Tuesday, October 22, 2013

This Hill Has Eyes

So I have to admit I've never seen the film that inspired me for this post's title.  When I was adding more green to this north-facing hill recently, I couldn't help but think of the movie as I was planting Carpobrotus Glaucescens, commonly known as 'Pig Face'.  Okay, faces, not eyes, and only one hill, not hills...leave us crazy gardeners alone.


Pig Face is a native creeper with green foliage and bright pink/purple flowers.  What's better; in February the plant produces red, 'sour' strawberries...edible of course.  Perusing the plants at Eden at Byron last week, I noticed native plants on sale; 4 for $20...couldn't resist.  Two of the plants chosen were Pig Face, an excellent addition to this abandoned hill.


Snow peas (below) are meant to be sown in autumn or midwinter at the latest.  These plants went in at the end of winter, I like to push the boundaries and limits of conventional gardening.  From my perspective (correct me if I'm wrong) these peas are alive and well, climbing nicely up this fence I've erected for them.


Zucchini; a plant that never seems to grow well here and always suffers from powdery mildew.  Try as I may to rid the plant of the infected leaves and the white fuzzy spots, the plants never seem to mature enough even to flower.  Behold, a flowering zucchini finally maturing well enough to start fruiting soon.


This is a variety of Cucurbiata maxima, Pumpkin - Baby Blue.  This blue variety comes from the Americas, but seems to like it here in the subtropics.


Cucumbers are another plant, like zucchini, that often have mixed outcomes.  Below are some seedlings finally sprouting up after I added in some 'Mary Sheehan' cucumber seeds last week.  My father will remember the roadside stand we bought these seeds from on our way to Crystal Castle.


And last but not least, Jap pumpkins basking on a sunny spring day...


All in all, there may not be any 'eyes' on this hill, but there are certainly 'faces', flowers, and fruits galore. The snow peas should start producing in the coming weeks, and the pumpkins are all waiting for gravity to take over so they begin climbing (or falling) along the hill.


No comments:

Post a Comment

Creative Commons License
Add More Green by Nick Kovaleski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.