Aussie Summer Harvest - the brag thread

[Mantis]

I have had a lot of grubs as well. Get out of my garden fella

[tessa]

hey grub...i think i've got your twins' daddy!

[cosmicgardener]

Interesting - hhmmm........I am beginning to suspect that conditions this year are leaning towards oddities and severe infestations of some pests. Apart from things running to seed weeks early, we are seeing a lot of this sort of thing - is it imperfect pollination or what? I have a couple of fused apples on what is left of my trees now that the bloody easterly salt bearing winds have dropped as well as some tomatoes, zukes and a number of malformed buds on the cucumbers. Early heat can be blamed here, but is it happening more than usual or is it my imagination?

[cosmicgardener]

Not exactly a brag - more despair. Here are the results of strong easterly winds bearing massive doses of salt. Last year we picked 50 kg of peaches off this tree and more from the apples. I am so disheartened with my garden - only the tomatoes are doing well but that could be a matter of time....

[Grub]

Manto,
Wait till you see what I bought yesterday... he he he... I will get a pic up soon.

Tessa,
Maybe we should arrange a date... maybe they already did? What kind of Zuke do I have? D'ya know? I dunt.

Cosi,
Strange year for sure. I had great early fruitset but there's a huge gap now, with some plants growing like mad in the N-rich rain but dropping all blooms from the humidity, and others just refusing to grow at all as though they have wet feet.

We're in for a week of showers and rain now... so they say... so the grubs will be out in force Pretty hard to spray anything when its wet.

And the EB... it's gathering pace!

Sorry to see your fruit trees like that.

[tessa]

no idea grub...but they sure look nice whatever variety they are.

cosmic: heartbreak. wow. were you home when it happened? i wonder if the salt could have been hosed off?...but then what would it do in the ground? i guess it'll find it's way into the ground eventually anyway.

[Grub]

The zukes were from very very old Diggers seed well past its used-by date... I just searched their site and they are Trombocino...

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/l...284526386.html

[cosmicgardener]

Tessa, it was pelting down (32 ml in 12 hours) at the same time, so I can only imagine that the rain was salt soaked too. Usually Easterly weather is dry - rain comes from the West. A freak of nature. We went out the next day to hose it with house water but it was too late. We are 100 metres from the beach but there is a 80 metre 'drop' down to the beach itself. We are also protected by 4 neighbours beachside of us all of whom have large trees on their fences so the salt had affected their trees too.

Grub, I assume you missed out on the hail storm?

I think Mother Nature is in a very bad mood. Funny - the passionfruit vine is not affected nor the tomatoes, nor the roses. Toms are behind the apple trees so 'shelter shadow' must have been just enough. Bob thinks the trees might come again, but we'll see.

Am going to cook - at least the weather won;t interfere with that...............

[mcsee]

Spatz - This is a 'Red Robin' seedling, one of about a dozen I'm growing for a later crop for the hothouse. Hopefully these will be added to my plant sales next season.

[Grub]

Cosi,
Yeh, the hail was out west. Big insurance claims. Here we had torrential rain for 40 minutes. Checked boat and it was dry.

Red Robbin looks cute... here are my first ones for the seaon: a couple of Kimberly and an F2 Sungold x Jaune Flammee.

Click for Larger Size

[mcsee]

Great Xmas decorations there Grub.

I've got the tree but we ate our baubles, never mind more coming by Xmas.

[Mantis]

Lucky you didnt get that hail Grub , it looked fearce on the telly.

[Grub]

It was a wicked storm, Manto. The hail was reportedly the size of tennis-balls in some areas. We were in the car and just arrived at MILs with eerie yellow-green hue to black sky above... then lightning bolts all around and you could feel the air cracking with static... really scary. Bolted into house and was a complete whiteout with rain and lightning... natural instinct is to hide under something. Then 40 minutes later it's sunny.

But now it's overcast and drizzling and supposed to be this way for days... La Nina is definitely here. Better get used to it. Flower clusters on most plants are melting before they even open. EB is severe on some, like Peruvian Bush Cherry, but WOW Saras Galapagos alongside is seemingly immune to it. Very interesting.

Gonna be a big gap in production.

[Mantis]

Have you got Toms Yellow Wonder in this year? It stood up to the early blight I had here while all those around it were losing leaves to yellowing and drying out.

[Grub]

I am groing TYW again. I second that, as it was in a blighty area last season and produced some bombs. Not a high producer, but then the nice ones rarely are...

Hey, knock on door... dodgy ethnic bloke hands me card and says he's in the area cutting trees... I show him a stretzlitzia (spelling?) I have and he says $380 to remove. I almost faint. Then I show him my patch. BIG mistake. He sees Jimmy Nardello and demands some peppers... I offer him peppers from this and that but he keeps pushing for the JN... I got him a few then he bent down and snapped a few more greenies off this and that... it wouldn't surprise to see my bed stripped in coming weeks. Those ethnic folks can spot a feed a mile away.

Going into city to see santa and lights and trees and Mrs Grub has a meeting with old work.