Summer Update - End January

Since my birthday mid-January, we have not got much rain fall. The weather was dry and warm and we did have a few hot days. Finally we had a bit of rain fall last night and today, to freshen up the plants and the lawn. I love the rain because it has this magical power of making the lawn look really really green.

Out of the few seeds of yellow capsicum I have sown, two emerged and after re-potting twice, they are doing fantastic.

My little experiment to root market cuttings of sweet potato plants (even after placing in the  vege compartment for two days) worked. I planted four of the rooted cuttings into a large pot (50cm wide x 50cm deep) with loads of cow manure and potting mix. Last few days were hot and I shaded the pot with white cloth. They survived each day and are growing!

These are the same sweet potato cuttings and they are putting on new growth. I could not wait to tell hubby he was going to have sweet potato leaves for dinner soon!

I harvested our first cucumber (burpless). It is about 35cm long. It has a few bite/beak marks which I believe are from birds.

I decided to take my eureka lemon tree  out of its pot (where it was dying)  and planted it in my back garden along the fence. If it survives, I will try to espalier it onto the wooden fence. Amazingly after several rounds of watering on warmer days, it seems to be alive. It is throwing up lots of flowers and growing a few new leaves. Fingers crossed, I still have my lemon tree alive.

I commented about my galangal ginger plants in one of my previous blogs. Here is the picture showing new shoots coming out of the ground.

Gorgeous looking pak choy keeps giving us a constant supply of leafy green.

I am so happy to have homegrown cut flowers - sunflowers and white lilies.

These gorgeous white lilies have fragrance that permeate my house. It was almost bewitching! They last much longer when cut and put in a vase. Out in my garden, they wither within two days.

Woohoo! My Carolina Black Rose grapes are ripening! As the ripening is  not very consistent, I pick the ripe ones off the bunch rather than harvesting the whole bunch as grapes do not ripen once picked.  

When ripened especially by lots of warm sunshine, the grapes are really sweet.

Very happy to say that about 9 pomegranates are developing on the tree after loads of flowers.

Vegetables Update and a Very Nice Surprise.

I think I have achieved the objective I have set last year about growing more leafy vegetables in our garden. I wanted to do so as these vegetables are more perishable compared to fruit vegetables so if I can have a fresh supply in my garden regularly, it would be great. On my market/supermarket trips, I buy more of the fruit vegetables such as capsicums, eggplants, cucumbers, gourds, pumpkins as they keep fresh for a longer time. And I plant more leafy vegetables so I can harvest them fresh from my own garden.  Of course when the weather is warmer (spring, summer, autumn), I do reserve space to plant my own eggplants, cucumbers, capsicums and beans.  Also, I am hoping my choko vine produce fruits for stir-fry as well.

The kang kong/ water spinach in patch F is ready to be harvested.

Some fresh pak choy green for soup. So far, planting choy sum, Chinese brocoli and buk choy has been a failure.

I bought sweet potato leaves from Springvale market and stir-fried it with my home-made sambal  paste. Hubby loved it.

I reserved some sweet potato cuttings and stand them in water, hoping they will root and I can plant them. This idea came a bit late but if it works, I still can have my own leaves to eat. The hot weather helps the sweet potato plants grow very quickly.

I harvested a few choko shoots to stir-fry with the sweet potato leaves. Amazing! They taste really good. I read on the internet that every part of the choko part can be eaten. Also the possums love these shoots and that made me try them. A good decision! Another vegetable for the dining table!

The Kao Kee plants are growing new shoots. They get mildew easily and I had to resort to spraying the bottom leaves with fungicide as milk or bicarbonate spray did not work.

Our first kang kong harvest. for stir-fry.  Plus a bunch of edible chrysanthemum (Tung O) for soup.

Hmmm...yummy kang kong with fermented bean curd.  I can finish the whole big plate!

We have been doing bird-watching a lot.  Today we had a flight of sparrows feeding on the bird seeds.

I put out two trays so the pigeon (wildlife) will not bully the sparrows.  Each bird variety has a tray. We notice the non-native mynahs bully the pigeons and the pigeons bully the sparrows...how funny!

We were out on our front garden when my son caught sight of a plane doing heart shapes in the sky!!! I rushed for my camera.

My son managed to get into the picture by sitting on the fence, literally!

Here's another heart the plane did. What a pleasant surprise!!!

New Lemon Eureka.

I planted about 20 daffodil bulbs under the mulching around the plum tree. Hoping to see beautiful yellow blooms out of Samuel's room in spring/summer 2011.

We bought a new Lemon Eureka from Dandenong Market. I hope it will take off.

Here's the peach tree from my friend Andy. I planted it right outside our bedroom window. I look forward to seeing glorious pink flowers out of my room in spring!

The last harvest of sweet potatoes. How wonderful!

My Poor Grape Vine!

My third? fourth? harvest of sweet potatoes. I was almost to tears when I found out my dog, Marco, has 'chopped' off my grape vine (carolina black rose)! It was growing so well! I was angry with my dog for a whole day! I hope by trimming off the rough ends, it will survive and resprout. It was an extremely 'hard prune'. Fellow blogger Scarecrow and another gardener on the forum gave me some hope that it could survive. I have since fenced it with chicken wire and mulched it with bark chips.

The pot of daffodils which did not flower last season finally resprouted! I left the whole pot in the garage, covered with a plastic bag eversince the leaves died down completely. A few mornings ago, I took the pot out and yippee! A daffodil shoot...looks like the complete dying down really regenerated new bulbs as books stated.

I bought and planted some daffodil bulbs under the plum tree (right outside Samuel's bedroom). The ground has turned soft enough to dig eversince we mulched the plum tree canopy heavily.

This tuft of iris was given in a pot by Fina, a life group friend. I have planted it in front of the blue and white daisies at the patch next to the garage.

Strawberry Delight, Fig (Brown Turkey), Chilli Padi, Sweet Potato

Still enjoying new strawberries in the making.....

I finally harvested one edible fig(brown turkey). Some bird has actually pecked a hole in it. I had wanted to harvest it yesterday but put it off thinking it could be riper and more succulent today (with a thought that a bird might find its way first). Yes, it was not very big but quite nice :

The last four of my bitter melons have succumbed to frost bites on a very cold Sunday morning and I had to pluck and throw them out :

A handful of chilli padis :

Another harvest of sweet potatoes for dessert with ginger :

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.