Africanaussie

This is a selection of some of the variegated bromeliads I have under the lychee tree. The one that looks like a baby pineapple is very cute :) I may have posted before how much I love to save the life of a plant who others have given up on. I found a couple of very sad looking bromeliads on the clearance rack a while back and bought two of them for 50 cents. What a surprise and delight I had this week when a beautiful red and yellow flower appeared in the centre - the other one is closely following along. I do love bromeliads - the flowers stay for so long. It is like buying a lucky dip - you have no idea what the plant might amount to in the end!

At last we got a good photo of a lorikeet in one of the trees that surround us here! These huge arching flowers are really attractive to the lorikeets . Most afternoons at around 2pm the noise is deafening with them flitting from tree to tree. Most of these trees are about a hundred feet high and there are always flocks of about 50 birds flying from tree to tree! In most countries of the world these birds are carefully bred and kept in aviaries or cages. How lucky we are!

We have had a few showers of rain this week, and suddenly everything seems a bit greener. My seeds arrived and so I will be doing a bit of planting this weekend - also finish off the little path to nowhere between my tropical plants. I often have to go right in between the plants to trim old branches or cut flowers and so am making a path right into the center - this means I will not be stepping on little plants all the time. I will give it a little curve at the end so hopefully it will lead wanderers in to go a little deeper into the garden. I really enjoy having the path at the back of the bed to go through and have access. In fact I have planted some ginger and pawpaw there as that will make it easier to harvest from there. My cardamon is getting chewed up by grasshoppers and that too might have to be moved - maybe it is to close to other plants where it is now, and would enjoy being on the edge at the back. we have a Kookaburra that seems to like visiting and sitting on o

I got a welcome to my garden sign to hang on the garden gate! Here is a link to all the what is in bloom right now photos. I wanted to finalize the photos I have on file so that I can start fresh in November. It rained today - all day long:), so it looks as though the wet has started. Now hopefully I will have lots of new tropical blooms to post photos of. so enjoy, and I hope there are not repeats that have gone before..... http://picasaweb.google.com/vemvaan/InFlowerOct09OrThereabouts# enjoy.

I have been toying with the idea of planting a green manure crop during the wet season. In the end I ordered pigeon peas, recommended for the tropics. You get an inoculant with it that helps to fix nitrogen in the soil when you cut it back. This is also recommended for building up the soil to resist wilt diseases. I want to taste the actual peas though and might keep some growing to use as mulch. One site said that this is the pea most commonly used for making dahl , so maybe I wont have to buy lentils anymore and can just use what I grow in the garden :) It looks like quite a strong large plant and one blogger uses it to grow her tomatoes next to and then uses them to stake the tomatoes. Here is the bed cleared and ready to be planted. I have never done green manure before, so this is all a learning experience. Most sites say to cut down the plant and then it releases nitrogen into the soil, but on the tropical permaculture site I read that every time you prune back the plants the

When we got back from our holiday the tomatoes were looking very sad, so this weekend I ripped them all up and created a new compost pile where they will be next year. Crop rotation! I have an old table legs and base which is going to act as the support for the vines. So with a bit of fencing around the sides it has created the perfect compost pile. With all those tomato seeds I probably wont even have to plant the tomato bushes! Leaves, bushy trimmings, the old tomato plants and some cardboard have almost filled it to the top. I will probably get some seaweed in the next couple of days as that always seems to get compost heating up quickly. There is a pumpkin volunteer nearby so if I train that over the whole pile it can look good too! The area that used to have the tomatoes has been cleared and I am going to do a green manure crop - not sure about maybe doing some sun solarization first. My eggplant wilted overnight and died - two now, but when I cut through the stem it wa