Full Wet Season

It has been raining just about every day. The Wet is - without a doubt - finally here.

The buckets I have strategically placed about the garden are doing their job and I have plenty of rainwater to water the undercover plants with.

The passionfruit trellis has sufferred a setback; the vines are so vigorous they have collapsed the archway! Hmm... I'll have to motivate myself to do something about it soon, but have been busy entertaining a visitor from south.

A strange thing has been happening to the capsicum plants. The capsicums are growing and ripening, but when picked, they are soft and rotten. I have a feeling it may be the Neem oil I have been spraying to deter mealybugs, which are everywhere in the garden.

Although deemed organic and has been used for centuries, Neem oil is also harmful to certain plants. It seems to kill mealybugs ok, but may also be responsible for the rotten capsicums. So I have stopped spraying Neem and am now just waiting for a good capsicum. If I'm wrong about the Neem, then it must be a rotting disease - heaven forbid!

Oh, and the zucchini plant has well and truly died. It had blossom end rot. The rot starts at the flowering end of the fruit and spreads, rendering malformed lumps on the fruit and eventually the whole fruit decays - from the inside. The zucchinis looked almost normal except for the external lumpiness. I guess the rot spread throughout the rest of the plant and the leaves started wilting and eventually the whole plant died.

I REALLY hope this is not the same thing happening to the capsicums... The chillies are going strong though. Brilliant yellow colour. When will they turn red? It's been at least 6 weeks already...

Tidying Things Up

I harvested our first pumpkin today. The abundance of rain had caused a small split in its skin, and I knew I should have taken it off the vine the day before. It wasn't growing any bigger either, which could be another giveaway sign that it was ready for plucking. It is however very edible and still fresh.

Later on I decided to give away the pumpkin to a friend who came to visit. According to an old custom, it is a sign of goodwill to offer the first fruits of your garden to friends or neighbours, as this will increase the yield of your garden. Whether or not it works, I like the philosophy behind it, and have put it into practice.

I then went all around the garden, placing plastic container lids under all the pregnant pumpkins (as I call them), to prevent damp rot or fruit splitting.

Six capsicum seedlings are now also planted in the largest bed, in place of stunted chillies which never grew. This is the third time the capsicums have been moved, so I hope they survive. They started life in an old egg carton, then I transplanted them into a plastic seedling tray when the egg carton became too shallow for the growing roots. After a few weeks in the tray, they are finally in the soil.

A couple of days earlier, I also planted eight chickpea seedlings by the fence where the dragonfruit had been. The dragonfruit plant seems to be fading away into a lighter shade of green, despite its position (full sun). Maybe the soil wasn't suitable, thus I have re-potted it.