the plums are ripe

I was trying one of the plums and it came off in my hand, so I guess they're about ripe.  It had a bit of a caterpillar nibble at the stem end which may have made it drop early but I wanted to try it anyway.

Look at this lovely colour.  It looks like a nectarine!  So small though.

Here's the inside.  Very juicy, but the flesh flavour was quite bland.  The skin is the classic soury plum taste which I personally dislike.  Hopefully the next few are sweeter to counteract the tartness.

Or maybe I just don't really like plums!

bird bath and the corner garden

This little corner of the garden is really coming along.  On the left we have the catnip patch which has gone crazy.  Once it's finished flowering I'm going to cut it back ruthlessly because it's crowding out the mint (yes there's mind under there somewhere).  But in the meantime the bees love it, and so does my cat when he remembers what it is.

Next along is the little gem magnolia tree with two stella bella daylilies.  In front of the birdbath is an African purple basil - it's an ornamental basil, not tasty enough for eating but it smells lovely and it covers in blossom. There's a bit of alyssum next to it that self-seeded, it's scattered itself around the garden.

Behind the bird bath is my new "tequila blue" salvia.  The one on the left is now in full bloom and I love that the blossoms drop into the bird bath where their blue colour lingers for an extra day or two.  The one on the right got snapped off somehow unfortunately so no blooms this year.  But next year it should be even taller and bushier, I want it to shield the birthbath a bit for the more timid birds.

Here's a close up of the salvia blooms.

I reckon it's come along beautifully from this time last year!  This is December 2008:

begonias

Last year I planted a row of vinca along the garage garden bed.  This year I decided to try little begonias instead.  There wasn't really enough sunlight to keep the vinca happy and begonias don't mind a bit of shade.  They seem to be loving it so far, they're thriving and they haven't needed much water.  Though we have had some decent rain which has helped.

They've never been my favourite flowers, but they are sweet little things.

Speaking of flowers, I ditched the pansies at the front door.  They were meant to be red and white but they ended up a washed-out pink and white.  They also wanted more sun, they were leggy and ugly.  So they were replaced by this little lovely.  The folks at the garden shop didn't even know what it was, it came in from one of their growers.

A bit of asking at the ozgrow forum found it to be Pentas lanceolata also known as Egyptian starcluster.  It used to be more common down this way but now it's mostly only grown up in the subtropical areas.  It likes a warm sheltered corner with no hot sun, so it should thrive near the front door. 

hippo! and tomatoes almost ready

My garden got a Christmas present.  The bird bath is a bit deep for smaller birds like the thornbills.  You can just put a rock in the bird path but I had my eye on this handsome chappy at the garden shop, and after a little hint it was under the Christmas tree.  The splashes along the rim are evidence that a bird has already used the bath.

The tomatoes are almost ready for eating.  The first Tommy Toe is turning red!

I'm having a bit of trouble with the rogue de marmande.  It set a bunch of healthy fruit early on.  I've lost about 4 to caterpillars, and in the last few weeks almost every blossom has dropped instead of setting fruit.  And now, I've lost one to blossom end rot.

BER usually happens with inconsistent watering and I think that's the culprit.  The RdM is at the front of the planter, closer to the hot sun, and the plant often looks wilted.  I didn't want to over-water, since the Tommy Toe never looked wilted.  But after dropping blossoms and getting BER, I'm now pretty certain I have to keep the water up more.

another new bird

I've spotted yet another new bird in my garden for the first time.  I was sitting below the plum tree last night and I heard a sweet, faint set of chirrups coming from the tree. At first I wondered if someone had built a nest and I hadn't noticed. But I looked up to see a type of bird I'd never seen before in my yard.

I managed to get a decent photo up into the tree.  I believe it was a family of silvereyes.  Two juveniles were doing the chirping and being fed by either mum or dad.  Turns out they love fruit so they must have visited for the figs.  The first of the breba crop is ripening - it's the small early crop that I don't bother to net.  There are too few figs so I just leave them for the birds.

plums, melons and tomatoes

No, none of the plums, melons or tomatoes are ripe yet but I thought I'd update you on their progress.  The melons are settling in well and putting out some good growth and even a few little flowers.  This first one is the Green Nutmeg.

And this is the Minnesota Midget with one of its little flowers.

And this is a little watermelon of some kind I got from the B-store.  I ended up freeing up that big tub only recently so I bought a rather advanced seedling.

And this is the Baby Blue pumpkin seedling.  I'm not sure why it hasn't "vined" out at all, I hope it hasn't stunted from being in a punnet for so long...

The plum tree out the front has a few fruit starting to ripen.  They're still small, I don't think they'll get very big.  But they're starting to lighten up in colour. I wonder what colour they'll be in the end?  Shouldn't be long now.

And finally, I've started to lose tomatoes to little grubs.  I had some do this last year too, they lay their eggs in the flower and the caterpillars eat their way out of the green tomato, leaving poos behind.  I don't think there's anything I can do about it once they're in there, just hope there aren't too many.  I've lost about 4 so far but there are heaps more green fruit waiting to ripen.

That's the round up for this weekend.  It's almost Christmas and we've had beautiful weather - some hot days but they cool down quickly, plus a bit of rain here and there.  Can't ask for much more than that!

soils ain't soils

After rescuing one bed of geraniums I found the other bed was also looking tatty and unhealthy.  I decided it needed the same TLC of compost and clay pellets as the other bed because the soil there is the same horrible "builder's dust" that rings the house.  It got me thinking I should show you the different types of soils I have to work with in my little garden.  You would think in such a small garden it would all be the same but no - I've got three very different soils to work with.

A few garden beds were obviously part of the old garden beds, back when the property was someone's backyard.  The soil is relatively rich but more importantly, it has a beautiful texture.  Dark, loamy, just a bit of clay, it holds moisture really well.  You can see it in the bottom left of the photo.

The raised brick garden beds were filled with sandy loam.  Apparently it's a common soil for filling new garden beds.  It looks nice and probably has good drainage, but it's actually fairly crap - too much sand, not enough organic matter or clay.  Dries out pretty quickly.  It's the top blotch in the photo.

Around the house is what I call "builder's dust."  I'm not even sure what it's made from, it's not sandy, it's not clay, there's almost nothing organic in it.  I think it might be sub-soil that got dug up when they built the house.  The best description is "powdery", it dries out incredibly quickly into dust.  You can see it in the bottom left.

All three of these soils got about the same amount of rainfall when I sampled them, but by then the builder's dust was bone-dry, the sandy loam was a bit moist and the dark loam was still beautifully moist.  The reason the picture looks wet is because I wanted to demonstrate the water-holding qualities of the three soils. I dripped a few drops on each one.  For the dark, rich loam the water soaked straight in so you can see the glisten but nowater around it.  For the other two, the drops rolled straight off the soil and formed a puddle in between the two.  This is called "hydrophobic soil" - not only does it not hold onto water well, when you water the soil it just puddles on top at first.

The only solution for builder's dust and sandy loam is more, and more, and more organic matter (and maybe some pellets of clay).  It'll take a few years to get it as rich as the dark loam, but it'll be so worth it.

Edit: Update!  The above photo is pretty awful so I recently decided to take a few better snaps.  It rained only 2 days ago so you can really see the difference in how these soils hold the water.

Here's the horrible "builder's dust".  Notice that it's already almost bone dry.

Here's the sandy loam in the raised beds.  Still a bit moist but very crumbly.

And here's the beautiful soil in the older beds, a wonderful mix of loam and clay.  It's the only one that holds a shape when I squeeze it (from the clay) and it's still lovely and moist.

tomato update

Thought I'd post a quick update on the size of my tomatoes.  They're so much bigger, healthier and happier than they were last year when I grew them in individual pots!  They're both covered with at least a dozen clusters of fruit and flowers. 

And here's one of the clusters of the Rouge de Marmande.  I  can't wait for harvest time!

growing, harvests, planting and worms

A lot to but together for this post.  First I wanted to share how much my tomatoes are thriving this year now that they're in a huge planter.  They're another 20cm taller since I took this photo, with heaps of little green fruit.  I've had to brace them against the wind though, it can get very strong.

I finally pulled up my Granex sweet onions to make room for the pumpkin and melons.  I put my foot in the photo for perspective - three good-sized onions and three that were too small.  They all could have done with another month of growth but I just couldn't put off the melons any longer, they'd been in little punnets for too long.  And unfortunately the onions were nothing special.  They were indeed very mild but they weren't very sweet.  Not something I'll repeat in this small garden.

But at least I was finally able to plant out two melons and a pumpkin.  I topped up the garden bed with mushroom compost, manure and my home-made compost.

I had heaps of compost this time around, rich and black.  It's going to make those melons grow like crazy!  Look at that beautiful black gold!

And finally, I decided this weekend to set up a worm farm.  The farm was free, made from two foam broccoli boxes.  Wet shredded newspaper goes in the top for worm food.  I poked holes in the bottom so the worm "juice" can drip through to the bottom box.  This "worm wee" makes excellent liquid fertiliser.

Then I just had to add worms!  You can buy the special composting worms from most garden shops.  You can't see them in the photo because they run away from the light, but I gave them a bit of watermelon rind to start with.  Mostly I got them to use up our newspaper which otherwise goes into the recycling,  but I'll sometimes add some food scraps.

As well as the "wee" they also make solid castings, rich pellets of clay-textured goodness.  So now I've got the compost bin to add texture to the soil, worm wee for liquid goodness and worm castings for fertiliser pellets.  As my husband put it, there isn't a corner left in the garden that hasn't been put to some purpose!

the babies

It was ages ago now, but hardly 10 days after discovering the nest, I got home, let the cats out, and this little fellow clumsily flew across the yard and thudded onto the windowsill.

I immediately grabbed both cats and shoved them inside.  I thought, that can't be Mom and Pop's baby!  They were just tiny things last week!  But sure enough, a peek into the nest confirmed they were already flying!  Flying badly, but flying.  They landed all over the place.  Here's one that kept sitting either in or next to the birdbath.

And this one thought the front porch wasn't a bad place to rest.

After the afternoon's comedy antics I didn't see much of the babies.  Mom and Pop must have decided the cats would not be good for their children's health and took them to another yard.  I still see Mom and Pop a lot and occasionally their kids, looking a bit more grown-up now that they have their tail feathers.