Melbourne

Chucked one of the scotch bonnets that's been ripe and on the plant for weeks, into the pulled jackfruit that's been simmering on the stove for 5 hours now. Not sure what to do with the myriad other SB and prik noom chillies that are going to start drying up on the plant - way too many to use fresh or even frozen as whole chillies as they are all HAAAAWT - I wonder if I should have a go at making homemade chilli sauce, or chilli paste that can be frozen.

Manzano/rocoto still going OK despite more yellow leaves from maybe 10 days of no water and bitterly cold winds. Two green fruit fell off, I'll let them ripen on the table; I don't know if the others will do the same. Been there for well over a month now.

The dwarf lemons look nearly dead. I've given up on working out how to make them thrive. Tried everything I could think of :(

The jasmine is doing well despite the tips regularly being burnt off from being on the hot railings. Lots of flower buds appearing so I'm really excited to welcome some lovely blooms in the next few weeks! I'm wondering if I should leave it behind when I go depending on how much it's twined around the railing.

Snowpeas and sweet peas have germinated but are slow. So is the coriander - despite a good amount of sun. Maybe it's the wind. No doubt as the days get longer they'll start kicking off. Being in pots with a water reservoir I reckon I could set and forget for almost all the time that I'll be away through Sep and they'll keep going.

Gave all the curry leaf plants but particularly Big Boi (who's almost completely leafless from being left in the cold wind for too long - sorry my friend) a heading prune, even as I could see new leaves unfurling from the top, because the last thing I want is leggy plants - which curry leaf plants tend to become without a good chop to promote side branching, especially in cold areas where they might lose heaps of leaves every winter.

Was a bit nerve wracking and I kept apologising to BB, but he's come back so many times from absolutely nothing, that I have faith he'll get through this as well, especially with such a robust root system. Please may you all become nice and bushy and I can start giving a couple of you away. There's another rescue from a near dead plant that's doing very well and hardly lost any leaves, I think it might be more cold hardy so might give that to a cousin in Ballarat.