking paler than normal. I have propagated several rosemary plants and ended up not knowing what to do with them. ;P

This bigger plantlet (or tiny shrub) was grown from a single sprig. I am feeling quite proud of myself hehe...The other one is doing well at the patch next to the garage. Trimming rosemary is important to keep it bushy and stout. That makes it a pretty shrub.

The curry plant and 'mother' rosemary have been root trimmed and put back into their pots to control their growth, so that I need not use larger pots.

A few snow pea pods are swelling as their seeds grow...here is one which is shrivelled and almost ready for collection.

Argh....many plants in my garden are under caterpillar attack, including my tomato beef steak. It seems the same culprit as they are all wrapped up in young leaves and they kind of spin a web.

Strawberries developing steadily in the pot. I need to sugarcane mulch the two strawberry plants on the ground.

Three purple king bean plants doing fantastic since the weather warmed up...they are picking up very fast on their growth and already twining up the supports.

My kaffir lime's young leaves look like that...looks like iron deficiency. How on earth did it take me so long to realise that there is a deficiency?

This is one deficient-looking leaf of the calamondin comquot. It is the young leaves that are looking a bit patchy yellow (mottled if that is the word). The tree is putting on many new fruits and I had better deal with any deficiency before they start dropping off or have poor development. Citrus are indeed hungry feeders as many books and programmes say.

I have potted on this Nellie Kelly hot chilli plant finally after months of neglect. Fed it seasol and hope it be revived. I do see small shoots growing along the branches.

Patch Next to Garage

The three Lilium LA Hybrid plants have emerged and looking quite good. I hope it will survive the not so good soil here.

One of the gladioli plants has emerged as well. I have since fenced up this patch because doggy has been trodding on it and even nipping off some of the plants.

I only got two yellow daffodils this season while the rest all did not flower. They are probably on the way to die down. Hope for a better season next round.

The two candy tuft plants that I have planted are not doing well. There goes my twenty bucks!

Rosemary is also not doing well.

Oregano's not doing too bad at this point of time.

The blue and white daisies are doing just alright.