Africanaussie

I feel so blessed to have a garden, with flowers and little dribbles of food (we certainly cannot live on what I grow!) ......... and butterflies ...... and a peaceful place to sit and enjoy it all.   There was some lovely soft seaweed on the beach yesterday afternoon, so we gathered a couple of bagfuls.  I laid it out as mulch on the asparagus bed, but clearly will have to get some more.  I am sure I can be talked into another walk on the beach some time soon.  This asparagus stalk was chopped up and divided between the two of us - tender all the way to the bottom.  The Mary Washington is skinny little stalks as you can see in the background.  I have decided I will go ahead and plant some more purple asparagus seeds.    Look!  I have some eggplant too :)  Purple basil - this is such awesome basil - leaves of this and also amaranth, parsley and lettuce were  added to the leafy mix of our salad.  I guess we are getting ...

It has been so dry here lately, and windy, which dries out the soil even more.  There is promise though in all the buds popping up around the garden.... I love the excitement of seeing little curled up pockets about to unfurl into sheer awesomeness.  As a child I couldn't resist peeking inside the poppy buds to see what colour was going to open next! Firstly there are amaryllis coming out all over the garden.  I know they like a bit of dry weather to induce flowering.  This little red amaryllis is happier in a  shady spot. The giant peace Lilly are living up to their name, the flowers are huge and the stephanotis buds weave through the greenery.  I really must look up some ideas of how to train this vine as I keep looping it back onto the frame. I just think the little buds are so pretty, and their scent is awesome, but it looks very straggly in this corner.  does anyone else grow them and have any ideas of how best to tie them back? ...

Everywhere I look I see food forests being referred to as the way to go growing food in a small area.  I often have to put up a shade cloth to protect the delicate greens like lettuce.  I have toyed with the idea of planting a dwarf avocado, and growing lettuces and greens in the shade of the tree instead of putting up a shade cloth.  A couple of weeks ago I saw a grafted avocado which the market seller assured me was not going to grow too big for my little yard.  In a leap of faith I purchased it, pushing aside the memory of the 40ft tree that was growing in my back yard in Africa.  This weekend I added yet another shade cloth.  It is so hot and dry and the shade cloth helps to keep the plants cooler and they dont dry out as quickly. I had to prune back the long branches of the barbadoes cherry so that they didnt touch the shade cloth.  I have been mulching with my own compost instead of buying mulch, but at this rate if it doesnt rain soon I ...

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 ...

As you know a while back I decided to remove the remaining grass and create a new garden bed and path.  I didnt want it to stand out as separate , but the path was to provide access, so I mulched it the same as the garden bed.  Right now it is spring and the scrub hens are looking for places to lay their eggs.  They dont sit on their eggs - they gather together a huge pile of leaves and then the eggs are laid in the warm composting mulch.  Somehow a silly scrub hen thinks she can gather together enough loose mulch in my garden to build her nest.  I hung a very colourful kite above this area to warn her away. Once this lavender takes off and forms a little hedge and the hippeastrum behind put out their georgous flowers, there will be a defined edge to this new path.  Update:  Hubby found her digging right underneath the kite!  I think once they get used to something it becomes part of the garden as it did seem to be working for a  wh...

The little section which I think of as my fan palm forest is coming along nicely.   I wanted to be able to look out and not see any fence.  I also wanted to look up and see the sun shining through the beautiful shapes of the fan palm leaves.  One of the most beautiful tropical sights in my book. I also have a fluted fan palm.  They both seem to have shot up this last year. I purchased this plant at one of the orchid shows, and it has multiplied and I need to reduce it in size once more. The foliage is so interesting. It does get some yellow flowers right at the base, but the interest is in the leaves. Of course my favourite bit of colour at the moment is the lady slipper orchid - sorry if you are getting tired of seeing this from every angle.....  the sunbirds are always flocking around sipping nectar from these flowers and often get a bit rough and I find these little flowers scattered like confettiti under the tree. The vine is climb...

One of the suggestions landscapers have is to provide plenty of places to sit and admire the garden or have a rest.  Sometimes I think I may have overdone this feature since my garden is tiny.  This canvas chair is very comfy, and a marvellous place to settle into with the paper.  Having a few random hibiscus blooms on my shoulder is an added benefit. On my list of things to do one day is to sand it down and varnish to match these two chairs which  are on the other side of the front verandah.  Just in case you need a rest, within three feet is another place to relax, and wow do we make use of this swing.  Evening cockail hour with the hubby, place to assess the garden and plan more projects.  Place to just sit and admire what  georgous space we have created out the side. This swing has moved around the garden but is now back where it orginally started out, providing a long view all the way to the back corner of the house.  It is also ...