Africanaussie

Once again I have not posted since the garden share collective.  This month is supposed to be about preserving.  The only thing I have preserved is the peppercorns that I preserved in brine.  Whenever I see a new stalk I pick it and pop them into the brine. Easy peasy. Certainly not going to keep us in pepper for a year though.  I read that the peppercorns only fruit on the lateral branches, and since the vine is sending shoots out, I thought it might be a good idea to put up a trellis.  Hopefully those will climb up and spread out and then it will be easy to harvest.  Only one aspargus plant has been really succesful - the purple asparagus, so I moved the other two onto that side of the trellis and will see if they do ok there.  I have harvested some of the asparagus already this year and it is the most amazing aspagus I have ever tasted.  Even if I let them get too long they are still tender all the way to the end.   The other side...

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...

The bandicoots came back!   Some old gardeners around the area say that you shouldnt water in the afternoon as this brings the worms to the surface and attracts bandicoots.  Well, we have been trying to get the grass pieces that we added to grow, and so we have been watering.  One morning it looked as though fifty bandicoots had come in and dug it all up! Bandicoot party!  I didnt take photos as I was too sad. they totally ignored the trap that was set to catch them.  Too busy dancing around and digging up my grass! I carefully inspected the back fence and found that behind my archway was the area they had got in.  Out came all the messy cats whiskers - dont worry I saved a few and planted them off to to the side, so we will still have the honeyeaters visiting. Wow that really opened it up! This area does look a bit straggly and untidy now, I will have to work on that..    I moved the grow bag there in which...

A very common problem in the wet tropics is bacterial wilt.  This affects any plants in the Solanaceae family, tomatoes, capsicums and eggplant specifically.  The almost wild  cherry tomatoes seemed more resistant although last year even they did not do well, but that could also be because the dry season was very wet. I think we are overdue for a good dry season so I have planted a lot of vegetables in anticipation. I started a new bed along the back fence in order to practice crop rotation and also imagined that if I grew them in pure compost, the problem would not occur.  Wrong - I bought a six pack of "tropic" which is supposed to be resistant and they all keeled over,  along with all the eggplant. There are a few cherry tomatoes that seem to be surviving.  Funny though that I have an eggplant that has been growing for over two years in the front garden, and although it doesn't look that healthy it...