Urban farm challenge April 2012

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.  Sulphate of potash - you only need a teaspoonful in a couple of gallons for fortnightly foliar feedings, but boy has it made a difference!

Bingo, suddenly I had beans on my winged beans, and the eggplant is bowed down by all the new little eggplants.  Even in the flower department everything seems brighter and more colorful.  I have lots of new seedlings coming up - I plant seeds directly into the garden, and here my little herb spiral is filling in.  As soon as the plants come up I tuck them in with some fluffy sugar cane mulch.  

 I tend to plant just a few  seeds at a time so that I have great diversity and then I continuously sow more seeds  throughout the season.   Just in this small section I have spring onions,  bok choy and amaranth, with cucumber and long beans on the trellis to the left, with lettuce on the other side of the trellis and winged beans climbing up the pigeon pea and pawpaw behind.  This works well in my tiny garden.

I thought just the natural ingredients I was adding would be enough, but clearly they needed something more.  How do you determine what needs to be added to the garden?  Why don't you join the challenge and link up to win some great prizes.  I won some great gardening gloves last month!  Next month will be foraging.... mmm I have never been very good at that.

The path to nowhere gets an extension!

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 was to have access to all the plants for trimming, cutting back overgrown branches and simply admiring pretty flowers close up.  I removed one big red ginger plant, and after that the path found its way, with me tying plants back or moving them over just a little bit to one side.   Then I discovered that there were still large areas that had that dreadful landscape fabric underneath them!  What a silly thing that was to do! Lots of tugging, digging, standing in knee deep mulch, but I think I now have most of the fabric removed from the entire garden.    Originally I had thought the plants would develop roots underneath the fabric if I planted them into a hole, but that didn't work.  The soil is lovely though - wormy and moist and the mulch is woodsy and full of mycellium.  The landscape fabric has now found a home in the veggie garden path -  it does a great job there.  I throw non flowering weeds onto it and they dry and shrivel up and then can be put into the compost.  This is the first part of the path....

 Once the basic path was completed I thought about what the edges would be.  I do have lots of mondo grass so the edge closest to the tree is mondo.  I hope I am not over-using it in the garden, but I do love the edge that it provides and it works so well in my shady garden.    I tried some of the variegated mondo, but it is really struggling.  In the photo below you can see the middle part of the path viewed from the back fence.  On the edge furthest from the tree - the outside edge of the curve - I have put a few bricks.   I love the solid edge this has brought into the garden, and the ground is built up a bit behind it, creating a sunken path effect.  I am not sure if I can get the same bricks to finish that edge.   I did a bit of a repeating pattern of some cordelines and bromeliads, and filled in some areas with ground orchids, ferns and coleus.

Here you see the path as it leads out to the big gates.  

I laid cardboard over the path and then a layer of gravel - voila! While I was working there I noticed so many butterflies flitting around as they traveled from the geisha girl out the back to the ixora in the front.  I think my new path might have to be called butterfly alley :)

Giveaway! One hundred followers.

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 paint on the colors and then lay the scarves out on the grass with flowers and other assorted objects distributed over the scarf.  These objects block the light and make them a shade lighter than the color that is exposed to the sun.  It is great fun.  I have made two scarves - one is "seascape design" and I will add little touches of silver fabric paint to highlight the seahorses and shells.  

 

The other is blue and red and had hibiscus and plumbago flowers laid on it, so I have called it "tropical flowers" .

To enter, please submit a comment stating which scarf you would like to win and I will close down the comments and do a draw by random number selector on  May 1st ........  Mayday!   


Update .....May 1st - happy May Day and we have a  


***********************  WINNER!


My random selector ended up being everyone's name in a  hat, lots of stirring and shaking, and my hubby drawing out the name.... Sami!  congratulations.
I have contacted you by e-mail - please send me your address so I can get your scarf into the mail for you.

Test kitchen Tuesdays

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 then add the yeasty water and yoghurt.  Knead for 5 or ten minutes - in the bowl or on a  board.  You may have to sprinkle with a little flour to stop it sticking.  Pour a little oil over the dough and turn over so it is all coated with oil, cover the bowl with a clean tea towel and leave in a  warm place until doubled in size.  Divide dough into 8 equal pieces and pat into round flat discs.  Cook on a hot frying pan with a  tiny amount of oil - just enough to stop them sticking -  a minute or two each side.

For the veggie side dish I had eggplant and winged beans from the garden which I stir fried with a little celery onion and carrots.  Then to 1/2 cup of veggie stock (I use vegeta stock powder) I add 2 tsp cornstarch.  Stir this into the veggies and simmer a few minutes and it adds just a little tasty liquid, slightly thickened.  I really enjoyed the vegetables (mainly eggplant) in Malaysia and this is as close as I have come to that flavor.
The leftover naan we ate wrapped around borewors (a South African spicy sausage), and it was just as good the next day  - quite a mixture of cultures there!
This recipe is a keeper - I am storing it on my recipe blog where it is easy to find!  You can also make a dish using my Curry recipe to go with it.

Rainy day makes way for experiments in the kitchen

Today was supposed to be sunny, and I spent the morning volunteering at our local markets watching the rain drizzle down...  By afternoon it did seem to be clearing, but after I armed myself with mozzie spray and lit the mozzie coils the rain came down in earnest.
No worries mate!  I am not going to let the rain get me down!  I have had a couple of things up my sleeve that I have been wanting to try, ...
Firstly was the comfrey ointment, I had picked a few leaves and washed them and left them on the counter overnight to dry.  I placed these into the crockpot with 300ml of oil.

I kept that on low for a couple of hours - the comfrey went quite crisp, and the oil a lovely green.  I fished out the comfrey, and then added 30g of beeswax and once that was melted in, I turned off the crockpot and added a couple of drops of vitamin e and about a tsp of tea tree oil.   Then I poured the mixture into two sterilized jars and left to cool.  It should keep in the cupboard, but I think I will store them in the fridge just in case.   My hubby has a damaged tendon in his ankle and I wanted to try this to see if it would help him heal. So guess who is going to get a foot rub every evening!

Onto the next project - making pickled green ginger.  It is mostly used with Japanese dishes.  One of my followers Miyako might be able to help me with some recipes to use this up! I love looking at all her lovely Japanese dishes and flower arrangements, and her husband makes their soba noodles by hand!

Another thing I have been reading about lately is aloe vera - and not just putting it onto your skin, but drinking it!  It is supposed to be very  beneficial for diabetics, and I read that if you remove all of the latex which lies just under the skin there is no bitterness.  I carefully peeled it until there was just the clear gel left.

then I chopped it and added it to a glass of cider vinegar and water.  It was yummy - no bitterness at all.

Sometimes I am glad for the rain as it gives me a chance to get lots of other things done.

How does your Veggie Garden grow?

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 for.  I am keeping them along with a pot of salad greens, and a pot of radishes, on the front porch where they get light, but are protected from the rain.  This is very convenient to the kitchen, and I must say look nice and tidy.  I definitely recommend these for young kids and anyone who is gardening on a kitchen windowsill.

 I harvested over 2 kg of ginger... yummy

 I left a few ginger plants at the back of the bed and planted some tropic tomatoes in front.  So many worms - I think my soil is very good this year.  Tomato tropic have been planted in long tubes so that they can develop good strong stems before planting out.  I read on the down to earth blog that Rhonda adds sulphate of potash and trace minerals.  I did give the plants a drink of sulphate of potash and they seem to have loved it,  I think my garden gets enough trace minerals from the crusher dust I occasionally sprinkle around.  I have a feeling this is going to be a good year for veggies.  I have some silverbeet in front of the black beans.  I like the fact that I widened this bed in order to have two rows of plants.

 Just in this small section of the central bed I have winged and long green beans, cucumbers and lettuces.

  I want the veggies that I grow to be way way better than what I can purchase in the local store.  I read something a while back about the nutrient value of mass grown vegetables compared to organically home grown vegetables.  I would be very interested to see more studies on this. I grew carrots last year, but they take so long, and I felt that the few carrots I harvested were not worth the space they took up.  I am glad to trial the harlequin carrots as I think they will be fun. I have successive sown another row every two weeks.  The first lot were sown according the moon planting time so it will be interesting to see if there is any difference in the final harvest.  The seed tape makes for a more even line, and is super easy to pop into the garden. The radish look very good too.  For some reason I have been unable to get big juicy globes and I am hoping this will change. I used the same radish seeds in the pot on the front porch.

I have planted out some other seeds I got from green harvest -  Cabbage Tokyo bekana and Kailan Kaulburi  - both Asian stir fry type of greens. Also capsicum and cucumber, which were a bit slow in starting but now seem happier.  The silverbeet I got from MrForthergills seemed to be quite slow at getting started in the jiffy pots, so I put a couple of rows of seeds directly into the garden. I am pre-soaking the seeds overnight in seaweed solution.   The bush beans never came up, and then I decided to add a huge amount of compost to the bed, so even if they did decide to come up they would have been smothered or drowned. I also read that it is a bad idea to plant peas straight after a bean crop - not sure why.  I planted more blue lake bush beans seeds this weekend along the back fence.

As part of the Urban farm handbook challenge I won 2 pairs of gloves and they arrived in the mail today. A pair of bamboo gloves and pair of workhorse gloves - they feel like great quality and I cant wait to get out into the dirt and start digging.  This is where they came from - ethel gloves - what a wonderful selection.

What have I learned since I started this garden?
1.  Plant seeds closer than you are told to on seed packets. If they are too close you can just snip off the extra leaves to use as microgreens.
2.  Invest in sugar cane mulch - this is nice and fine and you can tuck it around little plants.
3.  In my garden it is better to plant most seeds straight out in the garden rather than fiddle with pots.
4. Successive planting to ensure continuous harvest.
5. Spray often with chili garlic for bugs, and milky water for fungus.

what are you doing differently this year?

A friend visits for Bloom day April 15th 2012

I was either way too late for March foliage follow up or way to early for April.
I think I am right on time for GBBD for April though.   I don't only have blooms in my garden  - I have wildlife as well! I am joining with  May dreams gardens for April 2012 Garden bloggers bloom day. head on over there to see what else is flowering all over the world.
The wind has been howling here lately and my sexy pink lady in the back corner of the garden bowed over until the stem broke off.  I went off into the back corner of  my garden, secateurs in hand, to cut it and put it into a vase and discovered a white lipped  tree frog perched on one of the flowers.

Don't you just love that smile?  He must be comfy.  I think I have a similar smile when I lie back in my hammock chair and gaze out at my lovely garden.

When he went to change positions I noticed he was quite agile,

Or maybe he wanted to have a better look inside the window.

eventually he jumped off and clung to the window for quite a  while before wandering off to find and other plant to rest on.

I have the perfect vase for these tall flowers  - it has a pump and the water trickles down through the little grey cups.  Just another one of the perfect, thoughtful presents my wonderful hubby has given me over the years.

The crucifix orchid is slowly opening up its buds now that I have moved it into a sunnier area. - a slow opening is a good sign, as then it might stay in bloom for  a long time as well.

 The winged beans also have a very pretty flower.

Then the madevilla vine enjoyed its pruning back and is full of heavy blooms.... I am going to have to continually prune to keep this plant in check.

The humidity is down and it is simply marvelous to be out in the garden these days - the best time to be in the tropics.

foliage follow up April 16th

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 the new little leaf emerging.  You can see leaves trapped in the ferns pockets - as they decompose they feed the plant.

I think the foliage in my garden is the true background.

Tropical fruit

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?

Love is in the air

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!