Merry Christmas

I've just discovered this carol, and it's botanical, so here it is.

And Mary bore Jesus Christ our Saviour for to be,
And the first tree in the greenwood, it was the holly.

With best wishes to my friends in the blogosphere,

Chookie

Oops!

I see it has been a month since I last posted. Not quite what I had planned!


Here is what's happened in that time:

• I cured Lizzie of broodiness.
• The iron deficiency on the tomato plant was resolved with some seaweed tea, as mentioned earlier.
• Some of my tomatoes were holed by tomato worm.
• My children suffered from a nasty vomiting bug.
• My husband caught an evil summer cold and passed it on to me.
• Australian politics has been quite entertaining.
• We uncovered the evil lurking on the Internet. The boys keep singing Queen songs, despite the fact that neither of their parents particularly like Queen. It's all happened because the Twig likes watching domino videos, though why these always involve Queen tunes is unfathomable. I shall be writing to Stephen Conroy about this!
  
• I had mysteriously bad germination of sweet corn and of beans.
• The lemon cucumber and bean plants (the ones that came up) are in full production.
• The chillies on the chilli plant look like small, half-deflated green balloons, and are quite hot.
• There are borers in some of my older wattle trees. I will wait until autumn to cut them down.
  
• I'm really hoping those yellow leaves on the 'Brandywine' tomatoes are caused by sunburn from our 40 degree day earlier this week.
• I turned 40.
  
• We've been preparing for Christmas!

Gardening IS Political

Many of the garden bloggers I read have firm opinions about native plants, global warming, pesticides and genetically-modified organisms, which they express in their gardening and their blogging. But it's not every day that your favourite garden expert is arrested at a Gunn's pulp mill protest.


Onya Pete!

Apparently most of the people arrested were over 50 years of age. The police must have felt pretty silly. And it's an even worse look for Gunn's than usual.

Summer Vegies

The erratic heat and cold of September delayed my summer plantings by nearly a month, but now, there are four 'Brandywine' and four 'Principe Borghese' tomato plants growing happily in the vegie patch. They are just starting to put out flowers, with the 'Brandywine' buds looking decidedly larger than the usual tomato flower. Various fast-growing plants that I planted between the tomatoes, such as basil, pak choy and lettuces, have been badly chewed by snails. I think it's time to open the snail pub.

The first sowing of beans are about to flower; they were planted about three weeks ago next to the Brandywines, as you can see above. The second sowing will be up in a few days.

My cherry varieties,'Broad Ripple Yellow Currant' and 'Tommy Toe', are also in and flowering. But I have a little problem. Where do I put my other tomatoes, the mixed heirlooms?

A more serious problem is the mysterious white leaf that has appeared on one Brandywine:


It looks worryingly like iron deficiency, and I've given the plant some seaweed tea. There isn't much you can do for iron deficiency, I understand, as tomato plants don't like lime much. I might be driven to adding lime if the problem continues.

The boys were unimpressed to see me planting lots of squash seeds, but the seeds were in fact out of date. If I get any squash plants, that will be nice -- if not, that's fine. The boys have also planted some 'World's Largest' pumpkin seeds, so we'll have to see how they go -- they aren't up yet. They are segregated under the lemon tree. I'm hoping my 'Turk's Turban' pumpkins, under the quince, will produce as they are so beautiful. To my astonishment, I discovered that my rhubarb there has resprouted. I thought the chooks had scratched it out!

A single cucumber plant has survived to grow up a trellis and flower. I can see teeny-weeny cucumbers on it.


Now I just have to figure out where to put all the seedlings I'm nurturing: more silverbeet, some salad onions, leeks, mini capsicums, eggplant, and ground-cherries. It is annoying that so many summer crops are Solanaceae; it's inadvisable to plant them in the same place each year, but I really don't have much choice (except to expand the vegetable garden...).

There's Loving Plants, and There's Loving Plants...

We all know that it's OK to talk to your plants. Prince Charles does it, and he's all right (apart from his taste in women). It's OK to fuss over plants, think about them, and generally behave like they are your children. But how many people sing a song to their favourite plant?

Only in opera...

Only Handel's opera-comedy-of-manners Serse.

Translation below. Enjoy Andreas Scholl's wonderful voice, especially that first note.



Recitative.
Tender and beautiful fronds
of my beloved plane tree,
Let Fate smile upon you.
May thunder, lightning, and storms
never bother your dear peace,
Nor may you be profaned by blowing winds.

Aria.
Never was made
the shade of a plant,
dear and loving,
or more gentle.

Awakening of Less Cheerful Feelings on Arrival Home

Such pretty flowers. They start as cerise buds, turn to purple flowers and fade to blue.


The problem is that it's Paterson's Curse, one of the worst pasture weeds west of the ranges! So what on earth is it doing in my back yard? My guess is that it came with the chook feed.

The native blue-banded bee likes the flowers, as did another smaller bee that moved too fast for me to photograph. Beekeepers refer to the plant as Salvation Jane, since it provides forage for bees during drought and produces a delicious honey.


This plant was only 30cm high (they grow to about 120cm), but the tap root was already 1cm thick when the Geek pulled it out on Saturday. We hope it will not resprout. I've never seen Paterson's Curse in Sydney -- it's an echium, and prefers a Mediterranean climate. There is a distant view of Paterson's Curse in a previous post.

I hadn't found a reason to cook this lovely beetroot before we left, but just had to pull it on the weekend as it was getting a bit too big. That's a four-cup teapot behind for scale. Still haven't worked out what to do with the beetroot!

Awakening of Cheerful Feelings Upon Arrival in the Country

We spent last weekend at a family reunion in the small NSW town of Carcoar. If you are fond of hills dotted with sheep and cattle, and you like National Trust listed places, you will love Carcoar; I certainly did.


When my husband's distant relative moved to Carcoar, it was the second-largest town west of the Blue Mountains, second to Bathurst. Its other claim to fame is that it was the first place in Australia where the daylight robbery of a bank* took place, perpetrated by none other than Bold Ben Hall.

Of course, because we are all nerds, we were very keen to see the Blayney wind farm. There is a viewing platform near Carcoar Dam, but it faces east, so morning photographs are a bit difficult.


The towers are about 50m tall and each sail about half that. I found the fifteen windmills simultaneously imposing and beautiful. There is a much more picturesque view of them from Carcoar Railway Station, and from Carcoar Cemetery.


Remains of a farm building built by my husband's distant relative.


Another scene from the family farm, typical of well-maintained grazing land in this area with remnant eucalypts for shade. This farmer, as with most, has been reafforesting his property. I explained to the Twig that in my youth, one never saw young trees on farmland -- only remnant specimen trees, probably left from when the land was cleared a hundred years back. These days, it's common to see belts of young trees along fence lines, thanks to Landcare. Grazing animals and crops do better when sheltered from hot summer winds and freezing gales, and our delicate soil needs protection from erosion, water loss and salinity. The earthwork on the right is a dam. Despite the green grass, this area is in drought. I'm glad to say some rain fell while we were in the area.


Before I get into trouble, I'd better explain that the Twig is on a path through this wheatfield! After his tour of the family farm, viewing various historical relics, the Twig complained of fatigue on his way up the hill to the homestead. Then he met some boys playing cricket, and we didn't see him for three hours...

Note for Sydney travellers: the waratahs are out along the Darling Causeway. If you are up in the Blue Mountains, go and have a look!

* Daylight robbery by a bank, on the other hand, is so common as to be unremarkable.