totally inept balcony gardener

Harvest Monday (on a Tuesday)

2012-01-24T09:57:00.010+11:00

I'm a day late on my harvest Monday post, but given the harvest in here covers a few weeks I didn't think it was a problem. Before I left for my trip I was harvesting a fair amount of produce, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchinis, corn and even an apple. For a while I was eating everything with lettuce, trying to use up the cos that all ripened at once.

I'd picked up the trick in vietnamese restaurants of eating spring rolls wrapped in mint and lettuce. I did that at home and it was delicious. Then started wrapping just about anything in lettuce and mint!

Even sausages.

Greek salads were a hit for using up the tomatoes and the cucumber. I also just ate them as is!

There were yellow zukes as well as cukes.

The apple - this was the first one - was lovely. Not quite ripe, not quite properly flavoured but darn it, it was the first apple I;ve ever grown so I thought it was great. I've eaten a few more since I got back and tastes/textures have varied wildly.

Then there was the amazing harvest from my birth dad's garden - delicious carrots, onions, beans and more. I barely had time to cook it all before I left but it was greatly appreciated.

Next Harvest Monday I promise more pics of the tomatoes, in particular the huge black russian which adorned my salad plate. Because I know that is all the northern hemisphere people want, just some lovely, juicy, ripe tomatoes ... well here's a peek ...

If you are after more harvest posts head on over to Daphne's Dandelions for the harvest Monday round up.

How to Help a(an) Hibiscus Blossom

2012-01-21T10:48:00.005+11:00

I promised hibiscus pictures a while back, and here they all are. Although this is usually a crisp white flower, for some reason it's gone dusty pink on the balcony garden. Seriosuly, that's not just the camera making them that colour. It is even more noticable on the one flower currently blooming on it. It's only ever had one bloom before (other than when I bought it) so to see not one, but 3 at one time was amazing.

For the record hibiscus plants are not really fans of living in a pot, because they have very deep roots. Make sure the pot is deeper than it is wide, and keep it relatively well watered. The plants can deal with a fair amount of heat, even slightly direct sun, but this one was suffering with my super strong Summer Westerly sun so it was moved a bit further back into semi shade. Lots of food and water and voila, you get at least some flowers.

There is so much more flowering, fruiting and feeding me in this garden, stay tuned for more posts on these lovelies.

But, in the meantime, if you want to read about lego cakes, Brisvegas and substituting alcohol with fairy bread head on over to my other blog.

Silence is Golden

2012-01-20T08:43:00.004+11:00

Silence is golden. As golden as a nectarine's insides? Actually probably not, because silence at the moment is kind of painful given I have an ear infection in both ears and the only thing I can really hear is ringing. Things went a bit silent here in blogland again too - that's because I was off on my long-awaited driving holiday with my cousin. I'm going to post a few floral highlights here of our journey from Brisbane to Melbourne with the help of Betty Reg (our gender-confused Ford Fiesta) but most of the recap will be on my other blog, A Teetoal 2012, which highlights my year without alcohol. You will be able to enjoy reading about the good bits:

Katoomba's 1970s charm
The Jenolan Caves
Some great, little town accomodations (and hallucinations/reality of the nicest hotel owner ever)
Fish and Chips on a Beach
The Portrait Gallery of Canberra
Seeing friends while on the Road
Minigolf as a panacea

and the less good bits:

The fog that ate Katoomba and the Three Sisters
Male backpackers and the urge to be less than gentlemanly
Sinus/Ear/Chest infections that start on the first day of your trip and only get worse!

Indeed it is this last 'not good bit' that pretty much marred the whole trip and might keep me from promptly posting everything about the adventure. It is also why things are still a bit silent for me, the whole world is muffled! I'm very used to ear infections, having suffered them all my life, but this one is a doozy. Suffice to say I have learned the hard way that it is probably better to go to a dr while away, no matter what the hassle, than to wait a week until you get home and realise the ear infection has gone from annoying and singularly located, to severe and in both ears!

On this Balcony Garden blog I've also got plenty of posts planned as the garden has been just lovely in summer. Apples have been eaten, tomatoes have ripened and although the corn has not gone as planned it looks super pretty. It responded well to Mr M's balcony sitting. So stay tuned.

Other Balcony Blooms

2012-01-04T09:51:00.006+11:00

My last post extolled the virtues of the hardy portulaca - a colourful, forever-flowering little number. But what else is blooming in the garden these days? I keep missing Garden Blogger's Blooms Day each 15th, so I figured I'd just give you all a rundown of some of the blooms on the balcony over the last few months. There are three categories - general flowers, fruit flowers and veggie flowers (ok half the veggies are fruits but I'll keep them seperate.)

Fruits include the lime tree which flowers constantly, but has no fully-formed fruit yet.

And the lemon, apples, nectarine and currants all produced interesting blossoms this year.

What about veggies? Cucumbers, tomatoes, pumpkins and zucchinis all flower, though only three of the four bear any fruit (pumpkins were a loss this year)

Other Flowers?

My hardy red geranium which has been around for years in its tiny pot keeps on trucking

There are also many different coloured snapdragons

Marigolds are both beautiful and useful in the pest-remover category.

The new, lovely, fuschia

So there seems to be a lot blooming in the garden. Even the hibiscus is getting into the swing of things - I'll post a pic once it finally opens its petals.

Portulaca for Three

2012-01-03T19:13:00.004+11:00

What's not to love about this lovely little plant. One pot, bought as part of a 5 for $10 potted colour deal, and low and behold there are three colours in there!

Yellow

Orange

Pink

It doesn't need much water, and flowers and flowers and flowers. The only downside is that the petals are a bit papery and don't stand up well in the rain. But overall this is one little lovely that has a definite place in the balcony garden.

Harvest Monday (the first for 2012)

2012-01-02T14:49:00.007+11:00

It's been a while since I managed one of these - so here are some pics of what I've harvested over Christmas.

Corn (about ten ears all up from this first batch)

Tomatoes (a few green zebras and lots of lemon drops and red tumblers), Cucumber (just one so far, but more to come), Basil (lots of basil)

I've also picked lots of mint of various kinds.

Ands nectarines, three of them, all tasting slightly different.

Gotta love a good harvest.

Welcome 2012

2012-01-02T10:44:00.005+11:00

What a scorching start to the New Year! I hope everyone had a good New Years Eve and is ready for a great year ahead. I am having a bit of a different year and I am doing something I've barely done in decades. I am having a Teetotal 2012! That's right, the champagne swilling, cider downing doozy of a boozehound is going alco-free for a year. Some people laughed at me, others put in full support, some looked completely confused as to why a grown woman would contemplate such a farce.

I will most certainly continue to blog about the balcony garden here, but if you would like to follow my Alcohol Free 2012 Journey then pop on over to this blog and sign up:

A Teetotal 2012

Also, remember I am technologically retarded at the best of times, so I apologise in advance for any accidental cross posting.

Happy New Year Everyone, now I'm off to celebrate with a lemonade.

Some new additions at the end of 2011

2011-12-29T08:24:00.007+11:00

Mum and I enjoyed that nectarine yesterday. We halved it and ate it while watching the cricket on my couch. The sweet fruit contrasted with the bitterness of Australia's batting collapse!

We also bought some new lovelies for the balcony garden. First was a fuschia to replace the one I had for three years that never flowered. I wanted a Winston Churchill fuschia (which is dark pink and dark purple) but then decided this one was more striking.

I also got some berries and cream mint. I covetted Lisa's mint collection, so I am starting my own.

I also have normal mint, which is doing better after a bug attack (the pic is from when it was sicker.)

And ditto on the chocolate mint. For some reason I thought hanging baskets would help keep them safe.

Any end of year new purchases in your garden?

Nectarine and Other Hijinks

2011-12-28T10:32:00.001+11:00

My nectarine tree has two nectarines on it, two. These are cherished and coddled little sweet things just ready to be eaten (the pic above is an oldie). I plan on sharing one with my Mum today and one with my lovely boyfriend in a few days. Both will be blissful eating experiences I am sure. Now as you can tell from this I am a sharer. I love sharing the produce from my balcony garden. It isn't much, but it goes around a fair way. I cook meals for my friends with it. Occasionally if there is a glut of tomatoes I take some to my cousin's house. Even my neighbours sometimes get a stray carrot or two.

But not everyone is a sharer, some are stealers! And I've heard some bonkers stories about fruit tree use and abuse this Christmas and I just wanted to share them with you.

Story 1 - beware the mother in law

My cousin told me the story of a friend of his who has a lovely stonefruit tree in his backyard. For the sake of the story let's say it is an apricot. The tree is often laden with fruit, bulging, sagging, just waiting to ripen. You have to be quick to beat the birds to it, but in his case he was too slow and a bird got it. Yes, just a single bird - his mother in law! She came over one day and cleaned him out of fruit. What's worse is that it wasn't for her own consumption - but she gave them to her friends at church!!! RANDOM! I don't think I need to say much more, except that this is wrong, wrong, so many levels of wrong.

And it isn't isolated. Another friend at uni had the entire contents of his apple tree stolen by neighbours while he was away. And no neighbour will own up to it - but given the isolation of his backyard it had to be one of them.

Story 2 - karma counter

My Aunt has a neighbour who counts the fruit on his avocado tree. Even though technically the fruit hanging over my Aunt's side of the fence is hers (a fact that sent him pale with terror when she told him) he keeps them for himself. Now if the tree had one or two fruit, like my lemon tree at most times, then I'd understand this hoarding and counting and keeping to oneself. However, the tree, in its worst year, usually has over seventy fruit! SEVENTY! All for him, and his wife. And the day one accidentally fell off on my Aunt's side of the fence ... well ... she threw it back over for fear of this little man and what he might do lest the counting fall short.

I know if I had a tree with that much fruit I'd be gorging on avocado each day, and giving them away to those I love best, those nearest, those a little over the way and probably anyone who just walked by.

He does this each year. And then one year there were only a few avocados on the tree! Karma for the counter, karma.

But back to my nectarines - and wouldn't you know it, sharing pays off. Like the neighbour of my Aunt's I had been counting my nectarines, but even a toddler with dyscalculia could tell there were only two, well two highly visible ones at least. Yesterday I looked out and saw a nectarine lying on the mulch, fully ripe. I thought maybe I'd knocked one of the two off, but no, there were still two on there, ready to be shared accordingly. This was a miracle third nectarine! As I was enjoying a day to myself I decided to let this third morsel be all mine. And it was delicious. :) Ok so in a post about sharing I end up keeping the extra to myself, but I don't think there's too much harm in that.

In other fruit news

2011-12-11T23:37:00.004+11:00

The balcony garden isn't just a haven of pampered fruit trees - there are a couple of smaller additions to the sweet goodies. Red currents and strawberries are the other candidates for delicious fruit salad additions. The red current was mostly eaten by snails this year, but a few goodies still got through.

I'm planning on passing the strawberries on to a friend, they're not happy in the pots and would thrive if given proper space and care. No pics of them either, given they haven't fruited in ages!

Tomatoes are also a fruit - but that's a whole other post!

That's a pretty fruity balcony you've got there ...

2011-12-09T12:58:00.007+11:00

Indeed my balcony garden is so fruity, the apples grow upside down! If you recall a post a long while back - I decided to 'fruity' up my balcony in order to skimp on buying soil all the time. It worked a little - or maybe it just cluttered the balcony up even more - but either way the 6 fruit trees are here to stay, and it looks like this summer they are earning their keep. For those who aren't in the know, the balcony garden houses six fruit trees - they are (in order of entrance into the BG world)

A Lemon Tree (gifted by my dear friend the not-so-stinking Hippy G, probably Meyer, was kind of sickly, but seems to be happier now)
A Nectarzee (gifted by my birth mother, has issues with leaf curl but holding on)
A Tahitian Lime (gifted by me, to me, because, well, I wanted my friends to have G and Ts with style)
A Golden Delicious Apple (a me-gift again, but I love this apple, it's my favourite kind)
A Granny Smith (because every good apple tree needs a companion)
A Fig (gifted by the lovely Ms M for my 30th)

So how are they faring overall? The lemon tree has always struggled, but a larger pot, some care and careful fertilising and a prime position means it is covered in little lemons this season. When I say covered, I mean about 10-12, but when a usual crop is lucky to have more than one this is a total blessing.

The lime is less successful, no doubt because of its youth, the way-too-small pot, and lack of adequate fertilisation. He'll be my next care and repair task. At least he keeps on flowering, in the faint hope he will fruit, which smells divine.

The apples are amazing! They're still young but they're fruiting and unlike other growers who let their trees mature, I'm letting it fruit. I don't care what anyone says and how much they say this'll hurt the tree. I'm a free range gardener and if my younguns wanna let loose and fruit then so be it. I thinned the fruit back though, and they still look happy and healthy and I can't wait to try an apple in the later summer/autumn months.

Mr fig twig - he aint no twig anymore - and he is fruiting happily and well. Rust is still an issue, mostly because I keep not attending to it!

The nectarzee (that's a dwarf nectarine for the uninitiated) had huge problems with leaf curl, at least it did in the past. While one branch was affected this year the rest of the tree came away unscathed. I am loathe to spray for it, and seems my little fighter fended for himself. There are two nectarines ripening this year, so cannot wait to nibble on them both.

Spiders are a problem with all the fruit trees, they seem to have made themselves at home. Not a problem in a large garden, with large trees, but for an arachnaphobe with a balcony garden of small trees it can be a bit of a problem. At the moment we are in a pretend-ignorant coexistance, but it is an uneasy truce. I'll keep you posted if arachnowar goes down.

So what fruit trees do you grow? Any tips?

Happy Belated Blog Birthday

2011-11-18T13:52:00.005+11:00

My Blog turned three, and I didn't even notice! ooooooopsss. Sorry blog. That means the balcony garden is more than three years old! And boy has it changed over time - from this in its first year:

to this!

It has grown up and out and over and through. Well happy belated birthday blog!

Garlic Breath

2011-11-16T11:55:00.004+11:00

Gosh do I love garlic, though it doesn't really like me. It has to be cooked, and cooked well, or I get a little case of the ouchy insides. But never mind that because I love garlic and eat it on a regular basis (leading to rampant garlic breath ... maybe that's why I'm still single ... or it could be the workaholism, alcoholism, and utter nutjobism ... nah totally the garlic!)

It goes in garlic soup, in stir fries, chilli, goodness I even just cook it up and add it to a salad. It is healthy (as viewed in most cultures) and has some medicinal benefits (again seen by most, but not all cultures)

Mike over at Urban Organic Gardener had a great, detailed post on growing garlic - though note for us Aussies, planting time isn't until Autumn, early Winter. Most people follow the rule of planting garlic on the shortest day of the year, and pulling it out on the longest day of the year. It's probably the best rule of thumb, but as usual I throw rules out the window. I planted this year's crops back in April and May and a last lot in June. Most of the tops are dying off now (or have already died off) which means it is ready for harvest.

And harvest I did - well 3 of the pots at least. The spoils were pictured at the beginning of this post. There are about 3 more pots last to harvest. They're small cloves, but boy do they pack a punch. Tasty, bitey yet slightly sweet?!?!? I've been using them where I can and gave a few away to friends. The haul is small, pots don't allow for much soil, so I fertilised these guys often. Maybe I need to plant elephant garlic to get a decent sized clove?!

Garlic takes ages, but it is well worth the wait in my view. And I plant them in slightly shallower pots (probably hurts the size factor) but it means I can layer then around the garden around the bigger pots for variety and a play with height.

Do you grow garlic? Do you have any tips to share? What's your cure for garlic breath?

Springtime for Mister Balcony Garden

2011-11-15T20:43:00.005+11:00

Yes it has been a while, a very long while. Spurts of writing here and there but when you have cranked out 100 000 words on man's darker side you tend not to want to write much at all. Slowly I managed to start reading again (non-work books) and teaching took me away from Nazis, but still I couldn't muster the word-power to get back on this blog. But hopefully the winds of change are in town, and the inept balcony gardener can write once more. But just because I haven't written doesn't mean I haven't been gardening! Just take a look at the pic above, and you will see the balcony garden is going very well indeed. No camera cord yet (blame laziness and forgetfulness) so the pics in today's post are brought to you by my trusty little Motorola. Not bad either, if you ask me.

Above is most of the balcony at the end weeks of Spring. It is green, full of spiders and snails and vegetables and fruits are on their way. The flowers of spring have mostly died off, but I plan on adding a few pockets of annual colour here and there, mostly to attract some more bees. The abutilons are attracting birds (much to my delighted surprise) and the lemon and lime blossom works a treat on the bees but you can never have too much wildlife. Speaking of wildlife my neighbour's cat has discovered how to climb the fence, so he is an occasional visitor when I'm lucky.

But what about my pretties? The apples ... they're fruiting amazingly (I almost shed a tear thinning these)

Both the golden delicious and the granny smith have a few fruit left on them. I'm intrigued to see how well they grow.

Tomatoes are also thriving, some planted earlier than others. I'm trying a few varieties to see if they can outrun the early death. No hardcore boring hybrids this year with germ resistance. Instead I planted what I wanted, whether it is a softie and falls down dead at the hint of blight, or is a trusty old workhorse. I chose for flavour, variety, and what was in the shop at the time!!! Two green zebras, a lemon drop, a red tumbler and a black russian round out this year's contenders. I also planted a mortgage lifter in my friend's garden in the hope that it'll grow and she can supply the tomato crack. Here's a pic of the flowering and fruiting red tumbler.

There are also pumpkins (I'll do a whole post of them later) in a pot with corn and beans. Ok when I say pot, I mean mega pot, and yes, I'll post on it all very soon. I actually have two mega pots! There are also figs (just a pic of a bit of Mr Fig Twig below, but there are little fruits growing), nectarines (no pics), lemons (might be more than one this year!!!) and more. Garlic, mint (2 kinds, well 1 in a hanging basket and 1 that's been ravaged by the snails) lettuce, basil and so much more.

Right now we are getting a Spring shower, and the temperature has dropped. It makes me want to go sit in the Garden with a cuppa tea (or a long island version) and take in the Springy goodness. Instead it is back to first year essays! Until next time (and trust me, it won't be so long between posts.)

Thanks for the lovely comments while I was away

2011-10-18T23:33:00.003+11:00

Coming very soon to an inept balcony garden blog near you:

1. An update on the balcony garden (it's thriving despite my neglect)
2. Possible harvest of apples
3. Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomates (they haven't died yet!)
4. New plants (natives, flowers, pumpkins of ridiculousness, chocolate mint and more)
5. More spider battles (the good, the bad and the very ugly)
6. Snailaggedon part 2 - the re-deadening

and a Phd! Well fingers are crossed on the last one, it's been 8 weeks and counting since I put it in for examination. Should hear back in a month. Let's just hope I passed, so I can be Dr Unemployed, instead of simply unemployed.

Now to find the camera cord (yes I'm still looking for it!) and we will be back in business.

BBS

2011-07-18T13:23:00.003+10:00

Hi Blog peoples. If you haven't guessed by now the blog is on a little bit of a hiatus. Between the last weeks of PhD writing and losing my camera connector cord I've had little ability to provide good content to this blog. The Thesis is due August 26th and it will be in then for sure. I look forward to sharing the Winter/Spring joys of the balcony garden with you then. For now, think about delicious home grown broccoli, which is what I have been enjoying recently!

Here's a gratuitous photo for posterity:

Entangled Messiness

2011-06-01T14:02:00.003+10:00

I like the word entangled, I use it in my thesis to describe my cohort of writers. It has a messy web of meanings which adds to its flair. Unfortunately I am entangled in a little bit of a less lovely battle, tis quite the quandry really, and it is all to do with the resident balcony garden arachnids.

It has been a particularly bad year for spiders in South Eastern Australia. The weather has meant they have been prolific and I've noticed a surge in numbers on the balcony. Now I am a rather large arachnaphobe. Having been bitten twice I am most definitely shy of them. Redbacks and Whitetails have no room in my life, if I see them they get squished, end of story. Although things like Huntsmans and Daddy Longlegs do a great service to the house I do not wish to see them. They can lurk and hide and do their jobs, just dont come near me or I will let out the most ear piercing squeal and hide in the corner and cry until someone removes them. I am less fearful of little baby spiders, those cute little red mite-like ones for instance. The problem comes with garden spiders. I don't mind the little ones that scuttle away when I turn over a pot with my gloved hands. They can get a little bigger and although I will shudder and get nervous when I see them it isn't squishville for them. No I have a different type of garden spider, he is aggressive and comes at me with all guns blazing. Yes he is just being territorial and I do have a tendency to pull down his web so I'd understand the animosity. It is just that I have no time for a spider like this, oversized, over-aggressive and not welcome on the balcony garden.

Currently he lives in the metal railing of the balcony and I have little chance of catching him and either squishing him or releasing him somewhere else. If only he wouldn't be so aggressive and the webs are becoming a problem. The tricky question is do I spray them to eradicate them or just let nature be? Should I just let Mr Aggressive Arachnid live his life?

Volunteering Rockmelon Presents (alternatively titled My Mum's Melons)

2011-05-31T13:53:00.006+10:00

I get volunteer plants, most of them unwanted. From the masses of weeds to the violas that pop up everywhere and are occasionally allowed to live the balcont garden has its share of volunteers. My aunty gets a lot of volunteer plants, usually tomatoes and she lets them live because she thinks they are the hardiest of the bunch.

However Mum had the best volunteer plant of last season - a rockmelon! I have spoken about it before but haven't got around to putting up the pictures. I managed to eat some when I was last in Adelaide and let me tell you, this was one awesome rockmelon, sweet, juicy and perfectly textured.

At Christmas it was simply an uiendified vine. By the time I left I surmised it was either a pumpkin or a melon but was no closer to true identification. Then its melons grew and grew. It grew up and away, hanging fruits over the roses and climbing the trellises put in place for other plants.

All in all it was the best volunteer plant because my family eat a tonne of rockmelon in Summer and this one was for free. Unlike Mum, I don't have a composter in my tiny space (yes I know it is possible but no, I am not starting it any time soon) so there is limited chance of me getting a volunteer rockmelon. And it is very difficult to grow rockmelons in pots ... but has that ever stopped me before?

So stay tuned, there could well be adventures on rockmelonland in the balcony garden next spring!

An Abutilon Obsession

2011-05-28T11:20:00.005+10:00

Abutiltons, Chinese Lanterns, or as I sometimes get confused and say, Japanese Lanterns (I am well aware that China and Japan are very different places, gosh, I am the person who gets mad when someone says their food is Asian without specifying which exact country of origin, but for some reason when it comes to this plant my mind goes away and I often say the wrong name.) They really are rather beautiful aren't they.

I was reading Jamie's blog a little while back (actually a long while now) and he commented on his neighbour's lovely orange abutilon (Chinese Lantern) which overhangs into his garden at times. At my old house in Adelaide Mum used to grow a very large organge abutilon also which seemed to never stop flowering. And there is one at Uni which I keep wishing to take a cutting of but don't desire to be kicked out over such a reason (protesting to keep my office space and funding is another story.)

On a whim last year, when out shopping with my mother on one of her trips to Melbourne we impulse bought a white hibiscus and a red abutilon. I've gushed about this before, and with good reason. It just grows and grows and grows. The guide said to prune it when it stopped flowering but so far it has never stopped flowering and the shape is fine so I don't feel the need to prune it anyway. It is suffering from an inferstation of sorts, ants, and little brown mounds of ickiness (and it looks a lot less healthy than it does in the above picture.) It is scale, evil, evil scale. One old gardening book says take the plant out and burn it. Another says to give it a good rub with rubbing alcohol, another says pest oil but that last one didn't work. I say it is all very hard work and the poor plant has suffered enough. But then it all comes down to a matter of space.

My balcony isn't big by any standards and the greater part of the space is reserved for vegetables and fruit trees. A few flowers float around the place like snapdragons, violas and pansies but these are few. So what flowering bush to get after a red abutilon ...

A yellow abutilon! Instead of branching out and buying a rose or some replacement lavender or any other flower I went with my favourite. It has already outgrown its first pot and looks set to rival its red counterpart in a few months. The flowers are the most beautiful pastel yellow and I can't help but stare at them when I get up in the morning. The abutilon has moved spots on the balcony but I am confident he has his correct home now, next to Mr Fig Twig.

After the yellow abutilon there really wasn't any more room at the inn. Space is a premium and two lovely ever flowering bushes are enough. But then what is this?

A white abutilon! Ooooops ... Ok not actually an oooopppss because I didn't buy it and I have no plans to permanently house it. This was acquired at the same time as the yellow one but the purchaser had no time to take it home so I said I would look after it and keep it safe for a few days. A few months later it is still there, but I don't mind because it really is absolutely lovely. I'll need to pot it up for her soon or it'll run into touble but I am sure, once she takes it and settles it into a potmin her backyard it'll be happy. For now it is with my other abutilons and enabling my little abutilon obsession.

The question remains, what do I do with the decimated red one? Do I

a) bin it entirely and let the yellow one use its space
b) take cuttings from unaffected areas and hope to strike a replacement
c) buy a replacement
d) give up on veggies altogether and form an abutilon sanctuary?

Decisions decisions. Are there any plants that you collect whether by accident or by design or by obsession? My Dad used to collect orchids. OK collect is a bad term, as he had 100 but they were all the same variety!

Harvest Monday

2011-05-23T23:27:00.004+10:00

Wow, it has been ages since I last posted! That's the trouble with being in the end stages of a thesis, you miss the days as they fly on by while you are knee deep in words and ideas. The good news is that it is coming together and I should submit on time. The better news is that the Autumnal Harvest is already underway.

Shortly before my self-imposed thesis work-a-thon I planted some Winter crops. In went broccoli, wombok, snow peas (both dwarf and mammoth on a pretty little though slightly dangerous trellis) beetroot, beans, carrots and garlic. I've already sampled a tonne of baby spinach and I can tell you it is divine. I harvest it almost daily. So green, soooooo good for you, and so easy to grow, I don't know why I didn't plant this sooner. I plan on adding more to the garden asap.

Thanks for all the lovely comments while I was AWOL, they are so heartening. I promise to try and write more about the balcony garden and less about theoterical considerations of Third Reich memoir for historians so this blog gets going again! No current pics alas (I've lost the connecting cord for the umpteenth time) but here a pic from a Winter's garden past to get us in the mood for cool weather balcony gardening.

For other harvest posts from around the world visit Daphne's Dandelions.

Harvest Monday

2011-04-11T23:58:00.005+10:00

Well wont you just look at my lovely harvest. The corn, the pumpkins, the apples, the potatoes.

Ok so that's just the latest jigsaw. It took me 3 days, not bad for 1000 pieces.

But wouldn't that be just a wonderful harvest. No balcony garden harvest this week, only because I am not there!!! Good old Mr M is looking after my place while I am off in Adelaide visiting the parents. But just because I am away doesn't mean there was no harvest. From this garden we have had all sorts of goodies from eggplants

to rockmelon

and chillis

I cooked the eggplant and chilli in a pasta sauce for the family the other day which was yummy. The rockmelon you see here actually fell off the vine so I am not sure it is ripe which is a shame. I will be checking later today to see if it is salvagable. How was your harvest this week? Head on over to Daphne's Dandelions for more harvest posts.

Pine Mushroom Season

2011-03-25T16:49:00.005+11:00

Last year Pine mushrooms made me make a delightful pasta dish. This year it wasn't much different and the delights went with some other mushroom

and this

and this from the balcony garden

and turned into this.

YUM! I love Pine Mushroom season at the Victoria Markets (even if they are a little expensive.)

Crazy Cukes

2011-03-22T22:36:00.004+11:00

Before we hit crazy cuke land let's remember what a normal one looks like. This is a usual bush cucumber that I grow.

And here are three of a normal variety that I also grow.

And now there is one crazy cuke - my lovely piggy tail cucumber. Here he is growing, just to prove there was no tampering. His uniqueness was just mother nature having a giggle.

And then, finally, I picked him.

He was enjoyed in a salad both last night and today. Inside him was a sweet and slightly oversized-seed-filled centre, no different to the straight cukes. I love mother nature's little oddities. Any random growings in your gardens this year?

Harvest Monday

2011-03-21T22:41:00.006+11:00

I am so so so close to getting the first full draft of the thesis done, but yet so far from the end goal. In the meantime here is what I have been harvesting of late ...

There have been cucumbers, plenty of cucumbers, enough that I have to eat them every day to keep up, but here is just one. I am going to post soon about the world's funniest cucumber which is shaped like a piggies tail but for now it is normal cucumbers.

The seeds were a little big, maybe I left it on there too long, but it is hard to keep up with them. Tasty in a salad.

That was my lunch, these little red lovelies went in something else,

my breakfast!

I have been going through a phase of eating fruit salad in the morning, usually blueberries and rockmelon with whatever else is affordable at the markets. It was lovely to be able to supplement it with my own home grown strawberries.

In the garden harvest there were eggplants and beans, both of which made it into curries.

I am planning on trying salt and pepper eggplant with some of the rest. I have been harvesting chillis to give to friends, basil leaves for lasagnes and silverbeet as needed. Even in this strange weather it seems to be putting out some good food. With more eggplants, the crazy corn possibly beginning to come good and the figs turning colours it might be an interesting harvest next week. For more harvests from around the world pop on over to Daphne's Dandelions.

Wet Weather and the Balcony Garden

2011-02-27T14:21:00.007+11:00

Overnight we have had rain, not a lot, just a light and steady smattering which means I won't have to water today and possibly even tomorrow (depending on if the sun comes out and if the wind stays away.) This gives me a good 20 minutes in my day in which to blog. With the final few memoirs for the thesis to be read and significant other work on my life has been busy. A little too busy for a regular blog and even too busy to remember to photograph things in a timely manner. Time management skills can only work for 24 hours in a day and until I master the art of getting 36 hours out of a day I will have to make to with these little snatches of spare time. But yay to now getting to post.

I love when it rains. Just look at the picture above of my lovely little chilli all covered in drops. Not only is the hand watering a non-necessity, I get to sit by my large windows and watch the rain fall onto the garden. Drops collecting on the green (and slightly yellow) plants, pooling into their soil. A few hours later they look taller, stronger, happier. Rain just has this natural boost for plants that they simply cannot get from tap and/or grey water. Mind you this summer has been the wettest on record, and it hasn't been that good for many gardeners and farmers. Some had their crops and top soil washed away while others like stone fruit growers were damaged by wind and hail. It has also caused a few problems in the little balcony garden, such as increased risk of powdery mildew, problematic pollination and issues with drainage. What are these problems, how have I gone about fixing them and what do these excessively watery days mean for balcony gardeners?

1. Powdery Mildew

In a warmish moist environment powdery mildew is pretty much a given. Zukes, Cukes and others in that family usually fall victim to it. The picture below shows the beginning of it on a yellow zucchini (if you strain your eyes.) White dots appears on leaves, under leaves and on stems. They slowly defoliate the plant and kill it.

Though hard to prevent it is pretty easy to control. I have always used a milk spray, one part whole milk (skim, lactose free which I have in my tea won't cut it, it has to be the full cream stuff) to 9 parts water. This ratio makes it work for my balcony garden though you might have to tweak it for yours. Spray all affected areas including the underside of leaves and stems on your plants in the morning and the evening and the powdery mildew tends to fix right up. It also helps to remove any really badly affected leaves and dispose of them (no composting of those or it wont help.) While the weather is favourable to powdery mildew you may have to keep spraying but it isn't too much hassle and the small amount of milk in it means it won't smell too bad.

2. Pollination Issues

Plants need to be pollinated to produce the good bits, the yummy bits, the foodie bits. The tassles from corn need to meet with the silks to make heads of corn. The eggplant and tomato flowers need to be shaken at just the right speed and at just the right time to mingle the male and female bits. For cucumbers and zucchinis you need to introduce Mr male flower to the bits of Mrs female flower (she is the one with the baby zuke or cuke attached) for anything to happen. Wet weather isn't good for this. Corn particularly wont set well in the rain. But what to do besides a backwards rain dance? The best policy is just to keep trying. Hand pollinate again and again. Perhaps save some of the bits like the corn tassles or the male flowers of cucurbits in the fridge overnight and then see if the weather has improved thus hand pollinate the next day. Rain doesn't completely stop pollination from happening, it just gets in the way. So when wet weather sets in practice some hand pollination and time it well, otherwise you mightn't get much from your balcony crops.

3. Drainage.

Drainage, good drainage that is, has to come from the very beginning. It can be rectified later on if needs be but it is tricky and some plants wont survive the move. My advice is make sure you have the right pot for the right thing, and make sure it is big enough. If it isn't a self watering pot make sure to include plenty of drainage holes. If these holes are only on the bottom then make sure the pot is up away from the ground or off a surface otherwise they get closed over. Make sure you have enough holes, but don't go overboard otherwise you will lose too much water. Plates underneath the pot are a great way to collect water but it is best to raise your pot off them again as otherwise it could lead to drainage issues.

The plant below, my lime tree, doesn't drain that well and at times the new growth will wilt when there is too much water (and indeed when there is too much sun but that is a whole different matter.) See how the supple green limbs are hanging loose in the picture below. That shows poor drainage.

In the bottom of your pots add things like stones or foam or something to add pockets for drainage. I prefer the latter as it is cheap, light and effective.

In this weather, for balconies, make sure your drainage pipes are clear of debris. Dirt, leaves and other bits a pieces can accumulate in them and black them making your balcony a virtual swimming pool and dooming your plants.

Overall these problems are seasonal, and not always a summer issue. But with the world's weather wildly changing it is good to know what to do in these times. Do you have any other issues that come with the wet weather? Any other solutions to the problems listed here?

Harvest Monday: Red for Hallmark Day

2011-02-14T22:31:00.005+11:00

Another Harvest Monday rolls around way too quickly. And in keeping with my least favourite day of the year - Hallmark Day - the produce was lovey dovey red. More berries this week and more chillis than I knew what to do with. At the moment they are in the freezer waiting to jump into a nice hot chilli con carne when the weather seems appropriate.

All that red was all right, I suppose but the the piece de resistance this week had to be the fig. My first fig. Mr Fig twig was generous enough to give me an early sample and he didn't disappoint. Into a sandwich it went, with proscuitto and lettuce. Totally delicious.

This coming week there will be another eggplant harvest and maybe even a cucumber. I only planted them a little under a month ago but they are already fruiting!!!

How was your harvest this week? For more yummy stuff from the ground see Daphne's Dandelions harvest monday round up.

A Berry Little Harvest Monday

2011-01-31T21:44:00.006+11:00

Bit of a smaller harvest this week, with only a few staples left in the sun scorched garden. Beautiful berries of the strawberry kind went into my breakfast this morning. There were both wild versions of this little red wonder and some Hokowase strawberries. Usually I just snack on them as I garden but this time there were enough to go in my breakfast fruit salad.

Silverbeet is continual, even though I cut it to the ground just a month ago! It goes in many dishes and adds extra nutrients.

Eggplants, well I showed you them the other day and here they are harvested. These went into a wonderful little pasta dish.

Speaking of pasta, the last of the pumpkins I harvested a while ago was used up in a delicious pesto pasta dish.

And that is pretty much it for the moment. If you want to see other harvests pop on over to Daphne's Dandelions. I looks forward to harvesting chillies this week and int he future some figs and some more eggplants. The corn, the new corn that is, is a fair way off but I will post about that little experiment soon.

And on slightly different matters, if you can solve my friend's mutant tomato dilemma I posted about yesterday please, please, please add your advice. :)

Mutant 'matoes and Plan 9 from the Frankenspace

2011-01-30T22:55:00.007+11:00

I love B grade horror films of the yesteryear. Not 1990s ones though I guess in 2011 we can almost count that yesteryear. While the zombie runs in the 1970s are almost there it is not quite the era I am meaning. These films, almost more z grade than b grade populated the screens in eras earlier, where black and white were the order of the day. These I find to be pretty good on occasions, particularly when watched in the dark on a stormy summer night with popcorn and a sav blanc for good measure. Viewing triffids invading the earth, or Bela Lugosi doing all that he can to be typecast in his most senior moment of life or going even further back to Boris Karloff in his Frankenstein turn. And it is with these types of films in mind that I bring you the attack of the mutant tomatoes. Late one night, in a garden not unlike your own, these creatures are lurking ...

Ok they aren't in your garden. They're not even growing on the balcony. They are in a friend, Miss R's garden in Adelaide. It was, at one point, a tomato seedling but now it is unlike anything I've ever seen. The other seedlings from the same punnet are growing fine, though suffering a bit from the heat whereas this little man, well, he is growing in a uniquely grotesque way. Miss R feared it was a disease and worried for her other tomatoes but I am pretty sure this is just a seed gone wrong, mutated into the frankenstein of tomato plants and harmless though fascinating. A mish mash of plants, supposedly a tomato but with the growing habit of something entirely different. The other option is that it is a triffid come to claim the earth, the first in a wave of many, but that might be wrong too. So who is right? Odd new disease or mutant 'mato? Does anyone have any other suggestions? Should she pull it or should she leave it to see what mutant offspring it will probably never have?

Fairytales in the Balcony Garden

2011-01-29T15:27:00.004+11:00

I love eggplant. Be it cooked up in sauces or in pasta or turned into a dip, I find it such a treat. I even grew it over winter last year in the balcony garden and it did well. This year I went with a different variety of eggplant, fairytale eggplant. While these did not grow as large as their bonica mates, they certainly made up for their lack of size with prettiness. Just look at those purple and white stripes!

The taste is a bit milder but a bit crisper if that makes any sense. I'll certainly grow these again next year, in bigger pots if I am feeling nice. They like a fair bit of water, and the bugs get into them and cause damage but for the colour and taste alone I am smitten.

Harvest Monday Extravaganza

2011-01-17T12:56:00.008+11:00

I finally found my camera cord and uploaded the goodies so here is a parade of recent harvests and this week's harvest. It even has some golden globes! These harvests date back to just before Christmas, even so this little balcony garden has produced a lot.

Here was the pre-Christmas harvest and it saw the last of the snow peas. I actually picked a lot more tomatoes than that, several punnets worth, all from 2 little tumbler bushes. They died once I got back from Adelaide, as happens each year from some disease, but not before producing one large crop. I will certainly keep growing these.

And the New Years harvest which was massive (a.k.a. bye bye tomatoes) Most of this went into various salad dishes for a little new years eve shindig I had at my place. It was 42 degrees that day, so salads were all we needed. I was just glad that the garden survived my 10 days away, but with the wonderful garden sitter I have it was no wonder it was bursting with goodies when I returned.

And the most recent harvest which included 3 pumpkins, who were too infested with white fly to reach complete maturation. If only I could find more seedlings I could do a second crop :( I also thought I planted leeks, to my utter surprise turns out they were white onions!.

If you would like to see more harvests from around the world head on over to Daphne's Dandelions. A lot of these plants got ripped out of the garden yesterday in a big white fly control clean up, so harvests may be a little lean for the next few weeks, but we will see.

Harvest Monday

2011-01-10T23:08:00.003+11:00

Sorry I have been away for a bit and the blog has fallen silent. I spent Christmas in Adelaide with the folks, and have begun the new year by getting on with the thesis (which is due in August.) Despite the business the garden has not been neglected and it has been awash with a bountiful harvest. Wild strawberries, sweet corn, zucchinis, cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, eggplants, a pumpkin and more. They helped make new years eve a tasty evening and continue to keep me eating healthily. Problem is, you will just have to imagine them, because my camera cord has gone AWOL! If it reappears I'll add some photos, but for now here are some oldies to represent the harvest.

For more harvest posts visit Daphne's Dandelions.

Garden Bloggers Blooms Day

2010-12-15T16:48:00.003+11:00

Unless you are a Japanese Lantern, a zuke, a cuke, a pumpkin, or a lemon tree then you aren't blooming in my garden this month. Things go a bit greeny brown this time of year with tomatoes wilting early and the corn following suit. Blossom is long gone and the pansies, primroses and other annuals have given up finally after a valiant battle. The only things giving a spot of colour to the balcony garden are the amazing japanese lantern. (I really should invest in another one.)

The cukes, zukes and pumpkins are still flowering, though not a lot of fruiting is going on. It is hard to hand pollinate when they are only producing one sex of flower! Come on plants, coordinate yourselves.

And the lemon tree as usual is putting out blooms, with a few turning into possibly viable fruit.

Are you having more success with blooms in your garden this month? For more Garden Bloggers Blooms Day head on over to May Dreams Gardens and join in the fun.

Christmas Succulent 2010

2010-12-15T16:16:00.003+11:00

Long ago I had a housemate who wouldn't let me put up a Christmas tree. So instead, I navigated this command by erecting a Christmas succulent instead. That ginch hasn't lived here in a long time but the Christmas succulent tradition has stayed and I even gave away some little succulents last year so everyone could one day have a Christmas succulent. This year it is a little one, which was destined for pastures elsewhere but has stayed on to give us all some Christmas cheer. The usual ornaments have returned

Along with the requisite black star

And voila, one lovely Christmas succulent, that wont drop pine needles and needs no care, attention or water!

Harvest Monday - tomato porn

2010-12-13T23:18:00.006+11:00

Harvest Monday is brought to you today by gratuitous shots of tomatoes and the spring awakening of the corn. The week itself began with a corn, a baby corn just busting out of its little husk. I just wanted to see how it looked, how it grew, so I ripped it off way too early.

When I removed its clothing here is what I found ...

One tasty little broken baby corn. Mmmmmm so good. Then the week descended into an orgy of produce, from greens to zukes to basil to tomatoes to carrots and more, all vying for a position on my salad plate.

Then, ok, you waited for it, here is the tomato porn. The first big harvest, complete with garlic in a martini glass.

They went on top of a yummy lasagne I cooked tonight (using my BBQ no less because my oven is still on the fritz) And what started the week with a sizzle took it out with a bang. Another corn

Another undressing

But this time the star was fully grown, fully formed, and extra tasty.

I didn't even need to cook it, just dived on in and at the whole thing raw.

What will next week's harvest bring? If you want to see more harvest head on over to Daphne'sDandelions for the full show.

More Garden Madness - the case of the Golden Nugget Pumpkins

2010-12-10T10:15:00.006+11:00

The other month I dyed a white dress for a friend's wedding. It was meant to go a pastel yellow, but it ended up pumpkin orange. Still a lovely colour but in the end I opted for a different dress for the wedding. However, the pumpkin colour is a bit ironic at the moment, given pumpkins are the veg du jour in the balcony garden. If you thought growing corn in containers was crazy, wait till you see these golden beauties. It was only this year that I decided pumpkins would also be a delight to grow. I opted to grow a single golden nugget pumpkin, which has a bush habit and is ideal for pots.

I only wanted one and I wanted to put it in a large white box with some lettuce around it. Problem was these little gems came in a four pack. As it cost as much as a single seedling I thought no problems, I'll just use one and give the others away. Pumpkin pot number one was born (as you can see it has progressed a little since then.)

But then I thought maybe I could continue the zucchini experiment and try growing a pumpkin in a smaller container, and this container was already pumpkin coloured so it seemed perfect. There we had container number two.

But then I decided maybe I could try growing one up in the slightly shady bit with some beans and some silverbeet. So another pumpkin seedling went it. But then I decided that maybe this container could fit two pumpkin seedlings in it, along with the rest and that it might be better suited down near the airconditioning unit (that never gets turned on when plants are near it) next to the other single pumpkin.

So now I have 4 pumpkin bushes in my balcony garden! And they are in different stages of development. The pot with two in it, as you can see in the above photo, is running behind the others. Stunted by the lack of adequate light and late planting it has a long way to go. The single one has one pumpkin so far, and tonnes of male flowers (not enough female flowers though)

The first one planted has two pumpkins on it! See the development as they grow and grow.

I'll be happy if the harvest is just this size though given they keep growing at such a pace I wont be surprised if I get a few more. I can't wait till they are ripe, but I know it is a long time coming. I love pumpkin so I'll be interested to see what the golden nuggets taste like. Ever grown pumpkin in pots before? Any tips? Tricks?

Bush Fig, Tree Fig, Hipster Fig, Fig Twig

2010-12-09T10:12:00.007+11:00

Remember Mr Fig Twig? I introduced him way back when, when he was a pressie from the delightful Dr M-ski for my 30th birthday. He was called mr fig twig because, well, he was a fig tree but he was still a just a weeny little twig. Here is a shot of then of him in his figgy, twiggy glory. Skinny little guy, bit of a hipster really.

Well here he is now, complete with proto-figs between his leafy branches. No more mr hipster fig twig.

I love that with figs, the bit we eat is just an inside out flower. Awesome! He is starting to grow extra bits out the bottom, which I will let him do and make him more of a bush fig than a tree fig. He isn't grafted so I am not worried. Not sure if these tiny baby figs will fall off as he is still very little but if they reach maturity I think I will be having one of these.

Carry on Corny Corn

2010-12-08T08:55:00.006+11:00

Some said I was completely mental and most just muttered I was mildly deranged, but this year I decided to grow corn! In pots, on the balcony. Two pots to be precise, 4 stalks to a pot. Crowded ... well yes. This meant lots of watering and constant fertilising, particularly as they grew bigger. I followed their progress eagerly. They grew and grew.

and as a consequence provided some nice shade and privacy to my otherwise overly visible study.

Then the pollon bits on top formed.

and the jusky bits of goodness put out their tendrilly silks for pollination.

Even with the windy days and even with their intentionally close proximity, I thought I'd help out and hand pollinate too. Group pollination ... Ok I wont go there. :) But here is a pic for interests sake.

Now we are nearing the end stages, will I have a cob of tasty corn in the next few days? How long does it take from pollination to eatability? The silks are already starting to brown.

How fat do I need to let them get (they seem a little skinny at present?) How brown do the silks have to get? Anyone still think I am mad now? (I still think I am a bit potty, but in the harmless way.)

Harvest Monday

2010-12-06T12:50:00.007+11:00

The harvests have been coming in thick and fast. They consist of quite a few things, zucchini, snowpeas, tomatoes, eggplants and more. Garlic is all out of the ground and drying on the window sill.

For fruits there are the last of the red currants and some strawberries, both wild strawberries and Kurawase strawberries.

and best of all the first tomatoes!

Zucchinis are a constant harvest and in two different colours. Eggplants are small but tasty and just as constant. Four different days, four different combos.

Snowpeas are at their end, as you can see these two got left on the bush a little too long.

For more harvests pop on over to Daphne's Dandelions for harvest Monday

Herbalicious - Rosemary

2010-12-02T09:43:00.004+11:00

Whenever I think of rosemary I think of my friend Miss M-ski. No she wasn't set to be called Rosemary then her mother found out her father had a rather dishy ex called Rosemary and no she doesn't even have any friends called Rosemary or friends with babies called Rosemary. She's not even obsessed with Roman Polamski's film 'Rosemary's Baby'. But Miss M-ski, my lovely Miss M-ski had finally become Dr M-ski. Not a useful doctor who could save your life by doing a double heart lung transplant, but an even more useful doctor of psychology. It took her a while but she got there and I am so proud. But it is not her nearly Dr status that makes me think of her when I see rosemary, it is her love of potato and rosemary pizza! She introduced me to it, at a fine little place on Errol street and I've never looked back. While it is a carb avoider's nightmare, it tastes divine. And I think it is the Rosemary that does the trick.

Long has humanity known the wonders of putting rosemary and the potato together. They just work, simple as that. Pumpkin or sweet potato is an adequate replacement in the pairing but nothing beats the original. After Dr M-ski introduced me to this devilishly good combination I added it to my cooking repertoire (though usually substituting puff pastry for pizza base if short on time.) Problem was I liked it so much my single rosemary bush was getting overly depleted. There was the option of cutting down on my consumption of this herbalicious wonder, or, another solution, which was to procure a new one! Luckily I had a birthday around this time and my kindly relatives solved the rosemary conundrum.

So now I have two rosemary bushes. See one,

and two.

They live in different parts of the balcony garden, one gets less sun, the other full sun.

They both seem happy, though the second one is a little hidden behind the corn and tomatoes nowadays.

I use rosemary in risotto too, and sometimes put it on meat when I slow roast it. It is truly versatile and so delicious. You can even use large sticks of it as an aromatic skewer! Do you grow rosemary? If so what kind? Any tips or tricks for growing? My tip is grow as much as you can, and if you're lucky it could end up looking like this one growing in my Mum's backyard!

Eating the Garden

2010-12-01T16:28:00.003+11:00

The balcony garden is not just for good looks or green cred, it is first and foremost for eating (and not just for the snails!) At the moment with constant harvests I usually get to eat something from the garden each day, and sometimes at night too! Double harvest fun, yum. Mostly, with the warmer weather on the way, I indulge in salads which can easily be sourced from the balcony.

There is the salad as a main. For this nutritional whopper just grab some bits from the balcony garden, don't forget the left over zucchini flowers,

Add whatever cans or other goods you have lying around

and hey presto, mega salad of goodness that tastes amazing too!

Or if you are more of a side salad person you could go the whole garden green goodness with your main meal. Baby zukes that weren't pollinated? No problemo, they taste crunchy and yummy in a green side salad.

Or go half green and then mix and match with whatever is in season at the markets.

There's no limit to the tasty treats the balcony garden can contribute to. Tonight I am cooking a curry, which will likely feature some of the zukes from the garden and maybe some greens. The other night the silvebeet went into some creamed garlic quinoa. Suffice to say no one ever goes hungry around here.

Imposter Broccoli

2010-11-28T11:35:00.005+11:00

At last I've broken through the business of the final weeks of semester. Chapters are done (though a new one started), paper done and given and divisive as always and all my essays are marked! Now I finally have time to garden ... well at least I would be gardening if it didn't keep raining all the time! It is great that Melbourne is getting rain, but it is so much and all at once, and some trees have started wilting from getting water logged! I can't even get out there to clean up the leaves and things so it is all starting to get a little manky. I will just have to wait and hope.

Today's post is also about waiting. Waiting for Godot, ok not Godot but a little romanesco broccolli. I planted him as a seed so so so long ago in April with a few friends, all of whom got eaten by snails. He was, so to say, the last hope.

He wandered from pot to pot, often not liking the crowded conditions. It was only when he recieved his own pot that he started to grow. Now romanesco is no ordinary broccoli, actually to me it is more like a mutant cauliflower but we won't go there. It is fractally shaped, showing the beauty of nature's patterns in its tasty goodness. Usually they are also a pale green.

Turns out the wait wasn't really worth it. The head started out ok, albeit rather purple.

Then I left it a bit long and it started to grow. I was waiting for the geometric miracle that was never to be.

Now it is all purple and like little heads of broccolini. Each floret grew out instead of in a fractal pattern and it became woody. It is certainly not a romanesco broccoli and it tastes awful. It needs to come out to make way for the plants growing in the spring garden but it does look kind of pretty. Maybe I'll leave it in until the rain stops, my little imposter broccoli.

Have you ever been a little disapointed by a plant? Putting in the time and effort to grow it from seed and nurture it and tend to its every need only to find out it wasn't what the packet said?

Garden Bloggers Blooms Day

2010-11-15T22:56:00.009+11:00

Well yes, I haven't posted much in the past two weeks and now it is 2 posts in one day, but then again that is what happens when it is garden bloggers blooms day and harvest monday on the same day. What is blooming in the garden at the moment? It has had to withstand some warm weather and some major downpours, and a slight amount of neglect from an overworked postgrad. Still there seems to be some lovely flowers out there at present.

There are some pretty annuals such as pansies and cornflowers and a white succulent

Perennial lanterns just keep on flowering as does the lemon scented geranium

Vegetables and herbs are unfolding in great numbers now too, pumpkins, zukes, purple bush beans, tomatoes and sage.

And the piece de resistance - the orchid, is still blooming!

For more garden bloggers blooms days from around the world head on over to May Dreams Gardens.

Harvest Monday

2010-11-15T22:37:00.008+11:00

Oh it has been a busy week or two, but the balcony garden waits for no postgrad. I've been harvesting quite a bit recently included in this is:

1. A bunch of oddly shaped purple carrots
2. 3 full sized zukes weighing in at over half a kilo and 3 small baby zukes which went in salad

3. lettuce almost every day (I love my salads)

4. Several strawberries of various kinds

5. Two little stems of red currants!
6. Sage for various pumpkin dishes
7. Three small eggplants which went into a curry

8. 1 head of garlic which went into a risotto (yes all of it) and 2 small heads of poorly formed garlic.

Harvest Monday looks set to be even better from here on in. Head on over to Daphne's Dandelions for mnore harvest monday madness.

Too blog to tired

2010-11-11T08:36:00.004+11:00

Sorry folks, with a thesis chapter due Friday, a paper due Monday and 40 essays to mark by Wednesday I've been awol from this blog.

But when this manic uni mess boils down to a simmer, and I am not too tired to blog, I'll be back with more herb posts, a bumper harvest monday, flower pics from the Spring balcony and more.

Harvest Monday

2010-11-01T23:13:00.004+11:00

It wasn't big, but it was there, in my garden, waiting to be devoured. It was, drum roll please, the first zuke of the season. Ok it was a baby zuke with flower, a female one and it seems I have a case of lesbian zucchinis again this year, but that should pass.

Add some lettuce (I harvest at least this amount of lettuce each day)

All I can say was that it was super tasty in my salad, flower, zuke and all! I added korean BBQ chicken later but forgot to take a photo. Oooooops.

And there are plenty more to come! Zukes for all this Spring/Summer.

Herbalicious - Mint

2010-10-27T10:49:00.004+11:00

Given it is spring and I've just planted some more basil and coriander I think it might be high time to do a few little focus posts on the herbs in the balcony garden. Some, like the aforementioned greeny goodies basil and coriander are annuals. Basil I sow in Spring and Summer while coriander is a year round affair, when I remember to procure seeds that is. I'll post on them seperately. This post is for an amazing little green fellow who was one of the first plants in my garden. He grew from a cutting and has never changed pots (in 3 years, no new potting soil yet he lives and thrives.) If you haven't guessed by now this hardy little tacker is, it is mint.

Common mint for a bit more precision (let's not get into the tangle they did on Masterchef when naming mint.) I did have some ginger mint at one stage but it died a while back from neglect. I don't use mint very often. Maybe for a garnish but never as a star. That was until I started experimenting with cooking, and substituting it for other herby flavours. Mint and coriander go so well together, in rice paper rolls, salads and even as a soup garnish. Particularly different kinds of asian cuisine suit it divinely.

On Friday night I threw together a salad for a few people before a party. It included a dose of finely chopped mint (and coriander) from the garden sliced up on the lovely mezaluna given to me for my 30th brithday by my dear boss Dr A, lettuce from the garden, baby spinach, spicy fried potato noodles, garlic, ginger and chilli marinated baked chicken and some purple cabbage. Mostly healthy and full of flavour! I'd eat it again in an instant.

Do you grow mint? Is it almost like a weed as it is for some of my friends or do you have trouble with it? Should I expand my mint varieties - chocolate mint perhaps? or maybe fill another pot with mint? What is your favourite mint?

Harvest Monday

2010-10-25T21:36:00.007+11:00

Spring has sprung and the harvest is beginning to pick up. Zukes are starting to fruit, as are tomatoes but it'll be a while before I harvest them. And, for once I remembered to take pictures of the harvest! It was a bit similar to times past, lettuce, eggplant, carrots but this time with one lovely addition - a strawberry (or 3.)

Eggplant was holey, thanks to Mr snail.

Carrots ranged from baby purples,

to lady-shaped purples,

to wierdly mangled multi-colours.

Lettuce is continuous and tasty.

While this Kurowase strawberry was shared by 3 eager tasters.

It was light but sweet and smushy. The Hokowases I ate this morning were smaller but stronger in taste. Looking forward to a large harvest of these this summer. What are you harvesting this week? Look over to Daphne's Dandelions for more posts.

Curly Leaf Nectarine and the Nine Blossoms

2010-10-21T17:57:00.005+11:00

I'd almost given up on the nectarine tree this year. Last year it bloomed amazingly, produced 3 tasty nectarines then went into Winter hibernation. When I forgot to spray it for curly leaf I knew I was in for a spot of bother but when I witnessed a total of about 9 blossoms on it, I gave up entirely. How on earth could I get any fruit from a measly nine blossoms?

I put some mulch on it to help trap water, and added some fertiliser but of course it was going to be too little, too late. The blossoms were joined by leaves,

then faded away.

Following that the leaves got major, major, major issues of the curly variety.

This disease wont kill your tree instantly, just shorten its life overall if untreated. Miss J has had a nectatine tree that was infected and it fruited every second year without fail. Just might not fruit for as long as an infected tree. Others have been affected by it this year too and I have since learned it is endemic to Melbourne. Definitely will have to consider spraying it next year, trying to get that window before the buds open, to kill the curly and make the tree happy again. That and remember to repot the poor thing and feed it on a more regular basis. Poor nectarine tree, he really is a bit neglected

Mind you all, was not lost - I just realised there is a nectarine on the tree! One tiny, little speck of stone fruit hope for this summer.

Harvest Monday

2010-10-18T20:45:00.004+11:00

Yummy harvests have been going on here at the balcony garden. It is carrots, carrots, carrots all the way, oh and a little bit of lettuce. Oh and eggplants, out came some of the little baby eggplants. Problem was I forgot to take photos of them all! So here they are on the plants or in the ground and you can imagine the yummy harvest!

Although small, I had to harvest some of these overwintered eggplants, because the snails or something similar had already started a harvest of their own. They gave texture and sweetness to a yellow curry.

mmmmmmm cos lettuce. Whether it be sandwich or salad not a day goes by when I don't eat some of this. (don't worry there are several lettuce pots, this isn't just a magic or miraculous single lettuce.)

The carrots may look wilted here, but they tasted great in salad, and in the curry. Purple carrots in this pot. White ones in another. They're all coming out to be replaced with zucchini 0r tomatoes and more.

Ooopss I missed garden bloggers blooms day

2010-10-17T22:29:00.006+11:00

Life has been pretty cluttered lately, some unfavourable, but all the rest in a very good way. The side effect of this though is that life itself seems to be getting on top of me these days, there are people I need to see/email/ring/or all of the aforementioned and before I know it, it gets too late at night and I haven't managed to accomplish any of those things. Thesis, gardening, storms, a funeral and general activities seem to be getting in the way. I even missed garden bloggers blooms day and I never miss garden bloggers blooms day! I couldn't even get outside to take the requisite photographs because of a serious day-long downpour! So instead of simply waiting until the next time, I am taking advantage of recent photographic expeditions to the land of the balcony garden and showing you a small sample of what has been flowering on the balcony garden this Springtime. From pansies to broccoli and rocket gone to seed, apple blossom to violas the garden is an array of colours and shapes and sized. My favourites would have to be the orchids and the boronia flowers.

Blooming Adelaide in Bloom

2010-10-13T18:21:00.005+11:00

It'll be garden bloggers blooms day soon, and there is plenty flowering away on my balcony. However when I was in Adelaide there was plenty in bloom in my Mum's garden and out in the parks where we took the dogs for a stroll. In the home plot there are all sort of goodies. First there were the purple irises. Yes I know the photo is white, Mum bought purple irises, just turned out they were white instead (she was unimpressed but I think they are majestic.)

Gerberas and Geraniums

Strawberry flowers from the new pot I made for her (Ok techincally she ended up potting them up, but I floated the idea ...)

Lime flowers

Orangey goodness (can you tell I don't know the name)

We went walking nearly every day with the dogs. Often round Norwood but one day we went back Burnside way, to Michael Perry park, a spot of greenery from my youth.

Gone was the clandestine rope swing we used back in the day, but still there were trees we would climb, clearings we would rest in and shrubs within which we would hide ourselves away. Magical place then, still at least a magical place for the dogs now.

There were lillies and nastursiums all over the place. Gotta love free range nature!

Adelaide in Spring can certainly be a magical place.

While I was away ...

2010-10-10T19:10:00.008+11:00

Wow, where did the last week go? If anyone knows please tell me because I want it back. Too much uni work, with a few fun social times thrown in for good measure meant this blog got neglected. But the garden certainly was taken care of, and even a few new additions found their way into the fold. I'll post later on that one. In the meantime, above is a shot of the balcony as it was when I returned. Housesitter B did a splendid job and anything grew amazingly while I was away. The before shots can be found in my last few posts, but here are some afters for good measure! Some things blossomed, like one of the apples and a lime and the flowers on the boronia opened to let off a beautiful scent.

The crops got bigger, including the eggplants, corn, zucchinis and garlic while some things like snow peas and beetroots germinated.

The tomatoes, both seedlings inside, and larger plants outside became triffid like.

The currants took on a huge new lease of life.

Others didn't fare so well. The primroses don't like the heat too much, and the nectarine has a terrible case of curly leaf and I have only found one fruit on it so far.

Still not bad for only two weeks! Go my little balcony garden.

Sping Plantings and Garden Experiments 5: Corny Corn Corn Corn

2010-09-29T12:03:00.004+10:00

Most people I know don't think that I am crazy, they know it. Earlier in the year I announced that this Spring I was going to plant corn. Most told me I was mad, that I could not find a pot big enough or soil hardy enough or that my neighbours above would be picking the corn because it grows so tall. Some internet posts gave me hope that it could be done within my existing means, while others put me off it. So the thought drifted by and the corn plans got shelved. Come Spring planting, maybe it was madness, maybe it was intuition, but the corn planting bug came back with a vengeance.

So I went with it. Instead of planting a pumpkin and a zucchini in the two large pots, I planted one punnet of corn. Four in each pot (though one has a double head which I couldn't seperate.) They have limited space which means limited water but unlimited sunlight and some mulch for protection. I am not expecting a bumper harvest, in fact I'd be happy with one baby ear of corn between the lot of them. I will have to hand pollinate but that seems easy enough. I will have to give them lots of food on a very regular basis. Easy enough too. Maybe the only hard bit will be actually reaching the corn!!!

Is there anything you have grown that people have told you not to because it just wouldn't work? Did it work? Did it die? Am I crazy (that was the only rhetorical question in the bunch.) Will keep you all updated about my silliest balcony garden experiment yet.

Spring Plantings and Garden Experiments 4: Tomato Trials

2010-09-28T11:12:00.006+10:00

Tomatoes were what got me into gardening. Well those and a free lemon tree and some herbs. Tomatoes gave me a challenge (according to some it was too much of a challenge, little did they know), fun, tastebud sensations, and when I realised they came in multiple varieties and colours and shapes I was hooked. I blogged about them a lot too - I checked back over my statistics and I have 108 posts about tomatoes! I even kept a tomato tally of how many I harvested.

The first year was pretty tame. It started with some early planted cherry tomatoes I saved from certain death in Kmart. Then some heirloom ones, and more heirloom ones, and a san marzano or two. By the end they looked pretty wilted and crispy fried, I blamed the summer and the general degradation of tomato plants at the end of the hot weather.

Season two it was all systems go, seeds in early, seedlings procured to elongate the harvest even further, and so many varieties, carefully chosen over the cold winter. Heck I even grew tomatoes inside over the winter (the Winter tomatoes too developed this incessant wilt, but again I just thought it was due to the wierd conditions they were grown in.) It wasn't until the second season was underway, and the wilt came early and persistently that I knew I had a major problem. Wilt killed all the plants, though I did manage to harvest some. It kind of resembled fusarium wilt, though I am not sure. Ultimately I pulled most plants after half a harvest at most, some didn't even make it past seedling stage.

I had almost given up hope of a harvest this year, with the memories of dashed tomato plants from last year still firmly in my mind. But I decided to give it one last shot. Using a couple of disease resistant varieties coupled with early planting I am hoping to get some sort of a harvest this year. Growing inside I have seedlings, of a VFN San Marzano, and a brandywine, which the nursery lady convinced me was diesease resistant but I am not sure I believe her. I hope she is right, because brandywines taste divine, but I am not holding my breath.

As a backup plan I procured some seedlings, one apollo improved which is supposed to have increased disease resistance, and two tumbler yellows, which have no resistance whatsoever but they work well to form a mixture of heights, and last year I got a bit of a harvest from them due to their cherry size which seemed to manage to just outrun the wilt. They are already flowering which is a good sign.

Will this experiment work? I hope so, though the lustre of growing these love apples is a little lost without the ability to plant my favourite heirlooms. I love green zebras and I never did get to try aunt ruby's german green. The purple cherokees and white cloud tomatoes which I love so dearly cannot get a run. And mortgage lifters, tomato crack, tomato heaven, tomato awesomesness but are now solanum non grata on the balcony since the wilt. I hate san marzanos, but if they grow then it is better than nothing. I love having fresh tomatoes on hand more than I hate san marzanos.

How do you combat tomato diseases and problems? Has it made you give up? Should I one day give up? Who knows but for now my hopes rest with apollo and his red little friends.

Harvest Monday in Adelaide

2010-09-27T18:18:00.005+10:00

While housesitter B is enjoying the spoils of the balcony garden I am here in Adelaide making do with the treasures in my parent's garden. Not that I am without a harvest. There is chard, chard and more chard. Red stemmed chard,

Yellow stemmed and curly chard,

And the most pretty of them all, orangey stemmed chard.

All chardy and all utterly delicious. And still so much of it left to eat. We eat a bit of this steamed almost every night and yet it never seems to deplete. Yay for parents and their gardens. If you want to see posts with different veggies head on over to Daphne's Dandelions for all the harvest news.

Spring Plantings and Garden Experiments 3: Eggplanting

2010-09-24T12:08:00.005+10:00

The case of the eggplants in my garden is less of an experiment and more a mix of impulse buys, slow to germinate seeds and an obsession with marbled eggplants. Last year I planted a single eggplant, later in the season, and only because tomato seedlings were hard to get and seemed to just keep dying in my garden anyway. The tag said it was a prolific fruiter which I figued would be good seeing as his new home was going to be a pot. Well he fruited and fruited and I posted often on harvest Monday about my eggplants. Now for most people eggplants are an annual, dying off when the Winter hits. I thought my eggplant would do the same, and he did slow down the production in the cold weather, but he never truly came to a stop. In the frosty weather some of the leaves turned brown and he looked a little ill yet still the eggplants came. This just meant that I never pulled him out. Maybe it was his sunny position by the window but come Spring I already have 5 little though slightly damaged eggplants on this amazing bush.

I have decided to leave him in until he expires of his own accord though he has been moved to a different position to make way for a different sun loving plant.

By keeping the old plant in that meant I didn't have the larger space I thought I might have for my new obsession, the fairy-tale eggplant. It is a mottled pale purple and white, so pretty, and apparently so tasty. I set off to the nursery to find one, and even after visiting three separate nurseries could not procure a single seedling. I ultimately settled for another normal eggplant, though he didn't get the luxury of a large pot. You can see the size difference between him and the apple tree pots in the photo below. Despite the cramped space he seems to be growing up nicely.

I did have some caspar white eggplant seeds and decided it best to sow those if I wanted anything other than a generic eggplant in the garden. So far they are either invisible, or lacking germination. They are the pots at the front just behind the tomatoes. They are the pots with a whole lotta nothing in them. Infact the only thing to germinate was the white squash, the thing I was least keen on! I'm not holding my breath that any will germinate, but fingers crossed anyway.

A bit despondant about the white eggplant failure a few weeks later I was out at the nursery again, and low and behold I stumbled upon the fabled fairy-tale eggplant! In my excitement I bought not one but two seedlings, and reaching home realised I had a similar dilemma to the zucchini issue I wrote about yesterday - not enough large pots. One of them ended up in a bigger rectangle pot which should work well, while the other ended up in a slightly smaller round pot pictued below. I wonder how these will do in the balcony garden.

Now all I have to do is get the white ones to germinate and I can have a multicoloured eggplant garden, complete with the granddaddy eggplant from last year.

Do you have any favourite eggplants? When I was at the garden shop the old fellow next to me (who certainly wasn't staff) told me his favourite eggplant. It was the long lebanese eggplant. I might try that one next year, but for this year I think the garden is full!

Spring Planting and Garden Experiments 2: Squished Squash

2010-09-23T09:39:00.005+10:00

Everyone knows that plants need space. Some need more than others but all in all space is a good thing. Space in a balcony garden means using larger pots and not planting too many things in the one pot. Space means investing in a suitable amount of potting mix and the like to help your plants mature to the appropriate size. I did that last year with the yellow zucchini and it produced exceedingly well. The pot was a grand size and it looked in balance. It also produced a tonne of lovely sized fruits.

This year that pot had already been taken for a higher purpose (to be mentioned in the next few days) and the blackjack zucchini was ready to go in now. I managed to fit one into one of the large rectangular pots which was pretty small given it also houses some other companion plants but it seemed large enough for the zuke to thrive.

But what to do with the other two seedlings? I could do what I did last year and palm them off onto unsuspecting friends. Or I could buy a bigger pot a squeeze it in somewhere. Or I could go crazy and experiment with pot size. Being the ever so rational being that I am I went with the last option, manic overcrowding. How small a pot can I grow a zucchini in and still get produce?

Witness exhibit A - a smaller round pot filled with one seedling. Note it barely has two leaves yet, this is already a tight sqeeze.

Exhibit B is only slightly bigger. Square and mulched to the brim but still not really anywhere near an adequate size. Indeed to give you an idea of size the round pot used to live inside the square pot. I thought it looked ornamental, the snails thought it looked like home so the two had to be separated.

I will be intrigued to see how big these grow or if they get stunted or if they just up and die. If they do or do not bear zucchinis. If they do bear can it still get to marrow size? Much more fun I think than simply giving them away or making concessions. Probably not a revolution in gardening, more an experiment in stupidity but I am happy with it. Watering will be more constant as will fertilisation but maybe just maybe these little pots can work.

I do have a couple of slightly larger pots currently housing carrots. They should be ready for eating before I plant the other two zukes I have planned for this garden (these will be yellow ones, currently only green ones are planted, hence the general disregard for pot sizes. Yellow zucchinis are my favourite, green ones are too generic for my tastes.)

Have you ever experimented with size or crowding? I know for some plants (actually most plants) it stunts their growth. It'll be an interesting Spring on the balcony...

Spring Plantings and Garden Experiments 1: Strawberries

2010-09-22T10:06:00.006+10:00

This Spring I have planted some new things, some old things with new improved varieties and some impulse buys. From 'resistant' tomatoes, to strawberries of multiple varieties, to two varieties of eggplant, to blackjack zucchini in odd sized containers, to corn, yes corn, the Spring garden was under way before I left for Adelaide. Housesitter B was primed with instructions about these new plantings and how to water them effectively. She was a great housesitter last time so I am sure she will be great this time too. Over the next few posts I will run through, in detail, each of these new planting and see what I have chosen, the conditions it is being grown in and rate its chances. I'll also ask for your tips, trick and to tell me if the method is madness or just might work. Today I will start with the tamest of them all, strawberries.

When I first began to garden I grew strawberries. Two Lowanna strawberries in a pot, no thinning of the runners and no idea. They produced well, were very tasty but got overcrowded and eventually were overrun by spider mites. I didn't plant strawberries for a while and contented myself with the slightly insipid but mega-cheap punnets from the markets. I longed for the taste of a proper strawberry, or really I just realised that I like snacking when I am out in the garden (who doesn't!!!???!!!) By luck my good friend Ms G gave me four bare-rooted strawberries she had left over from her bulk purchase, 2 hokowase and 2 kurowase. After planting them and caring for them I had ... 1 kurowase left. My ineptitude, or simply a lack of good drainage had killed off the other three. Remember if you are planting strawberries and there are repeated winter downpours, try and dry your soaked seedlings out somewhat, by any means possible.

I decided that the single remaining strawberry in that pot looked lopsided and lonely, it needed a friend. So I toddled off to the nursery to buy a companion. Problem was they didn't have any that I wanted and the few that they did have looked emaciated and more brown than green. Kind of like the ones I had already killed at home. Stopping at another nursery on the way home I found the same problem - although I did come across these little wild strawberries.

For me wild strawberries are as different to normal strawberries as caramel is to chocolate. Both are great, but very different. Others don't share this view but I am sticking to it. Strawberries are great, don't get me wrong, but they are ubiquitous. You find them everywhere and despite the many varieties they are all quite similar. Biggish, juicy, red and yum (except for the yellow strawberries, oh I wish I had those.) Wild strawberries are a whole other kettle of berry. They are tiny and I never find them in shops. I used to find them in my Aunt's garden and had to restrain myself from picking them all before she got any. The taste is a little tarter, stronger, but truly amazing. Wild strawberries to me were the diamonds of the berry world. So instead of buying a single strawberry I bought a punnet of these wild ones and planted them in various other pots in the garden (my Aunt later told me off for spending $2.49 on wild strawberry plants when they grow like weeds in her garden!)

Don't worry, they have since been mulched so stand a better chance of surviving the Australian Summer.

But this still didn't solve the problem of the half empty pot. One day I wanted to go for a walk, a long walk, a healthy walk, a 10km walk in fact, to Bunnings. I wanted a pot, a giant pot, for the lemon tree. Well I did walk, and it was healthy, but I didn't find a pot. They were completely potless at the shop. But I did purchase two new strawberries - a Hokowase and a Lowanna. Hokowase went in with the kurowase, and the lowana got a pot of its own.

So from no strawberries to several pots full of different varieties. I'd like a few more so I could get a good harvest but I currently lack the space. So far the oldest one, the kurowase has flowered and made one little fruit. (the flower is pictured at the top of this post.) I hope it doesn't ripen before I get back (otherwise Housesitter B is welcome to eat it.) The hokowase is also flowering, so fruit shouldn't be too far behind. Hokowase are supposed to be low acid while Lowana was bred to withstand typical Australian conditions (even though technically there are many different climate conditions in Australia but I digress.) The wild strawberries haven't grown much but they are there to tantilise my taste buds.

Do you have a particular favourite when it comes to strawberries? How do you go planting them in pots? Any tips? Are spider mites simply inevitable when you plant these things? While my garden is complete with strawberries my Mum has none. I did find a lovely strawberry pot behind her shed and I am heading off this morning to put it to use. While it is a bit late to plant them, I've never really taken notice of timing stipulations, so in my view she should have some yummy strawberries come Christmas.

Harvest Monday Returnings

2010-09-20T11:39:00.006+10:00

Sorry that it has been a little while between posts. I blame work and study commitments and the fact that I lost the cord that connects my camera to my computer. Luckily I am on holiday in Adelaide (with housesitter B looking after the balcony garden) so I have a little more time to write and in the process of packing I found my camera cord! So today's harvest Monday post will be a wrap up of the harvests from the past few weeks, including produce from my garden and generously donated produce from my Aunt's garden. I have other things to tell you about the garden, in which Spring has definitely sprung, but they can be held off for other posts.

So far I've harvested almost all the broccoli, which is pretty little now as it is only side shoots. I picked all the snow peas and promptly pulled the lot out which weren't producing. Silverbeet, I eat this almost daily. Unfortunately I keep forgetting to photograph it, though stay tuned for pictures of my Mum's rainbow silverbeet which is just huge.

My aunty supplemented my harvest with her harvest which included beetroots, brussel sprouts and broccoli. Yum

I turned them into this yummy beetroot risotto that I made to impress someone. :)

And look out for future harvests of these little yummies ... (there are 5 on the overwintered bush - 5!!!)

Purple Pretty

2010-09-01T21:43:00.003+10:00

Sometimes flowers can be just as pretty before they open.

Maybe even prettier ...

Accidental Winter Vegetableness

2010-08-29T09:57:00.005+10:00

When you think of Winter vegetables grown in temperate parts of Australia you think cabbage, broccoli, snowpeas and other hardy greens. These are the plants that survive these lower temperatures and indeed many of them thrive. You can't grow snowpeas in Summer here, and they barely last through Spring on my balcony, but in Winter they are happy (except the ones in this pot which STILL haven't produced any peas.) The last thing you think about in Winter are tomatoes or eggplants or anything else in that family. I mean the habanero chilli was so sad outside in the cold that I had to bring him inside (where he is happily flowering and fruiting after only a few weeks.) Tomatoes I tricked you all with in the last harvest post, so I can't grow them here in Winter but up North someone can. But eggplant, tomato's puffy cousin, surely that isn't a Winter veg. I wouldn't have though so either, until I left one in over Winter. Here he is in all his glory.

Quite a big plant, with a few flowers in his pot for company. No mulch because I am a bit slack, but a couple of poles for support (most of those poles in the picture are in other pots) We've had a pretty cold Winter, ok cold for Melbourne, not so cold by Northern Hemisphere standards. Highs of 10 or 11 degree celcius and lows bobbing around 3. He shouldn't have made it past June. But not only is he growing and green, he is producing fruit. Here is one that has formed, and another that is on the way.

How amazing is that! A summer plant producing in Winter. He is definitely stressed, with some leaves turning brown due to the cold and a mild/manic aphid infestation (you can see it in the top lefthand corner of the one with the little new fruit forming.) Fruit on a stressed plant is often less tasty but we will see. I won't be pulling him out any time soon and am wondering if he can go another season in the garden. Annuals into perennials thanks to the mild climate - who woulda though it!?!

Do you have any plants that defy natural conventions?

Sunnier Shades

2010-08-26T23:27:00.007+10:00

It may still be cold and gloomy and wet but there are some sunny things going on in the garden. Finally another colour in the garden besides purple - we have yellow primroses. What I can't work out is why there are two yellow ones in the same plant (then again it is highly likely there might be two plants in one pot.)

Another yellow one hiding amongst the lettuce and purple primrose.

For a bit of pinky, orangey yellow the snapdragons are just stunning.

And for another hint of colour, the nectarine blossoms are coming.

It is always good to look on the sunnier side of life :)

Winter Tomato Salad

2010-08-25T21:35:00.005+10:00

So I hoaxed a few of you with my wonderful heirloom tomatoes in Midwinter Melbourne in my last harvest post. Wish I could admit to having grown them. That said I have grown tomatoes in Winter before, inside the windows of my apartment where it was an ersatz greenhouse. Unfortunately flies and tomato disease became a problem so I didn't pursue that option this year. Having tomato withdrawals, stirred by all the lovely tomato photos trickling down from the Northern Hemisphere, you can see why I was delighted when I saw these at the markets. $15 a kilo, but worth every cent! They were a tad expensive so I decided to savour them in several meals. The green zebra went into lovely sandwich, while a small part of the yellow and red went into this ...

tuna, tomato and avocado salad. Weirdly refreshing despite the cool day. I also used some in tonight's panko crumbed chicken wrap (again with avocado.) There is still a part of the purple one left! And just so we can all drool one more time, here is a photo repeat!

Harvest Monday Hidden Gems

2010-08-23T10:36:00.006+10:00

It is Harvest Monday and just look at these wonderful tomatoes.

The purple cherokee is almost as big as my very large coffee cup.

The green zebra was so tangy and creamy. The other two I am yet to try.

Ok, Ok, Ok you got me, so I didn't grow these is some sort of apartment balcony garden green house, Alas the tomato disease issues have not ceased here. All I wanted to do was to be part of the tomato growing gang. I found these beauties at the Vic Markets organic stall and I couldn't resist. Whilt it is Winter down here, it is tomato season up in the northern parts of Australia, and looks like they are doing well!

Harvests here were a little more mundane, some snow peas and some broccoli, which went nicely with some soba noodles.

I will be planting the spring crops soon, so in a few months I will be harvest monday ready! I'll try some disease resistant tomatoes this time round and see if I can get a crop! If you want real tomatoes head on over to Daphne's Dandelions and I am sure many of the blogs on her harvest Monday roundup will include real heom grown tomatoes and more.

Meet the Candidates: Elections in the Balcony Garden

2010-08-21T15:17:00.011+10:00

Today in Australia many of us toddled off or will toddle off in these last couple of hours to the polling station to vote. So long as you are on the electoral roll here you need to vote. I like voting, I like my ability to freely and easily participate in some form of democracy. The problem with today's voting - the distinct lack if sausage sizzle stands and cake stalls at many polling booths. For shame Australia! Cheap sausages and democracy go hand in hand I say.

Anyway two wonderful friends of mine have been blogging about the leadup to the election, including a 'meet-the-candidates' section which helped outline the more obscure parties in the senate. If you are at all into politics, or just good writing pop on over to Carefully Scripted Remarks or The Adventures of Max U in Crazyland for a good political read.

But today on totally inept balcony garden I would like to introduce you to those greater candidates that have been elected to hold top position in the balcony garden - the fruit trees. Currently the balcony garden has six fruit trees, with a seventh position up for grabs. From the lemon to the lime, the apples to fig and not forgetting Mr Nectarine they all make up the balance of the balcony garden.

The first tree to join the fray featured in my first blog post. Mr Lemon tree was a gift from Miss G, a lovely vaguely hippy friend from up the road. She had procured a better lemon tree for her own garden and this one was free to a good home. I have nurtured it through the years and it usually gives me a modest amount of fruit, never more than four lemons, never fewer than three. He is about to get a repot, so new soil and a much larger pot to grow into. I am hoping that hill help with the problems he suffers, like new growth being nibbled away and leaves occasionally dropping.

Lemon trees are integral to my lifestyle, I grew up with one in the garden and the sweet scent of the blossoms is heavenly all year round plus the few fruits it provides are tasty. Solid, sturdy and reliable, a lemon tree is something all politicians should aspire to emulate.

The next tree was also a gift, this time from my Birth mother (I am adopted) for my very belated 28th or early for my 29th birthday or as a ate Christmas pressie I can't remember. I'd never thought about getting a dwarf nectarine, it just simply wasn't on my radar of things I wanted. But this tree is great. Last year it only gave me three fruit, and I definitely need to hand pollinate but they were some of the tastiest nectarines I had ever eaten.

Nectarines are a bit like the senator you never expected to get a seat but does, and then they prove to be a real winner. I hope it fruits again this year, it is already budding though it doesn't have a lot of new growth. Perhaps a top up of good soil and some nutrients will help.

The balcony garden stayed a two fruit tree zone for a while, quite a while in fact. It was only when I realised the benefits of pots that only needed new soil every two years, as opposed to vegetable growing which meant refilling the pot twice or thrice a year, that made fruit trees more desirable. Armed with a voucher and drive I went in myself for fruit tree number there - the tahitian lime. He has been here a while and seems to have settled in well. He is showing good signs of new near-Spring growth including new leaves and even possibly some buds.

Probably too new to decide what kind of politician he would be, but judging by the dominant colour I'd put him in with the Greens!

Shortly after the lime tree joined the gang, was my 30th birthday, and with that passing into a new decade came a lovely present from Miss M - a fig tree. Ok I should really rephrase that, a fig twig, Mr Fig Twig to be exact. It is a black genoa fig, self pollinating which works well in a one fig environment. It will take a few years before he is of fruit baring size. I can't help but liken him to my favourite Australian Democrat of yesteryear - Natasha Stott Despoja. She was so full of hope and promise and ideas, but went in too hard too early and it just wasn't her time. I have heard vague rumours of a comeback. I, for one, think this would be a great thing as with maturity brings good things - like figs.

After the figs came what I term the 'accidental' purchase of not one, but two apple trees. As any good gardener knows you need two apple trees to cross pollinate to get fruit, and when two dwarf versions of my two favourites, golden delicious and granny smith, were avaible and they could cross pollinate I jumped. I had wanted a ballerina apple tree, but none were available that would cross pollinate with either of these. The bonus of a ballerina is its upright nature, and the lack of pruning needed. I am a terrible pruner, though as these were bare rooted trees I had to at least have a go.

As they've only been in for a couple of weeks it is far too early to suggest what kind of political style they'll have. As long as they don't form a coalition akin to the Nationals and the Liberal Party then we will be fine. Besides growing trees is far too green a policy for either of those parties, but it would be an interesting carbon offset.

So there are the six fruity candidates in my garden. And it would be a good balance if I left it as that, but there is, just a slight possibility, that the group of six could be joined by a seventh. There is a spare large pot just about to become vacant after the broccoli is pulled.

It could remain a vegetable only zone, or it could, just as easily, house a small fruit tree. The only problem is, what fruit tree would I choose? The major ones I would like are (in no special order)

Self pollinating dwarf cherry (alas these only come in black varieties and I do prefer yellow/white cherries but imagine the blossoms)
Persimmon (dwarf(ish) self pollinating varities are orderable, but the deep tap root would be quite a problem)
Blood Orange (my favourite citrus fruit and one I cannot get enough of)
A ballerina apple tree which can pollinate with one of the existing apple trees
A dwarf peach/nectarine
A white genoa fig

And those are just the tip of the iceberg. Do you have any other suggestions out there? What do you think makes a good potted tree?

Anyway voting in new plants in the balcony garden is a touch simpler than the election here in Australia today. The polls close in a few hours and I am off to an election party armed with green, red and blue macarons. It is no accident that most of the macarons are green. By tomorrow we may have a new Prime Minister (in which case if it is the horribly antiquated Mad Monk Mr Abbott I will be relocating to another country!) My hope of Greens in power is too far fetched for a voting public right now so I have my fingers crossed that the Labor Party retains power for another term. And for the record, the Lemon tree, when asked who he would vote for, refused to comment.

Pivotal Issues

2010-08-19T08:55:00.005+10:00

Hi to all the readers out there. Sorry for the limited posting lately and the lack of commenting on your blogs. I read them every day, and find them sustaining, but lack the energy (and sometimes the brain power) to contribute anything comment worthy. Be assured I am drooling over the pictures of your summer harvests, in particular the amazing tomatoes, I am sympathising with my fellow Winter gardeners as they deal with less than ideal conditions, I am just not being vocal about it.

As most of you know I am a PhD student, and I've just entered my last year of study. With chapters due, papers to write for numerous conferences, teaching to supplement my meagre scholarship (and all the marking that entails) along with upkeep of the balcony garden and my own place I've found my blogging time and energy falling away. I will endeavour to keep writing and I have so many posts stored in my mind (along with 100 000 words of thesis!!!) There are apple trees to introduce, eggplants who survive Australian Winters to profile, my adventures in mulch land, a yellow primrose to laud over, and spring blossoms only minutes away. Rest assured I'll bring you all this and more, it just might not be every day or even every second day.

Thanks for all the comments on this blog and blog love and for letting me share all your gardening experiences. Garden blogging is such a rewarding experience (as is gardening itself.) I don't think I could write my thesis without having my time away gardening blogging.

So for today, as I hurriedly add the final touches to my methodology chapter, one of the most pivotal aspects of a thesis, I leave you with this picture, of something pivotal to a balcony vegetable garden - flowers! In this case it is the white cornflower, and I finally, with the help of a new camera, managed to snap a good one of it! Kalena Michele, these are what you should plant in Autumn!!!

Rainy Garden Bloggers Blooms Day

2010-08-15T17:18:00.005+10:00

It is another lovely rainy Winter day here in Melbourne, so here are some things that are blooming in the balcony, in all their wettest splendour. It is all primroses, pansies and puddles out there.

We need the rain, given the whole drought concept here in Southern Australia, but I do wish I could coordinate my fertilising/seasol days better. I thought today would be drier, oooops. For more on Garden Bloggers Blooms Day head on over to May Dreams Gardens.

Budding Young Things

2010-08-10T22:22:00.005+10:00

It has been no higher than 11 degrees out there today and raining all from dusk till dawn. It is Winter, true Melbourne Winter. However the balcony garden is certainly looking forward to Spring, with many of the flowers, citrus trees and even vegetables budding up. Sporadic sunny days certainly aid in this process, but I can't help but wonder if maybe they're a little bit sick of Winter too! The snapdragon is still getting ready to bloom, over a year after I planted it.

Another pink member of the family, the boronia is budding. It is so hard to see it in this photo, but trust me there are little floral buds nestled within the stick thin leaves. I had given this plant up for dead as most of the growth on the stems fell off but looks like I'll get another year of blooms on the new growth.

The red lantern is constantly budding, and flowering and generally awesome!

Another red tried and trusted bloomer is the geranium. It's been in the pot for years and it is still going strong.

A new purple pansy (a different purple from the ones I blogged about the other day) is budding up ready to add yet another shade of purple to the balcony.

Another purple budding plant is in the lettuce. A primrose with yet another purple flower.

The lemon and lime trees are budding up too, the lemon tree is particularly covered in floral buds while the new growth on the lime may well be more leaves, hard to tell at this stage.

Even the habanero is budding, IN WINTER! That is probably because I brought him inside and he is loving the warmer conditions.

What loively budding young things, giving hope for an end to Winter and promise that I might have some more beauties for garden bloggers blooms day at the end of the week!

Burning, Balcony Gardens and Bargains

2010-08-07T23:53:00.004+10:00

As you all know by now I love to cook. Last night I had some of my rellies over for a feast of truffle mustard, mushroom and sweetcorn soup followed by beetroot risotto with pancetta and goats cheese and finished of with a dessert of sticky date pudding with homemade ice cream. The sticky date pudding was divine (and made by my good friend Mr M), as were all the other courses (tasty that is, made by my hand not his) except for the vanilla icecream which split so was an unmitigated disaster.

Today the cooking extravaganza continued and I hit up the stalls at the Vic markets. For under $20 I bought and made (using a few ingredients such as pasta, peas, cous cous and spices that I had already in the pantry, leftovers from last night's dessert and herbs and greens from the balcony garden):

Beef Goulasch with Israeli cous cous
A huge pot of vegetarian Bolognaise Sauce
2 Veggie lasagnes (one for a friend who just had a baby and one for me and my dinner guest)
1 Meat lasagne
1 large pot of Yellow curry, sweet potato and split pea soup (snacked on that this afternoon, it was divine)
Cookies and Cream icecream.

I also have more market shopping left over for a cauliflower and beetroot soup for later in the week. Blood orange macarons are the final bit on tomorrow's agenda.

One slight problem though, try not to get too close to the stove - things might (and did) get burned!

Cornflowers and the last hurrah

2010-08-04T08:23:00.006+10:00

The other day was garden bloggers death day, where people showcase what has gone awry in their garden and the plants that have ceased to exist. I've never joined in but it looks a fun one. I certainly had a candidate, one of the blue cornflowers was more brown than blue, in fact it was all brown at one point. I put it behind the BBQ where there is little light for a final farewell hoping to get rid of it at the nearest opportunity.

Well perserverence is one thing, but resurrection is a whole different ball game. Low and behold a few days later he had one last little growth with a defiant blue flower. Go you little blue cornflower.

Now I have had plants perk up before when I've moved them to a warmer/shadier spot, but they were never this far gone. Miracle ... or one last beautiful blast before death? (sad to say it was the latter.) Not to fear though because there are plenty of other cornflowers strewn throughout the balcony garden, in various shades; pink, blue, white and black/purple.

Harvest Monday

2010-08-02T22:45:00.005+10:00

Two lemons, five carrots, a bowl full of lettuce, every last inch of rocket and some coriander all went into last Friday's meal. Beetroot (from my Aunt's garden), goats' cheese, rocket and pancetta risotto, served with a carrot and greens salad followed by strawberry lemon cheesecake icecream, straight from the brand new ice cream maker! And what photos do I have to show for it? NONE! But we had 5 happy dinner guests and one proud owner of an icecream machine and balcony veggie patch. Next harvest Monday I promise to photograph the produce, but in the meantime please take these recent shots of the plants for your harvest viewing pleasure, and imagine what they looked like in my harvest basket and then on the plate.

Ok so that is a golden beetroot not the large bulls blood ones that I cooked with but isn't it pretty. More of a single serve risotto size though. And for extra droolage I'll have you know that the second icecream flavour made in the icecream machine was Dulche de Leche (recipe here)

Now if you are after proper photos of harvests that aren't just substitutes for the real deal then head on over to Daphne's Dandelions for this week's harvest monday post.

Everybody loves purple

2010-08-01T21:02:00.004+10:00

Ok so not everybody loves purple, but it seems to be a running theme with the Winter flowers in the balcony garden. I bought two punnets of flowers a while ago, one set of assorted primroses, one assorted set of pansies. I was looking forward to a dazzling array of colour come late Winter. While the outcome isn't bad, it's just all a bit of the same theme.

Beige and purple pansies (it is not often you get to call a flower beige, it is the ultimate insult really.) Two of the plants have turned out with this colour combination. A few more yet to flower to see if my assorted set was less assorted and more sifted.

Then there are the purple primroses. Two more plants have flowered since, and one is a more maroon shade of purple and the other a more royal purple but all still purple!

Even the old favourites are getting into the purple theme - with the lemon tree flowering away.

I am certainly not complaining, any floral colour in Winter is well recieved, but let's hope the remaining few seedlings provide some variety. Or maybe the two I gave away were yellow or orange or pink!

Holiday Gardentimes - Part 2 The Inside Goodness of Kew Gardens

2010-07-29T12:53:00.008+10:00

In my last holiday post I wrote about the beauty of the outside parts of Kew Gardens, along with my encounters with its feathery animal kind. I visited each of the conservatories hoping to find an example of a vanilla pod vine. Alas I didn't manage to find this illusive greenery but I found so many other wonders.

There were floral wonders (and of course the obligatory shot of a fuschia)

Pond inhabiting and surrounding beauties

Cacti and Succulents which would never otherwise survive the UK climate

And edibles - ok this was inside the Orangery, but it was just as great as any of the conservatory items above (it was a smoked salmon sandwich with a 'side' of artichoke, tomato and greens salad, totally yum)

What a lovely day!

Snow Pea Pleas

2010-07-27T14:17:00.006+10:00

I'm not sure if my neighbour caught me, but I spent a great part of the early morning pleading with the snowpeas. The are an impressive height, growing on a much better trellis than last year (see this post for how not to trellis snow peas) and they are green with tendrils grasping in every direction. What they lack though, is kind of fundamental, they have not flowered and thus have not produced any edibles. While the dwarf snow peas are going great guns and have kept me in green stir fry bliss, these mammoth melting peas from last year are next to useless. While the snails have munched away at them they remain yet to produce human food (unless you count sprouts, which I don't unless I'm in the mood for making salad and being a hypocrite.)

What is the go here mr snow pea? Too much nitrogen? (your smaller bushier brothers seem to cope just fine) Dodgy seed? (but you germinated) Soil depth too low? (you survived harsher conditions last year) Is the balcony garden just playing silly tricks on me? Well it better start producing soon, or it's getting ripped out to make way for, well, not sure what I can plant at this time of the year, probably more snow peas!!!

Harvest Monday

2010-07-26T21:46:00.007+10:00

If you want to see lush Summer harvests, with bowls upon bowls of glistening tomatoes, yards of drying chillis and plenty of zucchini, then this isn't the harvest post for you (for plenty of posts in that manner head on over to Daphne's Dandelions for the rest of harvest Monday.) This is a Winter harvest post, though it is not as barren as one might think. The balcony garden is brimming with the greener side of the vegetable patch and some very well timed citrus. We have lettuce in hanging baskets (with a primrose stuck in the middle)

Baby coriander amongst the garlic (needing to be culled to help give the garlic a chance)

Lemons, four infact, two of which are still on the tree and one which went into this lovey slow cooked roast lamb dish (5 hours in the over, with lemon, garlic and some water in the pan, delicious)

The other lemon went to the fruit bowl, to be with his kind. Note the wonders of apartment living mean the fruit bowl and the powercords are very close friends.

Lunar white carrots, which generally grow more slowly, are the only ones reaching a decent size at the moment. I harvest one or two a day for salads. Wonder what happened to the purple haze and purple dragon carrots which are miniature in comparison.

Silverbeet that isn't silver gets added to stirfries and soups and more each day.

Not bad for a cold, wet, Wintery Melbourne. :) Veggie dinner anyone???

Meet Mr Fig Twig

2010-07-22T15:04:00.004+10:00

Here is the newest addition to the balcony garden tree family. Ok it is a bit hard to call him a tree, or a sapling, or even, well, anything other than a twig, but he is Mr Fig Twig and he joined the garden shortly before I went overseas. Lovely friend Miss M and her man gave the fig twig to me for my 30th birthday. This was because I kept going on and on and on about how I wanted to buy a fig, oh how wonderful it would be to have a fig, a fig a fig my kingdom for a fig, and so forth, but never really got around to purchasing one. Ironically the day I recieved this lovely gift I had vowed to drive to the nursery to buy a fig, but was stopped by cold weather and an overwhelming desire to sleep in. Fortuitous methinks.

At the time I didn't have a pot for him, or potting mix, so in his dormant state I popped him in with the last of the yellow carrots. He seems to have survived. In a couple of weekend's time he will go into his new home, a larger pot all to himself. This of course wont be his final resting place, figs grow quickly so in a couple of years time I will have to invest in a decently sized pot. But until then he can just chat with the carrots.

Anyone else grow figs in pots? If so any tips?

Holiday Gardentimes - part 1 Kew Garden Wanderings

2010-07-20T17:51:00.008+10:00

While my weekend was smilingly wonderful, including a sweet farewell to an old home, Monday proved to be woefully dismal and today was no better. From missing a funeral due to getting absolutely lost, to policy decisions enacted from on high that will grossly affect the quality of my education, these were a couple of days I might wish to erase from memory. However, to put a positive spin on the latter stages of today I thought it a good time to start my holiday garden posts. This first one will highlight my adventures in Kew Gardens. So many lovely photos taken here, and so little time to include them all. But I will do my best ...

Kew Gardens, where do I start? Despite living 20 minutes walk from here in 2004 I never managed to visit it. This was pre-garden obsession I guess and Richmond park or the pub was closer. Upon returning to London in 2010 it was the first and virtually only thing on my itinerary (apart from the conference.) I spent an entire day here soaking up the sights, getting mildly sunburned and taking many photos. The old camera wouldn't have coped,but to the new camera a hundred or so photos was merely a blip on the radar of the memorycard.

This post will focus on the outside highlights of the day (and as usual I have vitually no idea what half of them were, they were just visually spectacular at the time.) The next post will delve inside the conservatories (where I took most of my shots) and will detail my illusive search for the vanilla plant. But for now, here's the outside floral gems:

Apart from the floral life there is also the wild life. I sat down to have a drink of water on a seat near the lake, and chatted with a few of the ducks

and this fellow with big feet

and the swans

and then I turned to my right, only to be confronted by an up close and almost personal encounter with this peacock.

There is also the statuesque wild life

Next holiday post I will show the photos from inside the conservatories, environments so diverse and wonderful. Plus each time I went inside it was so hot that venturing outside into the 30 degree heat was a welcome relief.

Harvest Monday

2010-07-19T16:23:00.005+10:00

I do wonder where my old camera went, and with it the pictures of my long lost harvest. Still it is another week and another harvest and even in my jetlagged-then-food-poisoned state I have managed to pull a thing or two out of the balcony garden. Snow peas are blooming and setting (though it seems too cold for some) but overall broccoli is the main contender. I'll be harvesting more in an hour or two for tonight's slow roast lamb dinner (which was slated to be last night but I was struck down by bad things in my breakfast and not sure where the rest of yesterday went.)

Carrots are also getting added to each meal. They are smaller in size than last time, though still delicious.

Lettuce and silverbeet are plentiful too.

So a Winter balcony garden in Melbourne is definitely a green balcony garden but check out who will be featuring in next week's harvest Monday (probably because I harvested one this morning but forgot to take a photo of it.)

Back at it with Garden Bloggers Blooms Day

2010-07-15T21:11:00.011+10:00

Back to Australia, back to the Balcony Garden and back to blogging about it - all with the aid of my lovely new digital camera. No more really blurry photos. I am quite jetlagged, and have only just been reunited with my luggage (thanks Emirates, losing my luggage was the icing on the cake of your bad service) but it meant I could finally upload my photos and begin blogging again.

I have plenty of posts planned. Turns out most of my photographs overseas were of gardens with a few monuments and other bits thrown in. I will post about my adventures in Kew Gardens, Hampton Court Palace, the streets of Brighton, Hanging Baskets in Vienna, floralness in Budapest, Bratislava and beyond and more. But what better way to begin blogging with Garden Bloggers Blooms Day. It may be Mid-Winter back here in Australia but the balcony garden still has some flowery goodness to offer.

The Cornflowers are of course going very strong. Though notice some are changing colour. The first photo is of the black cornflower with two different coloured flowers on the same plant. This is not due to tricks of the light, this plant really is beginning to send out flowers in various shades of dark purple.

Alas much of the broccoli went to flower while I was away. I salvaged plenty and will show it in Monday's harvest post, but I just feel bad that housesitter E did not get to taste this magical stuff.

I did find a use for some of them - I added them to a rogue sunflower and they're currently in a vase inside. Lovely yellows and reds and oranges to brighten up my Winter house.

Hardy Geraniums penetrate the crisp air with their beautiful red petals.

The succulent is flowering, with reddish flowers that the aphids seem to love (how are they surviving Winter???)

Sunflowers still hanging in there. The whole plants look pretty wrecked but the flowers are wonderful.

Violas are winding their way up the snowpeas and broccoli. Some are a bit frost bitten but still there.

Snapdragons again looking radiant, and I am still not sure how they are still surviving.

What better way to begin blogging again. Sorry about the hiatus but I will be back and writing and exploring everyone elses blog from now on.

Quick update from the Road

2010-07-06T01:11:00.001+10:00

I am currently impatiently waiting for my lovely host to return from the shops, to take me to eat what he and the advertisement describes as the world's best and the world's biggest snitzel. This places me currently in Vienna.

I have already ventured through London (including spending a day at Kew Gardens, a post on that will definitely be created when I return, a visit to Hampton Court Palace and an experience in the world's SMALLEST hotel room, which I dare say was smaller than the snitzel I will eat this evening) survived a conference a cousin catch up in Brighton (though I managed to leave with a beautiful lace dress from Topshop complete with security tag, not pilfered from the shiio but a case of the wonderfully 'thoughtful' shop assistant considering it would be hilarious to test the scenario of me discovering this oversight while OUTSIDE the UK. Wonder how they will respond to this stuff up ...) and now have spent a lovely few days with a friend in Vienna. Next up is Budapest, then a return to Vienna before the 24 hour place trip home.

Stay tuned for posts on floral wonderments upon my return.

And for anyone interested, according to my mother, the Balcony Garden is doing just fine in my absence and wonderful E the housesitter is proving he has a remarkeable green thumb.

TIBG goes to England

2010-06-23T19:45:00.002+10:00

In just about 3 hours I'll be on a plane to the UK!!!!! It is conference time, so me, my trusty history paper and I are jetting off to speak with like minded souls. A stroll around Kew Gardens, a dance across Hampstead Heath (visiting my old pub where I worked in 2003 on the way) to Brighton for the 7th Biennial IABA conference. After my stint in Brighton it will be off to fair Vienna for snitzel, noodles, and some frivolity with an old friend. A side trip to Budapest will seal the deal then it is back to Oz.

Never fear, the balcony garden is in safe hands, Mr E will be looking after it, sampling its wares and keeping it healthy for my return. The one thing he wont be doing is blogging about it. So for 3 weeks this blog will be on a little hiatus.

One other bonus of this trip - DUTY FREE CAMERA!!! So when I return I will be able to film the BG in good quality.

Here camera, camera, camera

2010-06-15T18:18:00.000+10:00

No harvest Monday and no garden bloggers blooms day because ...

I lost my camera!!!!

No whimsical talks of the broccoli I have eaten, of the lovely snapdragons and sunflowers in bloom nor of the colourful chard helping keep me healthy through winter.

It has to be around here somewhere ...

Cooking with Garden: Lentil, pear and proscuitto salad

2010-06-11T12:31:00.005+10:00

I posted a while back about a few cooking adventures with my balcony garden produce. There was a yummy wild mushroom pasta and a fig sandwich. Alas Autumn is behind us now so the season for such mushrooms is passing/has passed and the sandwich craving has been eagerly filled by Earl Canteen (their bacon sandwich with quince aoli has, for me, surpassed the pork belly one - who knew!)

One dish I whipped up a lot in Autumn was a lentil, proscuitto and pear salad. I served it cold but it could easily be served with the lentils and cabbage still warm. So here is another, short, cooking with garden post.

First I boiled up some black lentils, in veggie chicken stock with a dash of pepper. I cooked them until aldente, adding some finely chopped cabbage in the last few minutes (and on one occasion some silverbeet too.) Leave this to cool in the fridge if you want a cold salad. Then it is just a matter of putting it all together. I used assorted greens from my garden, pretty much a staple. Added in the lentil/cabbage mix. On top of this I put slices of pear (I've used many varieties but corella add a great flavour, beurre bosch are good for texture) and some small strips of shaved proscuitto. No need for a dressing! Et voila one realtively healthy, high in fibre, tasty autumn salad.

Good and Bad visitors

2010-06-10T09:16:00.002+10:00

Good visitors to your home look after it with care. They leave you olive bread for when you get home after a longish flight, they keep the place clean and eat everything you leave there for them (and nothing that isn't theirs.) They also eat all the nasties lying around the place and look pretty while doing it.

Bad visitors do this - they mangle the furniture beyond repair and eat it along the way. Who woulda thought just one bunch of bad aphids could do so much damage to a forming plant.

Previously I have mentioned my torment with a horde of snails. Good visitors or bad visitors - I know which ones I prefer! In balcony gardening in particular, with the confined space, wierd microclimate and close proximity of plants it seems pests run really rife. I know Mum's broccoli was similarly covered in aphids, in her vast garden, though the icy weather seemed to finish those off for her, and what brassica doesn't get mauled from time to time. But thus was a cornflower, none of which have been overly attacked in the garden before. It was so infested that it grew wildly, wrongly and finally wilted and died. I would have pulled it earlier but I left it as a form of science experiment (and maybe secretly hoped it would act as a beacon to lure ladybugs.)

How do you manage pests? Sprays, picking them off and throwing them away (like caterpillars and snails) or encourage natural predators like ladybugs. I know I employ all three, in a balcony garden the battle is constant and with the lack of nearby gardens most good pests seem to steer clear.

Hanging in there

2010-06-09T08:57:00.005+10:00

Sorry for the lack of posting in the last week, between writing and giving a paper at a uni conference last Thursday and visiting my parents in Adelaide for Dad's 67th over the weekend I have had little time to think, let alone dwell in and about my balcony garden. Luckily I left it in Capable E's hands over the weekend, and I think he will look after it while I am overseas as well. Excellent. I look forward to harvest Monday next week too - there were some yummy things in that haul I can assure you.

But today I want to show you one strange photo that I found in the mix of 30th birthday photos. Along with the shots of white jacketed men and 1940s women (it was a Casablanca themed party) there appeared this one photo which only proves the photographer was a true garden freak. It was ...

... a picture of my hanging pot of garlic which seems to have a few small coriander plants springing up around it. And the photographic culprit??? It was me! I can't usually see into the hanging pot very easily, and while out taking photos of my trivia friends who had nestled nicely in the back corner bench I must have, in champagne fueled wisdom, worked out a way to check the progress. Ahhhh gardeners, we are an odd bunch at times aren't we!