My urban garden...early summer.

 It is starting to feel like Summer has finally decided to arrive. Fashionably late, but nevertheless Summer is here.

My urban garden, has not turned out to be the self-sufficient garden that I would have hoped, but that's not to say it isn't doing ok. But the challenge of powdery freaken mildew, white flies and soil/nutrient imbalances have caused me heartache beyond belief. I lost ONE capsicum plant - it was a sweet chocolate that I nurtured - NURTURED - from seed. Now I only have one left.


My eggplants (the plant) are looking big, but the flowers are not setting fruit and I am not sure why. I'll wait another week or two before I do anything - perhaps its the cool weather. But slightly disappointing as I started them so long ago.


The tomatoes, started off well but a few succomed to powdery mildrew and probably a litany of fungal problems. No matter how much eco-fungicide I use, it is simply not that effective. Potassium Bicarbonate clearly doesn't work as well as the conventional "sulphur" based fungicides. But I persist, I persist with damn eco-oil and eco-fungicide because, it has to be possible. Perhaps, it is my reluctance to follow simple instructions like spacing. Do you remember my photo of one of my plots a month or so ago? Here's a before and after if you've forgot.

Rouge de marmande, which is so heavy with fruit...a speckled roman, two maldovan greens and a hillbilly. Soy beans at the front, cucumbers climbing at the back, climbing beans on the left, cornfield on the right and scattering of basils.

So how heavy is heavy?

 This heavy and there are many more clusters of flowers which are setting fruit. Some of the tomatoes are quite big as the photos doesn't do them justice.

Of course, I planted borage, wild bergamot and dill (below) to attract some bees. Borage is such a brilliant blue.

My beans, however, have outdone themselves with fistfuls every couple of days - all from 2 buckets and perhaps a few plants here and there.

But perhaps what I'm excited about most are my white alpine strawberries, this blog buddies is what it's all about. Growing things which you would never see at market. They taste intoxicating like, funnily enough, strawberries, just much much much more intense. All from a tiny fruit.

I also survived Christmas dinner...just..I almost lost a finger. Merry Christmas indeed....I'm off overseas for a few days so blog you next year!!

 Where?
 My backyard