Baby Tomato

I found our very first tomato growing in the garden. It is a tiny, green cherry tomato; slightly larger than a pea. Thank goodness it survived my prior culling of tomato flowers. I had read somewhere that pinching out flowers on young tomato plants would aid their growth, and I did just that, not knowing that my plants were already mature and ready for fruiting! So after a severe bout of guilt, I left all the poor tomato plants to their own devices, vowing never to pinch off another flower again!

GREEN BABY CHERRY

Anyhow, luckily this little green tomato found its own way despite my meddling. It hangs on one of the lower branches of a large cherry tomato plant. I discovered it when I was staking a wayward tomato branch. (Cheers, applause) That describes the noises going off inside my head as I made the discovery. Very happy right now just thinking about the lil' tomato growing bigger and bigger.

Yesterday, I also planted some ginger and galangal in polystyrene containers. I'm not sure whether this latest experiment will work, as I acquired the ginger and galangal pieces from a local market. The lady who sold me the ginger said it came from "down south", adding helpfully that it "won't grow here". However the man with the galangal said he grew his locally. From researching the internet, I found that the main thing is to keep the pieces moist and humid, once planted. This is the preferred clime for these members of the Zingiberaceae family. Ginger and galangal crops take about 100 days to reach harvest potential, so once again, I will be playing the waiting game!

GINGER & GALANGAL PIECES

From Little Things Big Things Grow

SOWN SEEDS - DAY ONE

Venturing into the world of packet seeds is like gazing into a garden of endless possibilities. There are so many from which to choose, ranging from the humble potato to mysterious sounding things like amaranth and mizuna. After spending about 4ominutes perusing through almost every packet on display and speed-reading through planting instuctions, we finally purchased just four types of seed. (How restrained, right?) They were Climbing Beans (Blue Lake), Nasturtium (Trailing), Pak Choi (Hei Xia F1) and Snow Peas (Climbing).

As these were our first packets of store-bought seeds, my boyfriend planted with great care, all four varieties in used seedling trays. Just SIX DAYS later... Behold how they have grown! (Even though most of the seed packets say germination takes 7-10 days). Seed actually began to sprout on the third day in most cases, with the exception of the Nasturtium (14-21 days).

We chose this as we currently have no beans growing in our garden, and apparently they grow well most of the year in tropical climate. We also wanted a climber which will help cover our bare fence, AND at the same time give us nutritious food. Win-win!

CLIMBING BEAN (Blue Lake)

I didn't think Snow peas would grow well here even though I love eating them. My boyfriend seemed determined however, to get them to grow. Here's hoping he succeeds!

SNOW PEA (Climbing)

Pak Choi is such a versatile vegetable in Asian cooking. I chose it because of this reason, and also because I know it will grow in this climate. (My next-door neighbour grows it in proliferation.) In the same pic are also capsicum seedlings which we grew from collected (not store-bought) seeds.

PAK CHOI (Hei Xi F1)

Finally I have included a picture of the sweet mint seedling we bought, as I forgot in a previous entry. I decided to grow it in a pot as I have heard mint loves to take over any area of the garden in which it is planted. I have never really cooked with mint, but it's one of those handy kitchen herbs.

SWEET MINT

Pics of the nasturtium to follow when they finally sprout.

Guava in the Ground

SMALLER LOCAL GUAVA

Today we planted the smaller of the two guava trees. It stands at around 70cms high and has two main stems. It has been looking rather bare of leaves and my boyfriend and I weren't sure if it would survive much longer in its pot. The soil that came with the pot looks rather dark and solid, not friable and moist. So we have a suspicion the guava may not be receiving enough water even though we water it regularly.

This morning, we made it a priority to plant the guava. After all, it has been waiting patiently with us for a couple of months now. I'm not sure what variety of guava it is, but it is probably the most common one grown in the tropical north, with a green skin and pinky red centres, also known as Cherry guava.

Two days later, my boyfriend planted the larger guava, known as Indian Guava, var. Allahabad Safeeda. Apparently it is a small evergreen tree of 3-5m which bears large rounded fruit with pale yellowy cream skin and white flesh with few seeds. It is in a full-sun position as recommended, however its leaves seem to be curling and browning at the edges. Overall though, the tree seems to be reasonably healthy. Hopefully both trees will be happy in their new spots in the garden. As fruit trees go, guava seem unfussy as to they type of soil it calls home. One website I searched says "They will thrive in any sort of soil from sand right to clay soils". (Greengold Garden Concepts) The site also recommends adding dolomite to the soil around the tree after planting. Maybe I should try that and see if the leaves improve. Also, both trees should bear fruit within 12 months of planting. Looking forward to that!

Guava fruit is crunchy and fragrant. I remember eating heaps as a kid, sometimes mixing crushed salted plums to the fruit to give it a tanginess when it lacked sweetness. Sometimes guava skin can be a little bitter when picked too early, but fully-ripened guava is delicious and soft.

INDIAN GUAVA

A-Maize-ing Corn

As mentioned previously, one of the sweetcorn is overtaking all the others in terms of height and growth. I noticed with excitement that the silks are now about 6cms long and a lovely bright green colour.

ONE ABOVE ALL OTHERS

According to a video I watched on YouTube on pollinating corn - which was hilarious as it was informative - the corn in my garden is still in its early stages. The silks and tassels need to be a goldeny yellow colour before they are mature enough to "mate". Or do what plants do.

As I can't seem to find the link to the corn video on YouTube, search "corn pollination" or the video's producer "TRYtoHELPyou" on the site. He offers very easy, direct instructions on how to hand pollinate ears of corn. So simple it's mind-boggling. The end credits are amusing too.

But basically what I have read and learned about corn is that the pointy bits on top are the male "tassels" which produce pollen with which to fertilise the female "silks", scientifically known as elongated stigmas. The proper name for corn is maize, and its scientific name is Zea mays.

In order to hand pollinate your corn (usually the job of wind or breezes) run your fingers along the horizontal stems of the male tassels to gather the pollen. Then merely sprinkle as much of the pollen onto the awaiting silks. The aim of pollination is to form kernels on your ears of corn. An unfertilised ear of corn looks kinda like a baby sweetcorn you find in stir-frys. Just a conical shape with tiny bumps without lovely rounded yellow kernels to complete the picture.

Once fertilisation takes place, the all-important kernels will begin to form on the ear of corn. You know pollination has been successful when the silks turn brown and start clumping together. The picture below was taken about 2 weeks after the silks started showed.

FERTILISED CORN

Fruit of Dragon

Now there's an unusual name for a fruit. For such an exciting sounding name, the taste of the dragonfruit is somewhat... bland. Its outer appearance however is, one supposes, from where the fruit derives its name. Dragonfruits have a fleshy, deep pink outer skin, tinged with emerald green. The plant on which it grows resembles a cactus, with thorny clusters which makes removing them from pots to plant inground slightly challenging.

Today, I did just that, to one such dragonfruit plant. We bought it from a local home nursery, just around the back laneway from our home. At the same time, we also bought a Ceylon spinach and sweet mint. The lovely lady who runs the nursery also sportingly let us into her chook shed to dig out some chook poo for our garden. We carried the chook poo in two big buckets back to our yard and put it in the compost to mature. The lady said to leave it for four weeks before adding to the garden beds. This was only one week ago.

CEYLON SPINACH

I have come to realise gardening is as much a waiting game as it is sometimes physically tasking, a lot of research, planning and trial-and-error. I must admit, in the last few days I have felt somehow deflated at times. My mental conversation goes along the lines of: "The plants are in. Now what?" I am not a patient gardener... nor am I in fact, a patient person at all.

In order to boost my spirits, and trick myself into delving further into this garden adventure upon which I have embarked, I take stock of how far the garden has come since June. I observe the tiny things which have grown, or are about to.

A couple of days ago, a tiny arrowhead peeked out from the top of one of the sweetcorn. I was pleasantly surprised as I was proud. So far so good. Although ginger and black ants love nestling amongst corn leaves, right near where new ears of corn will sprout. I hope this doesn't mean the ants will destroy all cobs before they mature. The ants are still overrunning the garden. The nursery lady from round the back - let's call her Mrs Mulch - says ants are a nuisance and should be gotten rid of. However an author I am reading lately, Babs Corbette, seems to think ants are good as they help aerate soil and dispose of dead matter, in her book "Intimate Secrets of a Flamboyant Gardener".

What I need are worms, which would do the job a hundredfold of ants, if indeed, that is what ants actually do. So far, all the ant activity I have seen is either intrusive or unintelligible. Worms would not disturb or eat living plants, as they are only interested in consuming anything which was once alive. Hmm.. worm farming. Now THAT'S an intriguing thought.

Butternutty

Not much to report except the baby pumpkin is growing. SUCCESS is mine - with hand pollination - mwahahaaHAAHAHAHAH!!! The baby pumpkin started off quite green, and now it's quite a pale green-almost-white colour. The flower on top of its head is shrivelled and browned, but still attached. It makes the pumpkin look as if it has a brown mohawky tuft. I have the urge to draw eyes and a mouth on it and call it "Wilson".

I noticed also that another tiny female bud had started to form on the same vine which the baby pumpkin is growing. Except the tiny bud has now turned yellow and growth has stopped. Perhaps it's another plant-survival thing, where only one fruit can form on any one vine. Elsewhere on other vines of the pumpkin plant tells the same story. Where there is more than one female bud starting to form on a vine, only one will remain green whereas the others turn yellow and stunted. Maybe it's just a coincidence? Maybe it's a natural selection thing? Whatever it is I will get to the bottom of it... one day.

P.S. I also obtained an out-of-date bag of potatoes which I am now storing in the cupboard until they sprout 'eyes'. Then I shall plant those too!! MWaaahhaahahahahahhhAAHHAHA!! I think all this success with planting may be messing with my head....

"Second" Bed

Today, my boyfriend and I planned the second (or northern) bed and got to work putting the plants in. We had a dozen or so leftover Grosse Lisse tomato seedlings and a couple of Lebanese cucumbers ready to go into the ground. As well as hand-raised chilli babies sprung from seeds. The chillies looked so tiny when planted in the bed. Fragile and unprotected. They weren't growing any bigger in their egg cartons, so here's hoping they will, in their new bigger home.

We decided to place the tomatoes in the bed in a slanted " N " formation. This breaks up the rectangular bed into four sectors in which we planted chillies, cucumbers and garlic chives. We will fill in the rest with capsicums once they are large enough. I estimate that not all the chilli plants will survive - so where there is a vaccuum, I will replant with a capsicum. Most gardening books I have read, treat chillies the same as capsicum. Interesting. They also grow from very similar looking seeds into very similar looking seedlings. I suppose it's because they are part of the same family.

Another source of joy for me in the garden is watching the baby butternut pumpkin grow bigger. I think my hand pollination of the female flower the other day actually worked! The butternut seems to be growing incrementally every day. I love looking at it and admiring its shape. At this stage, I don't care so much for harvesting the vegetables as much as just watching them grow, and marvelling at the process nature takes. It's such a simple thing really, and the plants are just doing what they naturally do with minimal fuss... but to me it's a thing of beauty and simplicity.