The honeymoon is over

It has been quite a lovely spring, but the honeymoon is over, and there are many ways every gardener in Sydney knows that. For starters, there was yesterday... if being billed as 'December 1, first day of summer' wasn't enough, the weather gods threw us a stinker of a hot, humid day with temperatures approaching the old century made worse, much worse, by stifling, muggy air. However, my sense that the honeymoon of spring had well and truly ended was with me before then. The finks have arrived in numbers. 

When you see ants farming aphids, you know the honeymoon is over and the hard work of gardening in this mostly beautiful climate has begun.

This bunch of new leaf shoots on my potted
Thai makrut lime is busy with the activity of
ants bringing black aphids to feast on the juicy
new shoots. The unpleasant fact that the ants
then 'harvest' the sweet body fluids from the
aphids is almost enough reason to detest their
heartless efficiency, but for me, it's the way they
are damaging a perfectly healthy and happy
lime tree that really gets me! Finks. 

Over in the Tahitian lime tree there's another honeymoon-
wrecker at work: stink bugs. I did a little posting about these
sap suckers a few weeks ago, when they were coloured in the
vivid orange which gives them the other name of bronze orange
bugs. Now they are adults and they're coming in waves, and
these adults are much harder to see than the colourful kids.

Who has the perfect climate for gardening? No-one. Sydney is a wonderful place to grow so many plants. It's so mild here where I am, fairly close to the coast, that we never get frosts in winter. Rainfall is pretty steady, year-round, and a quick glance out the back door any day of the year and all you see is lush greenery.

So my complaints about the honeymoon being over are merely an annual regret. Spring is such an energising, enjoyable time in the garden. Everything grows like mad, the pests only come in dribs and drabs, and most of the gardening stories are happy ones. 

What lies ahead in summer is still a lot of fun, but all plants now have uncertain futures (just like us). Pests and diseases are always on the agenda, bad summer storms can end a plant's career in 10 minutes, and so gardening becomes a bit more of a battle, yet I'm happy enough to get out there and do my bit.

Instead of finishing on that lamentable note, I really should keep things in balance by saying that almost everything is still happy and thriving. New flowers are appearing, the first flush of spring crops has already been harvested and the second set is up and growing, and the revamped succulent patch is getting into stride very nicely. So here are a few happy images of the kids in the backyard to finish. 

Plectranthus 'Mona Lavender' had a rough winter; I actually
fell into the bush at one stage during garden renovations, and so
I had to cut it back very heavily, but now it's starting to do what it
usually does for most of the year – flower its head off.

At the base of the plectranthus, a row of little gomphrenas
(little annual flowers) are matching the bigger plant behind
for enthusiasm in putting on a pinky-purple show.

Next door to the plectrantus is a potted
Tibouchina 'Groovy Baby' doing a purple thing.

And in a sunny spot these daisies are beaming innocent cheer.

OK, summer, bring it on! We're ready for whatever you have in store. (How about lots of sunshine with rain on Monday and Thursday nights? Too much to ask? Thought so).

Lebanese eggplants

"That's a nice plant to grow in the garden just for its own sake. I think I might do a painting of that one," said my wife Pam this morning. Though it isn't bearing any fruit at the moment, our Lebanese eggplant has begun to flower, and it's a handsome plant, worthy of an artist's attention.

There's a lovely purpley-pink tinge to the flower buds, flowers, the stalks and the central veins of the broad leaves of this Lebanese eggplant.

The plant label promised that it would reach about 1m tall, so it's halfway there now. I planted some little annuals called Gomphrenas at the same time as I planted the eggplant seedling, as I thought a pinky purple scene would look pretty. So far so good!

The flowers themselves point down towards the ground, and hopefully some long, thick, sausage- shaped, purpley-black eggplants will be dangling from this spot sometime in late January.

Turn a flower up for a peek and it has that tell-tale look that other members of the Solanum genus, such as potatoes, have. It's a simple bloom that has a brief heyday of beauty, but with that colour it's a class above a humble white spud flower.

As I mentioned earlier there's a purplish tinge to the dark veins that run along and across each leaf. They're a big part of what makes this plant such a handsome thing. Growing it isn't too hard. It's the usual story of give it fertile, well-drained soil, lots of sunshine and regular water. The plant label says to give it an extra feed when the fruits start to swell, and avoid over-watering as the fruit nears maturity. In a typically wet Sydney summer, that might be where I come unstuck!

Pam and I are not big eggplant eaters, but we do like them occasionally. I just like to grow all sorts of vegies, just to see how the plants grow and look. I'm sure we'll find some new ways to enjoy our home-grown eggplants. I am rather fond of the dip called Baba Ghannouj, so here's the recipe I use (it's based on the one from the Complete Middle Eastern Cookbook, by Tess Mallos, but not so garlicky).

1 medium sized eggplant, about 375g

1/4 cup lemon juice

1/4 cup tahini (a sesame paste product used a lot in Lebanese cooking)

1 clove garlic

salt to taste

1 tablespoon olive oil

Pierce the eggplant all over with a skewer (to stop it bursting), then place it on a rack in a 180°C (350°F) oven for about 35-40 minutes, turning it once or twice to ensure even cooking.

Remove from the oven and let it cool slightly, but do peel off the skin while it's still very warm. Discard the skin, roughly chop the flesh, then put the flesh in a blender, along with all the other ingredients, and whizz till it forms a paste.

Use it as a dip with flatbread or crisps, or serve it as a side dish in a spread with cooked meats, salads, flatbread etc.

Note: if you can be bothered to cook the eggplant over a smoky char-grill, the eggplant will take on a smoky flavour which some people say is the hallmark of a great baba ghannouj. I'm not wild about smoked flavours myself, but there you go.

Finally, if you enjoy Lebanese food too, there's a great food blog by a Sydney-based Lebanese cook that's well worth visiting. It's called The Food Blog and right now, today, he's making pistachio ice-cream.