Subtropical autumn

Traditionally we think of autumn as a time of senescence and bask in the glorious oranges and yellows that replace the sunshine as days get shorter.  Not so in sunny Brisbane.  Instead the skies shake off their stormy summer shroud and beam a brilliant blue; an entirely new set of plants flourish in the milder dry weather after muggy heat of summer.  It's one of the main growing seasons for the nostalgic British vegetables that we can't bring ourselves to banish from our plates in favour of their subtropical counterparts.

It's a gorgeous time of year to spend time in the garden so I thought I'd share some photos of a few new endeavours and old favourites in the garden.

The tea survived the summer and its blossoms have finally burst open for the first time.
Camellia sinensis

Asparagus berries (poisonous).  The spears grew over 6ft tall this year and are just starting to die back.
To me they look like baubels on a Christmas tree.

Tiny inconspicuous choko flower - I only discovered them this week.  It's the first time I've grown chokos and have to say they're not the rampant ramblers I'd been led to believe they were. Unless that's still to come of course.

Baby choko starting to develop in the leaf axil.

The Colliwats are back with a vengeance.  There are at the very least 10 pumpkins on this vigorous vine that has smothered the chook fence.

Cosmos.  Simple and white just the way I like my flowers.

Peas - snow, sugarsnap and telephone.  You can't beat peas fresh from the garden.  I'll never buy shop peas again.

Winging it

The ceaseless string of rainy days has meant that the soil has become waterlogged and is pooling in parts of the yard.  The chickens are enjoying the high life as they now have a small private lake in part of their run.  Too bad they aren't all that partial to being out in the rain or boating in lakes.

The wet weather has also meant that planting and seed sowing have been put on hold for a few weeks now and I've been reduced to relying on what crops are already in.  Fortunately I've been slowly converting us to more tropical varieties of the usual fruit and veg that aren't so put out by having a prolonged foot soak.

A few months back I was trawling through my seed box looking for seeds to sow and came across some winged bean seeds that I'd got from a garden visit/seed swap day a couple of years ago.  Taking my chances, I decided to plant two of the old seeds in the hope that I'd get something out of it.  It took a fortnight or so but the seeds eventually turned into seedlings and slowly but surely the vines grew up the string on the fence.  They've loved the recent rainfall and are now long enough to grow along the fence and have started to produce masses of soft blue flowers and pretty little corrugated seed pods.  They'll soon be big enough to eat - fingers crossed they're tasty!  I've also read that all parts of the plant are edible, including the root.  I think I'll start with the beans and then see how we go from there.

It seems to be the year for vines - or perhaps I've had a thing for vertical gardening recently.  The choko barely survived the long dry spell but is now enjoying the prolonged precipitation and clawing its way up the fence.  I'm not sure it'll have the time to mature and reach its purportedly prolific production before the cooler weather knocks it back.  I suppose time will tell.  Until then it's helping to cover the fence and provide a little more greenery.  Not that that's in short supply considering the currently 5 foot lawn (read marsh).

The loofah (luffa) has taken off again.  I didn't even have to plant it - it simply grew from some seeds left over in the soil.  I've been giving away some of the dried sponges so I let them grow this year to replenish my supply.  This one is a beautiful long and cylindrical specimen.

The pineapple is growing well.  For some reason only one of the plants from the twin top has flowered.  It's not too much of a problem; however, because I'm not sure we could get through two pineapples simultaneously.  Hopefully the excessive rain hasn't washed out the flavour.  In the meantime, the tubular purple flowers are quite lovely and provides me a foreground distraction from the disappointment of my dragonfruit that remains devoid of fruit while my parents send me photos of their dinner-plate sized flowers on their's.  Not that I can complain really as I've been rather neglectful of the prickly specimen which is shoved up the back of the block.  Overall, despite my absence the garden seems to be quite happily developing and producing on its own.  I guess I shouldn't be so concerned about having to wing it in the future.

Not quite according to plan

There have been a fair few hiccups in the crop rotation system.  Perhaps I should really be calling it the crop wonky or the crop wobble.  Either way we've had some ups and downs.  The Borlotti beans have shot up and are now flowering.  The dreaded bean fly has been spotted infesting the leaves with its destructive brood but with a much a healthier crop than previously (cow poo is amazing!) the plants have withstood the attack of this minute pest and are on their way to producing their delightful spotty and stripy seeds.  However, to counter this success, none of the chickpeas emerged and I'm trying to decide whether to bother trying to grow them again.  

The other major issue with the vegie patch and flower bed has been in the form of the wretched roving raker (aka Wheelie).  Chooks really aren't given enough credit for the cunning workings of their tiny brains.  They say they have the intelligence of a 3 year old.  Well, in my experience I've decided not only do they possess this intelligence but  also possessed of the mischievousness of a 3 year old and worse still is that they never grow out of it.  If I leave the cage door open for one night she's out of the pen in the morning raking up all my lovely seeds and seedlings.  When I wake in the morning and realise my error, hurriedly look out the window there she is with her head cocked to the side looking up at me with her comb wobbling.  There's been more than one occasion where we've very nearly been going to have roast chook for Christmas.

As a result there are only two broccolini seedlings, no flowers have been able to come up from seed and all but one corn plant have been scratched from the crop rotation board in bed 5.  Luckily I'm a determined creature and can match the pigheadedness of any 3 year old, ahem, I mean chicken.  So the planting has been redone with a vengeance for the third or possibly fourth time: the corn has been replanted along with its cucumber companion plus a choko to climb the fence and a zucchini; the flower seeds have been resown and the chooks are given extra food and shut in their cage at night.  Now so long as chooks can't figure out how to turn a handle the garden will be safe, at least until the cluck monster emerges anyhow (I'll tell you about that another time).

The other hiccup with the crop wobble has been the carrots.  The nice neat row has produced a few tiny carrot seedlings albeit not as many as I'd hoped.  Instead, Mother Nature has laughed at me again with this bed.  In previous years a watering or some rain would send up millions of cherry tomato seedlings despite me never having planted one.  This year it seems amaranth is the immaculate crop which has taken over the garden, although I do admit to having let one or two go to seed there in the past.  As experience gardeners are all too aware, once you've grown amaranth you've always got amaranth.  It's always safer to work with nature so I've thinned the amaranth around the carrots that came up and let the rest grow to shade them from the baking heat that we've been having.  They've cross pollinated with some wild varieties so now they have a beautiful candy-cane stripe to their stem when mature.  They also made a nice spinach substitute in dinner last night along with some of the last pumpkin that was also a gift from Mother Nature and a few cherry tomatoes that can be found loitering around the edges of the beds.  Maybe I should give up gardening all together - it seems that the vegie patch grows itself far better than I can.