Rain!

Last night and this morning, it rained. It woke me at about 4am -  it was a pleasant wakening - a drip, drip, drip and a trickle into the tank. The sound that means longer showers.

It hasn't rained much here so far this autumn - we had only 9.5mm in April and quite warm temperatures. Many properties around have been looking very parched and I know that some are hand feeding their stock already - a little too early in the season.

The farmers around here have been waiting for the autumn break and it didn't really happen. But last night it rained and  there were 12.5mm of beautiful rain in the gauge and more rain is forecast.

The rain makes everything look so beautiful. The dampness has made all the colours of Highfield really stand out.

Like the colour of the  lichens on the post that holds the rain gauge.

And the beetroot red of the growth rings in the top of the fence posts.

The bark of the Box trees and the Blakley's gums are an inspiration of colour.

There is a little low cloud over the hills. 

The brassicas and nasturtiums are holding little diamonds of rain drops.

Strangely the grass seems to have greened up already. I cant wait to see the new growth.

Let's hope that those further west have received some rain or will soon.

Rain

small creek emerging on the veggie path

Goodness me, the rain we had last night and this morning!  Apparently Sydney's wettest day in 5 years.

We are all ok here, a bit of water in the garage, but basically dry up here on a small hill but those by the Cooks River I guess are a bit wet!  Are other Sydney bloggers ok?

Whatever we got is  nothing compared to what our country cousins on the Murrumbidgee and the Lachlan and in northern Victoria have had to suffer, it must be terrible.

This picture shows the view down to our vegie patch ( thru the arch).  You can see a small creek rising -  that's  the shiny patch running under the arch so the path to the vegies was pretty wet.  But I checked the vegies and even after 110 mls in 24 hours, they all looked fine!

Baby rocket and lettuce

The rocket and lettuce babies are fine, there are even self-seeded tomatoes coming up.  The snow peas are looking terrific!

Happy baby snow peas

Wet Laurie and Keates

But poor Laurie and Keats the Rainbow Lorikeets were completely drenched. What do birds do in such rain?  They turned up looking for food and were very bedraggled. (For those unfamilair with these birds, their wings should be bright green.)

Frog playground

The frog pond was full to the brim and looked just lovely.  I hope that the tadpoles didn't get washed out of the pond.  Hopefully they stayed safe in their favourite place - the mud at the bottom of the pond.

I hope everyone is dry, your veggies  are well drained and that you haven't got the latest Sydney plague - not stink bugs, not aphids  - leeches!

Water, water everywhere - much too much to drink

More eggplant pictures - you'll be glad when summer's over wont you!

 Picked

• lots of chillies
• 1 cucumber
• enough beans for two for dinner

Lots and lots of rain, more to come (it's forecast till Sunday!). The frog pond is at its limit, our city's water supply dam is going to overflow and my private tank is already overflowing into the storm water. Perhaps we should have got two tanks! 

The veggies continue to drain well however, after a day of constant wetness and even the little new seeds that have sprouted and that are still at dicotyledon stage are not waterlogged. I am a little worried that the snow peas will ahve already rotted in the soil though. But in general I am feeling very pleased with my soil development. 

Last night David excelled! Two curries with brown rice ( I love brown rice) a chicken one and this yummy eggplant one.

Curried eggplant * from the garden

eggplant*
olive oil
onion
garlic
ginger
chillies*
vindaloo curry paste (or any other paste you like)
cherry tomatoes*

Cut eggplant and cook in quite a lot of olive oil to soften. You might want to drain some of the oil off.  Add onion and cook and then add all other ingredients and a little water. Cook till eggplant soft and all flavours melded.
 

Summer summary - '11-'12

Always grow sunflowers

With summer drawing to a close, here are some of my reflections on the season.

On La Nina

• It was unusually wet and cool for a Sydney summer, it came as a huge shock after many many years of drought.
  
• Dorathea McKellar knew about El Nino and La Nina long before  they had terms to describe them (I love a sunburnt country a land of sweeping plains, of ragged mountain ranges of droughts and flooding rains...).
• La Nina is to be celebrated -  it saves my skin from added skin cancer risk and more freckles and  it fills the tank and means that you dont have to get the hose out and water!

On paying attention

•  My oft commented upon eggplants have been a slighly lighter colour purple this year and have had a soft light and fluffy flesh with few seeds.  I wish I had paid attention to their particular variety -  I want to grow them again. Or was their fluffy seedless flesh because of the plentiful rain?

On pest control  

zucchinis are not pests

• Eradicate the stink bugs when they are green babies and destroy them imediately! Even better, search your citrus for their lovely clear eggs and smash them before they can emerge.This way you might have a lime crop.
• Wear goggles when destroying stink bugs I got sprayed in the eye late last year and had to go to the optometrist to make sure I wasn't in some serious trouble. Tip -  irrigate your eye imediately if you get sprayed and you will save your eye.
• Hosing the aphids off the backs of the leaves of your cucumber works!  It uses a lot of water but it's better than spaying with other things and it's a La Nina year so I have lots of water.
• I now know what red spider mite looks like. I dont know what to do about it...
• Silvereyes (they are very sweet little birds) are great early season pest controllers in your tomato patch.  They search your tomatoes for green grubs and feed them to their babies. They also sometimes take a little nip.  Welcome them with open arms. Even if they nip your fruit. I can share with lovely birds.
• Glue traps work for reducing fruit fly. I love them!
• No matter how many glue traps you have, you will still have fruit fly.

On zucchinis

• Plant one zucchini and one zucchini only. Pick them young and eat them quick while they are at their best and have a miriade of recipes.  I have really enjoyed the ones I have used this year and no longer consider the zucchini a pest.

On tomatoes

• Pick your fruit before it rains lest it split!
• Learn how to eat split fruit in a La Nina year.
• My brown berries are more fruit fly resistant than the red varieties.
• Give up on growing large tomatoes in Sydney -  fruit fly is too much of a problem.



make lemon tarts

• Prune your plants a little in a La Nina  - this will help to ripen the fruit.  Don't prune  in a El Nino, your fruit will get sunburnt. Same goes for your skin really!

On chillies

• Grow them, love them, preserve, pickle, freeze, jam and eat them. They are one of life's great pleasures.
• Next year grow padrons, pick them, fry them and eat them with salt washed down with fino.

On lemons

•  Make lots of Lemon Tarts

On parsley

• curled parsley doesn't like La Nina as much as Italian.

On beetroot

frogs love La Nina

•  Dont be afraid of pickled beetroot.

On sunflowers

• Always grow sunflowers, always.

On frogs

• They like La Nina better than El  Nino.

After heavy rain

Picked

two of the lovely big brown berries

• chillies  - they just keep coming!
• tomatoes - just brown berries now but gosh they are lovely!
• 6 spring onions - all used in dinner

Despite three days of some pretty heavy rain and flash flooding in some parts of Sydney, the garden is looking great!  It is draining nicely,  I must be doing something right.

broccoli seedling

The broccoli seedlings didn't suffer at all (I thought they would have drowned) in contrast they are booming along.

The spring onions are nice and firm and the beans have started to produce -  I keep picking and eating them in the garden so far none have made it inside.

new spring onions

Amazingly the brown berries didn't split with the rain.  Why is that? When I had the yellow currant ones and the sugar lumps in - they split.  Maybe the soil is better draining under the brown berries? That's my theory anyway.

new baby cucumber

More eggplant on the way -  I will save you from more eggplant pictures today... And, I think I have managed to beat the aphids on the cucmber with my 'spray the blighters off with the hose' trick. And the heavens helped too with a couple of torrential soakings and by filling up the tank after my wasteful use of water pest control method.

Tonight some of the eggplant will be used up in the often cooked Chinese Spicy Eggplant dish.  We cook it so often but am I bored? Not one bit.  David is the  chef!  Mmm can't wait.