Finally!

A watermelon...

I don't know why, but along with bananas, growing watermelon has somehow become an obsession. I have tried and failed so many times, I'm having a very hard time cultivating a green thumb.

Anyway, this one is teeny tiny, but upon it I bestow my hopes and dreams for a watermelon filled future...

Better grow little watermelon or I'll chop your head off and feed you to the chooks.

More Things I Didn't Know...

Last night I was trying to get out of writing yet another essay. This one is the big one, week 10 main essay. Of course we are in week 9 now, I think I've told you before that I like to live close to the edge.

So on the internet I was, looking through photos on BLF, in particular the ones of emerging bananas. I like looking at emerging bananas, I like the confirmation that it actually does happen.

Anyway, in full distraction I latch onto the banana conversation, and the lasses in there mention that there are signs to look for, just before the banana plant flowers... I didn't know that. Yep, a few small leaves and then a really small flag leaf... no I didn't know that... but I do have a bird's eye view of our plants, our house is highset, and the biggest plant is growing just under our loungeroom window.

I leant out the window to have a look.

Our bananas are waving their flags... this is really going to happen.

Thanks ladies!

Pinching Other People's Gifts

A few weeks ago, I gave this pot of herbs pictured above to a friend. In it I had planted pineapple sage and chocolate mint, I had put tarragon in there too, but the sage and mint went beserk and took over, so I saved the tarragon and planted it somewhere else before it was too late.

As I was getting it ready give to her, I started feeling a little sad. I really loved these herbs, they smelt so good and had just grown so well, and herbs never do well for me... I think that deep down I get anxious when I give things away, I worry that I might need it in some life threatening situation in the future. Quick, he's had a heart-attack, bring the pineapple sage, stat!

Because we all know that's likely to happen.

But give it away I did...

just before I handed it over though, I solved my problem.

I just pinched some back :D

I filled up some of those little peat pots (I am slowly making my way through them) and put in a cutting of the sage...

the mint...

and a strawberry runner too, that was from the strawberry lettuce gift.

So no need to feel sad, plants are gifts that keep on giving!

Anyway, I took these cuttings on the 14th of October, today is the 27th and I actually potted them up this morning. I haven't taken any photos yet, but I will. They are all doing fine, the strawberry looks a little worse for wear, but the others have thrived, and all have new shoots. I really had to watch them in these pots though, they suck up the moisture and the cuttings drooped a few times when they dried out a little. It may have been a better idea to put the cuttings in water, but it was just more practical for me to do wet dirt!

On another note, but still vegetal, I have something so exciting to show you tomorrow that you are going to bust your britches.

I can't wait.

The Promised Cucumber

Well here it is good looking people, the long awaited for cucumber that I have been going on about since Friday. This is the second of two exciting developments in the backyard.

The little treasure came as one of those wonderful surprises, you know when you are searching through your veggie patch looking for something when all of a sudden you spot the prize you didn't even know was there?

In my case we were on a caterpillar rampage. I line the children up, give them a cup each, and away we go, hunting down the veggie munching critters mercilessly. I was in the middle of the pumpkin patch with my eye on a lovely fat green caterpillar, when all of a sudden the leaves parted and I caught sight of the most beautiful thing in the vegetable world: something that I hadn't killed.

I think we'll have it for afternoon tea on buttered bread :)

Intelligence from the Popping Corn Industry

So I was going to post, as I had promised, about another fascinating development in the garden today (it was a cucumber), but that is going to have to wait.

Because I have been noticing over the past few weeks, and wanted to share with you this. And by this I mean the photo above.

And below.

The corn is pink. Well, its silk and trunks are pink, I'm not sure about the corn yet. And this is worrying me a little. Why is it pink? Corn isn't pink. You don't hear poems dedicated to the beauty of the pink corn, which is surely what would happen if corn were pink. But it's not.

Now if I had just planted this corn from a seed packet and it came up pink, I'd look at it and go, okay, it's pink corn. But I didn't plant it from a seed packet, this corn is from popcorn kernels that I had in the pantry and threw in the garden for a laugh. Now I know our food gets fiddled with, and it wasn't organic popcorn, it was cheap home-brand popcorn.

To get to the point of this post, I'm a little concerned that the government is experimenting with home-brand products on the masses, and I have just joined the ranks of the experimented upon.

The other option is that I am a complete nutbag and that corn is in fact often pink :p

Excitement Straight from the Garden

I promised you excitement in my last post, and today, I deliver! Can you tell what this is?

It's an apple! Tropical Dwarf Anna is delivering. She has deigned to produce the beginnings of an apple on my soil, in my garden. I am in quite the excited state.

Isn't it beautiful? I have never watched an apple grow before, perhaps because Brisbane is not exactly known as the big apple. Bugger that's funny. We aren't apple rollers, we're banana benders. That's not as funny, but still good.

Tell me this though, don't you find it curious that the apples are growing but the bananas aren't?

I'm convinced the bananas have it in for me.

Hot Potato

I had no idea that potatoes flowered... but quite evidently, they do.

So I read up on them a bit, and apparently you can grow potatoes from tubers (gosh I love that word), or from seed, which is where the flowers come in.

The colour and size of the flower reminds me of an eggplant flower, but the actual plant itself is a dead ringer for a tomato plant. I have some tomatoes that have popped up next to the potato plants, and I have to look twice every time to see which is which. The stems are quite different, but the leaves are really quite similar.

A little flower, but so pretty. I am fairly dubious of the idea of lots of potatoes happening under this plant, but we'll see... stranger things have happened.

Lots of things happening in the garden at the moment, I have two things to show you that I am really excited about, not quite as excited as I would be about the bananas bananaing, but a close contender.

If you are good, I'll post about the most exciting one tomorrow!

I'm off for a lovely night out at the Valentino exhibition this evening, I am quite excited. And quite dressed up, what on earth are you supposed to wear to an exhibition of gloriously gorgeous clothes? Lol, anything but one of the dresses I have made, I'm pretty sure that Valentino wouldn't be impressed by my invisible zippers. Not so invisible in my hands!

Another Mystery Vegetable

Do you know what this is?

I can't figure it out... it's growing on a vine just like a pumpkin and to me it looks like a cross between a yellow zucchini and a squash, but squash and zucchini don't grow on vines. They don't do they? I have some in the garden right now and they are more like a small bush than a vine.

I'm sure it's not rocket science, but I honestly have no idea... what is it?

Growing Mint

Ugh... I am so late with this post, and thought I might not even get to it today. I've been doing an assignment for the past few days, and in the grand tradition of all slack scholars, after having 8 weeks in which to leisurely write my essay, I started on it last night and it's due on Friday. Nothing like a bit of pressure to get the creative writing into action. Lol, I hope that the submission time is midnight Friday, I am already feeling lazy and need a bit more deadline pressure to work with. It's amazing what you can find to do to distract yourself with, unfortunately for me the distractions that I have found to do haven't involved any sort of housework. Or gardening. It's a bit depressing looking at the garden after all that wind on Saturday, everything is looking a bit sad. The banana trees got their tops folded, like they needed any more of a challenge to fruit :(

Anyway, I did want to start looking at some new fruit trees I purchased at the BOGI fair, but would you believe it's raining again, and is way too wet for me to venture outside. I've just washed my hair :p.

So instead I bring you mint.

I've always been hopeless at growing mint, coriander too for that matter, but this year, my mint has gone wild. I think it must be all the rain we've had, the rain that I've been complaining about for quite some time now. Anyway, mint seems to either go wild or die, the boys' nanna has mint popping up everywhere in her garden, miles away from where it was originally planted. I was digging right next to mine the other day and discovered little underground mint runners, much like a strawberry's, but hidden. I thought that was cool. Mine is planted straight in the ground, I will try and get some runners going in pots too though, and make them into gifts. I love the smell of mint, planting it somewhere where you brush past it would be a great idea too, such a heady fresh fragrance.

So having established that I know nothing about growing it, my one hint for mint, (and it's the only hint for mint I know) is if yours isn't going well, try watering it.

Corn Gone Wrong

I don't really know why this one is so little... it's in there growing amongst others that are a normal size.

I've left it in because I'm curious to see if it produces anything.

Hmm... baby corn?

Mosquito/Blowfly Hybrid

Hmmm... do you remember a few weeks ago I posted a picture of this little oregano animal (I never really was quite sure which animal it was) ? I said I really liked it and thought we could make it together... well... above is my effort...

In my defence, a) I am not crafty (I think that shines through), and b) I honestly think I can fix this up when the oregano grows a bit.

Anyway, if you want to create your own unusual animal, here's how to do it.

Firstly I found this little pot... it used to hold a bonsai, I've no idea what happened to it though. I thought it would be a great base.

Then I got this coconut fibre base, it was old with huntsmen living in it, but I braved them and reclaimed the fibre.

I shaped the fibre into a sort of dome, filled the pot up with soil, and then sort of tucked the fibre in and around the dirt. And that's when I got creative. After I had made the dome, I thought it looked vaguely echidnaesque, and so I found all these twigs and the boys and I poked in all these spines.

That looked so cool that I then thought why stop here, and went and cut up some seed pods for eyes, and a twig for the nose. That's when the echidna stopped and the blowfly/mosquito look started.

But I persevered, and put a little soil on his back and then watered it. Lastly I put the oregano seeds on top, they were so little I was afraid I would lose them all if I watered them in, so I kind of patted them into the dirt with my fingers.

And voila, you certainly end up with something that's quite unique!

Lol, I was almost too embarrassed to post this, but I'm stubborn, and this is what I wanted to post today. And I'm convinced that then appearance of the oregano is going to fix it all up. I'll keep you posted. Ha, literally!

You've Got to Be Ruthless in the Garden Ali

So I'll start by saying that ruthless, nope, not I. In the many divisions of people that can be made in the world, if we divided humankind into those who save bugs in the shower, and those who let them to their fate, I'm a saver. It's not unusual for me to let them crawl onto my toothbrush and then carefully place bug and brush on the bathroom windowsill to dry out. So no, not ruthless.

It's hard for me to be ruthless in the garden. I don't like pulling things up, no no, not the peas, I saw one last week, there might be another one soon! But when my dad said that to me today, I squared my shoulders, looked around the garden, and set my eyes on searching for something I could apply a bit of ruthlessness to.

And I found the perfect vegetable candidate.

The photo above is of my beautiful yet pain in the butt eggplant plant, that I have been at loggerheads with ever since it started producing thumb sized fruit.

The photo below is of the same plant this morning... it must be all this rain. I don't know what's wrong with it, maybe it's rotting, maybe it's sulking, but I haven't been happy with it for ages, so I decided that today, with that ruthless gleam in my eye, it was do or die.

And I gave it a haircut.

A ruthless haircut. One might even venture to suggest that having cheerfully slipped into ruthless waters, I actually have a real knack for it.

Do you think it's going to live?

What to Wear in the Garden: October

I have a feeling we are going to need these...

And these are the cheeriest beads I have... a psychological counteraction to the grey weather.

Once Was Capsicum

This was the state of the chicken coop that greeted me yesterday morning. As I do on Tuesdays, I was running around quite madly getting the boys ready for kindy and me looking somewhat presentable and professional for my working day. It's a mission. And with the coop looking like this, it was shaping up to be an even bigger mission.

I knew the coop was going to flood. On Monday night I was lying in bed willing the rain to stop, I was torn between going to sleep and checking on the chickens. The actual chickens I knew would be okay, but the little bantam is a bit more delicate, and kind of nutty too, I was worried that she wouldn't get out of the rain. Sleep did win out though. I'm an eight hour kind of girl, and as long as I am keeping the children alive, I think I am doing rather brilliantly.

The next morning though, I just couldn't leave them in there, so I grit my teeth and opened up the door. I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with the chickens free-ranging, just when they seem all well behaved, they go and dig up something precious.

And of course, that's what happened. Day one, Monday, all was good. They gave my lettuce a hair cut, but that's okay, I can handle that.

Day two, okay, not brilliant, they got to the side garden. A few pumpkins, some tomato plants, and a big mess, but okay, I can handle that.

Day three, game over. This is the corn after I tried to revive it.

They also dug up my new Barbados Cherry Tree, I couldn't bring myself to take photos of the damage, that's how gutted I felt.

The piece de resistance however, was the capsicum. I'd been trying all year to grow them, and was so proud of this one. I had been documenting its progress and was going to wow you all with it.

Look at what they did to it. And how they left the capsicum lying there to the side.

What an insult.

Look at them walking away... they don't even care...

Needless to say they are very much back in that coop. The water has gone down though, decapitated capsicum or not, I'm not completely heartless... unlike some ungrateful fowl I know.

Oh, and before I sign off I have to tell you that this blog title was inspired (read ripped off) by the Once Were Ikea Lamp post from Ms Rabbit at The Burrow. I thought it was hilarious. Thanks Ms Rabbit.

Feed your Friends: Strawberry Lettuce (Part Two)

Do you remember this gift from last month?

Well here is the finished product all standing up straight... you like?

I had to replace some of the lettuce that wilted, but apart from that I've just kept it wet and it's all growing quite madly. I think the strawberry plant will take over, but that's okay, the lettuce will last for long enough for my friend to enjoy. I have visions of her having this on a windowsill in her kitchen, picking off leaves from the lettuce for yummy fresh salads.

I did want to pretty this up for the photo with a fancy bow, but it's still so wet outside, the bow would be looking pretty sad pretty quickly. Even these photos are a bit out of whack, I wanted to get all the pot in and have it looking a little more symmetrical, but it wasn't going to happen with all the rain. It was in and out pretty quickly.

Hopefully it will ease up a little by tomorrow and I can take some pictures to show you the calamitous activities the chickens have been up to :O.

Fluffy little balls of fun.

Just Add Water

Well, it's running rivers outside, it's leaking inside, and it's hard to take photos when your feet are in a pool of water and the lens of your camera keeps getting wet. So today, I found an indoor gardening activity to keep me happy.

These are those peat pots I tested out a few weeks ago. I will use coconut husk ones next time, but I might as well use these ones up now I have them.

The wonderful thing about these little pots, is that you don't actually have to do anything. You just add water and pop in the seed. It can't get any easier than that. Of course I didn't have to add any water, there is plenty of that falling from the sky for free.

I chose to plant teeny tiny seeds, I have corn and beans I want to plant out, but those seeds are big and it's easy to just sow them directly. The little ones tend to get lost in plantation. Ooo that's funny.

Anyway, I popped in Rosella, Tarragon, Dill and Eggplant.

That's it, gardening done for the day.

I really hope it stops raining now.