Africanaussie

I try to cut everything way back at this time of year so that I dont get lots of leggy growth as the plants spurt forth with the approaching wet season.  Last year our wet season was very late in arriving and in fact, we did not get as much rain as usual. The mandevilla vine which shades the herb spiral has had a very severe haircut, which let in lots of light. I need to cut back the lady slipper orchid vine as it is too heavy for the tree it is clambering over - weeping tea tree.  It is looking so beautiful though that I am going to leave it a little longer.  No photo - it keeps turning sideways - does anyone else have that problem? Vegetables and Herbs  I am going to try to keep some greens growing until the very end of the dry season and in actual fact planted out a new supply.   Tatsoi has become my very favourite green, it survived with very little care while I was away, so I added a little more compost around the base of each plant.  The eggpl...

 February was a very short month, and with the heat and humidity here, I have really only ventured out into the garden when absolutely necessary.  It is time to catch up with Lizzie at the Garden share collective , and see how everyone fared with huge amounts of rain - normally it is us that have huge amounts of rain!  We normally dont have to water at all at this time of year, but I have been giving the garden a  good drink once or twice a week, if we havn't had any rain.  I want my plants to develop deep roots.  I keep spreading out compost as a mulch so that will keep the moisture in the soil as it breaks down.  The shade cloths also keep the garden soil cooler. The main purpose during the wet season is to make sure that the soil is covered and the plants that grow now get the moisture they need.  This is also the season where there are lots of bugs, some I dont even see, but I certainly see the chewed holes in the leaves.  My red papa...

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...

I had been bemoaning the fact that the grocery stores had a very limited choice of dried beans, and then walked into the expensive local health food store and saw their variety!   Wow!  Black beans, azuki beans - I was in heaven, but at 5.00 for  a little bag I didn't think buying those beans would be something I would be doing very often.  Then I started thinking about the climate that black beans grew in - well, if they can grow in Mexico - why not here? After making a batch of my yummy  black bean and corn soup   into the garden went a handful of my health food store beans, and they have all come up!  Now I am not sure if they are growing in the right season, but they sure do look healthy, I am so glad that I saved some seeds back.  How exciting - I might be able to grow my own black beans here!  then I tried with some azuki beans - same thing, yeah! Then I started do...

One of the first things I did on returning home was clear some of the weeds in the vegetable garden.  The lemongrass had become monstrous, and so I chopped enough leaves away to clear the path.  Some went into the compost where  they are a great compost activator.  The others were just laid on the bare earth (now that the weeds are gone).  They are a sort of mulch, which I also hope act as a bit of an insect repellant, being lemony and all.  I had put up a small shadecloth before I left, and in my absence a pawpaw tree had grown right up under it and was beginning to bend sideways.  I couldnt remove it as the loofah has got all entwined with it, so just changed it to a different angle to allow the pawapaw tree grow up alongside it.  I do hope it is a female pawpaw.  I have quite a few new papwpaw trees shooting up at the back of this bed, and those should be the red pawpaw, so am holding thumbs.  Hubby didnt pick any asparagu...

What do you do when you can no longer reach to pick the pawpaws on your tree? You lop off the top! I find the thought of this proceedure quite scary, as I dont want to lose this tree, and if you are not careful and allow moisture to get into the top of the stem then the entire trunk will rot. I have a few other pawpaw trees starting up, but often they succumb to a virus and dont make it past a few feet tall. This one is large, healthy and very prolific. This is predicted to be a very bad cyclone season and so high pawpaw trees will often get knocked down by strong winds. Cutting it down could actually protect the tree, and you can see the tree is ready for this - there are already side branches forming. I need to get it done before the wet season really starts.... Ooh.... first I need to research some recipes for using up green papaws :) commonly called procrastination! OK all set.... down she comes!  Hubby cut it off with a saw and I stood by with the broom to knock it away so ...

Seeing how tiny my garden is you would think I would not be venturing into fruit trees, but things happen, you get a cutting, or you see something you really would like to try, and pretty soon you have  a collection of fruit trees.   Of course our very large tree is a lychee tree but we are on the fringes of lychee growing, and really I dont mind if we dont get fruit as the tree is too big to net, and if we get too much fruit we will have to put up with flying foxes (bats) which doesnt really appeal to me.   We do get birds with huge heavy beaks which seem to find the few fruit that does appear. So onto the back vegetable garden....  where I have pawpaw trees on either side - one male on the right and one female on the left. The female has been bearing nonstop for about 2 years, but now is getting quite high and I really must lop the top off it. Stay tuned for a post devoted to this process. Here you can see how high they are, and how many I am going...

Last weekend I began to thin out a few of the Lady Di Heleconia.  Now these have been my favourite heleconia by far, BUT the problem I now discover is that they are very invasive.  Sooooo.... I made the huge decision to rip them out - yes all of them.  So far I have just removed them from the front section. My hubby is very nervous as he loves the privacy they give, but  just one day of digging out roots made me convinced that the sooner I get rid of them the better.  We are going to have a bald spot for  a while, sorry Hubby!   I cant afford to go out and buy some full size plants, so will have to start out with some more cuttings, but look how quickly the garden filled in before from nothing.  I like the look of the purple flowers  and yellow leaves together alongside this area and the red of the pointsettia in the winter, although I wonder if it some sort of diesease with the yellowing of its lea...

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 ...