Botanic Gardens, Potting On

Autumn has arrived. This week has been quite cool, some days a little too cold for my comfort. I wish I had many waterproof cloches of various sizes to house some of the plants that love warm sunshine. Yesterday, our family had a wonderful time at the Royal Melbourne Botanic Gardens, before taking our little one to his surprise Motor Show. Weather was marvellous - warm sunshine and not too windy. I also visited the Herb Garden with Samuel while Hubby lay on his picnic mat doing nothing. Here are a few pictures which I have taken :

Thai basil flowering. Thyme

Common basil

Capsicum

Oregano

Evening gardening work : The curry plant has overcrowded its little pot and I have potted it on using a 30cm pot. I used premium potting mix + 1 spade coarse sand + 5g slow release fertiliser all mixed in. After potting, I watered the pot thoroughly to give it a good soak of seasol.

Tip : Water soil where existing plant is in, thoroughly at least 2 hours, before potting on or re-potting, to soften the soil so that the plant is easily removed from its pot.

Curry plant after potting on.

I bought a netting which covers part of the peach tree. Fruits are getting larger but at a snail pace. I did not get to eat a single pear on the tree...all eaten by birds but do hope to taste the peaches.

The vietnamese mints in the 30cm pot which grew from two cuttings (http://organic-is-better.blogspot.com/2008/12/summer-warming-up.html) have becoming trailing and spilling over the edge of the pot. Recently their leaves did not look as green and healthy. I left the pot without watering for a while, fearing that I have waterlogged the potting mix. Their leaves were not as limp after several days. Today I decided to turn it out of its pot to check after deliberately watering the mix.

Growth spilling over the edge (above).

The roots are not potbound yet I think, but there are a lot of roots at the base (above). So, I potted it on into a 40cm pot, just with normal potting mix and 20g of slow release fertiliser. Also trimmed off the roots right at the base. Watered the mix to moisten it and I shall add some seasol tomorrow.

This tomato sucker (below) which I had rooted from the parent Mighty Red tomato is sprouting new growth in the vege patch. Of course it is really a little late experimenting this as it is already beginning of autumn. I am really trying to compare growth in either soil or potting mixes (in pots). So far two similar suckers which were potted into potting mixes did not grow. I am still trying to work out the reason.

The vietnamese mint cutting which I have planted in the vege patch is also showing new growth.

Buk choy is growing fine except that white butterflies love to lay eggs on it. Probably a wonderful food for its caterpillars.

Look at how the caterpillars have munched away edges below. I have to check this pot every day :

A Smoky Day...Some Work and Some Harvest...

Today is a smoky day due to the bush fires in some parts of Victoria which left hundreds dead. This morning as I opened the door to the backyard I could smell smoke and I was astonished for a moment, wondering if the reserve behind us was on fire! I told Hubby and he said today would be a smoky day. The tomato sucker which rooted in water and planted into a potting mix with coir fibre, cow manure and seasol as below has been out in the sun. Hope this one takes off and show me some growth as the previous one was stunted due to reasons which I do not know of. Well, I doubt I have much time to see any fruiting anyway since it is already mid Feb/late summer. Gardening is pretty much experimental for me at this stage but I would like to ensure the plants do grow well. Thyme was harvested again today and this is how it looks like thereafter :

The rooted vietnamese mint cuttings were in their green planter. Could there be any other herbs that is as easy to grow as this? They just thrive with nothing much except sun and lots of water and an occasional amount of seasol :

The red skin potato plant is growing well in the pot from a tiny bud :

As I was watering all my herbs, I found a broken vietnamese mint stem in the pot. Not sure how it broke but it was all soft and limp. I quickly put it in a container of water and it was absorbing water so well. Now it is turgid again. I know I need not wait very long before roots appear and it can be planted into the green planter with the other two.

This is how the buk choy look like a few days after harvesting. New leaves are growing already. Buk choy is a cut and come again vegetable. Great to have!

This is the harvest for my kitchen - some tomatoes to ripen as usual and a bunch of fresh buk choy. Also harvested a bunch of thyme, a few sprigs of rosemary and 5 cayenne pepper.

Over these few days, I was pleasantly surprised to see little shoots coming out of the sun-fried purple king bean plant. I thought it was a gone case. Fortunately for it, I hadnt pulled it out of the ground. It seems to be resurreting with new green growth of shoots. Here's a peek at it before the heat wave, after and now :

I do hope it will grow again even though its older leaves were toasted by the scorching heat and have turned as crispy as potato chips.

Another Hot & Scorching Summer Day.

Another scorching hot day! I had put up some form of defence system today for my plants - umbrellas! And lots of watering. Set up 3 umbrellas and amazingly, those plants under them are not scorched down. Those which did not have umbrellas certainly bore the grunt of the heat and sunshine. Fortunately, towards evening winds were strong and there were no casulty. Caught another grasshopper (pests)! Wonder what I can do to deal with them. They hop about and I had to be really quick in catching them. Spotted a yellow bug on the sunflower and it seems like a lady bug. My newly repotted rosemary is producing new soft growth, a good sign. I reckon I would have to change it to a larger pot soon as I read that their roots grow quite deep.

A picture of the remaining batch of greengages.

The tomato sucker which rooted standing in a jar of water for more than a week and planted into potting mix with blood and bone, seasol and crushed egg shells.

A new pot in my garden - cayenne pepper. A birthday pressie from Fina. What a pleasant surprise!!! :) I have tried unsuccessfully to grow chillies..twice the seedling stunted after being 1 inch tall. I have concluded that the problem must be the quality of the seeds.