Berries in Spring in Canberra

Besides figs, berries are some of my favourite things to eat. Always full of flavour, most berries are also extremely high in antioxidants and other healthy goodness. Blueberries in particular are always being touted as superfoods.

Blueberries 

Unripe Berried on Powder-Blue

All my blueberries are coming along nicely, except for one, which flowered profusely and then unexpectedly died with the big frost two weeks ago. 

Although I haven't seen any bees around to pollinate, it appears that almost every flower on each blueberry plant was pollinated, and now there are a good number of berries coming along on all my different plants.

Legacy

Brightwell

Sunshine Blue

Brigitta

Chillean Guava

The Chillean Guava are beginning to put out flower buds, which I expect to open in the next few weeks. The smaller plants seem to be too young to put many flower buds out, however the larger plants I bought from a local nursery appear to have a good number. I am very excited to try the berries later in the year!

Chillean Guava Putting out Flower Buds

Black Mulberry

Mulberries Soon!

The Black Mulberry tree was hit fairly hard with the heavy frost about a week or so ago, and lost a number of leaves, buds and dropped some berries. There is still quite a good number of berries on it however, and some of them are beginning to turn red. Hopefully I will have some tasty ripe mulberries in a couple of weeks.

Lost Many Berries to Frost But Plenty Remain!

Strawberries and Raspberries

Strawberry Flowers

Strawberries and raspberries are going mad. They love the sunshine, and are both taking over the space they have been given. In particular raspberries are quite aggressive and send suckered shoots quite far from the parent plant. If you are considering planting raspberries in your garden, be sure to contain them well.

Strawberries Taking Over

Autumn Baring Raspberries

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October- A month of Highs and Lows and The Great Container Mix Experiment Begins

Extreme Weather

Well, Canberra has had quite interesting weather in the first couple of months of Spring. Unusually warm days followed by unusually cold nights means that I have been hauling my seedlings back and forth each morning and night into the shelter of their grow closet. It’s getting quite tedious. Being several months old now all the seedlings are getting larger, and the tomatoes especially have begun to outgrow their nightly home.

Seedlings Get Brought Under Lights on Frosty Nights

Chillis, Tomatoes and Okra

Tomatoes Outgrowing Their Pots

Officially, Canberra has experienced an average low temperature of 3.8 degrees Celsius which is 2.2 degrees colder than the average for October. Maximum temperatures have been 2.3 degrees above average for this time of year, averaging 21.8 .

On the 18^th Canberra also experienced its coldest October morning on record, dropping down to -3.4, beating the record of -3.3 set in 1957. This frost severely knocked around many of my plants, especially the potatoes, grapes, mulberry and one of my figs that was planted in ground. Many of these plants were half defoliated, and the fig lost all its leaves. Luckily for me, the majority of my figs are in pots up off the ground and all except the black genoa went unharmed. Black Genoa does seem a little more frost tender than my other figs, and has lost leaves twice due to frost since breaking bud in September.

Fig Tree Totally Defoliated in Record Breaking October Cold

Frost Damaged Potato Plants

Despite the continued looming threat of frost, on Sunday I took a gamble and planted out many of my tomatoes, capsicums, eggplant, chillies and zucchini. We still have a 0 degree day predicted for Wednesday morning, and I am hoping it will be our last for the year.

Continued Risk Of Frost

 The Great Container Mix Experiment Finally Begins

I also chose Sunday as the day to plant out my seedlings for the Great Container Mix Experiment.

Looking at all the seedlings  I had available to me, I ended up choosing Okra, Fatalii Chillis and Banana Chillis as three of the four varieties to be tested.

Okra, Fatalii Chilli and Banana Chilli

Banana Chilli, Fatalii and Okra

All the plants I chose were fairly uniform in current growth and height, except for one banana chilli, which was significantly smaller than the other two. I decided to pot this chilli into my coconut husk mix and will see if it can catch up to his bigger brothers over the next few weeks.

Below are the starting sizes of each of the plants potted into the various mixes. I will use these sizes as an initial benchmark to compare to over the coming weeks. All plants are equally sized except the small banana chilli.

Crimson Okra in Coconut Husk Chip Mix

Crimson Okra in Commercial Potting Mix

Crimson Okra in 'Fine' 5-1-1

Fatalii in Coconut Husk Chip Mix

Fatalii in Commercial Potting Mix

Fatalii in 'Coarse' 5-1-1

'The Runt' Banana Chilli in Coconut Husk Mix

Banana Chilli in Commercial Potting Mix

Banana Chilli in 'Coarse' 5-1-1

I still have three pots left over, and am not sure what I will plant in there as yet. I am thinking to direct sow some Edamame (soybean) seed. I initially was planning to put some grape tomatoes in there, however I have since decided the pots are too small.

I will shuttle these pots back and forth into a small plastic greenhouse I have on the colder mornings.

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