shiukopuppy's Blog

It's been cold and gloomy but we are still growing plants. The strawberries I have only seem to produce during winter and spring so we have lots of young strawberries! We ate our green mangoes and they were delicious! And we still have some limes to eat. The lemons are almost matured and the olives are still turning from green to purple in the greenhouse. The madarines are getting larger all the time and the Asian vegetables, lettuces, rocket and shallots are still growing, but slowly. I can see lots of flowers forming on my native Australian plants, so at least there will be winter flower displays!

I spent my weekend in the futile effort of raking up leaves. It is at least healthy, if pointless! :) I trimmed the raspberry, red and blackcurrant canes and tidied up and fed all the strawberries blood and bone. The fruit tree buds seem to be swelling, but my boyfriend says they do that in winter. He must have learnt this from one of his bonsai books? He pruned and trained some bonsai this weekend. So we had a nice weekend!

This is a garden surrounding a temple that we visited - the gardens have been there for centuries. This photo was taken on an overcast day in spring. We were unlucky on our sightseeing days because we had light rain and clouds. Here is the wikipedia link which has better photos:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K
inkaku-ji

This is a karesansui zen garden. It was made of rocks and gravel with some moss as well. We sat and viewed the garden for about ten minutes. The longer I sat there, the more details I noticed about the garden. It was very crowded here, despite the drizzle, as this garden is very famous.

I wish I'd taken more photos in japan that were garden related! But we spent most of our time in Tokyo.

I started gardening to grow vegetables that were unavailable. There used to be an Asian grocery store in the neighbourhood that sold a small selection of fresh vegetables unavailable anywhere else. Since it closed, we have had a drought of these vegetables, unable to find them at the Korean, Chinese and Indian grocery stores that are around. Finally, a friend told us about a store that was in a suburb we had never been to. It is kind of far away but they sold beautiful succulent, ripe vegetables unavailable elsewhere:

Thai eggplants (small and large)
Water spinach
Lotus roots
Fresh bamboo
Banana hearts
Longan
Pandanus leaves
Kailaan
Various Choy sum types

I would love to be able to grow some of these one day.

I left my camera at my parents' house a couple of weeks ago, so it has been impossible to show what's been happening in the garden. Also, it has photos of our trip to Japan - some of which might be interesting to share. We couldn't take photos in the bonsai nurseries (of which we visited several), but there are some pictures of gardens. I will get the camera back on the weekend.. feels like forever.. i hate posting without photos..

This weekend, I bought some spring onion, mint & peas seedlings. We also ate our lone pomegranate which was tasty. I think it will be worth keeping the tree (it is contained in a pot) to take to my future homes. Other than that, I keep dreaming of living in a warmer climate while everyone else here enjoys spring! :)

Hi all! Well, it's been a while, and it is autumn/winter here.. the garden is slowing down. I have some limes still ripening, and I have 3 ripe mangoes to be eaten. The mandarins are getting much bigger, the olives are turning and there are some green lemons. It is sounding very fruity, as the only vegetables I have left are the pak choi and spring onions.

I've been playing a new version of the farm game that I love.. I have grown some virtual turnips. And that's my news for the time being. Talk soon! xoxo Shiukopuppy