Sunday, November 22, 2009

*wave*... I'm still here

Greetings fellow bloggers. Despite the apparent misworkings of my post button I have still been around and I have noticed your continuing visits, thank you. In short, I have a new job which requires lengthy travel times on my part and my weekends have been taken up with a multitude of celebrations finally culminating in the nuptials of our dearest friends. My garden has not been receiving the tlc it had grown accustomed to but I'm doing what I can to rectify that. In the meanwhile, I thought it best to dust off the keyboard and let you all know whats growing! And what's not.

Let's start off to the left...



So far so green... My herbs have been picking up for which I'm grateful. I am thrilled my basil is thriving! Its my favourite herb and I've been twiddling my thumbs waiting for it to grow. Needless to say its had a lot of use in the past few weeks. I have some purple 0pal basil seedlings coming up and I hope they do well. The only disappointment with my herbs was the death of my thyme.. I've sown some seeds and I'm hoping they come up soon... Its my most used herb and I'm missing it.

My solitary remaining zucchini is outwardly healthy. So healthy its taken up the entire pot which I wouldn't begrudge it bar the fact I'm getting no zucchinis from it! Oh there are plenty of babies/female buds which is admittedly a step further than my last attempt, which is great.. but I'm at a loss of how to fertilise them. Now you're all going to rush to comment about the process and I know what I'm supposed to do, but the fact is the female flowers never open. I am now experimenting with tearing them open when I have a male flower and trying to pollinate them that way. I feel like I'm violating them! I'm not expecting good results... but why do they die before the flowers open? I'm missing some mineral or something aren't I? Anyway.. here are all my non-pollinated baby zukes in all their glory.




They're a round variety of zucchini btw, if you're wondering at their odd shape, and even not-matured, quite beautiful imho.

Speaking of fertilising... I had no problem with my fruiting... Strawberries!
I picked my second (yes... I've had a whole 2!) ripe stawberry this morning. I am happy to report there are many more coming =) They are alpine strawberries and most are quite ugly, odd-shaped looking things but my mum swears they were the best tasting variety they had in Poland and so far I'm convinced. They are tiny though.



Now bypassing cacti and umbrella trees, in the middle of the balcony we have my happy purple/green, white striped plant (for which I have no name) that is absolutely thriving; my undecided echinacea which has finally looks like it will keep growing and another happy little vegemite, my glowing aloe vera. All good here.. lets move on.




Now we come to the sad end of my little oasis. A withered, moldy end... I had managed to turn the tomatoes around with the miracle spray Daphne recommended but sadly we had a couple of miserable flood enducing rainy days (or weeks might I add) that helped the mold come back with avengence. I have been pruning all the withered and moldy branches until now theres not much left. The prince has vanished leaving me with the toads of the tomato world. But I do have tomatoes.



For the moment. All the up-coming buds have withered to dried out skeletons of what they were supposed to be so I think we are coming to the end of my first brave little tomato plants. But they are sending me off with an abudant harvest on their way out. I picked 46 tomatoes this morning!



And here is my favourite of the lot of them.




And why was I snapping away at some odd inanimate little balls while there was a gorgeous, colourful (and blissfully noisy =)) parrot playing topsy-turvey peekaboo? Well I just had to take a snap of her too.

8 comments:

  1. Wow that is a lot of female squash blossoms on one plant. They don't ever open? I had that happen to some when they were really stressed out, but yours look pretty happy.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'd be as happy as that parrot if I had as many lovely looking plants as you! Sorry your tomatoes have no leaves, but the harvest looks great.

    Oh, and I'm glad you are finally back!

    ReplyDelete
  3. It's good to read a post by you, you have some good looking plants. I liked your berry photo, it was perfection!
    Rosey

    ReplyDelete
  4. Daphne, that's whats confusing me because it does look happy doesn't it? and yet I have not had a single female flower open. The swellings get to a good size and then die. I hope that in time the problem will rectify. Male flowers on the other hand bloom every few days no problem.

    AG, thank you! Its good to be back =)

    Rosey, that's so sweet of you to say. They don't all look like that =P but that doesn't change the taste!

    ReplyDelete
  5. My pumpkin shed female fruit when I didn't keep the water up on it enough in the hottest part of last summer, not sure if you could be having the same problem. You could try sprinkling a little sulphate of potash, it's the mineral that encourages fruiting in plants. Tomatoes love it too.

    ReplyDelete
  6. everything looks great and very promising! Your balcony garden is so tidy and doesn't look a bit neglected.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks for the tips Alexa, I will try those out =)

    Thanks Wendy! The house is a mess but I make sure the garden is neat. Gotta have those priorities straight ;)

    ReplyDelete
  8. I like your containers. i wish i could have such beautiful pots. feeling jealous. keep posting.

    ReplyDelete