Africanaussie

I missed last months catchup as I was away.  linking to  The Garden share collective  for October. Hubby took care of the garden and was inundated with scrub hens trying to roost in the garden, so I am afraid the veggie garden took a bit of a beating.  I have been giving it some good long soaks, sprayed a bit of soapy water on the pests, and cut back overgrowth. We are over-run with cherry tomatoes, I even oven roasted some and popped them into the freezer to add to casseroles etc at a later date.  I think they are now coming to an end as the weather heats up.  About a year ago I mentioned in a post that I had placed an order for some seeds that were only 1.00 a packet,  It all sounded too good to be true.  I must admit that when the seeds arrived I thought they were a little stingy with the seed, but carefully planted them out.  I can be a little lazy in following up how a particular seed has been performing, unless they perform in a ...

Well, my holiday is over, and I have been slowly getting settled in.  My poor hubby was overwhelmed by bandicoots and scrub hens the entire time I was gone.   I think all the holes in the fence are now repaired, so the bandicoots are no longer bothering us, and a plastic kite hanging up in the pawpaw tree seems to have scared the scrub hen away. Personally I think they saw I was gone and saw the place as being un-protected!  The boss is back now.... The lady slipper orchid vine is showing off its awesome flowers.  I arrived back to find a lovely little package from Kim at  The little black cow .  I had sent her some cordeline stems and she said they are now sprouting, I hope they bring her lots of tropical colour.  She sent me some goat soap and some gem squash seeds in return.  It is so dry right now that it might be a good time to give the gem squash seeds a  try yet again.  I added lots of compost and planted a row of seeds ag...

A birthday present from MrFothergill !  Really you shouldn't have!  They didnt know it was to arrive just in time for my birthday, but I thought this gift of a sprouter, along with four packets of seeds was very timely - thank you!  I have been persisting with the microgreens, and eventually e-mailed them and suggested trialling a sprouter as I have the feeling that will work better in my climate. The microgreens have been very tasty, but dont grow very big, and the ones in water do attract  mosquitoes.  We had a prawn starter for my birthday dinner (the prawn shells are now buried in the veggie patch)  and I got the grand kids to help me pick some basil and watercress microgreens to sprinkle on the plates.  Greens! they ate them!  Now I wouldnt say it was a full serving of veggies, but the cuteness factor did play a part. For that reason alone it is worth trying sprouts and microgreens. I put a Tablespoon of seed in each layer - trying fenu...

I have been enjoying the microgreens, although they also seem to be languishing in the heat - nothing like the tall plants I see growing in others greenhouses, which I suppose is a more controlled environment..    The purple basil is awesome sprinkled on salads, and definitely my favourite.  Standing water is not what one wants in mosquito prone areas, so in the end I poured the water out and lay the seedlings on top of my seed raising mix. Hopefully they spread their roots and grow here, and I plan to plant a few out into the herb spiral - I love to have different types of basil growing amongst my herbs.   The seed raising mix seems to work better in the wet season.  The great thing is that once I make this a permanent part of my gardening - continually sowing seeds - I reckon I can have greens almost year round.  I am going to get a sprouter as I have the feeling that they will do better inside during the wet season.  The sprouters from  MrF...

The wet season has been making its presence known and over the weekend the roads were flooded, making us housebound.  I managed to do quite a bit of sewing, and then the whole house got a very good clean.  Good, now I dont need to feel guilty when the garden calls:)  First thing was to cut back some of the mandevilla vine which the franzipani has been trying to escape from.  I hope with all the extra light it will flower a bit more.  I was also pleased to see strawberry flowers - this is the first time I have grown strawberries.  I had two hanging pots and the one disintegrated in a heap after just a couple of months.  I think I might get some more pots that actually attach to the fence with nails - they seem to do better in this climate than the hanging baskets.  I think I might move them to a wooden fence out the front as well. My new seeds were calling to be planted, and with the sun making an appearance on Sunday afternoon I ventured ...

I am actually quite glad that this post was due because it got me out into the garden to tidy up and get ready for planting!  It was 34*C with high humidity.  I used mosquito repellent and sunscreen alternately as the sweat dripped.  HOT, HOT, HOT. It is a little early to be planting out for our dry season garden, but maybe I can hurry the wet season along. :) I have been unable to post photos so will post this without and add the photos first thing Monday morning - sorry about that! Done!  Check out The Garden Share Collective for more updates to veggie gardens around Australia. Harvesting The long green beans are quite prolific, and in fact I trimmed the vine back quite a bit to make it  more manageable which seems to have given it a new lease on life.  It looks straggly but you can find the beans easier.  I also have a winged bean vine that has volunteered and the loofas are going mad.   Galangal is taking over the back half of...

My six year old grandson is very keen on gardening, and luckily we had him and his little sister for the weekend.  We could plan, and concentrate and oh my gosh!  was it fun! :)  I have been so blessed to get these free packages from MrFothergills   They have an amazing range of kids gardening kits and supplies. I set up a table to work on and we first of all opened up the two packages inside where they could do their labels and  see what was on offer.  One kit was vegetables, and these were planted as suggested in a little patch directly into the garden.  I worte the labels and they added stickers to them,  I find the packets of compressed coir seed mix (you re-constitute into a bucket with water) are great for covering a thin layer over the planted seeds. Then the next kit was flowers for a butterlfy garden but they had to be started in pots, so those labels were made as well, and placed on thier little potting table at the back of th...

I had a bit of a slump in the garden - life took over, and I just never seemed to find the time to get out there.  This last weekend I found two and a half glorious free hours so I rushed around doing an amazing amount of gardening in that short time.  I have noticed cockroaches in the compost bin and think it must be because I have not been mixing it as often as before.  I think we are just about ready for a new bin - this one is collapsing, the next one will go against the back fence.   I am wondering about moving my lime tree out of the pot and into that space vacated by the bin.  That soil must be amazing by now, it seems silly not to use it for something.  I am still not a huge fan of fruit trees in pots.  It is called a patio lime so I imagine will be able to be kept small with pruning in the ground.  The bottom section of the herb spiral is where I normally plant my parsley but this year I have parsley in odd pots around the garden and ...

At the change of the season I always seem to have some crops that don't seem willing to move along, so that I can rip them out!  The Rosella were like that this year. They took up the front half of the bed where I plant  most of my veggies. They were inundated with some kind of bug, and it did not look as though they were going to produce flowers or fruit, so in the end I ripped them out. Some wet season plants are only now starting to fruit - notably the loofas!  This has been a  strange year with the wet season running late. Already the temperature has moderated and the humidity has dropped so it is lovely outside, although we are still getting a fair amount of rain.   I dug out the few sweet potatoes that I had planted - there were one or two tiny ones that the grubs did not get - a very disappointing crop.  The big bin against the fence started out ...

I received another package in the mail from MrFothergills , for which I am very grateful.  I felt bad last year as it really was not such a good year, and I thought they might banish me from their mailing list!  I think they must be gardeners though and realize that not every year is a year of bumper crops.  Even my neighbours garden flunked last year!  This year though, we are all geared up!  I had already purchased quite a few seeds, and now I realise that my little garden is going to be stretched to its limits.  Mmm I might have to expand... I have some ideas :) This is the list of the seeds that I received: Grasses: (I think these will be used in the public area near the pool.) Blue fescue Bunny tails Green fountain Snowy woodrush Vegetables: Early Californian red onion seed tape Pak choy seed tape Spinach tape Broccoli tape Flowers: Calendula...

I have been waiting for the  Harlequin carrots from MrFothergills  to raise their shoulders above the ground,  and then the other day I thought I would take a peek.... wow!  huge carrots, and so straight!   Funnily enough all the purple ones seem stunted and I seem to have lost the straight rows - even though the regular carrots were planted evenly with carrot tape.  This is a great time in the garden - cucumbers are struggling with downy mildew, but there are four different kinds of lettuces - plenty for a daily salad.   I thought the white carrots looked a bit insipid but they have the nicest flavour.  I haven't cooked any -  they make great snacks to munch on - even hubby has been known to do that.  He commented the other day (after I cooked the pumpkin vines) that as long as it grows in the garden I will eat it.  I  said  "well honey I don't eat the grass", but then I thought about the f...

One of the things I always enjoy so much when I visit South Africa is the mini vegetables.  I think growing them is a very well kept secret, and have come to the conclusion that  most of the time they are just picked early.  That might be very helpful in my climate - fraught with humidity and lots of bugs.  Searching on the internet has come up with two different options - hybrid seeds bred to produce smaller varieties or growing the plants very close together and harvesting early. One thing the mini vegetables are used for is to cook in a potjie.  This is a cast iron three legged pot and it is cooked for a long time over a fire - or in reality just a few coals mounded around and some laid on the lid.  My brother cooked a marvelous chicken potjie, flavored with ginger, scallions, lemongrass and coconut milk.    Once the chicken was almost cooked a layer of mini vegetables were...

There is lots of color out in the veggie patch.  The pigeon pea are flowering - they start off red and then open up to yellow. Aren't they pretty close up? These have taken a while to form beans, but in the meantime they have acted as a support for the winged beans, and of course they are nitrogen fixing plants, so are continually harnessing and trapping nitrogen for the other plants to use.  You can see a fuzzy bean just beginning to form.  I have not been so keen on the taste so use them mainly for amending the soil. The cucumbers are also twirling up into this bush - it seems to be a great year for cucumbers.  The flesh of the cucumbers is green and they are soooo crunchy.  My little two year old grand daughter loves them - it made my heart soar to pick a cucumber and then watch her eat the whole thing - not wanting to share! I planted a few more seeds a couple of weeks ago as the lower part of the vines is already dying...

I received an e-mail from Mr Fothergills  asking how my seeds were faring.  So I guess it is time for an update. I was hoping to have huge flourishing leafy plants to show, but the weather has been a bit strange this year. These are the seeds I originally received: Climbing snow pea - climbing up the back fence and looking quite healthy - I have successive sown some more seeds about a week ago. Basil seed mat  - doing really well in my herb spiral. Carrot seed tape - I have put these tapes in different areas - alongside the harlequin carrots, and between the tomatoes as they are good companion plants. They look very neat in their evenly spaced rows and are very easy to plant - great for children. Carrot Harlequin - these look very robust and are doing very well - I keep assigning more space to them - in fact all the seeds are now planted out! Parsnip Gladiator - sent to Sunny corner farm Radish beauty heart - I need to figure...

You might remember that I got a whole stash of seeds to trial for the seed company Mr Fothergill.  I may have started them out too early, since this was an la nina year and the wet season was extended later than "normal".  I figure though that you never know until you try.  A lot of the seedlings became long and leggy with the lack of sunshine, but for about a week now we have had a fair amount of sunshine every day. I like the little grow pots that come with their own little sauna cover and in fact my grandson came up with two of his own as well. - basil and tomato, to add to my parsley.  Parsley is a notoriously slow starter here, and I felt that the sauna environment gave it a good start.  The basil also did very well, but they do need to be kept out of the rain as there is no drainage hole. The tomato has done nothing - even though I also put in other seeds, not sure what is going on there. ...

I just discovered this wonderful online film about how gardening the way the Garden of Eden was made. Sometimes I think we do fuss too much!  Gardening was never meant to be hard! http://backtoedenfilm.com/index.html#movie It is fairly long but oh so true, and just makes me want to get going on planting my vegetables right now... You might remember that just before I went away I dumped a whole lot of the wood chip mulch on my veggie patch. Not normally what one would do, according to all the gardening gurus I see on the TV shows and gardening books.  They all use sugar cane mulch which is nice and fine and breaks down very quickly, and they always tuck it around the new seedlings like a soft downy blanket.  I purchased a bale of sugar cane mulch over the weekend, along with a big bag of chook poo.   Now, when I was sprinkling the chook poo around I was thinking that I should dig it in.  Why I had t...