Africanaussie

The latest garden share collective calls for a a post about colour.  Well I suppose brown is a colour! I have been preparing the soil for my main growing season during the last couple of weeks.  I spread out some manure (brown), sprinkled a little lime (white)  and after lightly digging that in I spread brown cardboard over the top of that! Our local Coles supermarket has been selling little potted herbs for 1.98.  These are the best deal ever, they are so crammed with little plants, that I have been buying them and then using them as little transplants.  3.95 for a six pack or 1.98 for a million pack!  I got fennel, parsley and even capsicum (the capsicum had two plants.)  Here is  some of the fennel.  They are such delicate little plants, so I just lay them into a trough and filled in from the side.  I know we are on the edge of the fennel growing area, so they might not form a bulb.  Two different kinds of parsley were planted in the wicking beds, with eggplant in the center.

About six weeks ago we had the lychee tree pruned again - this time we had the top lopped off. that was what should have happened last time.  Now it should be easier to maintain the tree at a manageable height. Of course this meant that the entire middle section of the tree had no leaves for shading my lovely tropical shade loving plants!  There were definitely some sunburn issues, even death in some cases.  I have had some shades cloths and umbrellas over the vulnerable areas. but new leaves are sprouting and at long last the intense summer heat seems to be waning.  The area with my umbrella palms can stand out now as a feature, instead of hiding away behind the lychee tree branches.  This area was not affected, even though it now gets more light.  The golden candles definitely is enjoying the sunshine, and I love the purple of the geisha girl together with the yellow.  This is a favourite area for the sunbirds and honey-eaters.   They are not at all shy and will come down for

Once again I have not posted since the garden share collective.  This month is supposed to be about preserving.  The only thing I have preserved is the peppercorns that I preserved in brine.  Whenever I see a new stalk I pick it and pop them into the brine. Easy peasy. Certainly not going to keep us in pepper for a year though.  I read that the peppercorns only fruit on the lateral branches, and since the vine is sending shoots out, I thought it might be a good idea to put up a trellis.  Hopefully those will climb up and spread out and then it will be easy to harvest.  Only one aspargus plant has been really succesful - the purple asparagus, so I moved the other two onto that side of the trellis and will see if they do ok there.  I have harvested some of the asparagus already this year and it is the most amazing aspagus I have ever tasted.  Even if I let them get too long they are still tender all the way to the end.   The other side of the trellis was where I planted some tro