Garden Bloggers Blooms Day - A Rainbow Connection

Rain rain rain, sometimes, if you are lucky, it brings a rainbow with it. For Garden Bloggers Blooms Day this March the garden was overexcited after a day full of rain. And what little floral decorations were present were in their element. The reds, yellows, whites, greens, purples, and more, it was such an amazing array of colour. So in honour of all things rain and rainbow I offer the totally inept balcony garden bloggers blooms day rainbow connection/collection.

Red

Reds come from the Geranuims, which have opened up in the last week.


Orange

The Zinnia, hard to photograph in the wind, offered orange in the garden


Yellow

We have the Gazania, unfurling his yellow petals to the dawning sun.


Yellow too can be found in the magnificent flowers of the white cloud tomato plant. This means it will hopefully fruit in time before the cold.


And yellow of a different kind, in these snapdragons


Green

Well what is not green on the balcony at the moment?!? The contrast between these white Snap Dragons and their green foliage took my eye.


The white flowers of the Lemon Basil are equally as contrastingly beautiful.


Blue

Ok so the bloom itself it yellow, I've let some lettuce go to seed, but the blue behind it was what caught my eye.


Indigo

Ok so this is not indigo, it is more magenta than anything else but I have nothing indigo in the balcony garden yet, and these needed viewing. More snapdragons!


Violet

The almost violet tint on the lemon flowers reminded me of this intense bottom part of the rainbow.

And also, though technically pink, these strawberry flowers just drew me in today. The flower with reflection is very reminiscent of the technicalities that create a rainbow.

There we have it, the rainbow connection/collection from the balcony garden. Hopefully more rain is in store for this parched part of the world in the near future. Enjoy your garden bloggers blooms day.

Things I like in Mum's Garden

In my previous post I had a look at the one thing Mum seemingly didn't like in her garden, a sunflower that passed its use-by date and was promptly beheaded.

In order to present happier things I thought I would muse quickly on the aspects I love in Mum's garden (at least what was there last weekend)

The yellow roses, which were in full bloom when I was there were wonderful. I love yellow roses, even if they appear to symbolise contrasting images of friendship and joy and dying love and healousy.


The oversized herb bushes are ace! The Rosemary keeps on growing, the sage is ginormous, and she never seems to kill it like I do, and her basil is just phenomenal.


The Chilli bush. I meant to bring some home with me to grow on the balcony garden, but oooops. Maybe next time.


Last, and my most favourite of all, is my two little garden helpers in Adelaide, Carrington and Radcliffe. While not so adept with a fork or spade, they supervised goings on very well, fertilised the lemon tree and provided cuddles afterwards. Given their cushy life I have decided that if i get reincarnated I want it to be as a spaniel!

Whatever Happens to Naughty Sunflowers?

You may remember this cheeky yellow volunteer from posts such as this one. He never asked to join Mum's garden, he just picked his spot and took it over. Not that she minded, he was pretty and yellow and tall and made a wonderful impromptu stake for the shadecloth. But I think the relationship went sour.


Was it the fact he turned brown?
Was it the fear of being overrun next season by his babies?
Was it a vendetta by the vincas?

Whatever the case, this serves a warning to all sunflowers who wish to take up residence in my Mum's garden - your days are short, sweet, but definitely numbered. Although if you want a longer life come to the balcony garden (BYO pot and potting mix, we're running awfully low)

Gardening with my Mum

Last weekend Totally Inept Balcony Gardener tried her hand at gardening outside of her life of pots. On a balcony there is no ground so I have not have to bother planting in the ground itself for sometime (novel I know). At home in Adelaide over the weekend I decided to help my mother rejuvinate her garden after the horrible heat of summer. We removed some dead something-or-others (I cannot tell what half the plants are in her garden when they are alive, it's even harder when they are frizzled to a brown crisp!!!) and put in their place some herbs, veggies and a row of hopefully hardy white vincas.

It actually was the result of an accidental trip to the nursery. I wanted to pick up some seeds to give to the wedding couple and we ended up pottering by the seedling section. A snow pea seedling, a thai basil seedling, a vitenamese mint seedling and an italian parsley seedling later we found ourselves in flower paradise. I kept pointing out pretty hanging baskets, thinking all the time how they would look on my balcony. Mum had other ideas and realised the rather hardy plant within, a purslane, would look great in her urns. So yellow purslane was added to the mix. As were some red and orange heirloom carrot seeds, and coriander seeds (ooopss)

We got to work. The herbs in one patch, bookending two rows of carrots and some corriander on either end.







The vincas ( which mum has purchased a few days earlier at a bargain price) became close companions as a border plant.


The snow peas went up against the trellis at the back behind the statue lady. This, in years past never existed, it was a hedge. Heat meant the definite destruction of that and replacement with a trellis for annuals and veggies.


The purslane had to wait, it involved a complex removal and relocation of other plants in a chain too complex for me to undertand. And with the watering restrictions Mum did not feel it wise to tackle such a complex move at that time. I think she did it after I left. Hope it worked!


There you have it, proof that the balcony gardener can sow in containers and in the giant container called the earth!

The Tomato Removal photo essay

Totally Inept Balcony Gardener is currently Slightly Poorly Balcony Gardener. Whether due to overpartying at the wedding in Adelaide on the weekend, the plane flights which disagree violently with my ear (and subsequently with my balance) or I have caught the bug that everyone has been sharing at Uni, I am not up to writing a lengthy tome on the tomato haul removal. But the tale needs to be told. So I shall tell it in pictures, with sparing epithets in ill thought out captions.

Once upon a time the tomatoes on the balcony looked like this, the four overcrowded friends, Green Zebra, Tigerella (who never fruited), Black Russian and Mortgage Lifter (and yes, without labels I had to wait till fruiting time to tell which was which)


Then it grew to this


This is how it stood minutes before the cull last weekend - browner, leaner, slightly deadified.


And partway through the cull


Removed and ripened the last of the greenies (most worked well)

The Roma went too, though here he is in the good old days


Another victim was the oversized inside Red Tumbler - here he is doing and impression of my old Cactus Mr Floppy.


Had to mop the site - it had become bug, mould and dirt central. Not good for a balcony to be that dirty!


Dead branches cluttered the balcony as I napped - had to wait for the mopping to dry - well at least that was the excuse


Realised the cherries still had some life so cut back but did not remove. Added a Hillybilly just to keep the overcrowding in force.


However, the Green Zebra and the mislabeled Greenzebra/Black Russian survived the cull.


et voila - the new, improved, second run of tomatoes including White Cloud, Hillbilly and Purple Cherokee.

Now bring on the summaries of each variety - stay tuned for my ideas on Tumbler Tomatoes, Mortgage Lifters and more.

Moving Home

No the Inept Balcony Gardener is not moving houses anytime soon (although I am still away from the balcony garden, which I have left int he care of Totally Awesome Housemate and am currently in Adelaide, spending a weekend here seeing some lovely old friends tie the knot in a beautiful winery)

It is the totally representative lego house that is on the move, well let's rephrase that, has moved. With last weekend's tomato cull they became homeless. I put a call out to the rest of the balcony garden asking who would take them in. I preferred an indoors plant because outdoors is finally starting to become a little pluvious, and lego and rain are not the best of friends over a long period of time. Luckily the strawberry plant I spared a couple of weeks ago answered the call, I guess it wanted a guarantee against imminent despatching. So the lego people moved over one pot to their new home.

There was even a strawberry on their roof, so they had a bit of a housewarming to celebrate (although if you look closely they always seem to have a drink in their hands)!

Zinnias

I am currently hiding out in little old Adelaide for a Wedding which should be a lot of fun. In the meantime I will post on a couple of things I photographed in the balcony garden before I left. A few posts ago I pomsied to blog about the Zinnias I planted in the overcrowded hanging basket.

I think though, that the pictures can speak for themselves.

Name That Tomato

In the midst of the great tomato cull on the weekend I came across this interesting fellow. He was in the majorly overcrowded pot alongside the Mortgage Lifter, Green Zebra, Black Russian and Tigerella (which never fruited). He was not a member of either of these four families. He seemed to be attached, or an offshoot of the mortgage lifter, but was oxheart not beefsteak in shape.


He had yellow and red markings, but not as in a Tigerella, and inside he was both yellow and red in colour. Quite like a Hillbilly, except that the current Hillbillies in the balcony garden are mere seedlings, racing time to see if they can fruit before the weather turns. Mislabelled plant? Seems all but the Tigerella fruited in this lot, and this fellow definitely appeared to be a shoot off the Mortgage Lifter.


His flavour was softer than a normal tomato, without the citrus overtones of a Green Zebra and nowhere near the punch of flavour contained in either Black Russian or Mortgage Lifter.

What is this interesting tomato fellow and where did he come from? Any ideas? Cross polination with the nearby yellow low acid? I am at a loss, but he made a nice addition to my salad at lunch (alongside golden beetroot leaves, lettuce, lemon basil, a green zebra and some strawberry spinach from the garden, the avocado and carrots were ring ins from the markets)

A Little Precipitation

I just removed most of the half dead tomatoes from the balcony, a complete workout if I do say so myself. While I certainly wish to post on the fall out from the cull, I am a little too tired to bother at present. A hot bath, a glass of wine and my comfy pj's await me. However, first I will tell you about something that made me smile widely the other day.

I awoke the other morning to find the weather a little pluvious, with tiny droplets of moisture falling from the sky. It barely amounted to more than a millimetre but it felt such a welcome relief to the dry and dusty days that have haunted us this summer (and possibly in future summers to come)

After lazing in bed, with the blinds open watching the falling drops I dragged myself out onto the balcony to take a few pictures. In some you can barely tell it has been raining, but these few seem to do it justice.

The sunflower seedlings, in their race to see who can grow stronger first gulpined down the rain as it fell upon them. These two have since been seperated, they kept trying to muscle each other out and in the wake of the tomato cull one of them asked ever so kindly if he could jump ship into another pot.


The tomatoes clung to it also, though in vain, as most of these are now green waste.


The dirty windows pick up the rain, while my mother would be horrified at the fact they have not been cleaned this year, nay this century, at least they work to show the watery goodness.


As for the lemons, while you can't see the rain, you can see the aftermath, each droplet carrying its weight in dirt and depositing it oh so kindly on the plants.


Hopefully there is more where this came from