Spring sprang and now it's autumn again already! Summer was a mild one this year, with the occasional rainfall, even. It's been an odd summer with quite a few people across South Australia noting die back of leaves on plants akin to sunburn when it hasn't been that hot. However, I feel like the UV may have been particularly high despite the lack of heat. It certainly felt that way on my skin.
The oddness is continuing into autumn. My orange tree has been flowering, as have my cherry and apple seedlings. They should be losing leaves right now, not flowering! Others have mentioned late fruiting on some plants, as we go cold then warm then cold then warm again.
I've been dealing with spider mites on my solanum plants, in particular the pepinos. The telltale sign is the speckling of the leaves as they lose their chlorophyll from the mites feeding. It was frustrating as I'd recently transplanted some into the planter I'd moved to the edge of the patio and they ended up smothered in them just as they were getting established. I was struggling to get on top of them so I ended up cutting them right back to more manageable levels and hosing the last couple of stems down. They recovered well, with just a quick hose every couple of days as a preventative, however, now they are once again established, one of them is under attack again.
The little black dots are tiny, full stop sized ladybirds which feed on the spider mites (you may also be able to make out even smaller reddish dots, which are the spider mites themselves). This is great news as I've got back-up, but they have still been needing a hand. I'm hoping I've caught it soon enough to get them under control and don't have to cut right back again, rather just hose occasionally where the ladybirds aren't apparent (dry conditions are purported to be the ideal climate for the mites, so hosing may help there too). Last time there were only a few of the full stop ladybirds, not enough to have an impact. I didn't want to destroy them, though, so what I cut off I dropped in a pile away from any other solanum plants. Considering the larger amount of the ladybirds now on the pepino it looks like I didn't harm the population, which is great news.
Over with the animals, the pigeons are still trying to hatch babies, despite me earnestly informing them it's way too close to winter. I haven't been in the right frame of mind to harvest poultry lately, so I'm afraid I've been removing their eggs. Nine pigeons is more than enough in that run! We can use the eggs, anyway.
At least the quail and chickens are moulting like they should be. Speaking of chickens, our flock queen, Ginger, had a bad eye a few months back. It started off with it being a bit weepy and her closing it some of the time.
I couldn't find an obvious issue, so I gave her sprays of colloidal silver and checked on it daily. It gradually got worse, though, and I was starting to worry it might be a respiratory infection, but her other eye was fine. I did get some straw out of it one day, but still no improvement. Then one day I noticed a bit of straw again and, expecting it to just be caught in the weepiness of her eye like before, I managed to grab it and ended up pulling a grass seed out from under her eyelid. Poor girl, it was huge, especially considering the size of her little chicken eye!
She made a swift recovery after that came out!
I've been really happy to see we have at least one mantis back in the garden. It was eating an earwig on the lavender plant one day.
We used to see babies every year, then one day I found an adult dead by the garage door; it must have gotten caught when I used it. I was gutted and didn't see any mantises for a couple of years after. This year I've found two egg casings, one in the front garden on the fennel and one on the apple tree in the back garden. Looking forward to seeing babies around again.
I’ve been delaying letting the chickens back in the area with the apple tree until I'm sure the mantises must have hatched. It takes up to 3 weeks, usually, so we should be clear by now. I really hope they all hatched safely.
Other predators I'm glad to still be seeing around are the geckos.
Right now I'm looking forward to fresh oranges, which will soon finish ripening.
Oh yes, I nearly forgot, I'll leave you with these guys trying to grow their adult feathers in.
