Africanaussie

Last week I saw an ad for a garden competition, judging on August 12th and thought, "oh I could enter that!".  After popping my entry in the mail I reflected that I have in fact been very slack in the garden lately.  So this weekend I made time  for a couple of hours gardening.  The veggie garden has been the most neglected. A couple of weeks ago I threw a bunch of lettuce seeds into a well composted area.  Well yes I know it was well composted because in between the lettuces were tonnes of  tomato and passionfruit seedlings.  It is so hard not to dislodge the fragile lettuces, and some of them needed to be thinned as well.  A little bit more spread out, weeded and well watered, we will see how they go now..... The poly box with the eggplant was moved into the corner to get more sun, and I discovered that some sort of squash seedlings are coming up - I wonder if they are gemsquash?.  The paths in the veggie garden are old bits of weed mat, and every now and again I lay d

Hibiscus is the backbone of my tropical garden.   The poodle hibiscus is a special one that I love.  I bought one years ago with my daughter, and now we are separated by many miles of ocean, so it brings  a happy skip to my heart whenever I see these flowers.  This is such a gentle salmon pink colour.  The red hibiscus slowly unfurls, and then the flower only lasts a day or two, but there are always lots of flowers in bloom at any one time. they like lots of sun, I just love how the sunlight is filtering through the delicate petals here. they are certainly hardier than they look here.  perhaps my favourite is the variegated hibiscus - the red flowers stand out so magnificently against the snowy white leaves. They don't require any special care in my garden, other than a good pruning every now and then so that they don't get leggy.  Thank heavens for plants like hibiscus as I haven't been doing much gardening lately and yet they carry on regardless.

My bali bag is done!  In the end the final sewing didn't take that long, and I am really pleased with it .  I made it smaller than suggested as I wanted it more as a handbag than a tote bag.  I used it all weekend and the bright colors made me feel happy.   I might find it more useful with a lining with pockets, but I liked the idea that you could see the colors inside and out.  I have plans for more, and next time I will take photos and do a tutorial.  This time I felt I was still feeling my way (see the wonky bit around the bottom... oops). 

A couple of weeks back (I know, I know, it has been more than a week!) I joined the weekly healthy living catchup with Jenny at  onebodyforliving .  I have still been doing all the morning things I started, drinking water, going for a walk etc.  I have not started anything new, although I have been thinking I want to start putting duct tape over my mouth after dinner.  Is that the only thing that will stop me nibbling on things in the evening?  Does anyone else do this?  My plan is to not eat anything after 7pm, which is about when we finish dinner.  So that is the new habit I want to become a part of my life.  Does anyone else struggle with this? One aspect of being very healthy I feel is being happy, and I wanted to share this video with you.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

This dry season started out with lots of cloudy days.  Combine that with the fact that my neighbor has a high hedge that has grown on one side of my veggie patch and my veggie garden has been starved for sunshine.  This meant things like tomatoes were not doing too well. Lately we have had a little bit more sunshine and suddenly the tomatoes in  the wicking beds are looking a bit healthier. We may still get some tomatoes this season :)  A while back I moved my fig in a  pot out into the front, on the side of the carport.  Normally there is no car there, but at the moment we have our old car parked there, so the fig tree has been pretty much hidden and  ignored.   I have been going back and forth about what to do - do I leave it in the pot?  Do I espalier it?  Will I ever get figs from it?  Well - look what I found - two little figs :)  I am thinking I will keep it here in the pot but not sure about the espalier trellis - it looks as though it really does like this spot.  The main t

This weekend we took a drive up into the Daintree rain-forest, about an hour north of us.  We decided we don't go often enough, as we always feel so relaxed and renewed afterwards.  There are some lovely boardwalks to wander along.  the fallen leaves and flowers were like confetti I love how even the rocks have ferns and moss growing on them.  Clearly no tree is harmed in the making of the boardwalk.... My favorite plant has to be the fan palms, and these fluted fan palms in particular, especially when the sun comes out and the light filters through. My least favorite plant is the wait-a-while - its hooks get entangled in your clothes and skin  delaying your progress in a painful way I prefer to decide on my own when to stop and breathe in the foresty air and listen to the birds.  Do you have a lovely natural area close by you where you can go and unwind and enjoy nature?