Tuesday 13 December 2011

Vegetables can have pretty flowers too

I haven't blogged for a while as I'd picked up some paid temporary work and life was just too busy. I'm finished now so I can get back to all the things I was running out of time for. Including getting ready to have 16 over for Christmas Day.

Naughty chickens on the lawn.
My dear husband built my permanent escape proof chook run for me. Did you know leghorns can scale 6 foot fences even with their wings clipped.

 I finally got my summer garden going a month later than I usually would.







scarlet runner beans
Lots of the vegetables and fruit we grow has quite colourful flowers if we look closely. I put these scarlet runner bean in, just for the flowers it is often too warm for them to set beans here. So they are sharing a frame with purple king beans (yet to flower) which are predictably productive here.





Pepino flowers
The pepino flowers are attractive and I find the plants themselves as tough as old boots and productive in dry conditions. They don't however like frosts much.









Purple tomatillo flowers


Another one from the tomato family purple tomatillo. I haven't tried this one before so I be interested how it goes. The flowers are a really bright yellow.









Chinese celery in flower
These aren't as pretty but are often covered in beneficial insects like ladybirds. 

This is Chinese celery. It is much hardier the normal supermarket stem one requiring less water by far. But it is still very useful to produce that celery flavour in soups and other cooked dishes or to slice a little very finely in a salad. It has the added bonus it self sows in my garden.



Black passionfruit
A couple of fruiting plants flowering in the garden at the moment. 

Black passionfruit, this one is a seedling plant on its own roots. The grafted Nelly Kelly's rootstock is a pain as it suckers a fair bit here.







Pomegranate

And a pomegranate this bush is just starting to flower now. So tough, with such bright flowers that they should be grown as ornamentals alone.









Tree onion
Not a flower but I still find them fascinating. Tree onions, these little ones can be replanted next year and produce pickling size onions with good flavour and a bit of a bite.

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