Africanaussie

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...

 February was a very short month, and with the heat and humidity here, I have really only ventured out into the garden when absolutely necessary.  It is time to catch up with Lizzie at the Garden share collective , and see how everyone fared with huge amounts of rain - normally it is us that have huge amounts of rain!  We normally dont have to water at all at this time of year, but I have been giving the garden a  good drink once or twice a week, if we havn't had any rain.  I want my plants to develop deep roots.  I keep spreading out compost as a mulch so that will keep the moisture in the soil as it breaks down.  The shade cloths also keep the garden soil cooler. The main purpose during the wet season is to make sure that the soil is covered and the plants that grow now get the moisture they need.  This is also the season where there are lots of bugs, some I dont even see, but I certainly see the chewed holes in the leaves.  My red papa...

I could say that my overgrown veggie garden looks rather permaculturish!   I do need to warn all those dear friends that I sent cosmos seeds to that if they don't harvest the seeds they might find themselves with more cosmos than they need! I let quite a few of mine die off in situ scattering seeds far and wide, and now I see the results.... - oh dear, now where was that path again?    I started to move the other path over a while back - to widen the bed next to the fence and make the central bed easier to reach into the middle from either side. The bed next to the fence is for the ginger and I plan to grow even more this year. We have been walking down this very narrow path for awhile now....  The chia seem to be doing well - the leaves are a bit prickly, but I have been adding a few of the young leaves to salads. I have no idea how high this plant grows, what season it should be grown in and when I can expect seeds.... here it is intersp...

Up until last year I was not very successful at growing ginger.  I don't know why exactly but feel I may have tried growing it at the wrong time of year.   It grows here during the wet season, and last wet season I managed to get some shoots going, and then more and more, and pretty soon I had a whole bed of ginger.  How marvelous!   I do use a lot of ginger and I figured that even if ginger was the only thing I harvest out of my garden it would make my vegetable gardening productive.  then it started to flower..  Two different kinds of flower.....this one didn't have the red edging Flowering means it is ready to harvest.  (I have been harvesting bits for quite a while already - ooops! ) The problem was - did I want to harvest it all at once or just store it in the ground until needed?  I asked a lot of other people, and mostly  decided that I was growing a lo...

At last I have a few vegetables forming in the garden - it seems to have taken forever.  My baby butternut look just like the real thing, only very tiny :)   I want to pick some when they are still quite small - in South Africa they make a kind of stew in a cast iron pot called a potjie.  It is normally a mix of meat and vegetables, and they often have whole miniature vegetables in it - very yummy.  Is it only me or is this the cutest little butternut ever?  the zucchini are also forming - I wanted them to ramble over a frame, but this one keeps heading the other way.  I thought if it was over a frame it would stay drier with less chance of mildew problems.  Already there is some powdery mildew and so far all I have done is remove those leaves and throw them away.  If it gets any worse I will get out the milk and water spray.  Now I don't want to get ahead of myself but I have heard stories of people being overwhelmed with lots and lots...

The weather is hot and spicy and so hot and spicy  is what is growing at this time of year. The birds eye chili are prolific - very hot - they say the smaller the chili the hotter it is and these are tiny.  These bushes pop up all over the place - one has climbed tree next to my office at work - it is about 20ft high!   The birds love them - they must not have taste buds like we do!  This is a close up of fresh juicy ginger bursting through the wet soil.  You might remember when I was getting this ready to plant.... planting ginger      Now I have a huge bed of it - gone are the days of buying ginger from the supermarket.  I do like growing things that are difficult or very expensive to buy from the store.  They say that eating spicy foods cools you down, and right now I can make nice spicy laksa with all the ingredients (except for the prawns) straight out of my garden.   Then of course I also do like gr...

When I purchased ginger from the local farmers market this weekend, there were lots of lovely new shoots!  I sliced them off with a little bit of flesh attached to each one and set them onto the counter to dry out a bit.  I already have some in the garden, but reckoned I could find room for a little more.  Here is some that has already sprouted. Note the tiny one next to it that is just starting.  It does not grow very high - between 1 to 2 feet high. It grows during our wet season so needs lots of moisture.  Last year I grew it in a very shady area and it was not that happy.  This year I am hoping for a bumper crop.  I simply keep my ginger root in the freezer and grate as needed.  Mostly it is not necessary to peel it.

Over the weekend I decided that I had to clear the pathway behind the back of the garden.  It started out with the visit to the gardening group on Saturday where I came back with a bunch of cuttings and small plants - yeah!   I got some growing galangal and ginger roots.  The ginger I tried to grow from the supermarket ginger always rots away.  This is the ginger, it grows up to about 2ft high and has very spindly leaves. This is the galangal - it grows very tall, and I planted it just behind the costus, close to the lychee tree.  While digging around there I discovered that the costus is flowering right at the base.  No-one can see the flowers there unless you go bundu-bashing, so if the glalangal takes off that costus will just have to go.   I have seen the costus that I want to grow there, it is lower with little orangy bud type flowers on the tips.  I guess when I pinched this plant, I must have got the plant next to ...