November 9, 2008
· Filed under Garden · Tagged gardening
The neighbour’s cat has gotten in and had a field day with the nicely turned over soil that I had planted radish seeds in… so no radishes…
Mum gave me a left over cherry tomato plant that has, along with some parsley, gone in at the end of the bed with the other tomatoes.
Some of the butter beans that were planted where the peas were have finally come up.
The seed box is going well – most rows have popped up at least one item.
We have about 13 tomato seedlings- some from the seed box, some from the co-op Urban Orchard..
Hadn’t had any success with the lettuce seeds in the ground, so I placed the seed packets in the fridge for 3 days before planting some seeds in little pots. We’ll see if they come up.
Everything out the back is needing lots of water. Out the front the roses are blooming despite neglect. The acacias, tufted bluebell and the saltbushes are doing really well in the front yard.
August 17, 2008
· Filed under Garden · Tagged Back yard, cauliflower, chinese celery, gardening, lettuce, marigolds, peas, vegies
The peas are still growing and now have some stakes and jute string to climb along.
We were given this plant as a little seedling at our housewarming. It was labelled as Chinese Celery. It doesn’t have much of a stalk, but it’s leaves are huge and going everywhere. Maybe it’s not celery after all? It’s really huge.
The cauliflowers are also growing, but only leaves. I’m pretty sure they were put in too late to grow heads. We’ll see what happens.
The rogue marigolds are everywhere. They came up from mystery seed in the potting mix and are crowding out the little native in the middle and the daffodils around the sides. Mr Gnome is doing okay amongst the marigold crowd.
Meanwhile, the lettuce (from seed) in the pot, along with the potted parsley, is doing fabulously. The baby spinach, strawberry and coriander are suffering from the cold, I think.
Time to start thinking about spring/summer seeds…
June 18, 2008
· Filed under Garden · Tagged Back yard, gardening, peas, raised bed, vegetables, vegies
It’s taken about 10 days, but now I can see little green shoots from the pea seeds that we planted in the first raised bed.
No photo – they are very small and not that exciting.
June 9, 2008
· Filed under Garden · Tagged Back yard, fruit trees, gardening, olive
Only just worked out that our olive tree is a Frantoio. Couldn’t read the label very well so had to do some research.
Here’s what the research says.
Frantoio – Small/Medium fruit. High oil content. Heavy cropper. Ripens mid/late season. Origins in Tuscany, Italy. Often pickled with a nutty flavour.
http://www.baag.com.au/fsg_olives.html
Frantoio (Paragon) olives are small to medium size (2 to 3g) and oval in shape. The olives have a pleasant nutty flavour when pickled. When mature, the fruit are coloured purple-black, but at the preferred harvest time for oil production are green and purple-green. The highly noted oil is of fruity character, highly aromatic and of leading quality.
http://www.oliveaustralia.com.au/About_Olive_Trees/Frantoio/frantoio.html
http://www.australisplants.com.au/olives/varietySelection.htm
June 8, 2008
· Filed under Garden · Tagged baby spinach, gardening
The coriander is coming up from seed, as is the parsley. The baby spinach are doing very well in their big pots, except for one lot which has some holes- a snail perhaps?
(Ed. 1/7: I found the culprit: a brownish caterpillar hidden under one of the leaves was creating the holes. It has been relocated to a different plant!)
June 8, 2008
· Filed under Garden · Tagged apple, apricot, avocado, Back yard, fruit trees, gardening, lemon, lime, olive
In the back yard, we currently have 7 baby fruit trees planted.
We have a Lisbon Lemon (thanks P.L.),
a Tahitian Lime (dwarf graft- from Unley M10)
a Moorpark Apricot for espaliering along the fence (almost lost all its leaves now) from Perry’s,
a Red Fuji Apple (also from Perry’s Fruit and Nut Nursery) that hasn’t lost its leaves,
a Reed Avocado in a mesh and shadecloth protector for during winter (also Perry’s) that should be fairly self-pollinating (or off a plum?!) and produce big, creamy fruit,
a Pink Jerusalem fig that has lost all its leaves and looks like a sorry stick in the ground (from Perry’s- it is deciduous), and an olive that is also very sorry as it cannot stand up straight and ever since we bought it has leaned to the side (Unley M10).
May 28, 2008
· Filed under Garden · Tagged acacia, favourites, Front yard, gardening
This one is my favourite so far in the front yard. I’m sure that once the muntries and ruby saltbush start producing fruit that will change.
Acacia myrtifolia
It should turn out to be a rounded shrub about 2m high with cream coloured ball-shaped flowers. I like the leaf shape.
sorry but the picture is not the right way up.
Kunzea pomifera (muntries) should be very tasty when they grow.
Kunzea
pomifera
May 27, 2008
· Filed under Garden · Tagged gardening, indoor
We have a very beautiful and colourful (PINK!) Rainbow Tree (Dracaena marginata) in our entry hall by the window. Thanks Shell!
