Africanaussie

 Do you ever get halfway into a project and then think "Ohmigosh, what on earth did I think I was doing when I signed up for this?" A year ago I received a grant to write and publish an e-book on upcycling, and that project has kept me busy, at the expense of a quite a few other things in my life.  Keeping up with the gardening, blogging, cleaning (shhh).    This last month I was feeling very unsure about the whole project.  I love to teach others how to do crafts, and for the last three weeks my daughter and grandchildren have been visiting me. My daughter was very helpful with the final editing.   Imagine my delight when my 8 year old asked me to show her how to twine a mug rug.  This was her first try!   Yes, my instructions are clear and do-able!   I think it is important for us to share our talents and gifts, and I do hope you will consider purchasing  Here is the link to my book:  Crafting with the fabric w...

I harvested the remaining coffee beans this weekend - so they are out on trays drying.  Honey processing, so that means they still have a certain amount of the fruit attached as they dry.  The curly parsley is doing well in the wicking box.  I keep cutting the bigger stalks, and the plants keep producing more stalks.  I love to have plenty of parsley for salads, taboulli, soups, in fact a handful of parsley will improve just about anything. The other things that I have been having success with lately is microgreens.  I will do a separate post on them soon.  They deserve a post of their own.   Here I have radish and kale.  I also took a photo of the passion fruit forming from the center of the flower.  Isnt nature awesome? I am enjoying the slightly cooler weather and pretty regular rainfall.  

The cordelines are flowering and I think they look quite scruffy.  The bees and honeyeaters love the flowers though.  I thought I would take a closer look at the flowers.  They are quite untidy as the birds go crazy pulling bits off, and they go in all different diections....  Taking a closer look shows how pretty they are though.  They remind me of the flowers on the bromeliads.  At long last my passionfruit vine has flowers, and fruit.  It has taken so long - I am really not sure why.  Fruit salad alley is sure looking productive lately.  Lemons, limes, the odd strawberry and mulberry, and now passionfruit.  It is perfectly place near the front door because you can smell their sweet scent even before you see the flowers.  It is like living in paradise.  I am truly blessed.  Sometimes I experiment with seeds that I am not sure will grow in my climate.  I ordered a bag of seeds specially for teas. Lemon Balm...

I often think of my small garden in terms of different rooms.  This last shopping trip definitely reflected that  train of thought. When I saw a dwarf mulberry tree for only 16.00 I began to think about the fact that I have a collection of different fruit tree/bushes, but they are scattered around.  I had been toying with the idea of moving my hanging strawberry plants to planters that fit flush against the fence, as the hanging ones always seem to collapse.  This is the spare carport at our entrance and does not look very enticing. So all it took was the purchase of a mulberry tree to start  "Fruit salad alley"  That was the first project I undertook over the weekend.  Passionfruit grow well in this climate, but need to be moved into another area after a while.  They develop woody passionfruit virus, and lately, even though new vines start up in the back vegetable area they never quite flourish like the original one did.   I would love...

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 think mulching the garden thickly before I went away was a great idea......the garden has survived well - of course it helps that it is the rainy season and so there has been plenty of water. My neighbours compost bin is on the other side of the fence and a nasty vine has joined into the loofah and passionfruit climbing the happy plant and the fence.  I pulled away what I could, but it really needs to be attended to at the root....  I am thinking I might eventually get rid of that passionfruit vine as it has been going for more than three years now, and they have a short life in the tropics. A new vine has started in the corner and I might start another one out front.  I do love having passionfruit - it changes regular fruit salad into sublime fruit salad in a moment.  A few little pawpaw trees are springing up as well - I have two that produce steadily - my oldest one has a fungal infection, so might have to cut it way back again, or remove i...

After two years passionfruit in this area normally get a virus called woody passionfruit virus and dies back.  I let another vine start in the vegetable garden (they come up like weeds here). this same area around the herb spiral has started up again - not sure if it is the same vine or a different one, but it is very healthy.  This is quite  a convenient place to have a passionfruit growing as it can grow vertically up the neighbouring happy plant, and leave more garden for other stuff.  The passionfruit drop onto the ground when ripe, so they are the perfect plant to grow up.  The vine has been clambering over the herb spiral  arch too much though and I wanted it to head upwards, so out I got with the ladder and some string.....  and tied sections up towards the high trunks of the happy plant.   If I trimmed it back that would just cause more branches lower down and that is not what I wanted.  It looks a bit untidy now, but ...

I spent the entire day on Saturday in the vegetable garden.  There was lots to do.  Always the changing of the seasons seems to bring extra chores.  First thing to go was the support that I had added to  the back fence so that the passionfruit vine which went wild had somewhere to go.   That died off due to the woody passionfruit virus but has started up again travelling in the other direction.  I have decided I dont want it going along the back of the vegetable garden again as next season I want to plant tomatoes along that back fence and need to prepare the soil there.  At the moment there are small stones there, so it will be a big job, but I have time.  The arch had sagged down so much that there really was no arch left.... I had purchased a cheap arch and it had rusted away. Not a good look at all. I removed that bit of wire and with hubbys help we inserted it into the old arch.  We put the wire under the mass of passionfrui...

My passionfruit vine took off like greased lightening when I first planted it 14 months ago.  It has climbed about 60ft up a happy plant in one of the neighbours yard.  It has also wandered about 20ft in each direction along our own fence, and also over the arch, although that is not really its preffered route.  It definitely likes to climb up more than anything! I estimate that we (and our neighbours who share the fences) must have had about 500 passionfruit off that vine so far, and it is not about to stop any time soon..  We wait until the fruit drops and then pick them up. Perfectly ripened, and they can stay in the refigerator for at least a couple of weeks until quite wrinkled, but are still very tasty.  I have frozen some pulp but cant imagine a time I will use it, as there is never a time I do not have fresh passionfruit. The base of the vine has woody passionfruit virus, but it is still going strong, covering over the old dead wood with...

I keep hoping that the wet season is going to end soon, and over the weekend I tipped out a whole barrel of compost onto the vegetable garden, straightened up the eges, and planted some seeds.  Now I have a nice straight weed free path!  I cut back some of the branches of the pigeon peas (that should spread some nitrogen right into the soil.)  I planted gemsquash seeds on top of the mounds of compost, and then between the stems of the pigeon peas I planted some cucumber seeds.  I am hoping they will grow up the stems and after harvesting the pigeon peas I can cut the final leaves back to allow the sunlight in, while leaving the uprights as living stakes..  at the moment it is still a bit hot, so the light shade should be good for the litttle seedlings. I also have a couple of pawpaw trees that have sprung up in the very front, but I will leave them until I see if either of them are female - they dont like to be transplanted.  My eggplant seem to be a...

One of the principles of permaculture is to grow plants up , instead of letting plants scramble around the ground taking up precious space.  Just looking around the garden, I have definitely taken that to heart!  In actual fact the plants have done that on their own without my help. Take for instance this passionfruit vine:  When I first planted the passionfruit vine next to my little arch and alongside the fence, I knew it would ramble, but gosh, once it started to climb this happy plant it just continued to reach for the sky.  It suits us very well as we have a rather ugly Telstra building behind there, and I would much rather look at a 30ft wall of green.  When the passionfruit ripen, they just fall to the ground and I can walk around and pick them up.  How convenient is that? I planted pigeon peas as a green manure crop this year, and sometimes I miss the fine print when choosing plants - like how tall they grow!  I rea...

Well here it is - the path into the centre of the garden . It makes it easier to get in and weed and pick flowers. Obviously I like to the do the picking flowers way more than the weeding! My grandson likes to wander in there and hide away behind the plants, and that is just what I wanted to achieve - a sense of adventure --- mmm ... what does that path leads to. :) There are some interesting flowers forming just at the end of the path - called beehive ginger. And of course my lovely anthiriums. photos coming soon. The path is made with crusher dust and a few flat stones from the local beach - still collecting stones everytime we go - I love the different colours they show, especially when wet. In other news - the sweet potato vine is going gangbusters - I must really cut some of the shoots and stir fry them - they are supposed to taste delicious. Unlike white potato shoots which are poisonous! My arch is as I predicted it would be - dripping with passionfruit ! I think it l...

In December I transplanted a little volunteer passion fruit vine that I brought over from the last place we stayed in. It is right alongside the fence and surrounded by stones, as there is a 2 foot edging of stone all along the side of the property. I worried that it might be forgotten, but it does get watered occasionally. Well, I didn't have to worry as the other side of the fence is the neighbours chicken coop....called a chook pen here in Australia! Obviously those roots go deeply and mine up all the good stuff, because the vine has now travelled about 15feet along the fence in each direction and at least that far up the neighbour's happy plant! The plant only really survives about 3 years here, so it is recommended to plant another plant to take over after about two years. I guess I have found the right spot to plant it, and I think I am going to plant a row of comfrey right in front of it - going to get all that chook manure into my garden without having to deal with the ...

I have been noticing for the last couple of weeks that crusher dust (which is what was put inside the middle of the herb spiral as it was built up) has been flowing out of the gaps between the rocks. I thought maybe I had been watering too hard as the connection to the soaker hose is right above my mint on the side of the spiral. After moving that there was no change and an even bigger pile of dust around the basil the following morning. So I began a little detective work and moved a few rocks to find............. a toad hole. Now most people say toads are wonderful for getting rid of bugs etc, but here we have cane toads which are a big pest, and poisonous, so they had to go. As I poked a stick into the holes, and jiggled it around the toads were jumping out left right and center. My, what a sight... they are truly horrible ugly creatures. There must have been a huge extended family - I counted about 10! I hope they got the message they are not welcome. That must be why some of the h...