Believe it or not, winter is the best time for planting in Brisbane. The weather is warming up nicely now. Alas summer is too hot and humid for most vegies. Being new at this, it's been mostly trial and error on my part. I've had a mix of success and failures but thankfully the successes seem to be improving. :) I've tried okra, snowpeas, dwarf beans, yellow wax beans, snake beans, (and now yam bean), chillies, tomatoes and several types of Chinese vegetables. I also grew a few papayas from seed but while they look healthy, flowering is overdue! Below is a link to some photos of my results. Here is a link that might be useful: See some of my gardening here

For those of you having troubles with cukes and squash, you might want to inter-plant with nasturtiums next time, try it! My garden in 9b is just going to be one year old, or should I rather say, I will be celebrating one year of being the garden's loving custodian....so I have lots of troubles. In march/April I had a jungle of brassicas (both rapas and oleraceas). I had this green explosion and almost ran out of room in the freezer. Turnips, kales, collards, bok choi, beet greens, you name it. When it got warmer the harlequin beetles attacked them and they all died, after I had hopes for their perennialization (a word?). The Harlequin proceeded to suck the jalapenos and the tomatoes, ruining several tomato plants too. I was (am) so afraid to put brassicas on the ground again, until I realized I need to give them sacrificial crops. This started to work to some extent last year, and my fear was that sunflowers would not sprout at this time of the year. Guess what? they did! I now have sunflowers growing and I just planted some kale and mustards near them. Not sure if nasturtiums will do the trick for brassicas but I put them in too. We also got some brussel sprouts trying to germinate in a protected environment (terrarium), I think I will use the plastic cylinders from soft drink bottles that grandad from Louisiana is showing on the cole crops thread. So glad I overcame my fear of trying brassicas again. I still have to successfully grow cauliflowers and broccoli though. We will see how the brussel sprouts do and think about it, my cauliflowers never flowered last year, but the leaves were good....LOL In the mean time, the amaranth is still producing as many greens as I need. They are tougher leaves now that the plants are seeding, so I just cook them longer and they are still acceptable. Whatever tries to attack them gets in turn eaten by a large collection of lady bugs that seem to hang out near them a lot. I am encouraging more lady bugs by planting more and more cilantro. When they reach their end I will still have several dozen pounds of frozen green in the freezer from the spring. After that I hope the cole crops will be ready to harvest, and the harlequins somewhat controlled. So I hope anyways. I was so furious when i found out they are an introduced species! grrrr.....and no predators either, not even chickens will eat them. Anybody knows of other sacrificial crops to deter bugs from cole crops? I will need something after the sunflowers run their course, but I suppose since now I know they will grow at any time, I can keep planting more and more sunflowers. A very handsome looking sacrificial crop at that.....

Thai Green Beans and butternut squash 1 medium butternut squash, split in half and baked at 350C until done (pierce with a fork to test) 1 can regular coconut milk (15 oz or so) 2 cups fresh cut green beans (frozen works too but fresh is best) 3 cloves garlic, minced 1 tsp sugar 1 tbsp lemon or lime juice 3 leaves from a kaffir lime 1 small bunch of fresh thai basil AKA Siam queen (regular sweet basil will also work) 1 small bunch chopped scallions 1 sliced hot pepper (I used cayenne and thai red peppers, leave in slices so they can be removed if desired  green hot peppers will also work here) Salt to taste Bake butternut squash. When cool enough to handle, peel, seed and cut into 1 inch chunks. Open can of coconut milk. Use some of the solids on top (the oil) to sauté garlic, kaffir lime leaves, sugar, salt and hot peppers for just a few minutes (do not burn the garlic). Add green beans and squash cubes and stir. Add the rest of the coconut milk can and cook for 10-15 minutes until green beans are done. Taste, adjust seasonings and sprinkle top with chopped scallions.

I ended up getting a couple too despite the fact they can grow 10 meters + lol. One I put in a 12 inch pot with regular potting mix with an upside down tomato cage. I just wrap it around and around. It's growing like crazy. The other I tied to a palm tree with panty hose (knee hi's) and it seems to be slowly beginning to attach itself to the tree. It's in regular, sandy Florida soil (no supplements or fertilizer). If we haven't any had rain for 2 or 3 weeks, I've watered deeply and allowed to completely dry out again. In the summer we have regular rain and that's all they get, lol. Definitely has grown a few feet, but still needs the attachment to the tree. We had a few nights where it was down close to 32 degrees but I don't think ever got to freezing. It's been a couple of weeks, no damage whats so ever. :> They are supposed to be epiphytic (sp?) in nature so I'm starting to think the potting medium is not super critical.