Good Zebra, Bad Zebra

What prompted this post was my finding of a pair of zebra mussel encrusted sunglasses on the beach of our local lake last week.  Zebra mussels are a recently introduced invasive species that, despite best efforts, are proliferating in many local Minnesota lakes.   They are hyper competitive and in a short period of time have become a dominant species in the lake.  Bad Zebra. 

Bad Zebra 

For tomato lovers the tomato variety Green Zebra is something many of us now take for granted.  It was developed by Tom Wagner over 30 years ago and released in 1983.  It sometimes called an heirloom, and Tom is often not given credit for the breeding.  He combined the green stripe gene (gs) and an interesting tasting green when ripe (GWR) background through a series of crosses over many years of breeding.  Green Zebra was a founder source for Brad Gates and other breeders that have combined stripes and great taste as a way to introduce novel looking and tasty tomatoes.  On Tom’s New World Seeds website you can now buy seed of his reselected Green Zebra - we planted it this year.  Good Zebra.

Here are a few newer lines tracing in part to Green Zebra; Michael Pollan, a great striped GWR GZ derivative from Brad Gates; our MP x Cowlicks F1 (photo by Blane Horton); and three F2 segregants from that same cross. 

Michael Pollan

MP x Cowlicks Brandywine F1

F2 segregants MP x Cowlicks

Mum's a Garden Smarty

Another reason to love my Mum - she identified the mystery flower! It is ... a balsam. She also informs me they are hardy, flower for ages, and are really hard to find in Adelaide so lucky me to have about six of these spring up from the seed mix in the balcony garden! Here are some more pics to tell her thanks.

Harvest Monday (1 day late)

Harvest Monday on a Tuesday and with no new pictures on my camera it makes me think I had no harvest. But just because I forget to photograph it doesn't mean it isn't there. The delicious tomato and cheese toasted sandwiches my bf and I had for dinner last night were nuanced by the basil from the garden.

And a ripe verison if this beauty - a black russian tomato. Despite nearly succumbing entirely to the wilt that takes over my tomatoes, which you can clearly see in the picture below, this guy survived a prune, regrew and gave me 5 more tomatoes. The wilt comes on early, so can't just be due to old age, and it affects other gardens locally. Definitely something to investigate - any suggestions intrepid gardeners of the world?

We've also been enjoying lettuce in our salads. Indeed the balcony garden grows so much lettuce that I can take it in salads that I bring to friends' BBQs and use it to feed 15 people! This picture is just one of the pick-and-come-again lettuces I grow in the garden. There are about 6 more of these scattered throughout.

Future harvests are poorly timed - I am off to Adelaide to visit family for Easter so I might not be able to enjoy the corn and snowpeas which are ripening as I type. Maybe I could have a cob of corn tonight with one or two snowpeas. Then again, they won't go to waste, they'll just be enjoyed by the housesitter.

If you are thinking, darn that TIBG is getting lazy, I'm not, it is just I've been a little preoccupied as this post shows.

Other harvests can be found over at Daphne's Dandelions. She has some delicious looking spinach ...

400 posts and other milestones

This is my 400th post. Well ok it's the 401st but maths has never been my strong point so I'll celebrate it as if it is the rounder, former number. Besides, I was a little preoccupied when I hit the 400th posts because ...

... it is also the week for milestones. In case you missed it on my other blog, I passed my PhD!!!!!!!!! It even comes in multiple colours (well black for the library anyway.)

After 5 years of slogging it out, countless memoirs keeping me awake at night, far too many reading-about-war-related nightmares, treading the carpet bare in the 942.08 section of the library and venturing to conferences a plenty I'm now one graduation ceremony away from being Dr Totally Inept Balcony Gardener.

Sew, sew vs Sew Amazing

I mentioned in a previous post that I've taken up sewing. Aided by the awesome sewing machine my parents furnished me with over Christmas, I began teaching myself. I'm not very good and it is currently just a bit of fun. A bag here, and apron there, and even a bit of quilting. Presents for everyone! You can see the first few items over on my other blog, A Teetotal 2012. I am a bit hopeless at sewing things in a straight line, the quilting, in particular, is a dog's breakfast. But I am getting better and most importantly I am having fun. Don't worry, the balcony garden isn't ignored, it just gets to share its time with the sewing (and cooking, and working, and occasional blogging.)

But if you want to see some lovely baby quilts, done by a friend who started off by making one for her own daughter and enjoyed it so much she went into business, then head over to Tiny Tots Quilts. I love her stuff, it is simply beautiful and fun and full of skillyfully pieced amazing fabrics. If you are on facebook then head over via the link to check out her stuff. Here is a glimpse of some of the quilt patterns on offer:

You can view the quilts without being on facebook, but if you want to see more, or order one for a tiny tot in your life then you would have to get on facebook.

What's me Flower?

A change took place slowly in the balcony garden, I embraced flowers. Sure there was always the hibiscus and the two abutilons, and all the veggie flowers, but they have never featured very heavily on my planting agenda. Then slowly but surely more little floral numbers began to populate the garden. There were the two new fuschias (though the white and purple one I've blogged about before). The frilly pink and purple one is delightful, while the purple and white one seems pinker in some lights.

The random rockery mix which produced these flowers (I can name all of them except the pink one, any help?)

The portulaca kept its centre position on the table. But it was joined for a while by a gazania.

This plant which the lovely fellow gardener L gave me finally decided to flower (it's been a while coming, but what the heck is it?)

Even two of the mints joined in! The bees love the berry and cream mint in particular.

I've always had a few floral additions to the garden before but it has never been this crowded or free-ranging. Any ideas on what my mystery plants are?

Oh and if you want to see some other florals - check out my poor sewing attempts on my other blog, A Teetoal 2012 (it's what I do when I'm not drinkin')

Harvests amongst the Term-time Tumbleweeds

You can tell when term time begins here because the tumble weeds come back into vogue on this blog. Teaching seven tutorials in two different subjects at two different universities, with additional head tutor responsibilities, coupled with research assistant work, thesis corrections, three ear aches this year already and a new penchant for sewing meant this blog has been a little neglected of late. That's not to say I didn't think of it, I simply had little energy and time to write anything of use.

And I even missed gaining my 100th follower (hi there 100th follower!!!) Not that there have been many posts to follow. But to make up for it here are a few harvests of late, from the balcony garden:

Ok, so that's the only kind of harvest pic I have and it is not even from my own garden but from my cousin's country patch! Oooopssss. I've been eating lettuce by the bucketload, and using herbs, but do you think I could remember to photograph them on their own? Oooops. Though they do crop up in some later photos. However, here are some delicious market finds, tomatoes, delicious, gourmet, and good for the tummy.

Strawberries, $10 for 15 punnets, only two fuzzy ones in the lot!

Some food made from garden harvests and the above-mentioned market finds, from salads, to jam, to smoothies and apple and fig crumble cupcakes. If you look hard enough you can see some lettuce from the garden, and some basil on the pasta sauce. They're from my harvest! Yay.

Take some strawberries, goodness knows there are plenty left over in 15 punnets ... and some frozen yoghurt cubes, frozen mango and banana, milk, water, vanilla extract and you get smoothie heaven.

I even have some before and after shots, tomatoes before drying ...

Tomatoes after drying (and after most of them went in the pasta which was pictured earlier.) Note that I used the garlic and basil from the garden to add flavour to these while they dried.

And a curren(ish) picture of the Autumn balcony garden.

Hope that makes up for my prolonged absence. Time to start doing the question answering posts next, taking pictures of the harvest, and showing you my really inept sewing efforts.