Africanaussie

  I have been cutting back overhanging branches and overgrown bushes and shrubs to allow light in.  I don't want to cut back branches of the lychee tree as I want to be able to harvest as many of those luscious fruit as possible come harvest time.  Removing the rhoeo was a good decision, as the pavers were lost under the vegetation.  They are still mildewed and I am working on getting them cleaned.  For now it has just been bleach and elbow grease, but I am wondering about one of the leave on products like wet and forget.  Does anyone have any advice about that?  A bit of sunlight would be good too....  The grass does not do well without sunlight and we also try not to walk on it too much.  I weeded and mulched the bromeliads and found the best way to do this was to just pull everything up, remove the pups and plant them back in with some mulch.  Now it is easy to walk along the stones, giving the sodden grass a miss.  We have big brown patches forming - not sure what is happen

Here is the big reveal of how the veggie garden edges have been extended.  The end towards the wheelie bins (that is what we call our garbage bins here in Australia!) and tumbling composter had to allow easy access to the path and compost but still match the other side. Along the fence the ginger is doing great - I am not harvesting it all - will leave it to bandicoot as needed. I will be making another batch of pink pickled ginger soon which is awesome.  Then I have my little cassava tree and behind that was supposed to be the choko, but that rotted away.  I will grow choko eventually.....  a few little volunteer cherry tomatoes sprouted in front of the fence so I decided this is where the tomatoes will grow this year....  Bigger tomatoes in the wicking beds and pots. .  Soy beans and black beans were planted against the fence, but with all this rain nothing has come up.  There is a row of silverbeet in front of the tomatoes, along with some warringal greens.  A volunteer winged b

A birthday present from MrFothergill !  Really you shouldn't have!  They didnt know it was to arrive just in time for my birthday, but I thought this gift of a sprouter, along with four packets of seeds was very timely - thank you!  I have been persisting with the microgreens, and eventually e-mailed them and suggested trialling a sprouter as I have the feeling that will work better in my climate. The microgreens have been very tasty, but dont grow very big, and the ones in water do attract  mosquitoes.  We had a prawn starter for my birthday dinner (the prawn shells are now buried in the veggie patch)  and I got the grand kids to help me pick some basil and watercress microgreens to sprinkle on the plates.  Greens! they ate them!  Now I wouldnt say it was a full serving of veggies, but the cuteness factor did play a part. For that reason alone it is worth trying sprouts and microgreens. I put a Tablespoon of seed in each layer - trying fenugreek, and then tatsoi, mizuna and

The herb spiral is an area that I think of as a separate entitiy, rather than just tagged onto the side of the veggie garden.  On my big shopping expedition I discovered some lovely little herb pots.  Two of my stepsons are forever asking me for herbs, and I give them little pots of basil, or parsley, and then when I ask how they are doing I am told of disaster befalling those poor plants, every time......  Mostly from overwatering.  My thought was that in these pots it would be hard to overwater them, and I could give them a large selection all in one container....   Firstly some stones went into the bottom to aid with drainage. The pots were then filled with some potting soil amended with 5 in 1, blood and bone and crusher dust.  The plants were added and I will keep them until the plants are well established.  I am really dissapointed though with how the colour is peeling off the top of the one pot.  I should have got the plain terracotta colour to begin with.  The idea of thes

I often think of my small garden in terms of different rooms.  This last shopping trip definitely reflected that  train of thought. When I saw a dwarf mulberry tree for only 16.00 I began to think about the fact that I have a collection of different fruit tree/bushes, but they are scattered around.  I had been toying with the idea of moving my hanging strawberry plants to planters that fit flush against the fence, as the hanging ones always seem to collapse.  This is the spare carport at our entrance and does not look very enticing. So all it took was the purchase of a mulberry tree to start  "Fruit salad alley"  That was the first project I undertook over the weekend.  Passionfruit grow well in this climate, but need to be moved into another area after a while.  They develop woody passionfruit virus, and lately, even though new vines start up in the back vegetable area they never quite flourish like the original one did.   I would love a purple passionfuit, but havent

My hubby just sent me a photo of how I left all my shopping spoils last night. It was too late to do anything other than unpack the car and leave it all on the front verandah.  I cant wait for the weekend so that I can get out into the garden and play with all my new stuff...