Pineapple eating time!

You might remember the saga of the pineapple, five years in a pot and finally it produced a flower followed by a fruit. It's taken most of 2010 to mature to eating point, but it finally got there this month. That's a lovely view of my compost bins and the fuschia-that-thinks-it's-a-Triffid in the background.

It was probably a little past it's prime because we weren't sure when it was ready to eat. Most of it had turned yellow. I think we waited a little bit too long because the insects had discovered it; there were a few bad spots where the little boogers had penetrated the skin. But we still got a few slices of yummy ripe pineapple off it, and I'll plant the new top and the pup it produced. So who knows, in five years time there may be TWO pineapples!

The fruit ended up about the size of both my fists put together, so a reasonable size. Considering Melbourne is considered too cold for pineapple plants to survive much less flower and produce an edible fruit, I count this as a botanical success :)

It must be May...

...if the tree dahlias are blooming. They flower like clockwork, same time each year. The buds have been developing for a week or two and a few days ago the first pinky-purple flowers crept out. Now the blossoms are coming thick and fast, and the backyard will be awash with pinky-purple snow as the petals fall. They're tall plants, well above the house eaves. It's been windy and the long, long stems - a bit like bamboo - are propped up with fence palings lest they topple over. One windy night last week, one of the thinner and weaker stems did break off, but I leaned it up against the parent plant and despite its separation the buds on the broken limb have opened anyway. These plants are tough.

The bees love these flowers. Perhaps there's not a great deal to choose from at this late stage of autumn, but there is usually a host of happy bees buzzing in and out of the blossoms gathering nectar. In the lower right corner you can just make out a bee zeroing in on a flower, and lots of buds to come. It looks like a lovely day in these photos, and part of it was, with the sun out and blue skies. Don't let the blue skies fool you, though, it was cold! I have on my fingerless gloves to type.

That's the roof gutter this bough is leaning on. There's another bee sipping at the centre of the flower on the right. I have a double white tree dahlia, too, but it always flowers a couple of weeks later than the pinky-purple variety: the buds are just beginning to form. After if flowers, I plan to move the white one from it's current position underneath the clothesline because I haven't been able to raise, lower, or turn it for a couple of months since the dahlia grew through the wires :)

The tree dahlias are amazing. They survive heat, wind, drought, cold and keep on coming back. Every year after the flowers are finished, I raze them to the ground, and within a couple of months they send up new shoots. I am always astonished at how quickly and how tall these plants grow - easily sixteen or more feet of growth in a season. Gotta love that.

Pineapple pup

The pineapple still lives, nay, thrives! It is larger than my fist now, and still growing, as is it's healthy topknot of leaves. I wait with bated breath for it to ripen - apparently the fruit body will turn golden yellow.

There is also a "pup", a baby pineapple plant, growing from between the leaves of the original plant, pictured here with a friend (the garden is populated with praying mantis, this one is a gorgeous vivid green - he doesn't really blend with the pineapple leaves but he seems quite happy there). When the pup gets a bit bigger, I'll twist it off and plant it in a new pot to grow on all by itself. When I harvest the growing fruit, I plan to plant the
crown of that, too. Someday in the distant future, I may have a pineapple plantation in the back yard :)

Pineapple progress

The pineapple continues to grow. It now has quite a long stalk, a developing crown of leaves, and the "body" has little purple tongues of flowers. The leaves of the plant itself were looking a bit worn out, perhaps pumping all the plant's energy into the developing fruit, so we gave it a feed with some fertiliser and it's looking much happier. Also added some compost around the base where some of the soil had leached out and what should pop up, but a healthy looking tomato seedling. Sometimes I wonder why I bother buying fancy seeds or seedlings, I could just fill a pot with compost or spread some on a garden bed and see what develops. Pumpkin, tomato and melon seeds seem to enjoy passing through the composting process and hurl themselves lightward with abandon - I've plucked out at least twenty little pumpkin leaflets from the tomato pots, and at least as many extra tomatoes looking to take up residence with the advanced seedlings I planted out.

Here you can see a little of the long stalk underneath the fruit.

And a detail of the tiny flower tongues studding the fruit body. This is such a fascinating process, eating any fruit that eventuates is like the icing on the cake - a sweet treat, but not the whole point :)

Spring

I have a series of deep thoughts percolating in my head that may be vented in a blog post once they have matured. In the meantime, pretty Spring pictures of the garden. Above are broad beans, only a few have progressed to edible as yet but there are plenty of baby beans coming on. I hope they manage to beat the mildew: once the weather warms up, broad beans are horribly prone to diseases of damp.

Apple blossom on my ballerina apple tree. Last year the possums beat me to the few apples to appear. Perhaps this season I'll net them and beat the little boogers to the fruit.

The bees love the apple blossom and were happily about their work as I took this. I also managed to scare at least six months growth off the gas meter man when I popped suddenly out of the side gate on my photography expedition as he was taking a reading beside the apple trees.

This rose was a sorry sight when I moved into this house twelve years ago, gnarled and in sore need of serious pruning. It got a hard prune at the start of last winter, and is absolutely covered in flowers, with lots of buds developing. The aphids are just beginning to take an interest, so I must spray soon. The blooms are scented, but don't last well as cut flowers, tending to shed petals almost immediately. I just enjoy them in the garden. Besides, the cats try to eat the petals given half a chance. Don't know if roses are poisonous to felines, but cleaning up petal barf is just icky.

Tree dahlia

The tree dahlias are blooming again, perhaps slightly earlier, but I didn't think they would get to this stage at all. First, February's 45 degree temperatures and burning winds crisped them (literally - to the point I assumed they were dead) as if blowtorched. But they came good: new leaves bursting forth to make them just as lush as they were before Black Saturday, even if their stems were somewhat spindlier. Then the week after Easter, there was a windstorm with speeds over 100kmh and the poor dahlias took another beating, to the ground with their poor new skinny stems. However, they're so resilient that even those that couldn't be stood and tied upright again (and my fence is not up to holding too much weight) started growing for the sun again. The branches I couldn't stand up I just pushed out of the walk way, and they're flowering too, prostrate though they are. There are fewer blossoms than other years, and more sporadic instead of massess of flowerheads, but I'm glad they made it all.

I have a double white form in addition to the pinky-mauve, but it flowers later - the buds are just forming. The broad beans are mostly up, just a couple of gaps, as is the spinach (hard to tell from the weeds at this point, until they grow a few more adult leaves) and the snowpeas. The rosemary is looking healthier after a little rain, so is the sage, though not as robust. Oh, and the
chives have popped their heads up over the edge of their container, too, also after being par-cooked by the weather. I much prefer gardening when I'm not being baked, either.

Cold hands

Drawing 173

Drawing 174

Drawing 175

Yesterday it was so cold in the house I had to put on my fingerless gloves to draw because my hands kept going numb. I am stubborn about putting the heating on during the day (for many reasons, not the least of which is if I'm too warm and cosy not much gets done but reading and providing a lap for a cat), but I did relent and turn it on for a while after that!

This afternoon I was pottering around in the garden, tossing some dead potted plants and weeding the long green grass (why are weeds always healthier than my plants?) out of others. Eventually I was forced inside when I could no longer feel my hands and dropped a largish pot all over the laundry steps. Poor pelargonium, the weeds are no longer choking it but the abrupt decant might be the end of it. I stuffed it back into its pot, gave it some extra potting mix to make up the difference (much was still scattered across the concrete, too wet to sweep up), and a drink, so I hope it survives.

Progress on Mending Mountain (if I keep score here, it might inspire me to keep going): 6 garments now back in circulation (three shirts, one pair jeans, one refashioned top, one pair trousers). Though the last item, the pair of black trousers I took in, may need a revisit - the darts are too big and lumpy and not very comfortable in wearing - so I'll likely frog them and try again, smaller and more darts this time.

Rain, lovely rain

Drawing day seventy

There was a ripper of a thunderstorm on Monday night, and it's been raining since lunchtime today. Lovely, seriously lovely. It's been so long since we had regular, proper rain that it's a novelty. Though it has brought something of a chill to the air after the hot temperatures last week - the contrast is striking. On the weekend I was in shorts and a singlet, today it's back to long pants and long sleeves. And handknit socks :) My feet are very happy. And the cats are very friendly, looking for a convenient heat sink.

The garden will be grateful. Water restrictions mean that most of the plants are perpetually thirsty since all I can give them is excess household water from the shower (caught in buckets) or sinks (bowls). Yes, I could get up at 6am and water two days a week (one of which is Sunday) but given how much I lerve my bed and sleep, that has Buckley's chance of happening...

Drawing day eight

Still working on the linocut, but overdid it on Friday ("I'll just do this little bit, ooh, but look I've nearly finished with that area, I'll just keep going for a little while") and paid the price of screaming nerves.

I probably shouldn't have tackled the weeding in that state, but ripped back some of the jungly back yard in the beds around the clothesline. I did make a happy discovery under the weeds: the white tree dahlia planted by the fence is not dead or consumed by a myriad of snails, but is instead sporting two healthy looking shoots. It probably won't do much this year - it seems to take a full round of seasons for the tree dahlia to establish a good root system - but I'm hopeful it might flower next year. The purple/mauve ones I planted a few years back are thriving, taller than the fence (probably over 8ft tall) , thick stems (they're like bamboo, jointed) and lush green leaves. See some here: http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup/?id=1672744&refnum=339883
The garden is majorly overgrown and I plan to put in some serious gardening time before I go back to classes in three weeks. I meant to plant vegies, but it's getting a little late in the season for many.

This morning, The Bloke and I went to Dandenong Trash & Treasure Market. I hadn't intended to actually SPEND more than a couple of $$s, but an art folio with shoulder strap caught my eye - I've been looking for one smaller than the huge A1 size I have, for transporting prints and printmaking stuff - and at $10 as opposed to $40-50 for brand new A2 size, it was too good to leave :) It's a nice hard sided one, with a strong zip, pockets inside and binder clips to add plastic sleeves. Perfect!