Patches A, C, D & E

The recent warm and long day time have made growth explode in my garden.

At patch A, the three purple king bean plants and the tomato beef steak plant are growing. I cannot seem to see any tomatoes developing at the moment even though there are flowers. I did not remember having trouble with my Mighty red tomato. Puzzled, I consulted fellow blogger 'Scarecrow' and she gave me this useful link : http://www.grow-tomato-sauce.com/tomatopollination.html

Putting veges and edibles aside, I am feeling really proud of this pot of Annabel daisy. It has grown in size about 6 times.

My beloved capsicum plant is developing its fruits steadily. It is ahead of most plants because this is its second season. Feeling more secure with it in a larger pot.

This is one of 5 calendula officinalis plants I have germinated. They are subject to caterpillars like many of my edible plants in the garden but with much vigilance, I have picked and squashed most of them. This one is budding already!

My strawberry delight at Patch C is doing well in its pot although also subject to caterpillars. Its strawberries are very sweet!

Lemon Verbena at Patch C is also doing well and I have allowed one stalk to flower just to see how the flowers look like.

Wow my lemon grass at Patch C which initially did not look like it was going to make it, has actually gone into growth spurt! Hopefully the eggplant supreme and passionfruit panama gold will speed up in growth as well or they could be overtaken by the lemon grass!

After treating my kaffir lime plant at Patch C with chelated iron (not much organic solutions for this), it leapt into growing beautiful healthy-looking new leaves and more fruits and flowers almost immediately...indeed it was iron deficiency!

Eggplant Supreme at Patch C is also doing well except having its leaves munched on probably at night by some insects. In the day, I cannot find any bugs on it.

This is Patch C : strawberries, kaffir lime, eggplant supreme, lemon grass, passionfruit, lemon verbena, capsicum and pixzee peach. Quite an assortment of plants cramped together.

This is Patch E : coriander and continental parsley both flowering and seeding. I did not care as I am surely alright for them to seed and grow new ones, which means new supply of herbs. There is another clump of lemongrass and my pot of bay plant there.

I was cleaning the dusty leaves of my three cyclamens when I saw this. A search reveals them as the fruits of the cyclamens. I read that using seeds is tough so I am just going to leave them alone. I wonder if there are corms in the soil. Hopefully! So that cyclamens can cover the whole of Patch D and under my pomegranate tree and grevilia. They have glorious blooms! See http://organic-is-better.blogspot.com/2009/09/golden-sheen-pittosporum-and-cyclamens.html or click on 'cyclamen' label on right side of my blog.

What's Happening Recently in the Backyard?

Recently, I have been doing gardening in starts and stops and have not recorded much of what I had done. Besides being unwell physically, the weather has been rather scorching for much to do in the day time. I tried as much as possible to do gardening when the sun sets yet still bright enough. I have used some pieces of wood which was left by the previous owner to build a little vege patch just next to the back pongola (if I have named it correctly) :

Before weeding & filling up with soil (above) After (above)

The black carolina rose grape vine is growing well at the spot where I just put in the vege patch. My next 'challenge' would be to erect some support for it as it grows.

My capsicum plant in the pot has put forth several fruits, with me wondering how large they will get since the plant is confined in such a small pot.

Three tomato plants are growing in a larger pot since transplanting from their little pot. Where in the garden can they go? Or they would have to grow in a large pot.

The few calendula plants are growing faster with the warmer weather.

Strawberries are developing in two of the three strawberry plants in the pot and on the ground.

Protection against birds half-way there.

My passionfruit panama gold is still surrounded by a tree shield. Fortunately the leaves are not being eaten anymore since I surrounded the skirt of the tree shield with soil.

Peach (pixzee) fruits growing bigger. Just wondering where's the space for further enlargement since the branches are so close. I never thought about that when I bought it.

Snow peas are still fruiting but slowly dying down. Go to the compost soon!

Tomato beef steak has grown a lot, some flowers but no fruits yet.

Purple king seeds have germinated and are this big now! They are actually in a more shaded area and thankfully with more warmth and sunshine recently, they are steadily growing. Lots weeding to be done with the unmulched areas.

The first patch of grass has grown well and is now looking like this...good!

I have germinated some cucumber (burpless). Well germinated. Trellis and space to figure out.

I really have no idea how to care for this pot of kalanchoe. So I decided to prune all the dying flowers. New leaves have grown and I shall see if it flowers next season.

Kaffir kaffir...since into the ground, it looks a little better but still leaves still drop. Here showing some tiny fruits.

The apricot (Moorpark) which I pulled out of the ground and pruned still does not look too good..drooping leaves...may or may not survive me.

Work at New House

Before I fly off again after moving into my new place, there are lots of work to do. One of it is pruning my pittosporum golden sheens, watering and fertilising it since it is spring. This is how they look like after my job, a few of them are shorter than the rest as I did not bother to measure using a string. :P

Although I have sown some tomato seeds recently but I do not have the feeling that they will work out. Feelings can be very true at times. Sometimes when my gut tells me that it wont work, it really wont, and sometimes when my gut tells me that it will, it will. Anyway, that made me buy a pot of beef steak tomato from Kmart and planted it into the new vege patch 1.

I spent a bomb at Kmart buying pots of flowers for the patch in front of the garage : Diosma Sunset Red, Candy Tuft, Annabel dwarf marguerite daisy, Blue Marguerite.

I planted them into the patch in front of the garage, plus one pot of rosemary which I have propagated and a pot of oregano which I hope will become some sort of edible groundcover. Thyme is another candidate which I am still considering about. It will take time and care before the patch be transformed into a nice flower and herb area. The front portion has yellow daffodils and I intend to plant King Alfred daffodils to another portion so that there is contrast in heights of all the flowers and herbs :

The three 'uprooted' snow pea plants (below) have been planted into Patch 2 of my new backyard.

Hope they survive the transplanting shock :

I also bought three pots of strawberry. Pretty leaves.

Had two planted into Patch 3 :

And the third one into a pot :