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.