Other Balcony Blooms

My last post extolled the virtues of the hardy portulaca - a colourful, forever-flowering little number. But what else is blooming in the garden these days? I keep missing Garden Blogger's Blooms Day each 15th, so I figured I'd just give you all a rundown of some of the blooms on the balcony over the last few months. There are three categories - general flowers, fruit flowers and veggie flowers (ok half the veggies are fruits but I'll keep them seperate.)

Fruits include the lime tree which flowers constantly, but has no fully-formed fruit yet.

And the lemon, apples, nectarine and currants all produced interesting blossoms this year.

What about veggies? Cucumbers, tomatoes, pumpkins and zucchinis all flower, though only three of the four bear any fruit (pumpkins were a loss this year)

Other Flowers?

My hardy red geranium which has been around for years in its tiny pot keeps on trucking

There are also many different coloured snapdragons

Marigolds are both beautiful and useful in the pest-remover category.

The new, lovely, fuschia

So there seems to be a lot blooming in the garden. Even the hibiscus is getting into the swing of things - I'll post a pic once it finally opens its petals.

Harvest Monday

Well wont you just look at my lovely harvest. The corn, the pumpkins, the apples, the potatoes.

Ok so that's just the latest jigsaw. It took me 3 days, not bad for 1000 pieces.

But wouldn't that be just a wonderful harvest. No balcony garden harvest this week, only because I am not there!!! Good old Mr M is looking after my place while I am off in Adelaide visiting the parents. But just because I am away doesn't mean there was no harvest. From this garden we have had all sorts of goodies from eggplants

to rockmelon

and chillis

I cooked the eggplant and chilli in a pasta sauce for the family the other day which was yummy. The rockmelon you see here actually fell off the vine so I am not sure it is ripe which is a shame. I will be checking later today to see if it is salvagable. How was your harvest this week? Head on over to Daphne's Dandelions for more harvest posts.

A Berry Little Harvest Monday

Bit of a smaller harvest this week, with only a few staples left in the sun scorched garden. Beautiful berries of the strawberry kind went into my breakfast this morning. There were both wild versions of this little red wonder and some Hokowase strawberries. Usually I just snack on them as I garden but this time there were enough to go in my breakfast fruit salad.

Silverbeet is continual, even though I cut it to the ground just a month ago! It goes in many dishes and adds extra nutrients.

Eggplants, well I showed you them the other day and here they are harvested. These went into a wonderful little pasta dish.

Speaking of pasta, the last of the pumpkins I harvested a while ago was used up in a delicious pesto pasta dish.

And that is pretty much it for the moment. If you want to see other harvests pop on over to Daphne's Dandelions. I looks forward to harvesting chillies this week and int he future some figs and some more eggplants. The corn, the new corn that is, is a fair way off but I will post about that little experiment soon.

And on slightly different matters, if you can solve my friend's mutant tomato dilemma I posted about yesterday please, please, please add your advice. :)

Harvest Monday Extravaganza

I finally found my camera cord and uploaded the goodies so here is a parade of recent harvests and this week's harvest. It even has some golden globes! These harvests date back to just before Christmas, even so this little balcony garden has produced a lot.

Here was the pre-Christmas harvest and it saw the last of the snow peas. I actually picked a lot more tomatoes than that, several punnets worth, all from 2 little tumbler bushes. They died once I got back from Adelaide, as happens each year from some disease, but not before producing one large crop. I will certainly keep growing these.

And the New Years harvest which was massive (a.k.a. bye bye tomatoes) Most of this went into various salad dishes for a little new years eve shindig I had at my place. It was 42 degrees that day, so salads were all we needed. I was just glad that the garden survived my 10 days away, but with the wonderful garden sitter I have it was no wonder it was bursting with goodies when I returned.

And the most recent harvest which included 3 pumpkins, who were too infested with white fly to reach complete maturation. If only I could find more seedlings I could do a second crop :( I also thought I planted leeks, to my utter surprise turns out they were white onions!.

If you would like to see more harvests from around the world head on over to Daphne's Dandelions. A lot of these plants got ripped out of the garden yesterday in a big white fly control clean up, so harvests may be a little lean for the next few weeks, but we will see.

Garden Bloggers Blooms Day

Unless you are a Japanese Lantern, a zuke, a cuke, a pumpkin, or a lemon tree then you aren't blooming in my garden this month. Things go a bit greeny brown this time of year with tomatoes wilting early and the corn following suit. Blossom is long gone and the pansies, primroses and other annuals have given up finally after a valiant battle. The only things giving a spot of colour to the balcony garden are the amazing japanese lantern. (I really should invest in another one.)

The cukes, zukes and pumpkins are still flowering, though not a lot of fruiting is going on. It is hard to hand pollinate when they are only producing one sex of flower! Come on plants, coordinate yourselves.

And the lemon tree as usual is putting out blooms, with a few turning into possibly viable fruit.

Are you having more success with blooms in your garden this month? For more Garden Bloggers Blooms Day head on over to May Dreams Gardens and join in the fun.

More Garden Madness - the case of the Golden Nugget Pumpkins

The other month I dyed a white dress for a friend's wedding. It was meant to go a pastel yellow, but it ended up pumpkin orange. Still a lovely colour but in the end I opted for a different dress for the wedding. However, the pumpkin colour is a bit ironic at the moment, given pumpkins are the veg du jour in the balcony garden. If you thought growing corn in containers was crazy, wait till you see these golden beauties. It was only this year that I decided pumpkins would also be a delight to grow. I opted to grow a single golden nugget pumpkin, which has a bush habit and is ideal for pots.

I only wanted one and I wanted to put it in a large white box with some lettuce around it. Problem was these little gems came in a four pack. As it cost as much as a single seedling I thought no problems, I'll just use one and give the others away. Pumpkin pot number one was born (as you can see it has progressed a little since then.)

But then I thought maybe I could continue the zucchini experiment and try growing a pumpkin in a smaller container, and this container was already pumpkin coloured so it seemed perfect. There we had container number two.

But then I decided maybe I could try growing one up in the slightly shady bit with some beans and some silverbeet. So another pumpkin seedling went it. But then I decided that maybe this container could fit two pumpkin seedlings in it, along with the rest and that it might be better suited down near the airconditioning unit (that never gets turned on when plants are near it) next to the other single pumpkin.

So now I have 4 pumpkin bushes in my balcony garden! And they are in different stages of development. The pot with two in it, as you can see in the above photo, is running behind the others. Stunted by the lack of adequate light and late planting it has a long way to go. The single one has one pumpkin so far, and tonnes of male flowers (not enough female flowers though)

The first one planted has two pumpkins on it! See the development as they grow and grow.

I'll be happy if the harvest is just this size though given they keep growing at such a pace I wont be surprised if I get a few more. I can't wait till they are ripe, but I know it is a long time coming. I love pumpkin so I'll be interested to see what the golden nuggets taste like. Ever grown pumpkin in pots before? Any tips? Tricks?