Less than thrilled about thrip

Melbourne had its warmest November night on record. Aparently it is nothing too special, we are breaking records in almost every Australian state and poor Adelaide is sweltering with the parts of the state in catastrophic fire danger stages. My folks are heading here for the weekend, so at least they can trade in their 43 degree day for a 34 degree day.

The hot conditions are playing havoc with the balcony garden. Water saving is in full force and the plants are thirsty. They are also covered in thrip, absolutely covered. The leaves, the flowers, the stems, they are spotted with these little brown flea-like bugs. And there is nothing I can do, well nothing except wait. It should cool down on the weekend and then I am afraid I am going to have to spray the lot. Hopefully I can find the resident ladybug and his mate and put them in another garden for the day, and hope that the bees also steer clear for the day.

Thrip are the pits, seriously the pits. But I guess it could be worse, there could be bushfires. Fingers crossed the fireys don't have any work to do today.

First Tomatoes for the Season

Last year it took until 3rd the of December to get my first tomato, albeit a yellow cherry tomato. This year I picked the first tomatoes (2 of them, pictured above) on the 15th of November! Probably all thanks to the unseasonably hot weather rather than my slightly early planting.

The race to the end was close. The tigerella which I was hoping would win is almost ready to eat, alas this reddening is a few days after the race ended. I knocked one of the tomatoes off the bush and put it in the window to see if it would ripen. It has certainly attained a blush of colour, but it wasn't quite quick enough.

The other hanging pot of yellow cherries looks full of green tomatoes, and it was the winner last year but none were big enough in time.

There was a second cherry tomato that was also beginning to ripen

but it was this one that took it out in the end.

Now to see when the first big tomato will ripen (and when oh when will the mortgage lifter set fruit!?!?!?!)

Harvest Monday

I've wondered long and hard about why I have trouble having good posts for harvest Mondays. I actually use a lot of produce from my balcony garden at certain times of the year but I never seem to have a lot when I photograph it. Then I realised I only pick what I need when I need it. Some gardeners are far away from their gardens, mine is literally at the doorstep. It takes only minutes to get stuff from the garden into the pan and only rarely do I remember to photograph it along the way. So I will do my best to show you what has been harvested and eaten from the garden this week.

Zucchini has been an interesting producer. I have eaten 3 or 4 large ones any many more smaller ones. It seems to produce many more female flowers to male flowers, and with only one plant at present it has trouble pollinating. In fact at the moment it has 7 flowering female zukes and NO male flowers. Still I managed to harvest four small and rapidly deteriorating zucchinis which I will put into a curry tomorrow night.

Strawberries have been a winner. I eat one of two a day. Problem is they are rotting so shortly after ripening (some even while ripening) so the harvest isn't as big as it could be. Now for the piece de resistance, and I will do a seperate post on these gems also, but in tonight's harvest I included the first of the cherry tomatoes!!!

They were sweet and tasty. I mixed them in with some lettuce, a beet leaf and a very small daikon radish (I had to thin the radishes) as a base for a small smoked salmon salad.

Very delicious. Hopefully I remember to get the camera out a bit more often when I grab the produce for the garden. There should be a lot more coming in the future weeks, despite the major bug and other problems.

Garden Bloggers Blooms Day

It is that time of the month again. Due to the early Spring hot spell most of the flowers in the garden are a bit scorched. The snapdragons are on their last lease of life and the blue cornflowers are just hanging in there.

The pansies seem to have gone from deep purple to white and purple! Very odd

Still the tomatoes are flowering well, when they don't drop off (even though I hand pollinate them.)

The zucchini has gone back to producing only female flowers, which means more baby zukes for my dinner but not any long ones for a proper meal.

The sunflower is stunning at the moment - he doesn't mind the heat.

And the geraniums are happier than ever!

I am planting some new flower seeds this week, portulaca, which like the heat and flower quickly and readily; lets see how they hold up with the summer heat. So the early and unseasonal hot weather has had an impact in the flower world ... stay tuned to see what it has done to the vegetables (I have the first of something just about ripe!!!)

Weather Patterns

Picture the scene. Warm, 29 degrees, glass of champagne in hand, lounging in a beer garden with three of my closest friends. Sounds like a lovely Summer thing to do? Maybe a Sunday afternoon? Well for starters it is not yet Summer here, it is spring, barely past middle Spring at that, and the champagne drinking in the beer garden was not on some random Sunday after noon but last night at just before midnight!!! It is definitely unseasonably warm here in Melbourne, days in the mid 30s and evenings that barely dip below the mid 20s. Ok so it is not as bad at the 46 degree weather we had last Summer, but it is definitely wierd for this time in Spring. Lovely weather for socialising, but less good for a newly-starting Spring garden. Indeed even worse for a garden that needs a. ferstiliser and b. thrip spray!


Maybe it was the champagne from last night but I succinctly remember hearing the barman say that today was only going to reach 27. Trusting his word over any online bureau of meterology (come on that would involve turning the computer on and I was far keener to believe the onset of a slightly cooler snap fed to me by the man with the drinks than bother to turn on my lovely new machine that early in the morning.) On this knowledge I popped out into the garden early in the morning (half seven is early enough for me thanks) and happily fertilised the tomatoes that were turning a hideous shade of yellow, added some seasol to the mix for extra luck and then pyrethrumed pretty much the whole balcony until the spray bottle ran out. This is acceptable to do in weather under 30 degrees. It was only when I wandered into uni and turned the computer on that I realised the barman had either fed me a line about the cooler change or was a little mistaken. Today is going to get to 31, at least, and probably more. The weatherman in The Age says its a tad too difficult to get it exactly right but it is more likely to hit the higher than the lower figure.

Hopefully the garden survives. The roots might burn, the leaves too. Who knows. Fingers crossed and toes crossed at present. In happier news the sunflower opened, pictures coming soon, and I found within it two ladybugs (I made sure the pyrethrum went nowhere near them.) On a second happy note while I was drinking my tea on the balcony I noticed a little native bee hovering on and ducking into the strawberry flowers. Luckily I didn't have enough spray left to get to those otherwise Mr Bee would be a dead bee. Loving that even in this hot weather the bugs are having fun and drinking their version of midnight champagne.

Back to It

Ahhh it is good to be back and to make up for my absence this will be a long and winding post complete with pictures and races and Wilson's Prom and more. The balcony garden is undergoing its first major heat test with pretty much a week ahead (and half a week behind us) of 30+ degree temperatures. I am saving as much water as I can in the household, and with it the balcony garden seems to be holding up, just. I'll update in a week or so when it cools and tell you what was tough enough to survive on the balcony garden, and what withered. Suffice to say I don't remember such sustained heat this early in Spring before, but I could be mistaken. At the very least it is going to be another long dry summer.

For now I'll just post a few photos of the balcony garden. The race is on between the tomatoes to be the first to ripen. A thrip infestation caused some damage in the past week so setting fruit has been difficult, even with the trusty electric toothbrush. However the two clear contenders for first tomato this year are the red tumbler tomato in the hanging pot.

and the tigerella.

It would be rather fun for the fuller fruit to beat the cherry in the race to my dinner plate, and odds are surprisingly in the tigerella's favour. The other tomatoes are growing taller and fuller but still not setting much fruit. These pictures represent only a fraction of the 25 tomato plants on the balcony garden (19 full sized in pots, 6 tumblers in hanging pots.)

The zucchini keeps on producing, although hand pollination and thrip have again set back the production of fruit. Still baby zucchinis are so much fun to eat, when put with broccoli, snowpea and silverbeet infused lentils, roast apples and pork they make an odd happy face (and tasty dinner.)

The strawberries are fruiting like mad! I eat two or three a day (once they ripen of course!)

These purple flowers aren't on the balcony garden, they were from my trip to Sandy Point, but I thought I would add them anyway.

And some gratuitous scenery shots of the prom. It was such a lovely trip! I do hope to get back to Wilson's Prom again one day, or at the very least back to the beach house, it was such awesome value and perfect for our little group weekend away (especially because I got the room with bunk beds! Such a grown up balcony gardener, hehe.)

Update

New screens for laptops can be verrrrrry expensive, turns out you can get a new laptop for $10 less than a new screen (or a really spiffy one for a few hundred more!)

Will update this blog quick smart, as soon as I play with this fun new thing and get the photographs of the garden transfered. Thanks everyone for the kind words while I was whinging about my lack of usable computers. Pretty tomato pics on their way ...

Laptops, Halloween, Leaf Miners and Photos

Oh the joy of shared university computers! It took me 5 minutes just to download an email. And this keyboard is so sticky I am worried my fingers will be permanently attached to it. Why, you ask am I in my university office typing my blog on the 'computer' they provide us with (actually they provide us with 9, between 200 postgrads! We sign a contract that they will provide us each with a computer, a locker and a desk, hmmmmmmmm Melbourne Uni!?!) Well, scarily, the laptop is in for repairs, and hopefully the problem isn't terminal. This means no access to my pictures, which will probably mean no posts for a few days! They just are not the same without the blurry photographs of the balcony garden. Hopefully I can get back online soon to post pictures of the balcony garden all dressed up for the Halloween dinner party I am holding tomorrow night. Alas too, this was a week I had set aside for serious thesis work, so I will just have to make do with the university computer and quit my whinging. At least I have access to one, and i have backed up my thesis. Imagine losing that ...

Anyway yesterday I posted about the Gazanias and other leaf miner victims in the balcony garden. It seems though that the balcony garden is not alone. As I was wandering into Uni I noticed several weeds on the way that were similarly afflicted. Plants too on campus seemed to have occasional signs. This is not somehing I have noticed before. Beginnings of a leaf miner epidemic in Melbourne?

RIP Gazanias

I loved these gazanias, an impulse buy at the time and not expected to last long but they gave enduring colour to the garden year round.

Now they are gone, victims of a newly rigid policy against leaf miner! Gone too are 4 of the 6 sunflowers. Not happy Jan!

While I Was Away

Sorry for the delay in posting. I spent a vigorous weekend down at Wilson's Prom and needed some time to recover. I thought holidays were supposed to be relaxing! Still the scenery was lovely and so was the beach house, the food and the company. I'll post the pictures from there sometime soon.

The balcony garden was neglected while I was away but given the reasonably cool but sunny days it managed to survive (though quite wilted by the time I got back.)

One amazing thing did happen while I was away - the lego people renovated! They now have a swimming pool, a kebab guy on the balcony, a sweeping staircase, a garage and a front garden!

If they can upgrade to a cool house, maybe I can upgrade to camera that isn't blurry!