Hen and Chicks

 It took more than 3 years after I have adopted 3 hens and chicks plants at the same time that they decided to bloom for us. It was really sad to leave them since it took so long to finally enjoy their lovely bloom. Now these plants have been safely adopted by other gardeners in Adelaide.

 Hen and Chick plant is very easy to grow and can live with neglect at our previous dry Adelaide garden. This succulent plant is easy to propagate and does not need much soil to grow big. A very drought-hardy plant. It needs well-drained soil to live happy. The plant leaves form a rosette which resembles more like a flower itself.

 The flower bud jutting out from the leave rosette centre.

How the flower stalk form from this angle. I waited so long for the flower bud to finally open and bloom. I was even very worried that I will miss the chance to watch the bloom before I have to part with it.

 Alert alert when you found black ants exploring your hen and chicks plant, make sure to get rid of them. Those black ants will only cause problems to the plant as it usually a sign that it has bring some pest along with them and give shelter to unwanted pest. The presence of many ants on the flower bud can damaged the buds from being able to open and bloom.

Not just me, but bees were also enjoying themselves with the blooming flower of hen and chicks plants.

I think those gave-away plants must have more blooming flowers now. 

Sigh, wish I still enjoy looking at them.

Society Garlic (Tulbaghia violacea)

 Hello everyone its been awhile. November has been a really busy month and it is almost a month I have not done any postings. The reason being is we moved house. We are now officially not gardening in a dry Mediterranean climate garden but a wet tropical garden. Yes we have safely returned back to Malaysia since 15th of November. We were so exhausted the last week we were in Adelaide so busy with packing and cleaning our rented house. Moreover, a lot of other things needed to be organised and we have a 2 months old baby to care between me and my husband. The garden needed to be cleared and the agent wanted us to get rid most of the plants. So I decided to save or transport the plants that can be easily brought along back with me to Malaysia. It was another separate task we had to do because it will be heartbreaking to chuck the plants into the green compost bin. Most of my container garden polystyrene boxes were given away to friends, made me happy that they have an "instant garden" and a good way to spark gardening interest to friends. We managed to bring back 2 big boxes full of bare-rooted plants safely back . Well actually more than 2 boxes since I add in some plants into our luggage as well. We only brought back plants and Abbiyana stuff back with us by flight, the rest will be sent by sea shipment. I am one very crazy gardener, took me more than a week to transplant all the plants we transported back from our once upon a time Adelaide garden.

 I bought 8 bare-rooted society garlic from online and it was really cheap than buying a pot of plant from the nursery. I was also very satisfied as it was a very healthy bulbous root. The bulbous roots that I bought online came only wrap in a wet newspaper. Society garlic can tolerate a wide range of soil and it is also a drought and frost tolerant plant. The main purpose of me buying this plant is to deter unwanted creature to a certain area as many animals don't like the strong smell of this plant. An organic safe repellent plant. I was reading a forum that even big animal like deer dislike very much to come closer to this plant. If you bruised the leaves, a very nasty stinky smell will waft through your nose so be prepared. I think this work much better to repel vampire compare to garlic. Society garlic flowers are dainty star-shaped mauve in colour .

 The leaves of society garlic are edible so you can use them in cooking- stir-fry or soup or as a garnish whichever dishes you are fond of. Because I bought the bare-rooted bulbous society garlic 3 weeks before we depart, re-potted them until the day before we say farewell to Adelaide.

 I wrapped them bare-rooted again in wet tissues and it stayed more than 7 days in box before I had time to plant them. By that time new roots were growing in the wet tissues and surprise surprise some were producing flower bud! Very cool plant not temperamental plant, they are very hardy.

The plants are about 30cm tall when flowering. Society garlic has a long blooming season. When I planted one bare-rooted society garlic on this site, there were many ants around. After a few days, ants has disappeared from that spot. Hopefully this plant will multiply quickly so I can make new division of plants and allocate to other spots in the garden especially the new veggie patch project not being trampled by turkey and his friends at the backyard. The reason why we have wires around this spot to prevent turkey  or chicken from digging the newly made small veggie patch. We are living at my parents house now near Malaysia capital city as caretakers because my parents at the moment are staying in Borneo island due to my father new working place. We have at least half an acre now to grow food, plenty of space compared to our very very very small Adelaide garden. I have not been reunited yet with my 2 boys Ilhan and Rayyan hopefully early next month. Now that 5 years old Ilhan knew we are back, he wants to fly back here with us but it was so cute hearing him on Skype said "I can't board the aeroplane because I have no money and ticket". I have not finished my studies, hopefully I can focus on finishing up my thesis writing soon.

Flowering Harvest

 Many of the autumn-sown veggies are starting to flower so its a chase to harvest all those veggies ASAP. We harvested all of our Florence Fennel bulbs and carrots last week. Our pea season are ending this month. From self-sowed autumn tomato plants we get to harvest some ripe cherry tomatoes.

 The warm weather this week has hastened tatsoi to flower and got to harvest them. We harvested a few left overs chiogga beetroots.

Our only surviving chamomile plant is still producing flowers which we welcome very much.

 We also harvested boltardy beetroot last week. The last edible purple vienna kohlrabi was harvested. This kohlrabi has very long-ish thick stem but still edible.

 Golden nugget cape gooseberry and alpine strawberry fruits are still in season here in our small garden. We had volunteer garlic small bulbs sprouted in container last autumn and I pull them out all for immediate use in the kitchen.

Join in Daphne's Dandelions Harvest Monday.

Ubi Kentang 'Royal Blue"

Before living in Australia, I never knew that there are so many types of potatoes. Furthermore,different variety of potatoes also have different texture when cook and are put in categories like salad potato, waxy or floury. Some variety of potato are all purpose use, or good only for boiling or roasting. I am going to admit I am still not good at remembering which type of potatoes is good for boiling/roasting and so on. I still don't know much how to differentiate or understand the term  'waxy' or 'floury' potato. Maybe you can  give me some tips?

             

 Last year end of winter, I tried growing 'Royal Blue' potatoes which is an all purpose potato with purple skin and yellow golden flesh. See how different the 'Royal Blue' potato skins compared with other potato variety in the top basket.

Sprouted 'Royal Blue' potato  ready for planting.

'Royal Blue' potato seedlings.

 Instead growing the sprouted spuds in the same patch last year at the end of winter, I planted them in different location because I wanted to see how they grow in different spot around our house. This plant that was growing next to a row of bush beans and tomato plant grow very fast. But I suspect the heat from the brick drive pathway help a bit during the unpredictable weather in spring season. I usually stop dreaming planting potato in our scorching summer unless growing them in partial shade  with much lesser yield. So for summer, we swap growing potato with sweet potatoes.

The first heat wave visited early as always at the end of spring and some potato plants could not withstand the heat and few of the potato plant died earlier than I would like to start harvesting those potatoes. The almost 4 months old 'Blue Royal' potato did gave us a decent harvest size of baby potatoes in such an early stage compared to other potato varieties that we planted last year.

 The 'Blue Royal' potato can also be grown in our garden well at early autumn for winter fresh harvest. It is a reliable potato for us to grow twice a year in our micro-climate. So far, 'Blue Royal' potatoes gave the most yield per-plant in our garden compared to others in terms of quantities or production. Another all purpose potato that does well in our garden is Desiree.

Have a lovely weekend!

Selamat Hari Raya Haji.

Purple Top Turnip

 I had so much fun growing purple top turnip this year after more than a year trying to grow them successfully but did not get much of a root to enjoy. But this year I got it right and the best thing was that I don't even took care of them, never water and feed them. The turnip plant grows only with rain water. What I did was only sowing the seeds. It was only the matter of sowing the seeds on the right time and season. To grow them easily will be early-mid autumn which is March and April. Later than that the turnip might not give me much root but will probably produce flower much earlier. Thank you to Mr. H owner of Subsistence Pattern for introducing me this beautiful root vegetable.

Purple Top Turnip Seedlings.

Sowing turnip seeds in spring for me is a bit tricky if it get stress out due to lack of water will bolt easily. We really have dry weather by end of spring so it hard to make sure the soil does not dry out quickly.

Its time to thin those plants.

Sometime I got confuse whether these are turnips or radish plants if the label gone missing. Yes, the small hands in our home love to collect these labels. I always wonder how in other gardens all round the corner of this humble earth their turnip roots develop rather quickly and some I read harvested the roots in two months. Ours turnip roots does take long time to develop in good size. Although I sow them early autumn, it usually in spring seasons that I can enjoy harvesting the root. The root starts develop in spring and not much in winter except for the leafy top.

Turnips rubbing shoulders because the gardener did not bother to thin them was on sick leave :P.

Can be grown in container.

Oh my that turnip is squashing a volunteer celery I see.

Slugs/Snails must have been having a taste of that turnip looking at those scratches.

The container I have been using is only about 20cm deep.

Yup yup yup had so much fun growing them this year.

Or should I said not taking care of them this year at all.