Cupcake Memories: Life in Sydney, Australia

When was the last time you put on a pair of gloves? I must say I put them on whenever I have to pull out weeds. I can use any kind of gloves, plastic or rubber, they work fine for me.

However that is not the case with DH. He has super sensitive hands. Whenever he has to dig the dirt, pull the weeds, handle bricks and rough materials like planks and woods, he needs to wear Mechanix gloves which are thick and strong else his hands would get blisters from getting in contact with the materials and soil he touches.

Thank goodness for such thick gloves else nothing would get done around the house *LOL*

I planted some buk choy seedlings a month ago and initially they all sprouted well, every single one of them.  However, as they grew a little, they lost all their leaves!  The culprit is either snails or worms!  Some of the seedlings managed to grow into an adult buk choy *LOL* but the leaves are full of holes (munched by our garden friends).

Even those I transplanted into pots and placed in other areas of the house were not spared.  How do I keep the pests away from eating my vegies without using pesticides?  I guess I will have to google for natural pesticides.  Gosh, as if I don’t already spend so much time on the internet.

Have been considering growing some Chinese vegies in my garden; mainly baby bok choi and kang kong, two of my favourite vegies. Have planted some Chinese Chives seedlings a few days ago – this is my second attempt. The last time, they stopped growing after about 4cm in height, perhaps I planted them at the wrong season.

Anyway, yeah, hope to get this going before end of the year. It will be educational for DD too.

I love the square pavers and little pebbles as part of our landscape at the side of the house. However, due to ongoing gardening work at the time and transporting soil into our backyard, a lot of dirt fell onto the pavers and left ugly black stains on them.

I have tried scrubbing and washing with very strong detergent but it didn’t work. At one time at a DIY store, we watched a video on pressure washers and DH was tempted to get one to clean the pavers as well as our stencilled driveway.

My plants seem to be sick. I am unsure if it was the Seasol solution DH sprayed on them a few weeks ago or was it caused by frost recently. I hope they thrive again especially the Lemon Squash Cupheas as it would be a pain to replace them with new plants all over again.

I am trying to grow more Lemon Squash Cupcheas by transplanting the seedlings found around the established plants, onto flower pots. This specie is so expensive, usually costs AU$17+ a pot but we got them for a great bargain at only AU$4+ per pot.

I am not trying to grow them for sale but I thought they would make a nice gift to friends ?

I have developed an interest in plant propagation awhile ago but never really got into it and to equip myself with all the know-how. I guess it is interesting to see something live multiply in your care even if it’s just greens.

Though I did briefly read up a little about propagating some plants, they sounded like a bit of work. I will try youtube and see if there is any video clips of it. Nothing beats watching a video tutorial.

I did however, plucked some daisy stems and just put it in the soil after the daisy was almost killed by a cat that probably fell off the fence or jumped onto the plant at night. I hate those cats that love to walk along the fence at night.

I was surprised to see two young daisy sprouts but I am unsure if it grew from the stem I planted in the soil or from seeds that may have fell from the daisies themselves.

I also saw many young Chrysanthemum Daisies sprouting along the garden bed at the back room. I actually pulled and threw away all those Chrysanthemum Daisy plants last Summer when they became totally dried due to the hot sun. Looks like I’ll be salvaging the new sprouts and plant them into pots

My garden is doing very good, thank you

As the temp no longer hit 30C and above everyday, the plants seem to have sprung back to life and enjoying the slightly cooler weather too. Well, beginning 1st March was officially Autumn anyway. I almost threw away two pots of yellow portulacas to make way for some Cupheas but changed my mind. I’m glad I kept them as it makes me very happy to see rows of flower pots filled with blooming flowers of different colours.

I had actually uprooted all portulacas from the garden bed a year ago but some seeds managed to grow this past Summer and they grew rapidly here and there. Since I had extra flower pots at the time, I decided to plant them in and wow they grew so much. The only bad thing is that the stems are very fragile and hardly holds itself up. In winter, they can look very dead and hardly flowers.

I think I shall keep these portucalas and just let them grow in the pots.

Despite the credit crunch, I often think about buying and planting more around the house. I just find it therapeutic growing plants eventhough it is still quite a challenge to do gardening with DD always wanting to put her hands into whatever I do.

Anyway, I have been thinking about growing a fruit tree or two. The most common choice would be a lemon tree. I do not mind trying bigger plants like Loquat trees which are also known as Japanese Plum Tree (see photo) but unfortunately we only have a small backyard and sides of the house. So looks like we would have to give big fruit trees a miss for now.