Africanaussie

The Urban farm challenge  this month was gardening........ so where to start? actually one thing I did differently this month was to add a soil amendment. I have noticed that even though my soil looks very rich - full of worms and well draining, I was not getting a high amount of flowers and fruits.  I often add seaweed and fish emulsion, my own compost, comfrey tea and lots of mulch. I believe these are all known as conditioners in that they add a wide variety of different goodness to the soil. I don't know how accurate those little ph meters are, but my soil acidity is just less than 7 which seems perfect.  Still there seemed to be something lacking, and upon lots of research I learned that the sandy soils around this are are often lacking in potassium.  aha! that is what is need for fruiting and flowering.   I am not about to go and have my soil tested, but I figured if that was the only new thing I added, and if I noticed a marked improvement, then maybe my research was right.

Originally I just planted a large triangle of bushy plants around the base of the lychee tree.   As I live in the tropics they grew, and grew.  I put in a small path to get some access for trimming back, but never really liked the look of it - my little path to nowhere.   My grandson loves to rush through the garden and hide in "the forest", but at the end of the path he didn't stop, and I wondered how many plants were getting trampled. This ANZAC day was a holiday from work, and as we sat with our morning coffee looking out at the garden I just knew that I was going to have to forge a new pathway through the forest.  The entrance was to be to the left of this photo....  jungle busting stuff.  This is the entrance to the path at the other side.  I took the franzipani out of there - it didn't like all the shade, and moved the beehive ginger there - giving it more room to spread.  This was originally the path to nowhere - it just ended.... One of the objectives

I am hosting a giveaway to celebrate reaching 100 followers!  Some of my family are amazed that one or two people would be as hooked on gardening as I am, let alone over a hundred!   I thought I had plenty of time, but suddenly there you are!  102 followers a while back  ... I am late! I wanted to have something that I could easily send anywhere in the world, and since postage is so expensive it would have to be something light.  Seeds cannot be sent overseas either. I recently sent a silk scarf to my Mom and it was light  to post so that has made the decision rather easy. I make the silk scarves in my garden using the sun to set the color, and lay flowers and ferns on the fabric so that the sun sets the outlines.  Here is an example of the one I did for my mom. You need a sunny day and I dragged myself away from gardening last weekend in order to work on some silk scarves.  Don't feel too sorry for me, as it is actually done in my garden :), and I get to pick flowers.    I

I keep talking about trying new recipes, and now Kristen   has come up with a challenge to try a new recipe and post about it on Tuesdays.  We were both mentioned on Rhonda's   new feature where she recommends blogs on a Friday, and that is how we met. Anyway,  I  made naan this weekend, (I have forgotten where I got the original recipe so that I can give them credit - but it is changed a bit - I can never leave a recipe alone! )  and I made this lovely curried chicken to go with my naan.  If I had known naan was this easy I would have started making it ages ago.  I used plain flour, and then added bran, wheat germ and LSA mix, but you could use all white or whole wheat flour.  It doesn't look anywhere near as good as it tasted.... Naan 2 cups white or wholemeal flour 1 tsp yeast 1 tsp salt 1 tsp sugar 1/4 cup plain yoghurt 1 Tbs oil dissolve sugar in 1/4 cup warm water (not hot), mix in yeast and leave until it bubbles.  Combine flour and salt in a big bowl and th

You might remember that I got a whole stash of seeds to trial for the seed company Mr Fothergill.  I may have started them out too early, since this was an la nina year and the wet season was extended later than "normal".  I figure though that you never know until you try.  A lot of the seedlings became long and leggy with the lack of sunshine, but for about a week now we have had a fair amount of sunshine every day. I like the little grow pots that come with their own little sauna cover and in fact my grandson came up with two of his own as well. - basil and tomato, to add to my parsley.  Parsley is a notoriously slow starter here, and I felt that the sauna environment gave it a good start.  The basil also did very well, but they do need to be kept out of the rain as there is no drainage hole. The tomato has done nothing - even though I also put in other seeds, not sure what is going on there.  They would do very well on a  kitchen windowsill which is what they are designed

While looking for flowers to post for Garden bloggers bloom day I kept think how lovely the foliage all is at this time of year.  It is lucky that we have  foliage follow up with Pam at Digging   to showcase the colors. During the wet season we don't get much sunshine and I think you need a lot of sunshine to get a lot of flowers. Clearly foliage doesn't have the same hang-ups. I have lots of green, but it is the other colors that pop out at you.  The purple leaved rhoeo is a great border plant.  This silvery grey rex begonia loves my shady garden, and from one little plant I now have three pots scattered about the garden.  As the new leaves come out they are a tender pink, and then they fade to silvery grey.  This new one I just acquired is brilliant red and green on the underside.  I think I will have to find a spot to hang it so that the undersides are visible. I have a couple of elkhorn ferns that grow off the trunk of my lycheee tree, and just love the look of th

We have been enjoying  the company of old friends visiting us from America. The weather has been perfect and  many happy hours were spent out in the garden watching the birds and butterflies, and enjoying eating outdoors. For breakfast we served a selection of tropical fruits. The pawpaw and passionfruit were out of our garden, the pepino, rambutan and custard apple were from the markets. My favourite breakfast, served alongside with homemade granola and yoghurt. Yummy. What is your favourite breakfast?

There was sunshine all weekend!  Of course I was out in the garden!  Flitting about were plenty of butterflies, and when this mating pair or orchard swallowtail came close, my very patient hubby got out the camera.  I think we will be seeing some  caterpillars soon by the look of it. The grands were over enjoying running around the garden, and they loved the job of emptying the seeds and peeling the loofas.   They did tend to shake them quite violently to get the seeds out, and I am now noticing loofah plants popping up all over the place.   They are pretty sure that the Easter bunny is going to be paying a visit to Grandma's garden!