The Last Autumn Flower?

Last day of Autumn: 31st of May 2009

Today is the last day of autumn, the sun is bright and cheery as if it's saying "good-bye" before going into winter hibernation! Well, let's hope the sun will peek out at us now and then to break up the grey and gloom of wintery days! Also, happen to spot this sweet bunch of flowers from the good O' lemon tree. Could this be the last lemon flower of the season? In the meantime, it's time to pick our second harvest of lemons! Lemons anyone?

The Small but Strong....Albert Lemon

Last day of Autumn: 31st of May 2009

This is our little dawrf Meyer lemon tree, Albert (christianed last summer by Ileana). Albert has been with us since our last rented place in Brunswick, living on our small balcony, soaking in every little ray of sunlight available. Since then, he has survived bugs attacks, flowered, grown a little more taller and much stronger...and now, he has lemons all over! Well done Albert! :)

What's Been Happening in Our Backyard?

Here's a compilation of the little things that go on in our backyard, be it our first crop of harvest or visits by little friends from nature...

Summer: December 2008-January 2009

Our first ever home-grown tomatoes that had sprouted out from the ground by itself!

We've had a very good harvest of tomatoes this year, big, red and juicy!

Guess what's for dinner? Tomato soup?

One late afternoon, we had a visitor from the garden, all green, with big yellow eyes and two menacing looking claws! It started looking calm but got increasingly annoyed with the shiny metallic one-eyed monster (camera)! It's body started swaying from side to side, claws raised, ready to pounce, all posied for an attack! But before it can do anything drastic, we've already had our fun! Wahahaha.....you are more then welcome to stay in our flower pot Edward Mantis, but be good!

Summer: February 2009

My little chilli babies! I was full of excitement when I saw the first flower in bloom, even more excited 2 weeks later, when it started growing in to a baby chilli!

Autumn: April 2009
Hey there! It's Grandma! She is busy tending to our badly neglected garden during my family's short visit to Melbourne.



One day, Grandma told me we have a round chilli growing in the garden. I checked it out....and hey presto! It's actually a capsicum! Haha...




Other than the capsicum, Grandma also found some butternut squash growing! Before that, we had no idea what this trailing creeper was at all!

A little butternut squash baby...

The flower...but according to Grandma, this flower will not grow into a butternut squash....and she was right!

I now know, this is actually the male flower, and that's why....

We've had 2 rounds of aphid attacks on our "precioussssss...". Grandma painstakingly plucked those little suckers off the plants one by one and buried them!!! Within 2 days they have re-surfaced and infected the plants again! Hahaha....so Grandma resorted to getting rid of them once and for all by crushing them with her formidable green thumbs!!! It worked! Now the baby chillies have grown into big chillies! Though, due to the lack of sunlight, they are still taking a loooooong time to turn red.

When your plant is bending over at the stem and looking a real sorry sight, what do you do? Grandma to the rescue! With her innovation and creativity, she scoured around the backyard and found the perfect solution......"The Formidable Twig"!!! A quick touch or two, and our suffering chilli plant is propped up, looking good and sturdy! As always, Grandma's solutions are always envionmentally friendly and effective. ;)

The daisies in the garden...well whichever ones you think are the daisies! Say "cheese" Mum & Grandma!

Not forgetting the good old lemon tree too!! We've given lots away and preserved some as well, and lots more went into making refreshing lemon teas during the hot summer months!

Winter: May 2009

Our pot of herbs, still recovering from the 42.6 degrees heatwave that hit Victoria during Black Saturday on 7th February 2009.

A close-up of our herb jungle!

Our little orange tree needs a good pruning. The fruits are small but sweet....well, sometimes.

Here's Mr. Pots dozing off under the orange tree! Wakey wakey Mr. Pots, you are supposed to be looking after the garden! :p

Remember our butternut squash babies? They have now grown big and fat! Unfortunately, only 2 have managed to survive. Frank says we have to wait for the whole plant to die off before we can harvest the squash....twiddling thumbs....for now.

31 and marching on!

Another year older, another year wiser! After the big 30 last year, this year's celebrations seemed to be somewhat quieter, a few friends, some good food, a good birthday!

Every year, on each of our birthdays, we will try and bake a cake together. This year, after we've moved into our new house, we realised the existing oven is not working (or maybe we haven't figured out how to get it working!), so I requested a special Nyonya dessert instead. Can you guess what it is?

Got it? Yup, it's Onde Onde! Round and green glutinous riceballs infused with fragrant coconut milk and pandan, each with a melting piece of deliciously sweet Gula Melaka within, and coated all over with toasted dessicated coconut! Yum! Who needs love-shaped chocolates to melt a girl's heart when you have Onde Onde? Haha...love my Frankie-O-Doodle!

Also had a nice dinner at Guiseppe, Arnaldo & Sons, an italian restaurant at South Bank. For entree, we had thinly sliced prosciutto from the cheeks of the pig (Notice the layer of fatty goodness!!? No wonder it tasted so good!), and a plate of equally appetising whitefish carpaccio, with a drizzle of good virgin olive oil, scatters of chilli flakes and young mint leaves, all held together beautifully with a squeeze of lemon! DELISH!

Here's one of the Italian deli owners slicing up salami. The waiters are all dressed in white lab coats which makes the dining experience a little bit of getting used to, since we have always associated lab coats with chemicals and certainly not fine dining!

Our mains....Frank's dish of pig's hand stuffed with minced lamb sausage has quite a grisly presentation! But the pork is so tender it literally melts-in-your-mouth and together with the stuffing, releases a bundle of aromas and flavours. My dish of steamed Kingfish, with organic cherry tomatoes and herbs was fresh and delightful, but nowhere near that intense flavour of Porky's hand!

And here's to another great year! Cheers! Love the tiling too...