After a long absence, I'm back!

After a long absence, I'm back! The past few months have been busy and amazing. Michael and I have gotten married and I took a break from this blog to organise the wedding. We also took August and September off and spent 5 weeks travelling to Europe which was amazing! We saw amazing garden balconies in Italy and Switzerland. In Italy I saw stunning balconies covered in bougainvillea. This has inspired me to pay more attention to my golden bougainvillea as it has been sadly neglected. Last weekend I put up some gardening wire mesh to encourage my bougainvillea to grow up the wall.  

Before we went overseas I tried to prepare the balcony garden for our absence. I tripled checked the balcony garden for bugs and tested the soil ph of all the pots. I had too make major adjustments to the soil for the blueberry plants and the persimmon tree. This worked wonders for the persimmon tree, as there is new growth on the tree.

 

Due to the break I took from the garden, I am now behind in my sowing for this spring/summer season. Luckily a lot of herbs have lasted through the winter and still happily growing such as the basil. However I will need to either start new cuttings or sow more seeds soon

My guava tree is flowering and some of the flowers are starting to turn into fruit which is very exciting. 

Guava tree flower

Fruit starting form on the guava tree

The Feijoa tree is also flowering, however there is no fruit yet on this tree.

Feijoa flower

Recently I have brought some chilli seeds as I want to try and grow chillies this spring/summer season. I brought my chilli seeds from The Chilli Factory (http://thechillifactory.com). As you can see from the pictures my chilli are very small but hopefully they will grow quickly.

Hungarian Black Chilli

Siam YELLOW Chilli

February Planting

This month I have planted from seed purple basil, cucumbers, silverbeet, kale, salad leaves, baby spinach, rocket and 7 zucchini plants.

 I am growing round zucchini and yellow zucchini. I have not had much luck with growing zucchini plants on the balcony as they don't seem to like any wind.The wind can be strong as we live 11 floors up. I have sown 7 zucchini plants so that I can experiment with different types of zucchini growing in different parts of the balcony garden.

Bugs

Lately my balcony garden has been attacked by bugs. I have had aphids nearly destroy my capsicum plant. I am annoyed that I let the infestation get this bad before noticing. However I do a lot of the gardening during the evening and it is hard to spot bugs in the poor light.

Aphids on capsicum

There are also mealybugs on my rosemary plant and french tarragon plant.

Mealybugs on french tarragon plant

Mealybugs at base of french tarragon plant

Mealybugs on rosemary plant  

Mealybugs on rosemary plant

They appear as fuzzy, white mess around the stems and leaves of the plant.

January Planting

 This month I have planted from seed beetroot, rocket, tomato, mint, zucchini and silver beet. As you can see from the below photos, the rocket and zucchini have already started to shoot up. I am hoping that by April I can begin to harvest.

Rocket 

Zucchini 

The Sweet Persimmon Tree (non-astringent)

Michael and I planted a dwarf persimmon tree (also known as Fuyu Fruit) in July 2013. Michael named the plant Albert. 

Persimmons are a good source of vitamin C, are high in fibre and are fat free. Roughly a month ago our persimmon tree was attacked by mealybugs.

 Mealybugs excrete honeydew (sweet, sticky liquid), which fosters black sooty mould and attracts ants. The sooty mould caused the leaves of the plant to fall off.

We have been trying to treat the tree by scrubbing the mealybugs off with a toothbrush and soapy water. We have also been putting ant baits down to get ride of the ants. To treat the sooty mould we have used a natural a horticultural oil (neem oil). It is too early for us to know if our tree will survive but we hoping that it will.

After I realised that Albert was sick I searched the rest of the balcony garden and found that the mealy bugs has also attacked the Kale, egg plant and tomatoes.  

Benefits of growing your own food

Chives

Rosemary

There are many benefits of growing your own food such as:

1. Saves money

Growing your own food can help cut the cost of the grocery bill. For example a fresh punnet of herbs will cost you roughly $2.40 at the grocery store and packet of 100 seeds cost $1.50 (http://www.theseedcollection.com.au/epages/shop.sf/en_AU/?ObjectPath=/Shops/TheSeedCollection/Categories/herb)


2.Get the nutrition you need and enjoy tastier food

Many studies show that organic food has more minerals and nutrients than food grown with synthetic pesticides. Being able to go outside and pick your own food and eat it straight away also means that your food is going to be fresher and tastier. Most fruit and vegetables lose nutritional value when they are stored for lengthy periods, or when they are being transported from interstate or overseas.

3. Brings your family together

Planting, harvesting and caring for a garden is a great way to bring your family together. A garden provides an excellent opportunity to teach children about nature and growing cycles as well as nutrition.

4.Exercise

Gardening is a gentle, relaxing and stress-lowering form of exercise. Garden tasks, like hoeing, digging, harvesting, carrying pots and dirt can provide you with as much exercise as a workout at the gym.

Capsicum

Zucchini

Tommy toe tomatoes