Winter survivors

We have several warm loving vegetable plants I left in the veggie patch that have gone through winter exposed to the cool temperature and winds. These plants are perennials in warm countries but treated as annual in temperate or cool climate countries.These plants look so sad and we gave them hard pruning a few times until spring come there were half the size of their original size from their gloriest moment and some are bare of leaves. There were times I almost gave up on them and thought to replace them with other veggies. But now I am glad that I let them grow and now start to bear fruit. Almost all these survivors were planted by my mother when I just gave birth to Rayyan 15 months ago. 

Last summer I grew this Lebanese eggplant in pot. Then in spring I transplanted it on the ground and now it has started to produce. I did not realised it was fruiting until I was helping my mother transplanting zinnia seedlings in front of it. Opps as you can observe in the picture, I sowed the okra seeds a bit too close to the eggplant plant.

We grow many plants of early long purple eggplant last year but only 3 plants managed to survive the winter. This variety bear many fruits in early summer and autumn. In several occasion, I had to give away many of them to my neighbours and friends because there were too many of eggplants to eat. We almost got sick of it and now we miss this eggplant. Although it has already start to flower in early spring, it cannot form fruit properly due to the cold termperature at night. Then during middle of summer (mid January~mid March) when the weather was too hot  last year, the plant has problem setting fruit and the flowers won't last long. No good harvest of early long purple eggplant in this duration. Hopefully we can get some nice harvest before heat waves after heat waves.

Capsicum has also start fruiting. Phew...I almost going to toss this plant in compost a few weeks ago.

We had so many chili plants last year from cili kering (dried chilies) bought from Asian groceries that we boiled and put into mixer to make chili paste for cooking and its seeds my mother just chucked it on the soil. Chili seedlings pop up like weeds that I have to scoop many of them into recycled milk containers and giveaway to friends. We had endless supply of chilies in winter but in spring it stopped and I start panicking. From observation, I think my chili did good in winter because there were snuggle in between the broccoli leaves and protected from wind. After I cleared up the broccoli, our chilies stop producing. As we still have cold night still in early summer, we have problem with chili and capsicum seed germination. Feel much better now that our old pal is producing again.

Self-seeded tomato that pop up in winter has start to producie many fruits, can;t wait to see them turn to juicy red. I should stake and make more good air circulation for them. But I don't have much time for them with catching up with my studies and need to find some stakes.

Wallaroo fishing trip

My family and I went to Wallaroo and stayed there for 3 days and 2 nights for fishing and relaxing at the beach.  The drive to Wallaroo did not take more than 2 hours from Adelaide. We rented a cabin for our stay there. The cabin is near the beach and jetty.

At the beach where people can play in the water or sunbathing has shades which is good place to hide from the blazing sun especially in the afternoon since no coconut tree will ever grow there.

Wallaroo has a long jetty that able people to further the distance of fishing out at the sea from the beach. In the morning, we can have some shade away from the sun from things (i.e. plank material, ect) which has been line up on the right side of the jetty. However no shade in the afternoon and you are at the mercy of the sun.

Early in the morning while the sun is rising we went to catch some crab (crabbing) and we got a very good catch. We found this is the best time to catch crab.

Pull the net faster before the crab got away! This was my sisters first experience catching crab so as they still lack some skill many crabs got away. Luckily we caught so many crabs that the ones that got away was not miss.

Everynight in Wallaroo we were eating crabs and fish so much. I think we caught more than 40 big size blue swimming crab when we were there.

My husband and I think that Wallaroo is one of the best place to go crabbing as crabs here are big and have more compact meat inside the shell compared to other places that we had gone crabbing before. We also caught many mackerals in the afternoon on two consecutive days, roughly more than 40 fish a day. Other fish that were caught as well was 3 legal size of travelly and a snapper that my husband had to throw back into the sea because it length was not still legal. We also caught other type of fishes that I don't know the names but we had no luck with squid this time. When we reached home, I had to re-organize our freezer so I can keep and squeezed in all the crabs and fish we brought back from Wallaroo. Another thing I like in Wallaroo beach is that there is a separate jetty for people to swim and dive in where fishing is not allowed. I did not get the chance to play splash at this jetty because my husband,my mother and sisters was so excited and absorb with fishing and crabbing that I don't have somebody to take turn to watch Ilhan and baby Rayyan for a while. But it was fun playing with the kids on the shallow water and it is Rayyan first dip in the seawater.

 My husband and I got my mother addicted to fishing and crabbing from this trip. My mother got hooked with fishing on our first day when everytime we cast our fishing line the fish eat the bait immediately. It was like fishing marathon, my husband and I were busy putting bait on the hook for my mother and sisters and helping them to cast the fishing line as well as they still don't know how to use the fishing rod. We had so much fun and we are planning to bring them fishing and crabbing again.

For more watery images visit T. Bruce .

Container gardening (December)

I have been away a few days from home for fishing trip with my cousins and family. I was hoping that it won’t be too hot and the plants can survive with a few days without watering. I was worried with the plants that are growing in containers as they can’t keep water that much. When I was driving in through the driveway, I was shocked to see some of our sweet corn leaves dried up and the pollen as well. At this moment, I will think positively because some still don’t have pollen yet so will help with pollination later I hope. I water the plants straight away as many water as I can give them (we only use recycled water). In just these few days, I saw many changes in the garden; the warm loving vegetables grow so fast, newly emerged Asian green seedlings that popped up before departure many died, and many warm loving vegetable seedlings has germinated.

Mei Qing F1 Pak Choy growing in container with less 20cm depth soil. I don’t usually grow hybrid but this Spring~ Summer I decided to try. I found that Asian Leaf vegetable hybrid is more pest resistance. Although with the hybrid it still be munched a bit but not like non-hybrid which usually in time disappear altogether except for the stem. For the naked non-hybrid I just let them bolt and collect seed later so I can grow many of them when the butterfly is not in sight season.

This is also container (depth <25cm) with Mei Qing F1 Pak choy but has been munched more than top photo. The difference? Top~Previously red onions were grown; Bottom~ Previously spinach were grown. Did the red onions smell linger~ there. Cucumber and carrots growing in the same container. Cucumber plants has produced many female flowers. We can see many baby cucumbers.

   Kang kong or water spinach my favourite (soil depth <25cm) growing together with chives and leeks. The seeds I bought were not many so I am thinking of cutting some shoot and put it in water so the root will grow and I plant them back into the soil. Alternatively when I go to the market I buy a bunch of kangkung and plant them back like I did with the sweet potatoes.Maybe I let them grow and spread on the ground covering the soil.

Inter-planting Pak Choy with sweet potato (soil depth >30cm). My first trial growing sweet potato in container.

Australia brown onions are starting to form bulbs.

White spine cucumber, cherry tomato and carrots growing together in the same box with soil depth <25cm.

Christmas Riverbank display

Every  year in December at the River Torrens riverbank which is near to our place there is the Christmas Riverbank display event. On other months where is no Christmas decoration being display the garden there is well taken care of. I wonder how does edible mushroom taste if it grow as big as the fairy sitting on.

Like a musical box it spin and spin around.

People watching the Christmas Riverbank display from the other side of the riverbank.

There are more shops or entertainment this year compared last year, creating more fun atmosphere.

Have a nice weekend.

UP UP UP!!!

Summer vegetable seedlings from family such as cucurbit and fabricae is getting bigger now and starting to climb upwards towards the provided trellis. We hope this summer vegetables will establish itself before middle of summer when it is so hot here. Our favourite bitter gourd or peria is ready to climb, we can see its strong tendril curling on the stick. We grow some of bitter gourd plants in containers as we have success with it last year. I like the bitter gourd foliage as well it looks good against covering any wall. Hopefully ours will grow big soon and I can show you how it looks like.

Cucumber starting to climb up the arch but it has been blocked out of sun by the tall poppy at the other side of the arch. The cucumber plants has started to have both male and female flower.

We try to grow cucumber in polystyrene box this year. Our home-made trellis does not look so strong hopefully it won't colapse. The cucumber plant growing in the polystyrene box grow much faster than the one planted in the ground. I hope the cucumber likes the companion of carrots growing together in the same box.

Our first attempt at growing choko this warm season. We only planted one in plastic pot. It has already grown big and need a place to climb. Maybe I have to give the choko a climbing lesson with the water draining pipe from the roof or should I move it to somewhere else. Even our morning sun is so strong, the leaves of choko looks droopy.

Climbing bean takes a long time to produce beans but I was surprised with the purple king variety on how fast they grow and start to produce flowers. The snake beans (kacang panjang) that we sown the same time with purple king bean are still so small and growing so slowly. I think that purple king climbing bean can adapt to more cooler condition than snake beans. However when the heat waves comes we will see which is much more heat tolerant.

So up up up you go vertically and leaving some space for other friends to grow on the ground.