shiukopuppy's Blog
shiukopuppy's January 2008 Entries
Last Post 59 days, 9 hours Ago
Jan 27, 2008 | 3:52 PM PST
Voila cucumbers and eggplants. Does everyone find the growth of eggplants to be agonizingly slow? They seem to fruit so much later than other chillies/tomatoes.. I think I'll have to buy the advanced plants at the nurseries in the future, because growing from seed is so slooow! We also have a short summer here so I tried starting them off indoors during late winter.. but had no success..
We've made plans to move to Sydney next year, so we'll have to learn about container gardening as we won't be able to afford living in a house. I've enjoyed trying out veggies in the ground but it will come to an end. We will definitely take the olives, pomegranate, citrus, mango and bonsai collection with us. I forgot to mention that I have some raspberries and red currants growing. Not ready to eat, but cute nonetheless. They will be left behind when we move as they will not thrive in Syd. I will also have to leave the apples, pear, almond & cherry behind.
Jan 26, 2008 | 5:30 PM PST
Well it's been 19 busy days since my last post.. We've been eating onions, beans, lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes from the garden. I planted purple beans that turn green as you cook them. They were delicious and are still growing. The olives and mangoes are growing steadily, as is my lone pomegranate :) . My Tahitian limes are quite large but still a dark green.. I'm not sure whether to harvest them as they are darker than the ones in the shops. My native plants look very well adjusted to their conditions.
Garden progress aside, I've been having lots of barbeques and enjoying the view of the garden from our porch. It's very dry here so it is sad to see the lawn drying and dying, but we can't waste our water...! I've also spent a lot of time reading on the porch (and ducking inside when scary people walk past). My chicken is broody so we are going to organize to get a fertilized egg for her to have a baby. And that's all that's going on in my neck of the woods! ^_^ Hope everyone is having as much fun ! xoxo
Jan 7, 2008 | 12:22 AM PST
Tags: cucumber , seed , seedling
My partner found some baby cucumbers in the garden! They are lebanese cucumbers that I grew from seed - so I'm very excited!! This year, growing from seed hasn't been very successful. My eggplant seedlings didn't survive and my lettuce seedlings are growing extremely slowly. I suppose I have had a lot of success with flowers, tomatoes, peas and beans, but not chillies, herbs or eggplants. It's strange because my successes were the opposite in the previous years where I grew a bed of chillies and even succeeded growing herbs indoors. Anyway, these are my very first cucumbers. Are there any pests I should be watching out for?
Jan 5, 2008 | 4:55 PM PST
Above is a close up of my callistemon bush (where the flowers once bloomed). I love these little thingies !
I've tried to get some gardening done this weekend, but it's the middle of summer and the heat has limited my gardening hours to the evenings - and has wilted the garden :) I fixed up the herb bed this weekend..
We tore out the coriander that had gone to seed and pruned the parsley that has grown out of control - over a foot and a half high and wide (too much for us to use and it also overwhelmed most of the basil). We went to the garden centre and bought more coriander, parsley, spring onions, thai basil and sweet basil. I've put the herbs into the bed and now have to set aside time to plant the shallots. Anyway it was a satisfying day! I love herbs!
