Windy and 43 Deg Celsius.

As the blog title says, windy and 43 deg celsius. Thank God for weather forecasts, I have done all the necessary preparations (putting up shades, watering, weeding...) before today. Besides all the light colour tablecloths, white cloths, I even borrowed hubby's white shirts! This morning I woke up not having the anxiety of a charred garden but leisurely did whatever little things I needed to do. Prayerfully, no casualty when evening arrives.

Back garden.

Front patio and front garden.

Sweet potato creepers taking over the mulching around the golden sheens.

New candidate in the garden. I decided to plant Diggers' Pioneer bean stringless (above pic) in this empty pot of mix (where my daisies used to be). A black pot over them to create a dark environment and moist potting mix saw them germinating just in four days!

Under the netting and shade, my buk choy (purple) and buk choy (regular green) are growing well. One silver beet among them as well and the bitter melon vine on the trellis.

Two more silver beets growing next to the lemon grass and under the shelther of the grevillea tree.

Once again a picture of the four peaches on my peach (pixzee). Just cannot stop snapping a picture of them. Beautiful considering it is its first season!

One eggplant supreme out in sight!!!

Nellie Kelly's hot chillies growing larger and more coming!

One bunch of tomato silvery fir ripening! Very exciting as this year, I managed to get the tomatoes to grow larger and it is really successful considering this one is potted.

I picked this first ripened and large-sized tomato two days ago in case it gets too scorched by the sun.

Also picked a large bowl of common mint yesterday morning. Time for some mint tea and omelette.

Fruits of My Labour.

The four peaches (after doggy picked off the rest) on my peach (Pixzee) have turned reddish. They are still gettting bigger and not ready to be picked yet. The chilli (fire) which I bought from bunnings is really doing well after I treated it with fertilisers. Its leaves have gone from pale green and sickly-looking to dark green and it has put on flowers too.

My Lemon Eureka has grown taller as well and putting on lots of new leaves. The recent two tiny lemons have dropped off without getting bigger.

I planted the passionfruit (panama gold) right in front of my shed after working the soil and raising the area. So far no earwigs or weevils have found their way to eat its leaves. Hope that it will establish itself well here and grow :

Cucumber (burpless) Harvest #1

Three months after sowing my cucumber (burpless), it was time to pick four off the vines. It was a very satisfying moment for me. I have pickled the fourth one before snapping a picture. Here's the other three, all about 30cm long :

Eggplant Supreme

My eggplant supreme has put on more flowers. The previous few purple flowers withered and died without producing any eggplants. I suspected it was due to pollination problems. Closer examination of the plant today revealed caterpillar presence. And I even found a cocoon under one of the leaves. After a few days in a jar, it turned out to be the same moth which I caught some time back :

From the look of the flowers, it seem that when the petals are bent backwards, they are ready for pollination. I read somewhere that this happens for tomato flowers. Eggplants and tomatoes belong to the same family. I have noticed that the eggplant produces two types of flowers. One with a centre thingy which I believe is the female part (stigma). The yellow parts are the male parts or anthers where the pollen are stored. I remove one anther at a time and peel it gently (it is very delicate) to reveal the white pollen which flies off fast in the breeze. I would dap this onto the female part. Hope that this works to produce eggplant since I read that bees are not attracted to eggplant flowers :

Flower with yellow anthers and a centre (which I think is the female stigma)

The other flower is similar except that the centre part is either non-existent or very deep inside and tiny. This flower cant seem to be pollinated and I am not sure what it is for :

Flower with yellow anthers but no centre or stigma.

35 Degree Celsius.

The temperature will be 35 degree celsius these two days. Early in the morning within water restriction time, I watered the whole garden and covered up the vegetables in my backyard. Here is a picture of the backyard from my kitchen. The white cloths helped to reflect the glaring sun and keep my plants cool : The second sun king sunflower has opened...much prettier one :

My life group mate Li gave me two of this squash...taste yummy and looks like varigated zuchini :Another life group mate Chloe gave me a bunch of homegrown peaches...they are really nice even though they are not fully ripe yet. Homegrown always beats supermarket stuff. That green silvery fir tomato was picked off the plant by Marco...a bit sad cos we cannot eat it at all and it is quite big :