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...

In my last post I talked about how much I love to entertain in the garden. Recently I hosted an afternoon tea, and this weekend a dinner party.  Both of these were outside in the garden.  I made sosaties and tried a new recipe for samoosa pancakes found  here  .  I changed it quite a bit - added waay more spices, and they were a real hit.  I will post both these recipes onto my recipe blog for safekeeping, as I will be making them both again. This is what you look out at when you sit in the gazebo.  We had lots of sunbirds and honeyeaters splashing about in the birdbath - they seem unconcerned by people.  You can see all the fallen blossom on the ground - they get quite aggressive sucking out the nectar from the flowers. A close up of the lady slipper orchids.  My guests response when they saw the orchids up close was amazing.  That just makes me fall in love with my garden all over again. Are you the same?  When...

Months, it has been months since I last posted.  admittedly I was away - wandering through castles in France with one daughter and her husband, and then in the USA with my younger daughter, husband and grandson, then some time in Sydney with my hubby.  Wow - it sure is hard to get back into some kind of routine! Luckily my garden survived but I have had very little free time to spend in it lately, and have just been watering and weeding.  Also just plopping spare cardboard on top of weeds - my quick way of weeding! I have tons of weeds and they are all going to seed.  Ahhh! Here is my poor herb spiral - if you look carefully you can see some herbs.  One thing that is doing well is the citronella - not sure if it keeps the mozzies away but it smells nice. My philosophy is to create a vibrant, healthy garden, full of good things to eat, lovely flowers to admire and a place where friends and family love to gather. I never quite harvest a huge amount to ...

Well, as you know I have been trying to fit my new compost tumbler into my composting schedule.  You are supposed to stop topping it up at some stage and then let it finish off before transferring to the stand alone compost bin.   The thing is that I am not sure what to do with the kitchen waste that accumulates while the tumbler batch is processing (about 4- 6 weeks.)   I have lots of leaves, and they seem to take forever to break down too!  The kitchen scraps compost down quickly but the leaves take ages....So I keep adding to the tumbler, and it is in fact now getting rather full and a bit heavy, so something had to be done. This is what it looks like.  and inside: A worm farm, everyone suggested....    I have only ever heard of one person with a worm farm in this climate.  Recently though, I saw an honesty stall with bottles of worm wee.  Hubby looked the other way when I went to put my coins in the jar and pick up a bottle....

The theme for this months Garden Share collective is taste.  Here are the others participating. We have had an extended wet season, and so my garden is not as far along as it normally is at this time of year.  I purchased an eggplant and jalapeno and planted them in the far back corner.  the eggplant has to go into a pot because of the bacterial wilt in the soil.  Even then they dont always survive.  it is just a case of wait and see.  I thought I had lost all the tatsoi and rocket in the flooding rains, but they seem to be bouncing back nicely.  Fresh greens in a salad is the best taste ever, and I am sure loaded with vitamins and minerals compared to what we can buy in a plastic packet.  The bed along the side fence has a few volunteer cherry tomato, and one capsicum which is doing very well.  there are also a couple of cucumber, which go back and forth between looking on their last legs with powdery mildew and thriving....  I...

This year I am going to add some polystyrene boxes to plant tomatoes in.  Large tomatoes don't do well here - we have bacterial wilt in the soil, and I think a myriad other diseases that are commonplace here.  I like tomatoes though, and I did get some free seeds to experiment with.  I am going to try a sort of wicking bed system as in the past I have had blossom end rot as well which indicated uneven watering.   I am putting some boxes front and centre.  They are resting on the front of the the asparagus bed, making use of every inch of the garden.  I hope I wont be disappointed. assemble what you need: The idea is to drill a  drainage holes about a quarter of the way up the box.  Add drainage rock - I used quincam, scoria is another good one to use.   Below this line the boxes are filled with small rocks for drainage. . Now I am not sure if there should...

I just made the linkup -  check out who else has showcased their lovely gardens here . This months Garden Share collective is supposed to focus on leaves.  Now I could have a happy leaf photo or I could show you my cucumbers.  I was going to take a photo, but it is all too sad. My cucumber was doing OK - little bit of downy mildew which is to be expected in this climate, but I gave it a spray with liquid  seaweed with a little bicarb mixed in and it seemed to be doing just fine.  Then the rains came, and it rained, and it rained.  The highest rainfall recorded in this area in May in 96 years! We had 200ml overnight a couple of weekends ago. I had noticed a little insect damage and sprayed with garlic chili spray, but of course the rains washed that all off, but they still carried on chomping.  I saw a couple of catterpillars, so the whole bush got another spray of garlic/chili, but now the whole bush has died. I also had a lovely bed of tatsoi and...