Passionate Trellis

My ever-helpful boyfriend has brought another one of my ideas to fruition.

I said to him the other day, "Wouldn't it be good if we had a passionfruit trellis?" as I showed him what I meant while we were in the garden.

So, using the existing fence as one side of the trellis, he constructed a curve with chicken wire, and attached it to three star pickets, which formed the other side of the finished trellis.

Now we have a nice arbour in which to provide some shade and cool. It also breaks the monotony of the garden, and adds some height.

The passionfruit vines are flourishing too, with no sign of disease or bug infestation. Which is a relief, after the pruning given to it by a neighbouring possum! I just wonder when it will fruit?

Heartbreaks

Still no change in the worm situation. I have emailed the supplier to see what other advice/tips they can offer.

The worms are hardly eating the food. As it is quite warm here, I am not sure whether the foodscraps in the container is breaking down due to the weather and moisture. I have also poked my fingers around the container in the hopes of finding worms, but there are no signs of them. I don't want to keep poking, as it may stress the worms. Imagine if you're in your house and a big hand comes crashing through the roof trying to see where you are!

Another sad thing is the state of the veggie garden at the moment. My brassica bed has been under attack by small green caterpillars (Cabbage moth). These green grubs have eaten their way through my Chinese cabbage, buk choy and are now chewing through the cucumbers and bananas!

I have looked up several organic options for killing them, and apparently chilli and garlic spray seems to do the trick - provided the caterpillars are in the early stages. But there is also a bio-organic control, called BT. Bacillus Thuringiensis is derived from naturally-occuring soil bacteria. It works by paralysing the caterpillar's digestive tract, and they die from starvation. Bad for the caterpillar, but good for plants and other helpful creatures like bees, ladybirds and earthworms as BT doesn't affect them. Will be applying this onto any caterpillar-infected plants soon. Watch out!

BT is effective on caterpillars such as TOBACCO HORNWORM (Manduca Sexta)

The two cucumber plants in the large bed have also shrivelled into yellow-nothingness. I'm not 100% sure whether this is due to the hot weather, the mealybugs (which are ALL over the plants) or the caterpillars. Maybe a combination of all.. but apparently cucumber plants only grow in the cooler months of the Dry. They were still fruiting up to about a month ago. The lone cucumber in the middle bed is struggling on. It's still fruiting sporadically and producing some huge female babies! I have never seen the female buds this big before, probably because the plant knows the game is almost up. I haven't fed them anything else that's for sure.

My lemongrass has also fallen victim to its home relocation. It was moved to a different spot, along with only half of its roots. The other half are probably still in the ground from where they made their way out of the container and got ripped up.

Still.. the zucchini is doing well. (Except I've learnt not to plant them in beds anymore - they just take over!) So is the basil, pumpkin, Ceylon spinach (not that we eat it!), most of the chillies, and the marigold. I now have golden moss in a hanging basket. The cosmos have also bloomed! And our "watermelon" is thriving. Turns out it is a chilli plant! My boyfriend still has no idea how it got into the pot where he was growing a watermelon seed.

Worms!

The compost worms I'd ordered finally arrived. Two thousand of them.. in the form of 'worm bombs'. Apparently there will be an "explosion" of worms once they get settled and feed and... hopefully, mate with each other!

We decided to use a polystyrene container with holes punched in the bottom (for drainage). Recycled shadecloth as lining (so worms don't escape). The most important thing was the bedding, as this is where the worms will breathe, eat and (hopefully!) live.

I had done a bit of initial research on appropriate worm bedding, but different sources say different things. Some said to use shredded paper, others said soil, but the instructions which came with the worms said to use compost and well-matured manure. A friend of mine whose dad once had a worm farm said he used lawn clippings.

So in the end, we decided to go with a mixture of shredded paper, compost, grass clippings and a bit of soil. After moistening it and mixing it all in together, we let the worms free!

We left the worms to settle in overnight. The next morning, we fed them a handful of chopped up cucumber, buk choy, banana skin, carrot and potato peel and even a teabag! When we checked later that night, unfortunately none of it had been touched. The instructions did say to leave them to settle for a day or so before feeding, as they may take time to get comfortable after their big trip.

Checked again this morning and still no joy... no food eaten and no signs of worms. I sprayed the entire surface to keep the bedding nice and moist. Worms have no way of controlling their body temperature and rely completely on their surroundings to keep them within the right temperature range.

Will write more once there's something to report....

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

Been a bit AWOL on this blog lately... However, there is change in the air, heralded by the torrents of rain we have been receiving - unseasonably early. It is welcome news to me.. as the rain brings some cooler air temps and gives me time off from watering the garden!

Grass has shot up everywhere due to the extra rain, hiding the growing pumpkins.

I haven't watered for the last four days now. But am still spending time in the mornings harvesting, mainly cucumbers, and pollinating whatever's flowering (mostly cucumbers, a handful of pumpkins and the odd zucchini).

My boyfriend and I have also been busy scouring the neighbourhood for unwanted goods for our garden. It is what's known as Hardwaste Collection. The northern parts of Australia are susceptible to cyclones, and as Cyclone Season approaches, the local councils will take away any bulky material / goods that is no longer required by households.

We managed to scavenge quite some good stuff! Among them were hanging baskets, chicken wire, shadecloths, metal poles, sprinkler heads... and an old carpet. We lay the carpet onto one of the heavily weed-infested areas in the hope that the lack of sun and air will smother them.

So while I have been busy at work, the boyfriend has been busy adding improvements to the garden. He has put in an entirely new irrigation system for all three garden beds:

The latest additions to our garden:

A mulberry sapling...

A watermelon seedling....

A yellow-flowered shrub.....

Wilting Toms

Sad to say, but although the tomato plants are yielding fruit, they have been afflicted by wilt. I would suspect it is the infamous 'bacterial wilt' which tropical soils are known for.

Fusarium and Verticilium wilt are deadly because they attack the roots of the plant and stop it from receiving nutrients from the soil. The plant displays early symptoms of wilt through its drooping leaves and branches. In the intermediary stages, the branches and leaves of the affected plant look severely brown and dry, no matter how much water you give the plant. The final stage, brown discolouration may take place on the plant stems and at the base of the plant. The affected plant withers a slow, lingering death. Fruit may remain unaffected, as the plant pours all its remaining energy into it. However, fruit produced may be drier and more tart than normal.

The only way to avoid wilt is to plant in pots, using sterilised potting mix and not letting plants make contact with any soil from the garden. I thought I had isolated two Grosse Lisse tomato plants using this technique. However this was before the wilt began rearing its ugly head in the garden beds affecting the cherry tomatoes. Unbeknownst to me, I had dealt the fatal blow to the Grosse Lisse by layering the bottom of the container with regular garden soil. The wilt slowly crept upwards and although the fruit was still large and healthy, the Grosse Lisse fell victim to this grim reaper of tomatoes....

The worst thing is that the wilt has spread to the eggplants. I thought eggplants were immune to wilt, as some gardeners recommend grafting tomato plants onto eggplants in order to avoid wilt. However, I found out that this applies to only certain types of eggplants, such as the Thai variety (small and green).

Perhaps the wilt has also affected the sweetcorn plants, which took on a cardboard brown colour a few weeks back. All the corn ears being produced were dry and 'unfinished'. Or maybe it is the mealybugs that the ants have farmed, which have sapped the corn dry. I don't know. But between the wilt and the ants, I DO know that corn and tomatoes did not make it through this season. Question is, has this put me off planting tomatoes ever again?

DRIED UP CORN EAR

Small Critters

There has been an increasing number of bugs and small creatures which call our garden home. From the numerous and annoying: ants and aphids, to the useful and ever-cute: ladybirds.

I've also spotted a few grasshoppers, ranging in size and colour. The biggest is about 6cms long and is predominantly brown. There's also a camouflage expert, a green hopper which looks more like a leaf insect, but it 'pings' from my tomato plants to the garden bed, and is very hard to see unless it is moving.

There are also these orange and black winged insects. They look like a cross between a ladybird and a cockroach. For they are roach-shaped, but orange with black spots, and roughly the size of a ladybird if it was squished sideways. They have a fondness for eating zucchini leaves. This one here is traversing a dried corn leaf.

Until about a month ago, I was convinced that our garden did not have any earthworms. In my diggings around the yard, I never came across one. Also, I think the soil is far too dry for earthworms to proliferate. I was proven wrong when I was transplanting my lime seedling into a bigger pot. I found this very skinny, almost translucent, earthworm in the process.

There are also a handful of skinks and a white-striped lizard or two. The residential skinks like our garden beds and come out in the morning when I am watering to quench their thirst. They are quite tame, and will stay very still while eyeing me the whole time. I managed to snap this photo of one underneath a basil plant.

There are also, from time to time, some pigeons and birds who sit on the fence eyeballing me as I water the garden. The pigeons coo away, while the smaller birds (I don't know their name, but they're tiny zippy little grey & white things) usually wait till I am at a safe distance before descending quickly into a garden bed and making off with as much hay mulch they can carry in their miniscule beaks. They are very cute, and always come in a pair. I like to think that I'm helping in their nest construction. No photos of them as yet, as they flit away and are quite alert and wary.

Harvesting Cucurbits

Well today has been another day of veggie-picking. Two big cucumbers and one GIANT zucchini! I had already harvested two other cucumbers on a previous occasion, but had left them on the vine a little too long, and they were full of seed. I still ate them though!

I am not sure if the slow-release fertiliser I put in the beds is working, but maybe it accounts for the super growth! The size of the zucchini has surpassed my expectations, and I hope I haven't picked it too late. Guess I'll find out later when I cook it for dinner one night.

I gave away both cucumbers, this time to Mrs Mulch, as she has contributed to the growth of the veggies with her chook poo. I know this will sound weird, but it feels unusual to be taking away the efforts of a plant that I have watched over and done all I can for. As much as this is what growing a food garden is all about, these first harvests feel like a rarity! Hopefully they won't prove to be, but at the moment, I am enjoying the novelty of being able to pick my own veggies and eating them. And sharing them round too!


FEMALE ZUCCHINI FLOWER

So far, most of the plants that have 'fruited' are members of the cucurbit family. Pumpkins, cucumbers and zucchinis are all part of the Cucurbitaceae group, which also includes gourds. Pumpkin and cucumber grow from vines, and their leaves are of similar shape, and can be a similar size (small pumpkin vs large cucumber). However the flowers are quite different in size and look. The zucchini plant is quite different again. The leaves are the biggest of all three compared and sit on thick hollow stems. However, the zucchini flower is similar in colour and size to a pumpkin flower.

I like the commonalities these plants share, and it's quite obvious why they are members of the same family. But they produce such different offspring at the same time. My conclusion is Cucurbits are pretty cool! And I'm glad they grow with such vigour in my garden. There is a bit of powdery mildew on some of the pumpkin leaves, but they haven't really affected the general health of the plants.
SIX DAYS AGO

ZUCCHINI TODAY