First Week of the New Year and Summer Work-list

We have not had proper rain for more than a week since before Christmas Day.  Weather has been sunny especially these few days. 

1 January 2012 - Max 38 deg. Sunny and still.
2 January 2012 - Max 40 deg. Scorching heat, sunny and breezy-windy.
3 January 2012 - Max 35 deg. Cool morning, sunny and still day.
4 January 2012 - Max 24 deg. Sudden downpour early morning that lasted for less than 15 mins :(.
5 January 2012 - Max 23 deg. Sunny and cool.

This is our hottest start of the year in many years.  We will be expecting a very hot summer this year.

Work done -

Raking up olive and peach leaves.
Watering garden.
Catching white cabbage butterflies.
Caterpillar check on pak choy.
Stink bugs removal from tomato silvery fir.
Pruning vietnamese mint as they wilt easily in the hot weather.
Staking flowering and seeding coriander plants.
Pruning wisteria.
Pruning tomato plants.
Staking eggplants that are growing taller.
Moving black pots of ginger and thai basil into shade.

Harvesting -strawberries, sweet corns, tomato silver fir, stringless pioneer beans, water spinach/kang kong, pak choy, plums, peaches, white currants, green chilli fire,

Collecting - pak choy seeds, rocket seeds, coriander seeds.

Progress update - Sunflowers blooming, grapes still growing, Big Fig fruiting, Figgy's figs getting bigger, watermelon flowering, cucumber burpless' leading vine is 50cm tall and flowering, water chestnuts sending up new plants, more ginger shoots emerging from pots, pomegranates about pingpong ball size, lawn's greening and seeding and needs mowing.

The two pots of ginger are growing well.  Two new shoots are emerging.

One pot of lemongrass which I propagated. Hopefully with such a large tub of good potting mix, these stems will grow larger than those in the ground.

The second pot of lemongrass.

Galangal ginger still looking bad but I know they are alive.  I also notice a new shoot emerging.

Sunflower pollenless from Diggers' Club has bloomed. I did not expect these plants to be very big but they turned out to be very tall, about  1.2 metres.

I am not sure what it means to be pollenless as I do see bees visiting the sunflowers.

Our last yellow peach of the season is OURS! After sharing with beetles and possums, we had only about 10 to eat.

Everyday strawberries! 

Heaps of tomato silver fir and some sweet corns.

Took a picture of a crimson rosella (wildlife) in Emerald during our Friday outing to the Dandenongs.

I came upon this awesome tree (a type of conifer I think) and my son climbed it. I grew up climbing trees (not this big) and I think it is a wonderful experience. This amazing tree gives my boy much pleasure, he started at one end and went around the whole tree walking on its branches. In fact, soon after, two other older boys came and joined him. I love this picture but wish I had a better camera, which hubby wanted to buy me but I refused the offer.

I harvested lots of thai basil for a spicy chicken dish...My husband and son's favourite.

A Night of Downpour to Refresh a Week of Sunshine.

8-9 December - warm and sunny days up to 32 deg celsius.  Thunderstorms in the evening.

9 December -cool change
- collected 3 buckets of worm casts from worm farm.
- checked hydrangeas.  Milk sprays seem to have worked to rid powdery mildew.
- removed powdery mildew-affected grapevine leaves (still manageable).
- removed powdery mildew-affected kao kee leaves (milk spray didnt  work). Applied more milk spray.
- lots of pomegranate flowers dropped.
- collected pak choy pods.

11 December - Rain last night.
- Worm casts to kang kong on Patch F.
- Worm casts to kao kee and strawberry pots.

One of the cucumber vines which I have planted here (Patch B) took off well and is having cucumbers already. Two others died.

I planted 4 more pot-germinated seedlings in Patch B.  These are cucumber (burpless).

Several chilli padi seedlings emerged in Patch B where I placed the pot to over-winter.  The seeds must have survived winter from dropped chilli fruits.

Patch B+C has kang kong (water spinach) and carrots growing.

Patch F has kang kong (water spinach) and Tung O (edible chrysanthemum).  It is also where my Carolina Black Rose grape vine is.  This picture is taken before I applied worm casts.

This raised vegetable patch looks a little run down.  I cannot really plant much as I am still waiting for pak choy green seeds to dry.  The brocoli greens did not do well. I think the seeds are dodgy as this is not the first time I am unsuccessful despite changing planting sites.

I got my boy to casually sow pak choy seeds out on the front vege patch and amazing lots of tiny healthy pak choy are growing.

Yummy, fresh strawberries every day!

This summer, I have 4 cally lily Majestic Red  blooming in our front garden.  How exciting to see them returning year after year!

With an overnight downpour, the duckweeds in the water chestnut tub  multiplied like crazy covering the whole surface.  The colour contrast of green and blue is very nice.

Guess what I found? A ginger shoot! That's from last summer!  Ginger (the common one that I use for cooking) actually survived our winter and has emerged! Wow! I feel so excited and hopeful growing ginger. 

This ginger shoot recently emerged from some stems which I planted in  two 40cm diameter pots.  Hoping for good results.  So far so good.

Here's another shoot in the other pot.

The galangal ginger which I planted here looked withered, not a pleasing sight. However I strongly believe the underground stems are alive.  Time will tell.

While I was preparing dinner, I looked out of my kitchen window very often.  We had a wonderful downpour last night and this really refreshed the whole garden.  The greenery looks greener, the plants look more alive and beautiful as ever.  I love this view so much.

 

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.

Gardening Update

There was a few nice showers last night.
Harvesting pak choy, spinach, rocket, coriander, parsley, tung O/Garland Chrysanthemum, strawberries.

My two pots of thai basil propagated from market cuttings. They started flowering straight away and I had to pinch them off to generate more leaf growth.

Pak Choy Green in a pot and doing so well.

I harvested the pak choy for dishes over the next few days. They are really yummy for soup.

The pot is now home for some lemongrass which I have pulled up from one of the clumps. I am hoping they will grow thicker stems here. I replenished the pot with lots of composted manure.

Three of my strawberry plants which I had propagated have put on lots of flowers.

However, my joy was short-circuited when I found the flowers of two pots eaten up in the night. I highly suspected some animal walking on the fence and eating them.

I cracked my head over what to do to protect more flowers from being eaten. Finally I used some wire mesh, wrapped it over with strong plastic sheet and clamped it over the fence to form a cover over the plants. (above pic) Then I threw a layer of net over as a double layer of protection. I think whatever animal that returns will have a hard time trying to reach the flowers now, since its body weight will probably make it fall over that cover.

My tomato silvery fir plants grow bushy very quickly despite weekly pruning. Both have lots of flowers and also some fruits. This time I am very excited about growing tomatoes cos I have found a new way of eating them - salsa!!! Why didnt I think about doing home-made salsa before? It's yummy!

Rhubard Sydney Crimson is establishing very well. I like the idea that its new leaves are all crumpled and gradually they become pretty flat leaves.

Our little corn patch is doing great! I am already spotting the male corn flowers!

Candy Red watermelon seedlings finally taking off. I wonder if I seriously have time and space to grow some watermelons for Yates watermelon challenge. For the sake of free seeds and free fruits and fun, I will continue to nurture them.

Early spring when I looked at my lemon verbena, my heart sank. It was a dry leafless lifeless twig outside my bedrom window. I pruned it hoping it will spring to life. And it did!! Full of new growth!! Looking forward to making more lemon verbena tea this year.

Today, after thinking so hard and reading up a lot, I improved on how I am growing my water chestnut plants successfully. A new pot is hard to come by even if I have money to buy it.  I decided to use a strong plastic tub, add heavy clay soil (fortunately I kept some from our lawn project last Sept), composted manure and replanted the strongest plant there. I added water and the two goldfish that I bought. My son decided to name them Goldie and Fishie. How original is that hahahaha!!!

The original tub looks bad. The water is murky thanks to me putting in garden top soil which is a true disaster. The mud is also too shallow to accommodate so many growing plants. As much as it was a pain, I had to dig up several plants and dump them to avoid overcrowding. I wont be able to accommodate so many big tubs of water chestnuts as it would be too time consuming taking care of mosquito/algae problems. I read that one or two plants can give a lot of chestnuts, so if I am successful, I should just need two plants.

The kang kong seedlings which I have planted out a few days ago are doing well.

These carrot plants are home for tiny critters which fly very fast like whiteflies but they also hop and they are green. No idea what they are but hopefully they are not too pesky.

This is the first year our pomegranate tree produce a dozen or more flowers. Will I get to eat some pomegranates?

Caught Mr Spotted Neck sunbathing on my kang kong patch. He is so adorable. I think he comes every morning and coos on our roof. Almost works like a rooster and my alarm clock each morning. Poor guy still no girlfriend in sight. Recently another pair of pigeons also started visiting our garden.

This morning as I was inspecting our plum tree, I found possum poo! Not very good news. I have been suspecting them as the culprits which nipped off a lot of young plum shoots and stealing my plums. Now the poo confirms my suspicion. And I also think they are the culprits which ate my strawberry flowers. I have to soon put up nets for all the fruit trees and vegetables.

My boy and I spent a whole morning in the garden. He stumbled upon a dead bee and we had a great time examining it. We also studied some ants carrying eggs in their tunnels when we overturned a square tile at the vege patch. Lastly, we studied one common brown butterfly which I caught resting on the grape vine few nights ago before freeing it. It was Insects' Day!!!