Flowering Spring Onions

 
Now winter is over and Spring is here, our potted spring onions are flowering! We just bought some spring onions from the supermarket and planted the roots, and they have been growing ever since! I think we must have done that last year. Now they are flowering so I'm hoping to get some seeds which I will plant for more spring onions! Its best to snip of a leaf or two when needed in your cooking, its a very handy herb to have!

potted spring onions are now flowering in Spring!

Garden Update Autumn 2024

Here are some select images from our garden at the end of Autumn 2024. I just planted out 4 cuttings of all-year round basil, I had them in a glass jar on my kitchen window sill for a week. I cut open a chamomile tea bag and scattered them in a pot because I saw a video that you can do that, and now they are sprouting! Our 15 year old lime tree has stopped flowering the last 2 years since we have removed an infestation of stink bugs. We think we've removed them but the lime tree still isn't flowering.

our 15 year old lime tree isn't flowering

aloe vera still grows abundantly in our garden

some all-year-round basil cuttings I planted out today

a Ned Kelly grevillea we planted out last year

chamomile seedlings from a tea bag

thriving bromeliads are in many places in our garden

a random tiny flower in our lawn

a new tumbler has been added to our composting system

Homegrown Pumpkin Soup and Homemade Bread

One of the best things we ever did for our house is to keep a compost. Its great to not have anything wet in the trash, all the left over food goes in the compost, especially seeing as we are vegetarians. From our compost has sprouted a huge pumpkin vine, and like last year, we have grown several large organic pumpkins! We cut open the 1st one the other day, and my husband made most of it into a pumpkin soup, and I want to remember how beautiful and sweet it is! As an accompaniment, I made some more homemade bread, this time without oats but just flour instead. A lovely lunch to remember!

homegrown pumpkin soup and homemade bread

this homegrown pumpkin is very sweet and delicious!

a self-sown pumpkin growing in our backyard

A Modest Harvest for 2020

Here is our first harvest from our lemon tree! We planted it seven years ago and it has finally provided some fruit! We aren't very good gardeners, but tumeric and chilli is very easy to grow! We also have some rocket, we harvest that right when we are ready to eat it. Of course we grow herbs too, rosemary, oregano and chives are also easy to grow! At least we have something to grow in our garden! We have been inside for this social distancing for the Covid 19 pandemic, this week is week 8, our son hasn't left the house for 8 weeks! But I am living my best life right now, going no where, seeing no one, just my little family at home safe and sound is bliss! I know we are safe here! But week after next our son has to go back to school, I hope he will be safe!

our modest harvest of lemons, chilli and tumeric 2020

Growing Zucchini

Well our zucchinis have been looking a bit sad lately, I wonder if its because I haven't been watering them enough? We've been fertilising them fortnightly with a seaweed solution, so perhaps that is enough? When I went out there this morning I discovered a beautiful zucchini flower in full bloom, and two baby zucchinis on another plant so maybe they aren't doing too badly? I've got the sprinkler on them at the moment so they can get a good soaking!

a beautiful zucchini flower in my garden this morning

two baby zucchinis growing in my garden

our modest zucchini patch in a 1.2m square raised bed

the edges of the leaves are a bit yellow

Potted Dwarf Imperial Mandarin

For my birthday we bought a dwarf imperial mandarin, and potted it into a large pot with 2 x 25L bags of citrus potting mix. We will keep it in a pot for a couple of years, until we make some room in the yard to plant it out. We are waiting to do the retaining wall and fence first, and to also remove a large lily pily tree. The potted lime tree is doing well, despite having to remove branches due to gore wasp, so the mandarin should also do well if we treat it the same. For my birthday I also bought some African daisies, and thought I'd share a photo. Enjoy!

we potted up this dwarf imperial mandarin for my birthday

the potted lime tree is doing well in its new pot

we also got some African daisies from our local Bunnings store

I have a Crucifix Orchid in my Garden

I've identified the orchid that I have in my garden, its a Crucifix Orchid. Its also known as a poor man's orchid because its so easy to grow and propagate so is cheaper than other orchids. I've never grown orchids before, I had one specimen in a pot of normal potting mix sitting in water. After some research I've discovered that orchids don't like to sit in water! But that one has flowered at least so its not too unhappy, but its leaves are a bit yellow so I will repot it when it's finished flowering. I went up to Bunnings and got some orchid mix and potted some more plants that I pulled out from a dark corner of the garden. I hope I've done the right thing!

I now know this is a Crucifix Orchid, or poor man's orchid

an orchid growing wild in a dark corner of my backyard

Winter Flowers

Here are some photos of some flowers in my garden at the moment, it's winter in Brisbane right now and these blooms brighten up cold and gloomy days! I have flowering hibiscus, basil and succulents right now. How lovely!

Heavenly hibiscus flowering in a sub-tropical winter

I don't know what this is, its some type of orchid

a flowering succulent plant

this basil flowers all year round

Winter Harvest

Well at least we can grow something! Here is a photo of our winter harvest, turmeric and rocket. Tumeric grows in our garden like a weed, and we never use all we grow. We just spent the afternoon planting out 2 veggie patches with zucchini, broccoli, cherry tomatoes, beetroot, bok choi and spinach. We also made a new patch near where we put the passionfruit last weekend, and we thought we'd try some spinach there as well. My plan is to make more of an effort to water the garden every day as I think that's where we've been failing. Hopefully we'll have more to share on our harvest in the future!

our winter harvest of rocket and tumeric

Passionfruit Seedling

My father-in-law just gave us this passionfruit seedling, so we've planted it near our fence. Hopefully this is the start of a beautiful adventure into passionfruity goodness!

we just planted this passionfruit seedling near our fence

Geisha Girl Golden Dewdrop

Here is a photo of the Geisha Girl Golden Dewdrops that we are allowing to flower. I first shared about this golden dewdrop plant in May 2013, we were considering removing it despite it being a very handsome plant. But we have kept this one pruned so it doesn't fruit and now Tom is older the chances of him eating the poisonous orange fruits is pretty slim, so we are keeping this one.


we've decided to keep the Geisha Girl golden dewdrop in our backyard

But twice now we've had to get a plumber out to clear our pipes for tree roots, although we haven't yet been here 2 years. The closest possible culprits are some similar looking plants, they might be golden dewdrops but a different variety to the Geisha Girl. These ones have thorns, and we had a lot of fun (not) pulling the two trees out.  Hopefully they will stop sending roots down into our plumbing, but we might have to poison them to kill them off properly.

Flowering Waratah

I blogged about this Queensland Waratah last year around the same time, and true to form it has flowered again! Its nice to know we'll have this pretty display to enjoy each year in our front yard. We haven't done anything to this tree to look after it, we haven't even mulched or fertilised it! It seems to be doing quite ok on its own.

looking up through the Waratah with beautiful blue spring skies

a beautiful red spring bloom

the small tree is covered in red flowers

A Perfect Spring Bloom

To celebrate spring, the rose has come out in bloom! What a perfect specimen! We haven't been doing much to look after this rose, we pruned it June or July and now in October it is flowering!

a perfect spring bloom, a beautiful red rose

Flowering Sage

Another plant in our herb garden is flowering this spring, the sage we put in a several months ago has taken to bloom. We don't use sage so much in our cooking, we just put the herb in our garden on impulse. The sage isn't the only thing that's flowering, the aloe vera and basil are also in bloom!

flowering sage in the morning light

Flowering Chives

With the onset of Spring, there's some flowering going on in our garden! Here are some flowering chives, the delicate flowers are hard to capture in a photo, but I took this shot in the morning light so hopefully it does it justice! These chives were looking a bit sad until my husband fertilised them with dynamic lifter and seaweed solution, then they really perked up! They are perfect to add some flavour to these low FODMAP meals we are currently eating, you can't have garlic or onion so chives are a great substitute.

these chives have delicate flowers

Old Potted Lime finds a new home

Our old potted lime tree which must be nearly 5 years old by now, has been looking worse for wear lately to say the least. We've had to prune it a bit lately due to bore wasp, or citrus gall wasp, so its looking scrawny, and we also went through a dry spell when the lime tree got forgotten! Its amazing it's survived the treatment it's gotten! We finally re-potted it into a big pot the other day. When we pulled it out of the old pot we were both surprised to find the root ball was smaller than we expected, due to the water reservoir taking up space in the bottom of the pot. The lime tree was very root bound, but we weren't sure how much to tease the roots, as we had found conflicting information on the net, so we just teased the roots a little and didn't really prune the root ball as such. We filled the bottom with a good quality potting mix, it should do well in its new home!

a tired old lime tree gets a bigger pot and a new home

New Veggie Patches Winter 2014

We've finally planted out our new veggie patch, as well as the old one, so now we have two. Although we have a lot of seeds to use, we decided to buy some seedlings from the local Bunnings store and planted out some rosemary, parsley, rhubarb, silverbeet and zucchini. After we planted them out, we threw some lettuce and rocket seeds down as well for good measure.

some new parsley planted out in the old veggie patch

rosemary, zucchini, silverbeet and lettuce seeds planted out into the new veggie patch

parsley, rhubarb and rocket seeds planted out into the old veggie patch

a rhubarb seedling

a zucchini seedling

the new rosemary plant

Flowering Aloe Vera

Happy Easter! We've had a very quiet weekend at home this year, enjoying an Easter egg hunt in the garden and a trip to the local water park. In the garden the aloe vera is still flowering, here is a closeup of one of the flowers, with the all-year-round basil in the background. I really should prune the flowers off to prolong the life of the plant but its covered in bees and I feel bad to steal their flowers!

closeup of an aloe vera flower

Basil and Sage

Besides the sweet basil we have growing with the turmeric in the veggie patch, I also have this all-year-round basil which just thrives in our garden. I always have a bush of it growing somewhere, this one has really perked up since I planted it out nearly 2 months ago. We also planted some sage that is nearby and equally happy and healthy looking. We haven't used the sage in our cooking yet, but we will have to find a use for it, its growing very well!

flowering all-year-round basil

happy looking sage growing in our herb garden

Sweet Basil and Tumeric

Here's a photo of our veggie patch at the moment, full of turmeric and sweet basil. My father-in-law Brian gave us some sweet basil seedlings so we planted them out around Christmas. Now when it comes to the turmeric, we have a lot of it on our hands. It grows so well in our climate, each year we've planted it produces more than the year before. This lot we had in our pantry and in the cool darkness they had all began to sprout. We could ask ourselves what will we do with all this turmeric? We grow more than we could use, but the little buds wanted to grow so we planted all of them out into the veggie patch with the basil. It looks like there was a little ginger in the mix as well, we'll know for sure when it flowers.

sweet basil and turmeric planted out into the veggie patch