3 Blind Mice Lovin' Sweet Potatoes

I found sweet potatoes are very easy to grow here in Adelaide plain as we have mild winters. Easier to grow than potato as you can simply leave sweet potatoes growing all year round. I usually have one spare plants growing in winter so I can cut some young shoots to propagate several new sweet potato plants when spring comes. Cut the shoots and put them in water by the window and roots grow from the veins very quick. Sweet potatoes are now weeds in our garden. If I buried the plants after harvesting, thinking in will be composted in winter, I have new plants popping out when the weather warm- can be invasive.

So I planned to plant more sweet potatoes in containers last spring as it grow without care and isolated it with other summer crops because of its invasive characteristic. To make the garden more productive I planted fast crop like Asian greens together with the young sweet potato plants. The one without Asian greens were already completely harvested. You can still have another round of fast crop with it like radish or bean and top up with compost later.

Grow without care...

But this situation welcome small critters to take shelter from the heat.

We did got some decent harvest from it, although we harvested it earlier than usual.

However, mice enjoyed them first.

Those pest even enjoyed the big ones until all left were only skin.

The ones that were save for us is the young tubers growing under the polystyrene in the ground soil. None harvest from the container for us.

Those polystyrene container were badly chewed on by mice to make bigger holes.

What we also found?

3 blind mice.

Still blind and unable to run.

The mice parents were not in time to take their babies out.

There were actually 4 babies, one of them, one of the parents tried to get it away.

But with all the confusion, squealing, hubby did not realised there were a baby mice under his boot as it was covered with sweet potato veins.

The parents were a bit agitated as it keeps running around as we put the babies in a pot near us while we clean up the area. Rayyan even named the babies- Mickey, Totoro and Ponyo. Told Rayyan we can't keep them as a pet. He was a bit upset followed his father to allocate them far away in the garden at the back of the reserve land.

Thats the story of 3 blind mice.

Have a nice weekend.

Aphids Vacuum Cleaner

Last week, I gave a talk for the "3rd Australia Sex Summit" conference at Yarra Valley, Victoria. The title is a bit misleading. To avoid misunderstanding what the conference objective and purpose was really about. Let me clarify, this is purely scientific academic purposes. It is mainly on the evolutionary, biology, genetic about sex chromosomes,  sex determination and sex differentiation for gonadal development, or disease that is associated with it. I was really nervous. The first few slides when I was explaining it, I think it was obvious that I was shaking. I found it a bit intimidating at first since I have to talk in front of expertise in this field. It was exciting to meet them as well since for years I have been reading about their findings and papers.

Earlier this month, I noticed that our dill and some other plants were badly infested with aphids. I got very annoyed as those aphids have been mainly aiming on the parts that are developing seeds. Spraying with chilli water did not have any effect at all. Before I left for the conference, I noticed that they were some ladybirds on the plant. Those ladybirds were doing a great job of eliminating those pest. I think it was really a grand banquet that those ladybirds enjoyed.  Relying on those ladybirds will save money and friendly to the environment and us.

Close inspection shows that the nearest part of ladybirds has reduced number of aphids compared to other place. After I returned, the number of aphids on the dill plants were significantly reduce. They did a wonderful job. I think in just a few days only 25% original numbers of aphids remained now.

I hope this is a fruitful union with many offspring!

Bees are getting a bit drunk these days in the garden.

This is the first time I have seen a blue sky banded bee in our garden. It was really difficult to get a good shot of this bees as it does not stop that long. I hope you can see how blue those bands are. 

Brinjal Brrrr....

Brinjal are treated as perennials in our garden. 

They take a long time to grow and impatient that I am to wait until late summer to harvest them if grown from seeds. So if I give the chance for the brinjal to survive over winter, I would have fresh brinjal again before summer comes. Last year spring I bought a seedling of bonica eggplant and left them growing over winter in the garden. What surprised us that early spring I found some fruits on it while I was cleaning up that area. Although it should be dark purple, the skin colour somewhat turn stripey and whitish. But the taste was good and sweet.

Who will expect that there are fruit on this bonica eggplant when it look dreadful like this.

I found snail hiding place on this brinjal plant.

Curiously, there were many snail but my greens were left untouched.

At the bottom of this plants new shoot appears.

Holes courtesy of those snails.

This is our Lebanese brinjal plant that has experience 2 winter seasons. In winter, this brinjal plant snuggle together with broccoli plants and dills. It does look a bit sad but it has started producing flowers.

Nice surprise this week.

We found a few baby brinjals on this plants.

Hope blossom on this plants will bear fruit successfully this spring.

Ilhan Sweet corn Sweet Farewell

Finally we had some free time last Saturday after lunch to celebrate my birthday to harvest all of Ilhan sweet corn.  Ilhan sowed sweet corn seeds last March when we were in Melbourne for Rayyan cardiac surgery. We were not sure whether we got to harvest any ripe sweet corn in winter. But I was hoping for an alternative to grow sweet corn here in Adelaide other than summer. Each year when we sow sweet corn seeds in spring it grow so nice and promising. However when the tassel and female silky hair appear, heat waves come and all the important part of the plant got burn to crisp. The last batch of sweet corn harvest from Ilhan patch from looking at it was not that bad.

But I noticed some of the female gone bald.

Something must have given some of the female silky hair a haircut.

Found the culprit. Many of them at Ilhan patch.

We pull out all sweet corn plants and dig it into the patch. So it will decomposed and return some of the nutrient back. Horse manure was also added. Before we grew sweet corn there, sunflowers that were growing were dig into the patch. We did not saw any trace of sunflower in the soil. We did get a few self-sowed sunflower though. The soil was not as hard as the first time we prepared this patch.

My backyard neighbour that gave me mandarins also gave me many seed potatoes to plant. When he gave me those mandarin, I went back into the house and search for something I can share with him too. I went back to his garden and gave him some red chillies and a small young Chilean guava tree that I received from our gardening friend. I was so happy that Chilean guava tree has finally find a better home and will be cared really well. In this small space we have here, I could not possibly grow that Chilean guava tree with the space it needs to grow. The first time I visited our backyard gardener neighbour, I knew instantly that Chilean guava tree will be perfect in his plot. Maybe he was happy too, because I received many seed potatoes ready to be planted. I have faith that this potato will grow very well since he probably has been gardening before I was even born. A very lovely birthday present.

After we prepared this patch, we planted these potatoes at the middle of this patch. There are 2 very tall sunflowers near the fence. Lenay tied strings between this 2 sunflower plants for direct-sowed snow peas to climb later on. We transplanted some onion seedlings at the front area of this patch. There are some self-sowed evening sunflower on this patch which has not yet bloom. I guess this is my birthday patch and hope to received some present from it around Christmas.

Some of Ilhan sweet corns. Although there are not as perfect as the shop ones,it tasted very sweet.  Some of these sweet corn kernels were frozen. The ones with bald female had short cobs but full kernels as seen in the photo. Well better than nothing, although less than half the normal size.

This post is for Ilhan when he is big he can't complain to me he can't grow things. He already grow sweet corn at the age of 4 years old. So he has confidant on himself when he is not a boy any more and starts his own garden with his family.

Growing Okra Burgundy in container

Okra burgundy growing in winter?

No, no, no its just my memo about them.

I wish they could but that will be too much too hope for if you don't have a greenhouse.

We still have 2 plants dormant at the moment and no leaves. 

Just have not find the time to replace them with cool vegetable plants yet.

Not sure I want to leave them there and see whether they will survive winter and produce again next spring. Okra burgundy grows really well in containers. Very tolerant to cooler summer that we have last warm season. Grows really fast and start to produce about 10 weeks from direct sowing.

If you plan to grow okra, you must brace yourself of aphids attack. See black ants around your okra plants, you will find aphids that ants are hosting. Fine example, bottom photo which you can spot aphids and ants easily. But don't worry, find yourself some ladybirds and make them comfortable on okra plants. After a few days, you will find no more aphids on your okra plants. The okra plants were so happy, they start to produce many okra pods for the kitchen. Nyack Backyard posted a very lovely post about buying ladybug and releasing it in the school garden project so they avoid using pesticide which is really cool. Very environmentally friendly way to grow good stuff and for children education.

Okra burgundy plants are really pretty with burgundy stem and leave veins. The flowers are very pretty too. This plants look very ornamental that you can plant them on your front yard or pretty containers.

Okra burgundy does not turn green when cook, it retains its colour not like some other vegetable varieties. If you don't have very warm summer, you can have a go with okra burgundy. We grew 2 varieties of okra last year "clemson spineless" and "burgundy". Clemson spineless did not perform very well last year because we had many cold night so it can't set proper bloom or pod for us. "Burgundy" performed much better. Previous summers which were really hot, "clemson spineless" did very well. So we were fortunate that "burgundy" is more tolerant to cooler summer that it compensate "clemson spineless" last summer. To be on the safe side since we never know how next summer will be like, we will grow both of this variety again next summer. We did managed to freeze at least 2 bags of burgundy okra last season for winter/spring vegetable stock.

Do you think okra burgundy will look nice in your front yard?

Ornamental looking but edible.

Cottage Flora Thursday#26

So Ugly but So Sweet

The main reason I am not fond of growing wong bok in winter is that it is a place where baby snail and slugs make as their hiding place. It won't be easy to search each layer of wong bok compact leaves for them especially near the plant base as it grows bigger. I have always imagine that the wong bok we grown is the type which will form compact barrel head. Apparently after 3 seasons attempts at growing this variety it seems not so. 

The wong bok seeds that we have bought, sowed and nurtured usually just form a flat head. At early growth stages the leaves are very prickly. I am thinking that the wong bok seeds are not true type but has been hybridised with other varieties. We have already sowed it in different seasons but the results are always the same.

So many type of pests feasting on wong bok.

Only one plant managed to form a barrel shape but it is still loose not compact. I wanted to wait more but I saw sign that it is going to bolt soon. So this week, we planned to harvest all of them growing on this area. These wong bok has also look very ugly, badly eaten by the pest. Nobody wants to buy them if it is on the market rack.

Here how it actually looks before harvest.

Badly eaten by those pests. Nothing has been sprayed on the vegetables this winter.

You will find caterpillars, snail or slug each layer of the leaves. Not only that caterpillar poo too.

I had a difficult time washing them clean.

But throw them away we did not.

Our wong bok look disgustingly ugly but it was the sweetest wong bok we ever eaten in our life.

The true wong bok flavour we tasted not like the bland taste from the shops.

If your vegetables look like this, would you eat it or throw them away?

I wish I can make kimchi with our wong bok harvest.

But it has been such a busy month, I could not find the time yet.

I need a really simple recipe to make kimchi.

If the weather permits this weekend, those wong bok will be replaced with cauliflower seedlings.

Autumn Visitors

We have so many creatures visiting our garden this year in autumn. Many of them, we have not seen them in previous autumn. I am not familiar with these tiny creatures, hopefully you can help me identify them which I have to watch out or welcome in our garden. We are worried that we shoo away the good guys but the bad boys have a nice home-stay with us.

This one on top of leaf amaranth look very cute but I am very suspicious of this cute bug. Let it stay or shoo it away?

Mr. Grasshopper is a childhood friend. It does not leave any obvious damage in our garden, although with many numbers can severely causes havoc in a tropical garden.

I am not really sure whats her name. But it does look one that I should let it stay as it wants in our garden.

How about this bug No.4?

This spider seems to be spunning webs to protect pumpkin behind it.

It is getting colder everyday now here.

Hope you don't catch the bug!

Stay warm.

Left them partying

Off day from the garden today. We went to the beach as it was a fine sunny day after only a few hours of sun this raining week. So we entrusted the garden today to our unofficial pet birds. When the kids were safely fasten on their chair in the car saw these birds trying to open one of the box that contain sunflower seeds under the shed. They have been very naughty lately in the garden.

Bees take their role seriously as pollinators. They are doing a fine job. More bees partying around the garden these days. We don't have to worry about manual pollination, less work in the garden now. The only thing that we worry is who gets to the female flower of vegetables that we plan to save seed from, us or the bees. 

Yellow colour flowers received a lot of admires this week.

I feel much happy this summer because there were many kind of insects visiting our garden compared to last year. A few variety of moth and butterflies came to visit us ( I was getting bored looking at white cabbage butterfly dancing in front of me). Not worry about caterpillars at the moment as not growing that many leafy vegetables. It will be a different story starting April when winter vegetable are ready to be transplant since most of them are brassicas. I have been learning to add some herb or flowers in the veggie patch to attract beneficial insects to the garden but not reducing our space to plant more vegetables or yield. Found this caterpillar having a great time on tomato plant, I wonder what kind of butterfly will it transform.

Found this larvae on a different tomato plant. Anyone know what it is? Good or bad sign? The image is not that good, I can't get a good focus.

Did you garden this weekend?

2nd Half of February Harvest

Yellow cherry tomatoes have been the main produce for the month of February. Cucumbers have bounce back from the 40+degree Celcius heat-stress we had some weeks ago.We feel lucky that we can at least harvest one cucumber almost everyday. Some of the most exciting things about harvesting this month were many selection to choose from and different variety of vegetable to harvest. Furthermore, some summer vegetables that we were waiting for it to produce has also rewarded us it goodies like~ angled luffa, snake bean and cucumber white spine. We had rain in mid-summer! This has made kangkung (water spinach) very happy and grow new leaves very fast after we cut them. This time from my husband fishing trip we got some fish.

We grow 3 different eggplant variety ; Early long purple, Lebanese and Bonica and managed to harvest all 3 of them at the same day. Okra has start to flower again but will struggle again when the weather is cold at night. Capsicum this year are smallish compare with last year. Purple bell capsicum looks like eggplant when they are in the same container.

Our zucchini and pattypan squash are starting to loose its shyness, male and female start to bloom almost synchronously and we were able to harvest some decent size of produce. With the rain and cooler weather we managed to get an average sweet corn. Chives are abundant and I even take some division to grow on another veggie patch instead of keeping them just in pots. Spring onion that were grown probably 10 months ago with a very fat bulb look like white onion. We still have some leeks growing in the polystyrene container to harvest.

So so so happy that our angle luffa plant gifted us with one very sweet fruit for the first time. It is our first time growing them in Adelaide and I am glad that this warm loving vegetable are suitable to grow here. It has been years since I ate angle luffa, never buy angle luffa here even though we can find it is Asian grocery shops.

Some Australia brown onion grown from seeds were also harvested because they were completely dried.

We harvested our first cucumber white spine and okra burgundy for the first time this summer. Cucumber white spine takes a long time to produce compare with the other two cucumber that we currently have in the garden; Green Gem and Apple cucumber. I like cucumber white spine (heirloom)very much and the seeds are not found in any of the Australia seed company catalog anymore. This is my second year growing this cucumber, I hope I can managed to save some of cucumber white spine seeds this year. Although I have harvested some sweet corn, I have not even have a bite on it as it is reserved for Ilhan and Rayyan. Ilhan will eat it raw fresh straight away after harvest.

All the variety of beans that we are growing is producing prolificcally. We are keeping harvested beans in the freezer except for snake bean.

What have you been harvesting this month?

Visit Daphne's Dandelions for Harvest Monday.