Big Eggplants

I harvested our 3rd and 4th eggplant yesterday. Our first was harvest 1.5 months ago and the 2nd, a bit over a month ago. I was extra excited about these ones because the rain from the past 2 weeks have certainly boost them to grow bigger faster. Sure enough, with hardly any work on our part, these 2 babies were twice the size of the first 2 we had.

After these 2, I know that 2 out of the 4 plants we have will soon die away (maybe because they have grown old>). There are another 2 (different stages of growth) on the remaining 2 plants. Anyhow, we are really thankful for such small providence. It is good to eat organic produce that comes out of your own garden :)

Both eggplants have a total weight of about 360g

Mysterious Plant

Found this plant growing next to my basil in a styrofoam box in my backyard. I have planted a couple of different seeds there but none looking like this at all. Now I cannot even tell what berry plant is this - blueberries? Or the berries that are growing on a tree at my in-laws? The plant has a cluster of white flowers and then to a green fruit and ripens to a dark purple berry-like fruit.

Anyone knows?

Welcome greetings

This is what I harvested from my garden on the day that we return from SG - 1 egg plant (this is slightly bigger than our first eggplant), 3 cherry tomatoes and 1 (complete and hole-less) strawberry. We thank God for little reminders like these of his creation and His provision. :)

Our First Eggplant!

It is small but the purple is so bright and pretty! This is about the height of my palm

From my kitchen, standing at the sink washing up, I look out into the garden and saw something purple/black hanging from the eggplant plant. The thought that our eggplant plant is finally bearing fruit excites me so much! I quickly screamed for hubby, grab the camera and went outside to have a real look if it was true. Even before I go close to the plant, I knew that my excitement was not in vain. It really is a real eggplant!!

I bought the punnet of 4 seedlings from Bunnings 2 months ago. The plants were growing quite slowly at first (an we hardly really water our garden anyway :p). The 2-3 weeks of rain about 2 weeks ago really help to grow all our plants (and our weeds too!) Only after we (mostly hubby) cleared the weeds 1-2 weeks ago, could we see how big these plants have grown (amidst the jungle of weeds). At that time, I only saw 1 budding flower and was happy that that was a sign of potential fruit. The leaves of the plants were badly punched with holes by bugs but the plants still grew and flowered.

Now I really hope that the fruit will mature slowly... we will be out of town from tomorrow and it may be too late to eat it fresh! :( I am so wanting to eat our first fruit... hopefully our boarder/housesitter will be able to keep and store it for us until we come back.

There is a mysterious plant growing in one of our styrofoam boxes alongside my basil. I knew that it is not a weed and did not remove it. I did throw in some seeds to grow. It could be a chilli, wombok, lettuce, spinach (because I had those seeds). But it seems like it may not be. It doesn't look like any of them. The plant has recently flowered - little clusters of 5 white flowers. Today, I saw some green little berry-like 'fruits' in a cluster. I still cannot figure out what it is... Blueberry was what came to my mind but I doubt it. The mystery should be unraveled soon...

My Harvest Yesterday

So nice, so red, so juicy! These are the little harvest I got from my garden yesterday. The smaller ones are cherry tomatoes. The larger ones are my tuss tomatoes (but they are not too big). Honestly, we have not cared much about the tomatoes (nor the garden anyway) except for watering and the occasional weeding. Many tomato seedlings were sprouting out and we had to remove some (like weeds) otherwise there will be too many everywhere!

I love the feeling of discovering something red amongst the green in my garden, whilst standing in my kitchen. That means it is harvest time :) The feeling of picking something you grew and seeing it looking so nice in colour, shape and tempting to eat, is priceless!

Little Red Surprises

My first (almost) good strawberry was picked more than a year ago, in October last year.

Yesterday, I went out to the garden to show S some plants and from a distance, I could see a few red fruits beneath my strawberry leaves. Went to have a closer look and my plants surprised me by bearing me some wholesome berries that were not rotten nor eaten by bugs :) I usually find them too late and they are not good to be eaten. We also do not pay much attention to the plants, except to water them occasionally. From 2 single plants last year, we have now 5 plants (we removed some others as they spread and grow like weeds) Yesterday's was an unusual find - 2 'abormal'-shaped ones and one strawberry-shaped. S & S had one each and I shared the largest with hubby. And you guessed right, these are organic and are sweet!

Thank you, Lord for this little surprise harvest :)

Surprise in the Mail

My surprise finally arrived in the mail yesterday!

Hubby bought me a gift which was meant as a surprise for me. It was supposed to get to me before my birthday (a month ago) but it was held up big time. He kept this as a secret/surprise until I saw a "Stephanie Alexander" in the credit card statement and I asked him what it was. Coincidentally, my SIL G just bought a copy of the book for herself. I saw it (hard to miss because it is a huge book) just last week when I visited her place. That was why the name was familiar to me. In a way, I ruined my own surprise.... but I was still very surprised and moved when I learnt that hubby was willing to pay an expensive price to buy a book for me!

Personally autographed and addressed to me by the author (I blotched out my name)

This Kitchen Garden Companion (KGC) book is really informative and useful, not just for the non-green-finger me, but for any adult and children to learn and grow your own veggies, fruits and use them fresh in your kitchen.

If you ever dreamed of picking fresh salad leaves for the evening meal, gathering vine-ripened tomatoes or pulling up your own sweet carrots, this is the book for you. Follow in the footsteps of one of Australia's best-loved cooks and food writers as she reveals the secrets of rewarding kitchen gardening. Be encouraged by detailed gardening notes that explain how adults and children alike can plant, grow and harvest 73 different vegetables, herbs and fruits and try some of the 250 recipes that will transform your fresh produce into delicious meals. Whether you have a large plot of suburban backyard or a few pots on a balcony, you will find everything you need to get started in this inspiring and eminently useful garden-to-kitchen guide.

First and last page of the contents section

This is my birthday, wedding anniversary and Christmas gift, which is not too bad, considering that hubby is not the type who buys gifts for me (or others). Gifts is also not either of our love language. This is the few pressies I get from hubby, where it was not because he knows that I wanted it but he decided to get it because he knows that I will like it and I (and him too!) will benefit from it.

Poor hubby...I hope he will not stop trying to create surprises for me. I may create surprises for people but it is hard to surprise me :p The next time, I must learn to be discreet and pretend to be ignorant so that I will not ruin the fun for the 'surpriser'.

An Unwelcomed Guest & A New Beginning

On the day we came back from our long weekend away (for our 2nd anniversary), the man spotted a very unwelcomed guest in our backyard - a snake!

Notice the pattern of the snake? I found out that this is a carpet python. We think it has just ate something and hence a part of it is fatter than other parts and it was also quite lazy to budge when we disturb it.

This is not the first time we spotted a snake in our backyard in the warmer seasons (which is why I don't like summer). But this is definitely the first python we saw. I know they are not poisonous. Nevertheless, it still freaked us out!

After we disturbed the snake, it slipped from the fence and ended up amongst the plants in the corner. Those plants are ground cover and is a bit dense. When the man checked, it was nowhere to be seen. Hopefully, it has escaped back to its natural habitat - the bushland just beyond our fence. Anyway we decided to get rid of those plants and replace it with something which we are able to see the base of the plant and no snake is able to hide there. Instead of getting a decorative plant, we reckon it will be better to get a low maintenance plant that is able to bear us some fruit or beneficial to us.

A lime tree! Limes can be fairly expensive most times of the year. My SIL and MIL has a lemon tree and hence I thought we could have a lime tree! It should harvest in 14-16 weeks (that is 4 months!). We pray that it will bear us some fruits!

Along with that, we also planted some eggplant and lettuce seedlings that we bought. Also did heaps of weeding (because we did not bother with our garden for some time), which will hopefully mean that our plants can grow well and the environment will be unsuitable for snakes to reside/hunt for their food.

Tomatoes and Rockmelon

Some time back, I bought some fresh truss tomatoes from Aldi and harvested the seeds to experiment growing the plant from seeds. I managed to grow them into big and healthy tomato plants and gave some plants away too!

The 4 plants that I have in my garden are doing very well and producing beautiful tomatoes... waiting for them to ripen. Meanwhile, there are also random cherry tomato plants that sprouted out from the ground too... probably from the tomatoes that fell to the ground.

The biggest tomato is that size (as my hand held it) at this moment. I am quite pleased with any size so long as they are good and best of all, they are organic!

A friend also gave us some mystery? watermelon/rock melon seedlings a while ago. I planted them into the ground and had to throw away some as they were growing and overtaking my tomato plants (they are crawlers and spreaders). A month ago, we saw some fruit growing out that looked like a watermelon and recently, we noticed that the skin was turning rough, indicating that it is more likely to be a rock melon. The plant suddenly died (all leaves went dry) and we figure we will clear the ground for more space. The unripened fruit has to be thrown away too. But before we do that, we took a photo of the fruit!

The unripened rock melon, slightly bigger than the size of my hand but it is rather heavy

Winter's approaching (my favourite season) and it is time then, to prune back most plants in my garden and prepare them (and the soil) for spring and summer veggies/fruits!

Rethinking About My Diet

Just heard from a lady I know via work about her special diet. She is just about the 3rd trimester of her pregnancy and she has some other health problems before her pregnancy. Her dietian has given her a list of food that she should stay away from and a list that she can eat. With the diet restrictions, her health is getting better and even though she has only barely put on weight with her baby, her baby is of a healthy size. Apparently food with preservatives 200-260 are a definite no-no to eat. After the chat, it makes me want to go back to Coles to shop again (I just did my weekly shopping early this morning).

It also seems that healthier diet means spending more to buy fresh food and cook them yourselves, instead of processed food. This also means that I should cook my own pasta sauce instead of buying the ready-to-cook type. Which also means that I should be cooking my own green curry from scratch with all the spices instead of using the packet of green curry paste! How difficult is that! This requires a mindful change of habits in grocery shopping and my cooking and baking. i.e. no more Doritos, sweet things, ice cream, etc... But I think it is high time for me to think it through, for the sake of my health, hubby's health and the health of people whom I cook/prepare food for.

Our first home grown pak choy :) Nice and fresh!

For a start, I could do with eating veggies grown organically. I usually get my Asian veggies supply from my MIL who grows quite a fair bit in their garden. Hubby and I planted some pak choy seedlings in January and they are finally growing big and strong! Yesterday, we harvested our first pak choy and had them for dinner with our 2 guests :) It felt so good to eat freshly harvested veggies from my own garden. And they were considered organic as I did not add any incesticides to them, other than some waste food into the soil as compost. Next up, truss tomatoes! Prayerfully they will grow well.... (yeah, we really actually pray that our plants will grow and give thanks for them :))

Truss tomatoes: (left) Sperm-like looking but they are seeds with little roots and (right) seedlings grew after 2 weeks

Next up, our Truss tomotoes seedlings. I bought the Truss tomatoes, fresh and cheap from Aldi. As I was finishing them, I figure that I could try to reproduce the tomatoes in my garden. With advice from my SIL, I harvested seeds from the tomotatoes, put them in water for about a week (change water everyday) and roots began to sprout out from the seeds. I planted them in a small tray until they grew into a seedling. They are now ready to be transplanted in the ground! As I have got 15 seedlings in all, I decided to give away some... Really looking forward to the growth and eating home grown healthy truss tomatoes!

Basil Harvest

These are all the jars of pesto that I made over 2 days, using the abundant harvest of basil that I had this summer (1 jar is missing in the photo) and a big bunch of basil from my MIL. 4 jars will go to my MIL and 2 to my 2 SILs. 3 went into my freezer and 2 are in my fridge.

Hubby and I are very thankful for our great basil harvest. I made some basil pesto last summer but this year's harvest is a lot better. Of our 8 plants, 1 died, 1 given away and the rest average about 1 metre in height. After making the above basil pesto, I am left with 6 half-metre tall plants. I am hoping to freeze some fresh leaves closer to the end of summer, so that I have fresh leaves to use all throughout the year. The basil plants has to also be pruned back so that they can 'hibernate' and then bloom again next summer.

I felt fulfilling and happy that I can make something in abundance and store them away and the main ingredient comes from my very own garden. I did not grow up in such an environment but in a city where things/food are easily available within 5 mins.

I am a bit bored of making basil pesto now :p Probably will also try to freeze chopped basil into ice cubes for future use. Again, I will probably only do this at the end of summer :)

Original basil pesto with garlic, pine nuts and parmesan cheese

Basil pesto with sundried tomatoes, cashew nuts (instead of pine nuts) and garlic

Chilli Harvest

Praise God for a good chilli harvest this summer. I have given away quite a number of red ripened chillies and also gave a bag of green chillies to a friend who made them into preserved green chillies. Being a non-chilli eater, I store chillies that were not given away in the freezer for future use, should my visitors likes chillies (or for my mum when she visits from Singapore).

I get quite excited when I see the green chillies turn red. It brings a smile :) to my face. The red colour is so bright and nice... At this current moment, there are at least 5 which have just turned red or will be completely red in a day or 2. Green chillies don't suddenly completely turn red. They reddened in parts and so you may see a half red and green chilli. I was quite pleased that a friend liked my chilli so much that she took it and planted it in a pot and it is growing really well.

Am really thankful that my younger/newer chilli plant is bearing longer and hotter chillies than my original/'parent' plant. Both are actively producing chillies now and I am just happy enough to have them grow :)

My First Cherry Tomato

The 3 cherry tomato plants in my backyard are doing pretty well this year... Just before I left for Singapore, some tomatoes just began to start turning red. I was so excited that I thought to bring some to Singapore for my parents.

My mum said that they are sweet! Yum! Praise God for the harvest!

More "Veggie Tales"

(The lavender flowers are finally growing up towards the sky! More lavender flowers are blooming!)

Please bear with me, this 'city bumpkin' who gets easily excited about her gardening exploits. I have been extremely pleased with my garden in the past week!

A week ago, my FIL gave us 10 pots of changko manis plants. This is a type of asian vegetables that you cannot buy outside (I've not seen it being sold before). Apparently it is easy to grow them and we can harvest the leaves every now and then to cook them up and eat them. We were also given a passionfruit plant which is still small and hopefully it will grow and be able to bear us a fruit or 2 in summer. I am not a big fan of passionfruit and I probably have not eaten passionfruit until I first came to Australia to visit my in-laws. They have got a couple of passionfruit plants/trees in their garden. Since then, I like it a little more. Often I will dig out all the pulp and freeze them in a container. This is so that I can use it in future to make a drink or bake in cakes/cookies.

2 rows of 10 changko manis plants in the background. In the foreground (L-R), sage, coriander, sweet basil, sweet basil and sweet basil

Both my chilli plants are also flowering. I am a bit surprised that by this time I can count about 18 green chillies. Good thing I pruned the plants in winter and hence they can now survive a bit better and able to flower and bear fruit. The chillies seemed healthier and bug-free now and there are more flower buds that seemed like blooming soon! I am only afraid that the harvest of chillies may cause the plant's branches and leaves to hang over too much (due to the weight of the chillies on a single branch) that some may break.

The 6 chillies on one single branch. Can you find them?

This birthday, I received a box of 6 lettuce seedlings and a pack of potting mix from ST. I had to plant them on the ground (soil in a styrofoam box) the next day because they seemed like they were withering. I have since eaten some lettuce leaves from the plants. They have also been growing (but not as fast as one could in a garden with full sunshine) and I am glad that they grew a bit better after the rain yesterday.

Lettuce seedlings and plants

I think what I am most excited and looking forward to, are the tomatoes (cherry?) that are blooming. There are so many small tomatoes and yellow flowers (which eventually grows into tomato) on those 3 plants. I can't wait for all of them to turn red!

Some of the many cherry tomatoes which are still green. I last counted 53 of them amongst 3 plants... and there were still many flowers that are waiting to grow into tomatoes

What I need to get now, is small water crystals so that the plants continue to be hydrated during those days that we are not in Brisbane and unable to water them daily. If anything, seeing flowers bloom and fruits grow into harvest, is the best thing for summer :)

The First Fruit

This is the first strawberry that I picked from my 2 strawberry plants in my garden. Although this isn't the first that turned red, this certainly looked 'the best' and juiciest. The rest were either rotten/soft or had a quarter of it bitten away by... (I am not sure what).

However this strawberry has 2 holes (1 in the above photo), which probably was drilled by some worms. But I thought I still could cut off bits of the fruit that was unharmed, just to try out the taste of the strawberries growing in my garden. And so I ate the bottom bit and some on the side.... it was really sweet! :) I am so pleased and so proud that finally, my garden produced a decent fruit. All other plants in the garden are vegetables or herbs. The closest is the chilli, left behind by the previous owner. The 2 strawberry plants were from my MIL. They came as small seedlings some 5-6 months ago. They grew very slowly at first and I was getting disappointed... A couple of months later, I uprooted and transplant them into another spot, which then grew quite a bit more in a shorter time. I was excited when I saw its first flower... and now, the fruits are here!

My heart is thankful... and I recalled how hubby and I actually prayed that our garden will bear us some vegetables and fruits so that we can save a bit on our grocery bill. God is answering that prayer... and hey, this is one way that God provide for our needs, isn't it? :)

Update on My Garden

Only recently, hubby became a little more enthusiastic about our little garden in our backyard. Being a city girl all my life, I pretty much grew up only seeing plants in the botanical garden. Even though my in-laws are the professional "Adam and Eve", hubby hasn't really quite has any green fingers.

2 weeks ago, hubby decided to try a new dish and it required dill. We ended up buying dill from the supermarket but it has inspired hubby that we should grow some herbs that we will use in our cooking so that we don't need to spend $2 buying a bunch of herbs which usually has more than we need for our cooking. By now, we already have curly parsley and flat-leaved parsley, chives and spring onions in our garden. Last weekend, we bought some more herbs and set up 2 'pots' of herbs in styrofoam boxes.

Hubby weeding the lawn

I am glad that hubby has generally been more keen in the affairs of our backyard. At least we are both involved in a common project. We are both rather practical, except that I am also concerned with beautifying the place with flowers and yet also making it useful for us. We have been watching Better Homes and Gardens to gather ideas, yet we don't want to spend too much money on our backyard. So long as it serves its main purpose to give us harvest, we are more than happy.

Top: Tomatoes and its flowers.
Bottom: Flowers of rocket leaves plant and strawberries

3 basil seedlings, rosemary , coriander and thyme in 2 separate styrofoam boxes

Watercress and flat-leaved parsley

MIL gave me some flower seedlings to grow, pertunas and the other of which I don't know the name of... I've also just bought a pack of 6 Salvia seedlings and planted them in the ground. They are supposed to bear purple flowers and hopefully I will see them in a few weeks' time...

Lavender. For some reason, gravity is very strong in that spot where the plant is :p

Various flower seedlings given by my MIL (except for the little orchids on bottom right) and now have flowered

A part of me is really excited to the potential harvest, although each time I step out to the backyard, I am very wary and on the lookout for garden geckos, spiders and snakes... any other creepy crawlies. I will detest them and be scared of them for a long long time...

A Glimpse of Spring

It was some time when I last blogged about my garden. I thought I will do an update. Since the last time, my roma tomato plant died a natural death. My plant with small chillies also shed all its leaves (hopefully it is only a winter thing!) while my other chilli plants continue to bear chillies.

I was watering the garden and doing some pruning and weeding today, and I found out that my sweet potato plant had reproduced! Unfortunately I had already taken the new potato (root) out of the ground because I was cutting off some yellow-leaved parts. Anyhow I shall cook this up and taste to see if it is sweet :)

My little new sweet potato

Meanwhile I noticed that some other flowers are blooming. I suppose I should not be surprised since spring is arriving in about 2 weeks' time. Seeing the blooming flowers got me excited once more (especially since my garden does not seem to be producing much because of deficient sunlight).

Flowers of some succulent plant

A flower plant - pertuna.
This plant (under my clothes line) is growing better than those at other spots

Yellow flowers from my tomato plant. This (hopefully) will become a tomato :)

At the same time, these are the better growing plants that I have at the moment:

Rocket leaves (vegetables), aka arugula


Spring onions (the chinese type)

Flat leaf parsley. I have some curley ones too.

I think I have more to learn about gardening and will continue to experiment what grows and what not grow in my garden :)

The Greens Outside My Doors

Thanking God that I have a small little backyard at the back of my place. I am a city girl and gardening is complete stranger to me. But well, with a backyard and some inspiration and encouragement from MIL and SIL (mother-in-law and sister-in-law respectively), I thought that I shall adventure a bit... and also thinking that I can save a bit of grocery shopping money by planting some of my own supply of veggies and herbs.

Come have a look at my backyard as I show you photos of them:

My patio with pots of plants and seedlings

The side of my place (where it leads to the bins). I have a palm tree, chives, 2 basil plants, sweet potato leaves, a parsley seedling and some orchid plants.

Down the lawn, there is a patch of soil. That strip was just cleared of various plants and trees over the weekend. FIL helped to clear the area so that I can plant more veggies, etc.

The remnants of the plants and weeds pulled out and left there until our bin can fit them to throw away. There is an aloe vera plant on the side near the fence.

A colourful bird can be sighted on the trees just outside my fence

Chilli plant. SIL gave me this chilli that repels gravity and grows pointing up to the skies.


Thai basil. This is one of the latest addition, given to us by our friends. I have to go figure how to use it in my cooking

On the left: chives. In the middle: 2 sweet basil plants. I just made half a bottle of fresh basil pesto from these leaves last week.

Sweet potato leaves. I planted an entire sweet potato into the soil and out comes the leaves. I am gonna cut up these leaves and stir-try them soon...

The chilli plant left behind by the previous occupants. There are at least 20 green chillis on it now and I am waiting for them to turn red. To prevent bugs from feasting on them, I have wrapped around some of them as an experiment to see if it helps at all.

Roma tomato. It has bore one tomato at the moment. However bugs have helped themselves to it. So I cut it off, removed the seeds and re-planted them nearby. Hopefully they will grow and bear another new tomato plant.


? This plant is starting to flower. You can see the little white flower on the top. I wonder what this is. My FIL says it looked like some useful plant (not a weed). Shall keep it for a while and observe.


Last but not least, this is my favourite photo - a caterpillar. This was hanging on a plant just outside my window in the front. I saw this through the window from inside the house and decided to go close to take a photo of it. I am afraid of creepy crawlies and so it happens that his little one was on the other side of the window and I am not scared to go near it.

I have a couple more succulents, some orchid plants (not flowering yet. It will take years!) and a frangipani tree seedling growing in my backyard. I am a bit lazy to the photos up. I really hope and pray that my plants will grow. Any gardening tips from anyone?