The Lights of Lobethal

Last night we went for a drive to Lobethal valley in Adelaide Hills to see how the community there light up their house and garden to celebrate this month festive season.  The community here has continue doing this for more than 60years and it is one of the main community event in South Australia every December. This year we avoid driving here to enjoy the view on the weekend because cars hardly move on the street, it will be bumper to bumper. It was a relaxing drive last night as not many cars were around and we managed to cover more ground than last year. This time our driver my dear husband did not complaint as he gets to enjoy the sights while driving. Last year, he had to focus on the car in front of us.

Not only in the garden but Christmas decoration in the window as well.

I was surpised that this home owner even dress up as Santa Claus and greeted everyone so warmly into his garden. Usually we just admire those light decoration from outside the garden.Can you see the red costume?

It was a cold night even though it is SUMMER! My mama was so excited she was willing to come out of the car to take picture with Mr. Santa.

We came to see this house last year and enjoy our time looking at the Christmas light decoration so this year we did the same.

Have a nice weekend everyone. I will be hopping on an island this weekend!

Polystyrene container summer layout.

Yesterday after cutting the grass and weeding in the container at our backyard, I re-organized the polystyrene containers. So this is how the backyard looks like with the polystyrene containers side by side. At this section, brown onions, turnips, capsicum and Pak choi growing.

Chives, Water spinach (kang kong), Pak Choi, ect.

 Jicama seedlings (sengkuang), carrots, spring onions, cucumber, ect.

Leeks, sweet potato, carrots, cucumber, cherry tomato, pak choi, ect.

Bitter gourd, cherry tomato, sweet potato, ginger, carrots, lemon basil, pumpkin, ect.

Hopefully, all the plants that is growing in polystyrene container will do well this summer.

3 S veggie patch

This is a very small veggie space about 1 metre X 0.5 metre which in last September, Telephone peas and leeks were grown. The trellis were broken by wind.

In October we sowed many plant seeds which spell with the alphabet ‘S’ first directly on this veggie patch soil ~ Sunflower (Evening Sun-home-saved seed), Sweet Corn (Early Gem – Eden seeds), Snake bean (home saved seeds).

In Early December, the sunflower grow tall faster than sweet corns. We planned to make the sunflower as natural trellis for the snake bean to climb. Direct sowed okra plants are hiding between the sweet corns and not growing that fast but that is fine with me because I want the okra to establish on this veggie patch before it is really summer. By then the sweet corn will be harvested and cleared. Your turn next to produce then Okra dear!

Returned from fishing trip some of the sweet corn leaves were badly sun-burned and the male flower part too. I was not hoping for a good fertilization between male and female part of the sweet corn to form any ears by now. Am I surprised a few days later, I saw some silk on the sweet corn plants. More more more silk please on the cobs so hopefully we got a perfect sweet corn a full kernel please.

The sweet corn plants are not even taller than my waist at the moment and producing cob. Picture taken today.

A close up shot of the first ‘Evening Sun’ sunflower growing on this patch and first bloom today.

Leek, Turnip & Squash week

We are harvesting mostly leeks, turnips and squashes this week. The weather has been like back in winter this week. So the summer veggies are acting a bit wierd. We have many beans and cucumber flowering and about to produce something for the kitchen but due to the cold weather the beans and cucumber shapes look odd (curling at the end). The fruit growth is stunted for some.
Last Tuesday morning we harvested this:

Last Thursday morning we harvested this:

At last some red choi for stir fry.
Today morning we harvested this:

Finally some summer veggies, an eggplant and some beans.
It is officially summer here but it feels like winter and summer veggies growing so slow due to the weather. Tomatoes taking a long time to ripe. Here is Ms. Tigerella and Rayyan has been the only one to taste it.

Cucumber green gem won't grow so much due to the cool weather.

Kitaran hidup ketumbar (Coriander life cycle)

^{Coriander is known as Cilantro in America and other known names are Chinese Parsley (Malay Language~ketumbar). The part that is used from this plant are leaves and fruits (seeds). Coriander are umbellifers which also include celery, carrot, parsnip and parsley. It is not ideal to plant coriander with other umbellifers closely together because they need many root space alone. Coriander thrive in mild temperature about twentish degree Celcius. In Adelaide, end of summer and autumn is the best time to start sowing coriander. Germination rate is the best this time and coriander grows well in Adelaide winter. When spring comes it will start to flower. I found that coriander is sensitive to long day-length here in Adelaide as it will bolt easily. Although early spring provide good germination of coriander seedlings, it will bolt quickly even pruning it many times. Coriander seedlings just popped up.}

First true leaves of coriander look similar like other umbellifers at this stage like celery and carrots.

Coriander ready for transplanting and the seed coat still attached. As we can see that at this stage coriander already has many roots so be careful when you prick them for transplanting.

Bolting coriander where the upper part of the plant leaves has grown looking like carrot leaves. Coriander can be grown in pots but it won’t grow as tall as the one on the ground.

Coriander can grow more than 5 feet tall.

Coriander producing many white flowers.

Close up look of coriander dainty pretty white flowers.

Coriander forming fruits.

Many fruits of coriander. When the fruits are ready, it will produce very strong smell.

Drying the coriander plants to collect seeds later.

Coriander seeds ready to be collected.

Coriander seeds that can use for cooking and planting.

We still have many dried seeds of coriander plants to collect. I need more assistants helping me out collecting coriander seeds before they all drop to the floor.

Have a nice weekend.