Running Amok With An Ax

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Monday, January 4, 2010

Oakleigh Oppy

These were my finds on a trip the op shop in Station Street, Oakleigh in December. Above is a photograph album, $3. On my next visit, I may mention that masking tape does not make a great substitute for sticky labels - despite my best efforts the tape pulled off a chunk of the cover and made an unsightly mark. Sigh.

A set of gouache paints from China, barely used, $5. I'd say maybe three of the tubes have been opened. Gouache makes lovely colours :)

And lastly, a batik square from the 50 cent box. I'm not sure if it's a very small tablecloth or a scarf, but its intended purpose in my hands is fabric yardage - it will be part of a tunic top, I think.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Number of the Beast

Drawing 666 (HAH!)

Drawing 667

Drawing 668

Drawing 669

Drawing 670

I am easily amused.

Pineappling!!

Last year I bought a fancy tomato (the name of which escapes me) from the nursery and nurtured it, nursing it along on water bucketed out of the shower, and it rewarded me
with a grand total of six fruit then carked it. Several of the fruit were chewed on by bugs
or possums and fell into the pot. Evidently some seeds made it past the pests and this
one grew in last year's pot. It looks WAAAAY healthier than its parent ever did, and I
water it if I remember, no mollycoddling for this freeloader. It has lots of flowers and
about a dozen little tomatoes growing happily.

Zuchini plants sprawling where winter's snow peas grew against the makeshift trellis. Grown from seed, they are finally producing female flowers after an age of impatient inspecting by me and now:

...actual zuchini. There are several teeny tiny zukes coming along. I picked this one - it's about four or five inches long - and plan to steam it for my dinner. There will be the inevitable zuchini glut at some point, I'm sure, but for now I am Pleased.

My pineapple plant is flowering!

I think. Inflorescence is the proper term, I believe, but this particular growth
looks more like it might just be going straight for fruiting and skipping the
whole flower thing. Don't know, I've never grown a pineapple before!

I planted the top just after christmas 2005. It's survived since then on summers outside and winters inside, except for this past year when I left it outside in the cold weather, though in a sheltered position. It didn't seem to bother the plant much. It has grown considerably over the years, though I wasn't sure it would survive this far south.

And now there is the promise of a pineapple.

A Google search informed me that a pineapple flowers/fruits once and then dies, but will likely produced pups or slips first, so I can plant those plus the top of the (potential) fruit developing. Pineapples are part of the bromeliad family, which may go some way toward explaining its success here: shallow root system, likes shallow poor soil (potted), grows on little water, likes heat (it got some, though not as much as it would have in Queensland).

Can't wait to see what emerges!