May 2013 - Getting ready for Winter

Well it has been a spectacular month for May in Sydney this year. Autumn has put on it’s finest. The sun shines every day; the sky is blue and the air crisp. The nights are chilly and the dew greets you every morning.

The weather reporters tried to predict rain in Sydney but as weather reporters are more often wrong than not. It was no surprise it did not rain.

I have been getting my garden beds ready for the upcoming winter. Late April saw the removal of the last of my Bush Beans. I aerated the soil, tossed in some cow manure and have basically let it sit for a few weeks. It still needs to have more compost added. My very bushy Thai basil got relocated as well to a better location for summer I do hope it survives winter. I also planted some of my flowering Pineapple Sage in what will now be known as the herb & flower bed. It gets minimal sun in winter but is good in summer as it gets the very early morning sun and mid morning but is shaded during the high heat of the day.

Another glorious Sydney day mid May & I relocated my strawberries. I seem to have plants & runners in every Garden Bed and stray pots. So after rounding up the little buggers I gave them all the same new home. However I given up some precious space in my Garden Bed to do this! I can see me relocating them again in a few months. At least I now have enough plants to actually get a decent crop on a daily basis next year.

I finally removed my Roma Tomato plant, it fruited but the result is green tomatoes. No matter how long I left them they did not ripen. Will have to find a new recipe for tomato chutney that uses green ones. Garden bed #1 still has Aubergines being prolific, there appears to 7 fruit and more on their way. I want to pull them out but while they are going so well and I have a great recipe for Tomato & Eggplant chutney I have decided to let them grow. At least for a few more weeks!

I have topped up my sad citrus’s with manure, shredded paper and compost. The lemon is flowering and the kaffir lime is showing new leaf growth. However it is the pup growing from the base that bothers me. The pup is growing off the grafted base plant. SNIP SNIP and that was gone. I don’t need a full size lime tree trying to take over my yard. I even went so far as to remove the wire I had wrapped around each plant to protect them form the local critters – possums my enemy – so far so good. No leaves or branches eaten yet.

I have decided to keep my passion fruit vine behind bird netting through winter and will decide its fate through spring. Will it flower, will it fruit, will the animals get at it again. Only time will tell.