Africanaussie

All tucked in

2011-12-28T14:42:00.000+10:00

I spent yesterday removing a ton of weeds from the veggie garden that had become quite overgrown. That is what happens in the tropics. Then I lugged in a couple of bucket loads of mulch - that is pretty much the end of the pile now. This should keep the weeds at bay and since the rains seem to have started everything will stay nice and moist. There are regular mint and lemon balm in pots, spearmint in the front bricks, and a few struggling parsley and one struggling strawberry. Basil, tropical coriander, and mother of herbs doing ok.

This is the view of the veggie garden from the very back corner. This middle bed has a few pawpaw, a struggling yakon (got some little white bugs, so I cut it right back) A couple of good eggplant, winged beans, chinese long beans, and few rosella, a few pigeon pea, a cape gooseberry, onions, spring onions and garlic chives. The bed to the right has asparagus, mushroom plant, Galangal, lemongrass and turmeric.

The bed against the fence has ginger, jicama and sweet potato.

A plant that a neighbor gave me at the end of last wet season has risen from dormancy. (I told her it was just going dormant but she was convinced she had killed it) Doesn't it have pretty flowers?

The calathea is settling in and sending out new pink backed leaves.

So that is it! I am off on my holiday and the garden is on its own. I am interested to see just how much growth happens in three weeks in the wet season.

Happy Christmas

2011-12-22T08:58:00.000+10:00

As I have said before we have a very small unit and garden, so storing things like Christmas trees for 11 months of the year has never really come into the equation. We picked up a Christmas tree outlined with lights and suspended it on our reading lamp stand. The family have looked at it with derision.... until now! A package arrived in the mail from my dear mom and she sent all these lovely little wire and bead ornaments and it has taken my Christmas tree to a whole new level. thank you Mom!

Look at the detail on this little star!

and this one - I love how they have the circle bits in the middle

and I have an angel - I love angels - how beautifully she reflects the lights. My mom is an angel - always visiting others and taking care of the "oldies (she is 87!)

Look at this tree with a star on the top :)

I put the other colorful angel right on the top!

Here is my nativity scene on the coffee table - I love their cute faces and we can move them around to tell the Christmas story.

After having Christmas here in Australia, I will be off on a wild adventure with my two daughters. We will be in Malaysia for three weeks!
On my return I will post some photos on my travel blog - starting the first week of February. I will post a link from here.
Thank you to my wonderful readers - I know I have not always been very regular, and I thank you for hanging in there when I have not been able to think of anything marvelous to say, or too lazy to get out the camera. .

Happy Christmas everyone -
I hope your day is spent with friends and family,
and I hope your New Year is filled with many blessings.

Ice cream grows on trees in the tropics!

2011-12-16T17:28:00.000+10:00

Even though I did not grow this in my garden (one of my customers brought it to me at work) I thought I would share it with you. It grows on a very large tree, and is part of the legume family, so fixes nitrogen into the soil. It is called the ice cream bean.

You twist it to crack the hard shell open and inside are fluffy white pods that fit together perfectly.

Here you can see how big the seed is - you just eat the fluffy coating around the seed, and the best I can describe it is like candy floss but not so sweet. Quite refreshing.

Some of the seeds are already sprouting, but this is a huge tree so I wont be growing any in my garden....

Since it is so hot and humid here I popped some into the fridge to see how they would be cold, and they do taste good cold. I don't think they taste like ice cream though even when cold.
Funnily enough, I had been thinking of ice cream since I discovered a very tasty recipe for banana chocolate ice cream on a blog I follow littleecofootprints and think this might be my very favourite thing this summer to beat the heat. She just takes frozen banana, plain yogurt and honey and blends it together I love ice cream, but not the sugar and fat (not to mention the other undesirables that make it creamy and yummy) that comes along with it. Gosh I am thinking of some of my frozen lychees, mixed with my home made nonfat yoghurt and a little honey if necessary.
Funny how being hot and humid leads to thoughts of ice cream, but being part of the world of blogging can make that a healthy treat!

No more lychees for me!

2011-12-08T09:20:00.000+10:00

I have been toying with what to title this post.... I never thought I would get sick of lychees! The last lychees that I can reach have been picked. There are plenty still high up in the tree though and every night the bats come in, and they bicker and fight like naughty spoiled brats. All night long the fruit is dropped on the roof, on the gazebo, on the garden. Ping... ping....thud..... crash (that was a branch). It is a flying fox party and the invitations have been spread far and wide. The next morning, the area underneath the tree looks like this:

The ones that split open or have been trodden on, squeeze their sticky sweet juice into the ground or the stones and then they attract green ants, fruit flies and mozzies. It not so nice out in my backyard right now :( Every day we are out there (mainly my poor hubby) picking them up and putting them into the compost bins.

The lychees are just one of the types of tropical fruit in my little garden. The other fruits are not quite as demanding and dramatic though. Since I lopped the top off the tallest papaya tree it sent out much lower branches, so the ripe ones are easy to pick, and that mixed with passionfruit (which drop to the ground when ripe) makes a lovely fruit salad. I think this is my favourite combination of tropical fruit.

When lychees are added it takes the fruit salad to a whole new dimension. If I could only reach all the lychees --- mmm could I lop the top of that tree off?

Some readers have never enjoyed the deliciously sticky sweet nectar like fruit of a fresh lychee, and I realized I have only shown you the unpeeled lychees. . You have to pierce the tough skin to get started, and then it just peels away, and by this time the juice is running all over your hands....

There really is no clean and easy way to peel the flesh away from the smooth pip in order to add it to your fruit salad. Best done over the sink, but the best way to eat them is out in the garden where you can just pop it into your mouth and spit out the pip!

I have lots of frozen lychees put away. I guess I will yearn back to being able to go outside and reach up and pluck one of the juiciest tastiest little treats, but for now I am done.

Rising from dormancy

2011-11-25T08:24:00.000+10:00

Lots of things spring to life in my garden once the wet season starts. My ginger bed is erupting with little green spikes and I know under the ground lovely juicy ginger tubers are forming. The sweet potato bed is doing the same, and turmeric is popping up in a couple of places, where I knew I had planted them. The torch ginger and this lovely beehive ginger is flowering, although the leaves never totally die back during the dry season.

My neighbor gave me a plant with a beautiful flower at the end of the last wet season. She said it had died and I tried to tell her it was ok but just going dormant. No, she wanted me to have it, insisting I was the one with the green thumb. Here it is rising up in all its glory six months later. Behind it is kampheria, another plant that completely disappears during the dry season.

This one I know is Siam ginger, with a lovely pink flower - I picked it up for a song on clearance - clearly the nursery staff had no idea that the plant would come back year after year.

Elsewhere in the garden I often think I have an empty spot and then remember that is a spot where one of my plants is hibernating! I wonder if I should put some sort of marker there to remind me that I have a plant sleeping underground? I guess those gardeners in the northern hemisphere that plant out bulbs in the autumn don't do much gardening until they sprout in the spring. My lovely lipstick plant is blooming again - such a bright spot in the garden...

I love the little red tops peeping out... is it warm enough and wet enough to come out ?- I am a delicate tropical plant you know...

Oh and great excitement - I have a little lime slowly maturing....

Definitely this is a time of growth in the tropical garden

Red backed foliage

2011-11-22T09:35:00.001+10:00

I have recently developed a love for leaves with red backs.... In the shady garden I thought that a lot of plants would not flower and began to look or more interesting foliage,and that is where it all started. I picked up one of these little plants at the orchid show last year, and have already subdivided them once.

I volunteered at the local markets on Saturday and found a few plants I just had to have. The one was this variegated leaf Calathea. I have admired the Calathea with red undersides, and on looking it up discovered that the first plant is also a Calathea, or peacock plant.

Some plants like this cordeline start off pink and then turn a darker shade as they age.

This one has even more color distinction between the old and new leaves.

I think my favorite foliage plant though has to be this grey leaved rex begonia. From one little slip I have subdivided it many times and each area you place it in it adds a spot of brightness and color.

I particularly adore the sun shining through the leaf viewed from behind. Isn't she a gorgeous plant?

The other plant I got was another Rex begonia, so now I have two varieties.

It doesn't matter which angle you see the Rex begonia leaves from, front or back, they are still pretty. Hopefully the new one is just as happy.
I fully intended to have this post ready to go on the 16th for foliage follow up, but I didn't make it. Oh well.
I did link to Pam at Digging in the end - here is the link Foliage follow up

Grand entrance

2011-11-17T09:22:00.000+10:00

I am really liking the way the entrance looks from the front now. My hubby took this photo.

This green tree frog lives on our front veranda. He seems to be giving me a little smile here :)

Just look at his feet! - no wonder he can climb up the wall with no trouble.

Hopefully he is eating as many mozzies as he can!

Garden bloggers bloom day November 15th eventually

2011-11-15T11:15:00.000+10:00

I have been enjoying the garden bloggers bloom day posts that everyone else participates in, and suddenly I thought why don't I participate? - so here I am! On the 15th of every month Carol at May Dreams Gardens hosts a celebration of what is in bloom all around the world. Have a look and enjoy...
I have a new plant! My wonderful hubby will often bring me a lovely bunch of flowers, (I know, I am very spoiled) but last week he showed up with a hydrangea bush! Gosh I have never seen such beautiful, large flowers - and such a lovely shade of blue!

Just look at all the little buds waiting to have their turn to shine - aren't they just too cute for words?.

They do like a semi shaded spot, and I thought right at the front gate would be just perfect. Morning sun, and then afternoon shade - just perfect. Doesn't she look happy there? thank you hubby!

I think I am going to need a bit of cooling blue - this summer is going to be very hot and wet. Just through the gate we are under the shade of the lychee tree and it is always so much cooler there....

I noticed this weekend I had to take a lot of contemplative "rests" in the shade. I do think this is a very important part of gardening, so make sure you take the time to sit back and enjoy your garden.

Harvesting lychees

2011-11-14T12:26:00.000+10:00

Friends came to visit on Saturday and helped us harvest some lychees. He was up on the roof and she and I were scurrying around picking the lychees as they fell. We got knocked on the head a few times, but all in all it was great fun. After trimming the branches and separating out those that need to ripen a bit more we ended up with six buckets! Wow, and the tree is still loaded! I have since read that they will not ripen any more after being picked, so reckon we should just go ahead and peel them all. There are not a lot of green ones, just some that got knocked off in the process, and those are just a little sour.

We have been busy peeling, and hubby worked out a good way to peel and de-seed at the same time. I blended up the de-seeded ones and packed them into small containers to freeze. These I will use for lassi. a marvelous drink- equal parts lychee puree with yoghurt and a touch of cardamom. Other peeled lychees were just refrigerated for snacking. Neighbours and friends were happy recipients of the rest. I am not sure what to do with the rest - If I had a dehydrator I would dry some - might try some in a slow oven.
I am diabetic so don't want to make things like jam or bottled in sugar syrup, but if anyone has any other ideas of how to use up tons of lychees please let me know.

Fertilizer Friday/ Flower Flaunt Friday

2011-11-11T08:36:00.000+10:00

This plant, called a desert rose, has been one of the shining stars in my garden. Appropriately, in South Africa it is called a Sabi Star! It always seems to be flowering, and although I bought it very long and lanky it does now seem to be putting out some branches. Such lovely flowers.
Then I noticed something the other day - it is putting out a seed pod, oh no! not just one seed pod but lots of them!

I had heard that in order to capture the seeds you need to place the seed pod in a paper bag. Gosh with all these seed pods I am going to have a paper bag tree! I have a little one in the side of the pod that was grown from a seed - I got it from an open garden a year or so ago. If anyone in Australia would like some seeds, just e-mail me at vemvaan@gmail.com. I am not sure how long it will take, but the story is that when these seed pods explode thousands of tiny seeds are released into the air!
Last weekend I cut the bouganvilla back quite drastically. To allow the stephanotis to shine!

When they open up there is a lovely scent in the air. This is supposedly the most requested flower for wedding bouquets. My elderly neighbor says it brings back happy memories for her of her wedding day :)

the bleeding heart vine is also in flower

the little spots of red are a delight among the white.

My torch ginger is beginning to go brown around the edge. Still beautiful though! At the back you can see the turmeric starting to come up out of its hibernation.

I am linking this to Flower Flaunt Friday, go and take a look at what visual delights everyone else has to offer here tootsie time thank you Glenda for hosting this every week!

Lychees ripening

2011-11-07T11:29:00.000+10:00

Great excitement in our house at the moment with the lychees ripening. Unfortunately it is not us gorging on the ripe fruit yet. The bats move in at night and you can hear their mad chattering as they devour the fruit. You can see the fallen skins and seeds lying around on the ground. They are ripening from the very top of the tree, and there is no way we could harvest those so high up.

Lower down though, we will be able to reach them, and so in order to keep them to ourselves, we have got a couple of mosquito nets to stretch over them. The only way to reach up there though is to get onto the roof, and I am not game to do that. The same friend who gave us the mosquito nets also said she has a long handled picker and I am thinking if we could just pick the ripe ones, we wouldn't have to bother with the net.

Mmmm I hope she gets it to us soon, and we will soon be enjoying juicy lychees, instead of leaving them all to the silly bats..

Fertilizer Friday/ Flower Flaunt Friday

2011-11-04T10:43:00.000+10:00

There I was, once again, admiring Bernie's bloom day post when I thought - oh gosh I have some wonderful photos of my torch ginger ready to go and it is Friday so why don't I enter? I have been a long time lurker viewing everyone else's wonderful flowers every Friday. It is time I joined in the fun!
I don't use fertilizer - just my own yummy compost and natural amendments like seaweed and comfrey juice, so I will flaunt without the fertilizing.
The torch ginger has opened up even more - the best thing about these flowers is that they hang around for so long - it has been in bloom for over a month now. You can see more photos when it was just opening up.

Just look at the detail :)

You can see a little ant off to the side if you look closely. These are green ants (and can give you a nasty bite!) and they make nests every now and then in our garden. They are supposedly beneficial so I just try to keep out of their way as much as possible. If you grab one quickly, before it nips you, and lick its backside it tastes like lemonade! The aboriginals make a lemonade drink by soaking a few in water.

To see more fantastic Friday blooms to start your weekend off right go to Fertilizer Friday

Have a wonderful weekend!

This and that in the November garden

2011-11-03T15:54:00.000+10:00

I love the garden from this angle, but it never looks quite as good in a photo as it does in real life.

You have to get in closer to see the colorful cordeline leaves.

This one is the most common and often taken for granted, but its color is always reliable as long as it gets a bit of sunshine.

You have to bend down low to see the ground orchids - they love the wet season.

and wander down one of the paths to admire the anthiriums - Look at those shiny leaves!

Watch out for the prickles on the pineapple bromeliad! such a cute little thing this is, as long as you don't get too involved with the prickles.

Thanks for taking a wander through the garden to find its hidden delights.

Silk painting in my garden

2011-11-03T09:07:00.000+10:00

I have decided that I will in fact only have this one blog for my gardening and my crafts. After all I am one person with many facets, and this craft is so interwoven with the garden. After the silk painting course I did I was very excited to continue on. Unfortunately my silk supplier here in Australia was way too expensive to even think of using, so I had to do a search.
I found a great mail order company with the option of cheap slow shipping, called Dharma trading (they have not given me any compensation for recommending them) My order initially did not go through and upon inquiring I was told that they had upgraded my shipping to priority so I received my package in record time!
I had a friend come around and we painted on the paint, and then laid leaves and flowers onto the scarves and left them in the sun for the sun to work its magic setting the colour.

This out we put out while it was much wetter.

the paint seems to have pulled away from the edges - maybe I did not thoroughly wash out any sizing.

I thought the big flowers would leave a great shape

Bit it was the tiny plumbago flowers that worked best!

And the ferns, although I was not happy with the colors on this one - I was thinking of a fern forest.... the cardboard butterflies didn't leave any shape at all.

The paint I used was called Setacolor transparent and sets by using the heat of the sun.

Picture this.....Torch ginger

2011-10-26T12:38:00.000+10:00

I am so excited to have a torch ginger flower, and hope this is a sign of many more to come. As you can see the flower comes out at the base of the long arching leaves. They go right up into the lychee tree - about 15ft! Look how little it looks right at the base of the huge leaves! they normally do have a longer stem.

Just look at this gorgeous flower...

the petals are waxy and according to kebunmalaykadazangirls can be used to added to laksa. I wont be eating mine though - too busy admiring it.

from every angle - so much so that I thought I might enter her in the Picture This contest at Gardening gone wild. the theme is to fill the frame, and that is what this little beauty does I think.

the caladiums are popping up all over the garden too - they don't all disappear during the dry, but they are very happy once it get hot and humid and muggy.

I thought this one had gone - I am pleased to see it back once again.

I cant say that I enjoy the heat and humidity of the wet season, but I sure do enjoy the beauty it brings to my garden!

Passionfruit vine gets a short back and sides

2011-10-25T11:18:00.000+10:00

After two years passionfruit in this area normally get a virus called woody passionfruit virus and dies back. I let another vine start in the vegetable garden (they come up like weeds here). this same area around the herb spiral has started up again - not sure if it is the same vine or a different one, but it is very healthy. This is quite a convenient place to have a passionfruit growing as it can grow vertically up the neighbouring happy plant, and leave more garden for other stuff. The passionfruit drop onto the ground when ripe, so they are the perfect plant to grow up. The vine has been clambering over the herb spiral arch too much though and I wanted it to head upwards, so out I got with the ladder and some string.....

and tied sections up towards the high trunks of the happy plant. If I trimmed it back that would just cause more branches lower down and that is not what I wanted. It looks a bit untidy now, but it will soon fill in. You can see the old dead branches underneath. The vine is already chock a block full of fruit, so I think this is going to be a good season.

This is looking down the length of the side garden from the passionfruit. I really like how the paver and stone pathway is now - with a nice meandering flow to it.

Out in one of the shrubs in the front we have a little birds nest :) I am not sure what type of bird it is, but we have so many birds around, I just love it!

We even have wild lorikeets high up in the trees, and also stuffing themselves on the fallen mango. the lychee's are plumping up and the paw paw are turning yellow, so there is not going to be a shortage of fruit around here this year.round

Lots of rain

2011-10-23T18:06:00.000+10:00

Our long drought has at last been broken! It is very strange here to have months with absolutely no rain, but this last week it has rained very day! I also have been without telephone and Internet all week, so no way to post any of my fabulous photos as the garden comes to life with all the rain! When it rains here it really rains, but the tropical flowers love it - look at this sodden hibiscus.

The cannas that I moved into an area that get lots of standing water during the wet season are very happy. It is not a big enough area to really be defined as a swale, but it works the same way.

Look at the gorgeous red and yellow together - nature can be so flamboyant some times cant it?

Little lipstick cases are forming on my lipstick plant, but so far they are empty. I took a few cuttings in another pot and they are doing well, so now I have two pots of this magnificent plant.

My bougainvillea cutting has also done well and this is a very soft peach colour - it looks lovely next to the hot pink.

The amaryllis just keep on flowering - we think we must have already had at least 20 blooms and there are more showing their heads every day!

I never tire of the detailed colours on their flowers.

Oh, the plants in my garden love a good rain.

Amaryllis are the stars in my garden these days

2011-10-14T08:20:00.000+10:00

After all the fretting and researching the amaryllis have finally come right. Maybe it was just exactly the weather that they like - a fairly cold winter, and then a very dry spring. About half of them have had two flower spikes, so I couldn't be happier....

The torch ginger flower is opening up - it is quite small, but it is my first flower, so hopefully things improve once the rains come too as it is a wet season plant. Probably looking around and saying "I thought this was the wet season in the tropics - anyone got a drink for me?"

My chia have started to flower, and I found this very useful information for anyone interested in growing it. I see you can make a tea from the leaves, so am going to try that. I doubt I am ever going to grow enough to give me enough seeds to eat, but I will make tea from the leaves, and maybe put a few flowers into my salads. I think next dry season I will scatter the seeds around my garden - doesn't the blue look stunning with the yellow cosmos?
http://permaculture.org.au/2009/04/06/chia-crop-potential-and-uses/#comment-202436

I find these begonia flowers quite delightful - I will definitely be looking around for more rex begonias. They have beautiful leaves, seem to like my garden and now these cute flowers as well. My kind of plant for sure.

I still haven't got around to finishing off the path, so that is on the job schedule for this weekend although they say it might rain...

Giveaway - My Memories Suite Scrapbook Software

2011-10-11T07:06:00.000+10:00

I was contacted by My Memories Suite to trial their online memory scrapbook software. One of my fellow bloggers Frugal Down Under had hosted a giveaway and she recommended me - thank you Stephanie! It was fun to download the program and give it a try. In an afternoon I downloaded it and created this little scrapbook:

There are lots and lots of different templates to choose from, embellishments, music, etc. Plus more features that you can buy online all the time. I can see where this could become addicitive, but there is certainly enough in the initial package to keep me busy for the rest of my life. They also keep offering free kits and special offers, which you can unsubscribe to at any time.

I saved these images as jpeg suitable for the web, so they are very reduced - there are lots of different ways to save - on a DVD or in high quality jpeg. You can make scrapbooks, cards, videos - the list is endless.

My hubby recently made a printed photobook for his moms 80th birthday and so I have seen what a great idea they are for special birthdays etc. We used different software for that, but I can see where it would be nice to be able to save the project to a DVD. There are also way more options on this software than the one we used, and I think will be useful for sending overseas where they could print if they wanted to.

I have one free downloadable copy of the software to give away, so it is open to any of my readers worldwide.

In order to enter the giveaway take a look at their website

and tell me what would be the first project you have in mind, and what template you would use.

Actually everyone can win, because they sent me this:

As a special for all of your readers, we give you your very own Share the Memories code that provides a $10 discount off the purchase of the My Memories Suite Scrapbook software and a $10 coupon for the MyMemories.com store - $20 value!)

STMMMS5088

I will use random selector to select a winner on Monday 31th October so get your entries in and good luck!

Desert rose and other flowers

2011-10-07T12:31:00.000+10:00

The desert rose is once again in full flower. This is an amazing plant, it flowers almost continuously.

Look at the detail of the little white cup inside the pink flower

If you have been following my blog for a while you will know that I have been frustrated by my hippeastrums not blooming. Well I think they need the leaves to die down. I chopped the leaves off of these and look what happened - they are sending out buds :)

The passionfruit vine is loaded with flowers and soon the ground will once again be littered every afternoon with the delicious sweet fruit. When you walk by the vine you are surrounded by their sweet scent.

the orchid is enjoying its little sheltered spot. they say they need sunshine, but this one is in a very sheltered spot, so who knows - I think they have a mind of their own.

The rex begonia is flowering - what a lovely plant this is. The foliage is stunning, and from one little slip I now have two brimming pots.

I love this time of year here - the sugar cane is all cut and you can see for miles......... the humidity has not started yet, but it is warm enough to be swimming every afternoon. Then I look around my garden and see beauty in every corner. I feel very blessed and I do think I live in paradise.

I am playing with a surprise gift and will be posting a giveaway next week so watch out for it.

Food forest.

2011-10-05T10:26:00.000+10:00

One of my favorite fruits is figs - I can remember having a huge fig tree outside my bedroom window growing up in South Africa. Now - that dry temperate climate is very, very different to where I live now, about as far away as possible in fact. When I saw fig trees for sale I knew I just had to have one - that little child in me kept saying - how delicious those figs were - don't you remember? I bought the tiny thing and put it into a little blue pot that I also just had to have.... Isn't it just as cute as a button?

A real little fig tree. I hope it survives the heat and humidity and grows up to be a nice big fruit bearing fig tree. In a pot of course - I think I would probably have to find someplace for it to live during our wet season where it is not quite so wet. It is little - just look at it next to my little lime tree. :) But I now have a fig tree. A veritable food forest...of course it would be nice to harvest some fruit, but I am practicing patience.

I did harvest the black beans, shared some with the neighbours, but kept some to plant again. Not now, the wet season is about to begin and the beans would just never dry out I don't think. I find it very difficult to get information of what to grow in what season. Then again the seasons differ from year to year, so sometimes I will just give something a try. Like these black beans which in fact have been quite successful. A couple of months from planting to harvesting :)

This must be the season for capsicums - they are starting to produce lovely little peppers - small but tasty. I planted these a long time ago, but they have only now started to flourish. Along with the eggplant. I must make a note of when they need to be planted in future.

I have planted wet season produce, but not sure when the rains will start. This has been a strange year - quite cool and dry - I even put in some more lettuce seeds, but if it gets hot too quickly now they will just bolt. I have never had much luck with beetroot, but sowed some seeds as well - maybe they will do better in the rainy season. I have sweet potato, loofah, yakon, jicama, ginger and chinese long beans planted - those are my wet season staples. I am already harvesting chinese long beans, capsicums, eggplant and asparagus. The red cherry tomatoes have been fabulous this year and still going strong. Pawpaws are falling off the tree green - not sure what is going on there.
Does anyone else know exactly what and when to plant in their garden?
Do you often buy something just because you like the taste? Even though you are pretty sure they will not do well in your climate? I do like to grow things I will eat :) Are you likely to be more succesful learning to love what you can grow easily in your climate?

My eldest daughter's reaction to my garden

2011-09-29T18:45:00.000+10:00

It was lovely to have my eldest daughter visiting for a couple of weeks, and she wanted to write a guest post - so here it is :)

I was sitting drinking a lovely glass of wine, nibbling on salad fresh out of my mom’s garden and chatting when I noticed that the ground was alive. This was rather disconcerting until I discovered that the movement was hundreds of “frogs” which my mother quickly corrected me were actually toads. I was enthralled by the steady hop, hop, hop –somehow all in sync. The remainder of the evening was spent happily watching the toads move, the sky darken and the flowers fall from the lychee tree.

Here is a cute frog...........

and here is an ugly toad...

As her blog follower’s you may not know my mother’s gardening history. For years and years my mother wanted a garden. And every time she got one and built it up just like she wanted, life got in the way and took it away. I’m not a gardener, but I get plenty of garden based emails and such. It all kind of bored me and I have to admit that I always thought my mom’s gardens weren’t that nice (she is going to be really angry when she reads this…).

But this latest trip, I got to see the garden that she blogs about. And this one really is her masterpiece. Even I liked it, and it takes a lot to impress me with flowers!

I was trying to explain to my mom why I liked this garden and I said that everything is all crammed in there. She was not particularly impressed with my word choice. After a little more explanation, I realized that it was like the rainforest that we had been wandering through. Rainforests aren’t orderly. Tall trees pop up everywhere with an entire ecosystem that you can’t even see. And down below? Well don’t think you will be able to walk through that. Bushes, flowers, vines, mud puddles -everything conspires to fight for survival and the end result is a new surprise everywhere you look.
Admittedly my mom’s garden is slightly more orderly than the rainforest, but it is by far the smallest garden she has worked in. And as she seems to still want the same quantity of plants, she has figured out how to make them all work together in a crazy jumble that is just full of surprises and life.

One example is the wind chimes. You can walk down the length of the house ringing a different wind chime at every step. Or for example the flowers. One day my step father was frustrated with all the flowers that were covering the pathway, chairs and table. He spent the entire day sweeping and hosing. But by evening, the soft blanket of lychee flowers was covering everything again.
Up in the tree tree lychee's were forming.....

One day my mother sent me out to see her pineapple. I searched high and low for it. I came back to report that there was no pineapple. She marched me back out there, dug through a pile of leaves which had decided to bury it and pointed to the funniest little thing (I had no idea pineapples grew like that)!

I know my mom shows you photos of all the things she likes about her garden, but I thought you should see a post about how many wonderful things are in her garden despite her best intentions. That garden is alive with toads, flowers and snakes (She isn’t going to like hearing that either) and somehow it all works together beautifully creating a peaceful space that really feels natural and calming.

Moving furniture around

2011-09-28T10:30:00.000+10:00

I used to love to move the furniture around, but our little unit is so small and everything is just where it has to be, so I had to take the urge outside. :)
After my lovely neighbor gave me a garden chair a couple of months ago I placed it snugly under the tree fern. Nobody sat there, leaves fell all over it, and as the fern got bigger I wondered about where else the chair could go..... (I put up these "bali" flags for my MIL's 80th birthday and quite like them there - they might stay). Back to the point - that chair did look a little less than inviting didn't it?

So.... after giving the ponytail palm a bit of a haircut and moving it over to share its space I found the perfect spot for the chair.

It also means that the small heleconia plant can spread out a bit and be noticed - gosh you cant even see the space that the chair took up...

While I was checking out the chair in its new spot I began to think about the fact that the grass doesn't grow well, and I never really liked the way the path just ended. I call this time sitting in the chair or the swing "contemplative landscaping" and it normally ends with me jumping up to go and fetch some garden tools. Oh what a good idea - the path will now have a logical ending - into the other garden path - why hadn't I thought about that before? Just a few more rocks and pavers and it will be done.

In other garden news I have a torch ginger coming up. They say these flowers are edible, but I have never tasted one - hopefully I get enough that I can try them out - it has taken more than a year to start flowering, and this is my first flower. This is the light pink one - you also get them in red, they look just like a waxy rose.

I moved some of the eggplant out of the side pots into the now vacated tomato grow bag. They are in a coir type of material to stop them getting soil borne virticulum wilt, but I will have to add some sort of fertilizer I am sure.

Slowly our lives are getting back to normal, with time to spend in the garden - that chair and a good book sounds like a great idea.

End of September update all around the garden

2011-09-21T08:38:00.000+10:00

This weekend I got to spend a much needed day in the garden. I put up our little shade cloth over the vegetable garden. It works very well as it shades just part of the garden for part of the day. The asparagus was cut right back and mulched and I intend to start harvesting it soon. Lots of weeds were removed

Paths widened and cleared and the ginger planted. Still more to do, but it is now looking a bit better cared for. I am letting some things go to seed which always looks a bit messy.

My neighbor gifted me with a couple of her volunteer caladiums - doesn't the foliage look stunning next to the rex begonia? I would love to have swathes of caladiums like Meems in Florida, but I don't have the room and they seem hard to find around here.

The anthirium just go on and on - one of the backbones of my garden, and I am so glad that the little purple one is starting to create volunteers as well. My aim is to have more of those as a lower edging to the bigger pink ones.

My favorite at the moment though has to be the amaryllis - more and more bulbs have opened up. I have cut the leaves off some of the others hoping to force them to bloom. they are in a more shaded area and if they don't bloom then I will move them since they have not flowered for two years. That is a long time in my estimation to look at green leaves and no flowers. These ones are such a welcome sight.

So are the orchids! The buds have opened up to reveal a lovely dark center.

It is so good to be back in the garden again.

The veggie garden needs some work!

2011-09-17T21:16:00.000+10:00

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 interspersed with baby cosmos.

Look at my black beans - they sure grew fast, and it looks as though the beans are drying out and ready to be harvested... that sure was a fast crop.

Cherry tomatoes are all over, and I have been harvesting them daily, they are a great fuss free crop for this climate.

I have a baby pineapple too :) (I will post a photo soon) I keep saying I am not going to grow pineapples as they take up so much room, and take so long to bear fruit. (we also have a pineapple farm down the road) Then when I get a new little baby I get so excited and start thinking about where else I can put one of these really large prickly plants - no! not again!

The asparagus with the seeds (is that the female?) really does not seem to bear many shoots, and I am wondering if in fact I should rip it out and get another in its place. Since the fern does not die down here I am also thinking of cutting it right back before the harvesting season starts. I saw a photo of a commercial asparagus farm and they did not have any ferns - just the shoots which would make harvesting easy.

I cut back a bunch of comfrey leaves and have them sitting and dripping their lovely juice into the collection bucket below. Yum I can hear my veggie garden saying..... in the meantime I am pulling weeds and getting it back into more respectable shape.

While I wasn't looking

2011-09-15T08:30:00.000+10:00

Life has taken precedence lately, and the garden has had to muddle on all by itself. Valiantly fighting weeds and struggling "gasp" to find some liquid nourishment. This week we have had a bit of rain, and when I found a few moments I wandered outside to find........Amaryllis buds :) How cool - I had said that if they didn't flower this year they would have to go. I guess they thought they better show some action...

so far one flower set has opened up, but there are lots more buds waiting their turn for the spotlight.

Yes little lovely you were worth the wait.....

Soon this amaryllis and bromeliad bed will have lots of flowers.

One of the amazon lilies is also flowering, and I think once the wet starts we will have more.

I even have some orchid buds! I had no idea what type of orchids they were, but just shoved the whole lot into an old wire waste paper basket and hung it up on the fence. Every now and then I remember to water it, so forgiving - look how it rewards me :) This is what makes having a garden worthwhile.

Even though I have done no gardening for over a month the garden has continued on valiantly on its own. But I am back and ready to take on the world - well the garden at least! Where to start?
The bouganvilla needs a huge trim........... I never realized how much work this would take in order to look good.

I have been blessed with little gifts... seeds from Ros at Missy's garden - a pink flowering plant that I will plant along the back fence. She says it flowers all year long so that will be lovely.

Another gift was from Tracy at Sunny Corner Farm. A fat quarter - I have never had a fat quarter :0 I am looking at different bags you can make with them. Also the softest loveliest dishcloth - I doubt I will use that for my dishes. I wonder what yarn she used?

I also got a whole envelope of different seeds from kebun malay kadazan girl..

How blessed I am - they all arrived at a time when I needed a lift. Thank you!

So I am back and raring to go - weekends hanging out in the garden are in my future again, I can see it :)

Don't you just love free stuff?

2011-08-17T08:52:00.000+10:00

I had been bemoaning the fact that the grocery stores had a very limited choice of dried beans, and then walked into the expensive local health food store and saw their variety! Wow! Black beans, azuki beans - I was in heaven, but at 5.00 for a little bag I didn't think buying those beans would be something I would be doing very often. Then I started thinking about the climate that black beans grew in - well, if they can grow in Mexico - why not here? After making a batch of my yummy black bean and corn soup into the garden went a handful of my health food store beans, and they have all come up!

Now I am not sure if they are growing in the right season, but they sure do look healthy, I am so glad that I saved some seeds back. How exciting - I might be able to grow my own black beans here! then I tried with some azuki beans - same thing, yeah!

Then I started doing a bit of research on chia seeds. Amazingly these little seeds have more omega 3 than salmon. Well I can't grow salmon in my garden (sure wish I could!) but..... maybe I can try some chia? So once again I ventured into the very expensive health food store and picked up an 8.00 bag of chia seeds and a handful have now been broadcast into the area vacated by the radishes. Look at them ... no, I cant see any coming up yet either! Oh well I suppose you win some and you lose some.:)

we had some small trees cut down around the place, and they left us the mulch, there was a bit of green mixed in and I thought it would act as an accelerator, but it seems to have formed a mold which I don't think is a good sign. I wet it down - put the hose right into the middle of the pile so that it got good and wet, and stirred it up a bit. I want to get some coffee grounds to mix in - I would like some seaweed, but there is no seaweed on the beaches at the moment.

Since everything already has a layer of hay mulch I have distributed some over the gardens. I hope that layer of hay is enough to stop the nitrogen draw down that could occur if the mulch was placed directly onto the soil.

This middle bed has very poor soil and I hope that once the rains come it will perk up. We might have to invest in some chook poo or something to give it a boost. I think everyone will complain about the smell.

My poor pawpaw trees keep getting what I have been told is a fungus, so I went ahead and sprayed with milky water to see if that will do any good. The pawpaws are just sitting there big and swollen and green, waiting for it to warm up..... yummy I am looking forward to some nice ripe pawpaw.

I have planted loofah, pigeon pea and jicama from the seeds that I saved, yakon tubers and rosella seeds were procured from friends. The sweet potato that I left in the ground have started to shoot up again, and there is plenty of ginger just waiting to shoot up again as soon as the rains start.

What a wonderful feeling to know that I have completed my wet season planting without buying a single packet of seeds.

Dry season vegetables

2011-08-05T09:23:00.000+10:00

This is supposed to be the best time of the year for growing vegetables, or shall I say for growing the more "normal" type of vegetables. Lettuces, tomatoes, snow peas and bok choy. I interspersed lots of flowers in amongst the veggies thinking that they might attract beneficial insects, but I cant really say that has worked very well. Some things really got so chewed up there was nothing left of them. The bok choy especially.
I see Malay Kadazan harvesting lovely leafy greens that she says have been attacked by caterpillars - gosh mine are down to stalks, no leaf left...... leafy lettuces have been ok though and I have kept up with demand by continual planting every couple of weeks.

Radishes are supposed to be harvested in four weeks, but I am sure it is months since I planted them and now we are slowly seeing a few that are big enough to harvest. Certainly not enough to trade them for chocolate the way Ali at Mud pie did! The daikon next to them have not even started to radish out yet. Could it be because I didn't plant them after the full moon?Successful crops have been the celery, lettuce, onions, parsley and basil. The gemsquash looked as though it was going to produce, but the female flowers never really opened up to be pollinated and so the little immature squash fall off. I tried hand pollinating, but that didn't work either.... so maybe I wont try these again. they looked so cute and promising.....

The tropic tomatoes that I planted in lovely rich compost along the fence line seemed as though they were successful. After all they didn't get the dreaded blight, but the first couple had blossom end rot! Obviously being out of the way like that they must have been watered irregularly. That has been rectified and the next lot look fine - perfect in fact :)

The roma tomatoes grown in the grow bag are not as tasty, and I think that is because the coir has no nutrients, sure I could add chemical fertilizers more often (I added some at the beginning as per advice with the grow bag instruction) but then wouldn't we just be eating chemicals in another form? The wild cherry tomatoes around the place are ok, but not as prolific as in previous years, and the snow peas gave up one flush and then succumbed to heatstroke and caterpillars.

I am saving the seeds of these tropic tomatoes, they are so sweet and juicy.

the herb spiral is filled with lovely nasturtiums and parsley and other goodies that makes our salads extra special

the butterfly bath sits awaiting the return of the butterflies, I have placed a painted rock that I bought from the local art school in the center. Supposedly butterflies like to sit next to the water on a rock sunning themselves. I am excited to be starting a silk painting course there this weekend - I will post my progress on my craft blog.

I have never even tasted kohlrabi, but planted some this year, and not quite sure when they are ready to harvest. I think I will try them roasted in the oven with a little olive oil -that is my favorite way to cook vegetables.

Maybe I have waited too long to pick this one? I think there are a couple that are ready for harvesting.

The passion fruit continually drop their yummy fruit and I just have to go and pick them up - about 10 a day! I have a couple with my yoghurt in the mornings and we give bags and bags away to neighbors and friends.

So as the weather starts to warm up, I have been thinking ahead and planning my wet season garden. I want to try some new things - Yakon and Rosellas, and will also grow the standbys of loofah and asparagus, snake beans, sweet potato, tumeric and ginger. Gosh I even wonder if I have room for a choko vine! All those plants do so well in the hot humid weather, and the bugs don't seem so prolific, even though you would think they would be. I am looking forward to planting and wondering if maybe gardening in the wet season is not so bad after all.

My reds

2011-07-20T20:07:00.000+10:00

Since I showcased the pinks over the weekends I thought I better show you where the red Kalanchoe went.... I did tell you it was red!

I planted them just below the poinsettia which is showing its colors right now as well. Unfortunately the Poinsettia is always plagued by white flies when it starts to color up. I have not had any success with strong water pressure, or garlic chili spray. My hubby got out the fly spray and thought he had eradicated them but even that did not work. After it has finished flowering I will cut it right back, and if the white flies come back the whole plant might have to go. I do love the red color they add for months to this area of the garden though, so if anyone has any ideas, please let me know.

The coleus in this area tends towards the red and yellows, with the new leaves being the most colorful.

The stars in this garden are the crotons, they are pretty slow growing, but I have quite a variety, and with their curly variegated leaves they are a lovely filler plant, and look so good at this time of year.

In the long view you don't really see all the color, but there are more kalanchoe buds about to burst open any day.

My pinks

2011-07-18T09:38:00.000+10:00

Hot pink is the order of the day out in the front yard. With the bouganvilla on the left side of the gate and this bed off to the right, I think it was a good choice to remove the red Kalanchoe to the back.

Definitely sunshine and the drier weather is what brings out the pink in the Cordelines. Look how colorful the new leaves are!

Then the iresine too is definitely happier with this weather. This is spreading all around the base of the bouganvilla.

I love the frilly pink edges of this coleus. I will be rooting some more of this lovely and spreading it around the front of the bed. It is so easy just to cut off a little piece, dip it in rooting hormone and then plant it out. It survives here year round, but becomes more colorful at this time of year.

.Funny that I have been feeling that the garden doesn't have much impact at this time of year, but when you get up close you can really see the color.

A writing blog

2011-07-15T15:46:00.000+10:00

Some bloggers put little tabs on the top of their blog and have sections. well maybe I am not smart enough to figure out how to do that, but I kinda like the idea of having a separate blog for my recipes.
africanaussie-recipes
It is sooo useful to point someone to the blog when they want a recipe of yours. Or to have your whole recipe box available at the touch of a button when you are travelling and someone says could you make milk tart tonight. You always think you know those recipes off my heart, but it is nice just to be able to double check. I have lots of recipes in draft, but only post them once I have tried them and confirmed they are really tried and tested. I don't have photos because for some reason my photos of food never come out looking as tasty as they should.
One thing led to another and pretty soon I had a craft blog.
africanaussiecrafts
I notice that it is not chock a block full of things, (I am getting ready to take a silk painting course so watch this space!) and this became more noticeable to me when I was browsing though the list of goals I had set myself for the year in Google docs. If you haven't used Google docs it is worth looking at... anyway procrastination is one of my downfalls. I noticed on my goals I had written "do more writing". My half yearly comment on that was "no status!" A year ago I was so excited about starting a writing course, - gung ho - I did my assignments each week, then I left on holiday.... the course finished and I had not completed my assignments.
I began to think about this blog, and how much inspiration and support I have got from my readers, and from reading other blogs.
Mmmm I wondered ..... should I put my writing out there for all the world to see? could I do that? should I do that? If nothing else it might egg me on to finish the novel. I also have the other "book " that I have been lugging around now for 13 years (is it really that long since I stepped off the boat?). "Come sail with me" is a compilation of stories, recipes and memories as we sailed around the world. Parts of it were sold as stories to fund the voyage, but it has never been published as a whole. Maybe if I do this I will become a better writer. I have definitely become a better gardener through this blog :)
so.... a new blog, with stories, no photos, just my words.
africanaussie-puttingpentopaper

Color coding flowers

2011-07-12T10:28:00.000+10:00

For a while now I have been waiting for the kalanchoe to bloom. They just love this time of year,and bloom for extended periods throughout the dry season. One of my favorite plants. So easy to propagate too, and I often will break up a big clump and fill in empty areas. without much thought so it seems.....

As I have happily been adding more and more pink tinged plants to the front garden, the kalanchoe has been waiting silently in the background to pounce. Oh dear, that red just does not go with any of the other colors around there. Some of the reds I have out in the front seem to do OK with the pinks, but not that one.
I did take photos, but the light was very bright and quite honestly I didn't want to share as they really clashed..... But they are lovely long flowering plants and they attract .... butterflies:)

so out they came, and have now got a new home in the butterfly garden which in actual fact is turning out to have more reds and yellows. With a bit of blue, and of course green, but no Pink!
I have the flu, so my sense of smell and taste is compromised - is my sense of color gone as well?
The cannas are gone too - they are moved to the swale area, more coming soon on that.
Does anyone else move their plants around as much as I do? Does anyone else make mistakes by not thinking of the colors they are planting and how they will look alongside other colors?

Blogaversary 2 on July 5th

2011-07-04T08:09:00.000+10:00

My first blogaversary occurred when I was visiting my daughters in New York. While it is the 5th here it is the 4th there, July 4th is American Independence day and so I was sitting with millions of others along the banks of the Hudson River watching fireworks. Actually it was only months later that I realized I had missed my blogaversary! To all the Americans out there - Happy July 4th, and may your day be filled with blueberries, strawberries and ice cream, and of course happy time spent with your loved ones.
This is what I started with two years ago.......... a big lychee tree and lots of grass, which I immediately starting working on..

The other side was a nice sunny area for my proposed vegetable patch.

For ideas I had been browsing the web and found these things called blogs. Wow! like an online gardening diary, I thought. If I did something like that I could also follow my gardens progress and anticipate when something would next be flowering, or see how fast something had grown (or how slow).
I thought that since all my newsletters to friends and family around the world were filled with gardening stories and photos, this might relieve some of them of the duty of reading all about my garden if they did not want to. I had got some comments such as "OK I see how your garden is doing, but how about you? Out there in that foreign land". Maybe my newsletters had to get more personal and the garden info had to move to a blog. It was a total learning experience, but Blogger led me through step by step until Africanaussie blogspot was born on July 5th 2009.
Now two years later, I can compare the same area and see the difference side by side.

Then other gardeners started following me, and I started following others, and pretty soon there was this whole little Africanaussie community. It was like having gardening friends popping around for tea every day. What fun!

I wanted to keep my gardening blog separate but thought that a blog might also be a good place to sort my recipes and so my recipe blog was formed....http://africanaussie-recipes.blogspot.com/

Then I made a duvet cover with some fabric I bought in New York with my daughter and instead of just e-mailing her a photo - voila! my craft blog was born.......http://africanaussiecrafts.blogspot.com/

So many visitors to our beautiful part of the world wanted to know what to do once they got here, that I thought, oh gosh! why not a blog to showcase the wonderful area around where we live, and so yet another blog was formed.....http://explorethetropics.blogspot.com/
Then I decided to add an amazon search box.....any time you want to buy something from amazon and you start the search from my blog I will get credit. Any credit is used to send presents to my daughters from their far away mother, and they thank you in advance.

Who would have known how that one little decision to start a blog would have snowballed like this?

This time I want to make sure that I properly thank all my loyal readers. You have added a new dimension to my gardening. You keep me going; to pull up that last weed, or make that nice curvy edge.

I love the compliments, suggestions and advice. When I am in a quandary as to which way to go on something and I put out a question I get suggestions that I wouldn't have thought of on my own. I enjoy reading what other bloggers are doing and have taken suggestions, ideas and advice from all over the world. I have a long list of things I would love to do but really don't have the room. My water feature has to be the inside of a bromeliad.

My permaculture vegetables encroach up into the neighbors tree

So......... a giveaway, but I don't really want to make it a competition, since I would like to to give each one of you a present. My yellow cosmos that attracts so many butterflies is going to seed,

and so if you e-mail your name and address to vemvaan@gmail.com I will send you a packet of seeds in response. Each seed is guaranteed to have been kissed by a butterfly, and I cant wait to see all the butterfly photos that are going to start appearing on everyone's blog.
Unfortunately since we can't send seeds overseas this is only available to my Australian readers, but if you would like the excel template for making these cute little seed packages, just let me know and I can e-mail it to you. You can personalize them with your very own photo and they fold together in a flash. I think they are rather nice don't you?

To all my loyal followers and avid supporters, I would like to send a very big thank you for making my gardening adventure such a joy!

Hay mulch

2011-07-02T07:13:00.001+10:00

You know you live in a rural area when you call up one of the neighboring farms inquiring after some mulch. "Sure I will pop some over this afternoon, I am going past there anyway, and you don't want to get your car all dirty. Pay me when you see me....."
At 5.50/bale this is pretty inexpensive mulch, and the public areas have been really needing some mulch. I did sprinkle some slow release fertilizer around and watered it in well. Those areas have been depleted for so long that I think they need a pick-me-up. I don't use chemical fertilizers in my own garden so it will be interesting to see the difference. I hope that with continual adding of mulch and natural amendments that I will be able to forgo the chemicals.

I like to use a variety of different mulches over time, and while this hay can look a bit untidy until it has broken down, it does add different nutrients to the soil, and does not pull nitrogen from the soil as it decomposes, the way the freshly fallen leaves do. I always have lots of fallen leaves, and often go right through the garden mulching up as many as I can to put into the compost. If the leaves are not broken down they can actually form a barrier that stops water penetrating down into the ground. It is more work to mulch them up and then compost them, but ultimately better for the soil.

We are due to have some major tree trimming on the property and so the mulched up material will be placed in a heap with some seaweed and coffee grounds added to spur decomposition. After a couple of months we should have some good compost for the next layer of mulch. I have not done this type of mulch on the garden here before, but understand that it is better to cure it before placing it on the garden, and adding an accelerator and turning it will speed it up.

Later on in the year the council has a day where homeowners can collect free mulch from the landscaping dump. That often has a lot of coconut fibers and coir in it. Along with my own compost which I add in pockets wherever I feel it is needed, my garden is pretty well fed almost continuously.

That is what nutritionists recommend for us. A variety of different foods, in small quantities.

Permaculture in the tropics

2011-06-30T07:43:00.000+10:00

I believe that the permaculture design makes best use of the space you have and the available raw materials. Here in the tropics we have different raw materials to use, and a lot of it can come from coconut trees. I was fascinated to see this video on the Care2 website.
The video was recorded at the Lung Mee Permaculture Garden in the Surat Thani province in Southern Thailand.
coconut permaculture

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/coconut-garden-permaculture-in-action.html#ixzz1QhZdPEoJ

It is totally amazing what they have done with beach sand and the available raw materials. I am going to see if I can incorporate some of these ideas into my garden. The other day I was collecting coconut husks and used them around the ground orchids to support them. I see that idea is here in the video.
Before the wet season I think I am going to create a swale as there is an area that continuously holds water at the corner of the house. I have been building up the grassy area so that it slopes down away from the house, and now just need to lead the water into an area where I think I will move the cannas as they love wet feet. Has anyone else created a swale? As I understand it you use an area where water naturally collects and then provide a way for it to stay in that area and slowly seep into the surrounding area instead of running off. Soon the wet season will start and I need to have it in place by then.

One hundred percent

2011-06-28T18:48:00.000+10:00

I have been bemoaning the fact that nothing in the vegetable garden seems to be taking off (compared to other bloggers who seem to be harvesting huge leafy greens). I think it might be a bit cool for the tomatoes to ripen, and I am enjoying the rather rare cool weather. Then I was putting together a salad for my lunch and realised it is totally harvested from my garden. 100%.

I have lettuce, spring onion, parsley, cilantro, celery, dill, basil and even some nasturtiums. Who needs tomatoes?

From a dizzy height

2011-06-24T15:23:00.000+10:00

Recently a Florida blogger Meems, who I follow, (and aspire to have a garden like hers) posted some photos she took from the roof of her house. see the link here here It gave an interesting perspective and when the bright sun kept upsetting my photos I climbed the ladder. No! I was not going to climb the roof!

Does anyone else have trouble with bright sunlight and shady spots? I guess the answer is to only take photos in the early morning or late afternoon. In the other direction you can see the lovely curve going around to the back. You can also see how my grass is still not doing well after the bandicoot party.

and in the vegetable garden you can see how I have taken out all the bits of broken rotten wood and replaced the edges with flat stones. I think I am just going to stick with the weed mat on the paths. Right now it looks nice and clean and weed free. I wonder how long it will stay like that?

Since I had taken a photo from way up I decided to also take a photo from way down.....

Harvesting ginger

2011-06-22T07:09:00.000+10:00

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 lot more ginger than others and so the problem of too much ginger simply did not happen too often. I have been letting it sit in the corner minding its own business for now, and the leaves have been going brown and the pretty little flowers have been sprouting everywhere. Anytime I need ginger I go and dig some up, then cut off a little shoot and stick it back in again. It seemed to be working well, although I had been harvesting haphazardly and wasn't sure which ones I had harvested.. I should have had some sort of sequence. We have a very good television show every week and I think my question was answered. If ginger stays too long in the ground it can get very tough and fibrous. So I decided that since the leaves are going brown I better harvest a huge amount and store it in my fridge. I will be keeping a fair amount going in the garden though because heaven forbid I go back to the days of having to buy ginger from the supermarket ever again! I got almost a kilo of lovely fresh clean ginger. This keeps perfectly in the freezer in Ziploc bags. When I need some I just remove a knob and grate it - the skin is so soft it doesn't even need peeling. At 29.95 a kilo that is a pretty good haul.

I re-planted the entire bed in rows, and hope to harvest in a bit more organised way this time, since some of what I dug up had only just been planted. I think I will move from one side to the other once I run out of frozen garlic and have to raid the garden once again.

goodbye forever to paying exorbitant prices for fresh ginger!

Resisting the invasion

2011-06-20T11:45:00.000+10:00

The bandicoots came back! Some old gardeners around the area say that you shouldnt water in the afternoon as this brings the worms to the surface and attracts bandicoots. Well, we have been trying to get the grass pieces that we added to grow, and so we have been watering. One morning it looked as though fifty bandicoots had come in and dug it all up! Bandicoot party! I didnt take photos as I was too sad. they totally ignored the trap that was set to catch them. Too busy dancing around and digging up my grass!
I carefully inspected the back fence and found that behind my archway was the area they had got in. Out came all the messy cats whiskers - dont worry I saved a few and planted them off to to the side, so we will still have the honeyeaters visiting. Wow that really opened it up! This area does look a bit straggly and untidy now, I will have to work on that..

I moved the grow bag there in which I have been growing tomatoes and eggplants, and then added two other grow bags on either side. I have kept a stone walkway all along the edge to make attending to these plants easier.

The good news is that the grow bags are working and I seem to be growing roma tomatoes. That is unheard of in this area. Yeah! :) Eggplant also suffer from this soil borne disease so I hope that does well in the grow bags too. I filled them with compost and potting soil.

Even out the back in the regular soil - (well this area had about a foot of compost added, so not really regular soil) - I am growing a big tomatoes. I believe this one was called tropic, and I got a six pack, and only one has flourished but still.... Traditionally cherry tomatoes are the only tomatoes that grow here.

I also divided up some comfrey so have more comfrey plants- I found last year that the comfrey in the ground died off during the wet season, but I am hoping that the ones in the sunny area will fare better this year. It would be nice to have it year round.

What with dealing with bacterial wilt, and keeping the bandicoots out, sometimes gardening is a bit like walking a tightrope - just as this dragonfly is doing.

Glasswing butterlfy

2011-06-18T20:28:00.000+10:00

Another type of butterfly has been identified in our garden. Not surprisingly its host is the passion fruit vine. We have plenty of food for them - our passionfruit vine climbs high on the plant in the Telstra plot behind us.
My hubby sent me the photo and I did a search for black and white butterflies... nothing,..... then I stumbled upon this and definitely it is right - the wing does look like glass, doesn't it?

Look at this transparency! So delicate.

I think I am getting a bit blaze about my hubby's butterflies because I was really taken with the cosmos bud in this photo....

Here is another one showing just how transparent those wings are.

Don't you find it just amazing that something so fine and delicate can flit around the garden and survive. How awesome is the loving hand that that made this creature.

I am so grateful for my flowers, my butterflies and most of all for you in my life, dear hubby. :)

Citrus

2011-06-17T08:50:00.000+10:00

One of my finds in the big city were a couple of citrus trees marked down to 4.00 each! wow! Of course I had to buy them, and supposedly if kept in pots they will not grow too big. They are called a lime mandarin, so I am sure will be a useful fruit, even if only for marmalade. I am thinking a bit ahead of myself though since they are not healthy looking specimens.

I don't want to add too many things until see how they react to a bit of love and sunshine. Most of us do better with love and sunshine don't we? I have repotted one and then given them both a good drink of seaweed tea mixed with Epsom salts. I will see what that does before I try anything else. The one that I re potted was not particularly root bound which is often a problem with clearance plants. The other problem is often over fertilization, so I find the wait and see attitude sometimes pays off.

I didn't find a plant to fill in the gap in the front bed, so moved a greyvillea that had been right next to the fence. I think it will be happier out in the open and then we can enjoy the sunbirds as they come to drink the nectar.

This bed has kalanchoe behind the wooden edge, and when it starts to flower I think it is going to look lovely. There are lots of buds, and I keep anxiously checking them. When I drive in here after coming home from work all my troubles seem to fall away. I sure do love my garden....

Defining the edges of garden beds

2011-06-15T20:46:00.000+10:00

One of my favourite areas of the garden is where I have created the stone path, but somehow the edges of the garden on the one side always looked messy. I had rhoeo growing there, mainly because that is what I had handy when I started the bed. When we went into town over the weekend I got a couple of pots of variegated mondo grass, and divided them up into many separate little plants, so that I now have a more well defined edge to the bed. I topped up the stones close to the edge, so they look different, but that is just because they are new.

The left side has regular green mondo, but I thought the variegated would be good in the more shady area. I am liking the way this area is filling in. I have lots of ferns there, and have kept my maidenhair in a pot, simply because I cannot believe that what I knew as a very sensitive plant is growing outside in my garden. I have a few other ferns, and am hoping this variegated fern will fill in a bit. There is a another fern that I have thought of as a weed, but now I am propagating it instead of pulling it out! Isn't it funny how you can think differently about a plant in different circumstances?

I try to pick up a lot of the leaves that fall, but ferns love to grow in that type of forest floor matter, and so I just added a little bit more compost around the area. The ground orchids in that area are not flowering - I am not sure if they need more sunshine to flower. They do get just a little filtered light throughout the morning. One surprise is the Persian shield - I have never seen it flower - maybe because I keep cutting it back!

I often sit in the chair for a little rest while I am gardening, and looking out at this fern glade is very relaxing.

Critters on the cosmos

2011-06-14T13:29:00.000+10:00

Over the weekend the veggie garden was just alive with buzzing, swooping and darting. Do those butterflies know that the mosaic butterfly/birdbath is busy curing, waiting to be filled with sparkling water? I hope they like it. I feel as though I have a present waiting - wrapped and ready to be opened and admired, and used. I wonder if this little sweetie thought we couldn't see her - what a match!

The sun was bright, but it didn't keep them away - zinnias and the basil are also flowering, but cosmos seems to be the big draw card. Even ONE in Malaysia has commented on that in her garden.

I was doing the backbreaking work of re-doing the edges of the vegetable beds with stone (more user friendly in the tropics than wood ) Every time I would stretch to relieve my aching back my hubby would say - stay still, don't move..... so I feel I had something to do with these lovely photos, even if it was just staying still. These little cassia are very common in the garden.

The Ulysses were also out in full force, teasing with flashes of blue.

and again....

even the bees were busy.

I guess I don't have to worry about having enough pollinators this year.

Mosiac butterfly bath

2011-06-13T07:55:00.000+10:00

I set out on Saturday with intentions to get the supplies to make a mosaic bath for the small birds and butterflies. I have a big bird bath, but notice that the smaller birds and butterflies are a bit timid to go there. I have some quite aggresive birds called friarbirds that chase them away. There was a homewares shop having a huge sale and I wandered in there and discovered the most amazing array of beautiful mosiac bowls.

They are made for inside and the bottom surface was dull. It reminded me of the pottery from Mexico. The lady said they would have to be sealed to go outside and be filled with water. It was hard to choose, but I thought this looked just right for a garden.
Next stop was the hardware shop where I found a sealer for trerracotta pots. It is suitable for birds and butterflies, so after about four layers I am good to go - It needs to cure for 48 hours before buing filled with water. If anyone is looking for this type of sealer look in the garden ponds section - not the paints section!
For the base I have just rested it into a glazed blue pot - I think I wanted it higher, but then that would be unstable, and my grandson does tentd to rush around the garden when he comes visiting, playing hide and seek, so this might be the best spot. Nestled right into the herb spiral. Alongside some cosmos which the butterflies love. The yellow breasted honeyeaters are always gorging on in the nectar from the passionfruit flowers just above the herb spiral so I am thinking they will pay their new bath a visit. I might have to put a rock or two in so that the butterlfies have a flat space to alight.

I bought another bigger one for my DIL as she has a birthday coming up. I hope she likes it - I know my daughter would, as pink is her favourite colour but she is too far away to post something this heavy.

I am so pleased with my finds.....

Who needs a worm bin?

2011-06-06T10:15:00.000+10:00

I am growing celery! This is quite unusual for this area - we have a little cooler weather lately and that seems to have made all the difference. I laid out some empty eggshells around the veggies. This is supposed to keep the white moths away - they think there is a bigger moth than them there already. I wonder who asked them what they think? anyway I have given it a try - I had some empty eggshells handy. I am not saying it worked - but there dont seem to be as many white moths in the area.

I have talked about how I stir my compost up quite regularly , and then the bottom quarter seems to sit maturing until I need it. Sometimes I pull it out when it is not properly matured, and evidently that is OK in this hot and humid climate as things deteriorate quite quickly here. I make sure not to put it right up close to the stems of plants. I always dig it out of the front, and this week the wheelie bin (that is the cute Australian name for a trash bin) was out on the kerb for pickup, so I dug out of the side. It must have been six months since I dug some out of there, and it was fine, dark and wriggling with worms. Lovely stuff, it looked just like the worm poo everyone else gets out of their worm farms. I make sure that I dig down deep and get all the good stuff out, and then the rest of what is in the bin falls into the hole where the worms can come and work their magic once again. So essentially I have a two tiered system, compost on the top and worm bin underground! a win win situation! Doesn't it look good tucked around the lettuces?

The bandicoots were getting in under the fence so once again that had to be reinforced. As the compost that I had placed there rotted down it gave them an area under the fence to poke their noses in and once their noses get in, they dig until they get through. I placed some pieces of wood against the fence and topped up around the tomatoes with this lovely well rotted down compost. I also added a bit to each row of veggies.

I think my garden is getting a pretty good varied diet of organic amendments, which in turn allows me to feed the family a pretty good varied diet of organic veggies. Lovely circle.

Different butterfly varieties

2011-06-03T15:02:00.000+10:00

Kiasu' is a Chinese Dialect which means the fear of losing, and ONE, a fellow blogger in Malaysia has tempted me to post yet more butterfly photos. Andrea in the Philipines has also joined in. Gosh I wonder how far this Kiasu will go!

I hope everyone is not tired of the butterflies yet....

this is supposed to be a gardening blog, but then again I suppose it is my garden that is attracting them, and my dear hubby that keeps taking gorgeous photos.

This is called the Cassia butterfly or lemon migrant.

This is the called the Union Jack - I have no idea how that name came about because the last time I saw the Union Jack there was no yellow in it. still it is a pretty little thing and quite common in our garden. Their larval food is mistletoe according to information online, but they do hang around the passion fruit a lot.

I really like the Common Eggfly butterfly photo here. See the spider and his web?

and here...

Shame, its wings seem quite battered - I am sure it must be getting ready to lay some more eggs, but not sure which is its host plant.

This and that

2011-06-02T12:27:00.000+10:00

This is a little bit of this and that, so forgive me as I seem to jump from one plant to the other....
firstly my lipstick plant has seeded! I heard that they could be propagated by cuttings and have started some off quite successfully, and then noticed these long dangling strips where the flowers had died off. Well now I noticed they had opened up - I am probably going to have hundreds of tiny lipsticks plants growing up around the hanging basket now.

These cosmos sure attract the butterflies, but I want the zinnia to bloom as well - soon the vegetable garden will be bright with color and that should bring on some pollinators. I am also letting some of the basil flower for the same reason.

The amazon lily flowers intermittently through the year - I still cant figure out when is the "right" season for it to flower.

Celery, bok choy and lettuces are slowly getting a little bigger every day, and I am continually fighting the pests. I thought I would leave the big half chewed bok choy for them and maybe they will leave me the rest?

My snow peas are looking good - we are having some nice cool weather so they should do well this year - you never can tell, sometimes we dont have any cool weather and then the snow peas wont grow.

Of course the thing that the gemsquash doesn't like is humidity. We think it is very dry lately but I do see a touch of powdery mildew already - I better get out that milk spray! I pulled out the butternut that was growing her to make room for the gems, and also because it had lots of powdery mildew and I wanted to give the gems the best chance.

Maybe this will be the year that I grow and harvest gemsquash. Now I am beginning to wonder - is gemsquash really that wonderful? or is it just that we hanker for a taste of our youth?

More cosmos for the butterfly sanctuary

2011-05-30T15:19:00.000+10:00

I just love cosmos, and a couple of years ago I had the pink cosmos. This year I sowed a packet of orange cosmos and it certainly is a great butterfly attractant. I like cosmos in the vegetable garden as it grows so high and feathery, and even though it is a huge plant with lots of flowers, it really isn't taking up much space as the vegetables can grow around the base and still get lots of sunlight. You can see my very healthy zucchini in the background here. I love the dangly bits on this Ulysses - they are the lower part of its wings, which give its species the name swallowtail..

This is another type of butterfly we often see in the garden, called the Common Eggfly. I have yet to find out where they lay their eggs. This is a male and they are evidently very territorial and will chase away other males. They look the same on the underside, but

the female has these same blue spots, but then orange spots in between them, often leading people to believe it is a different species.

These sit still for a little longer than the Ulysses, as they draw out that sweet nectar.

For some reason the butterflies dont hang around much during the weekends, maybe because I am busy rushing around getting chores done and chase them away. Once again my hubby has got some lovely butterfly pictures. They must be relieved that once again the vegetable garden is quiet and peaceful as they flutter around.
When planning the garden I planted what I thought were flowers that would attract birds and butterflies around the bird bath, but that area is mostly occupied by honeyeaters and other birds. The butterflies flit by for a bit of an appetizer, but the vegetable garden has definitely become the butterflies domain lately. I put out a tray of water, but not sure if the butterflies have been drinking from it I heard they needed water and the best thing was to have a shallow bowl of water with rocks for them to stand on. I have been toying with the idea of making a mosaic butterfly bath....

Tropical herbs

2011-05-28T12:31:00.000+10:00

Slowly I have found herbs that grow easily here in the tropics and can be used to replace the more common ones that find this hot humid climate quite tiresome.
I thought oregano would have no trouble growing here, but every time I have bought a little pot from the nursery it has stayed the same size and then eventually wilted and died. then a friend gave me a slip of this;
growing off to the left,( against the fence is the comfrey)

.Now I know it looks nothing like oregano, but it tastes like a little oregano, a little thyme, and my gosh! it grows here! never stops - you have to keep cutting it back :) It is called mother of herbs, or Cuban oregano - I reckon you could also call it tropical bouquet garni, but folks are not that fancy round here! Once that took over the entire back of my herb spiral, and I flattened it out I decided that my other favorite herb could have the front new section.

It is easy to harvest and water because this herb doesn't like to be waterlogged, but does like to have a little drink every day - it is my parsley bed! I discovered some tricks from my old Italian neighbor about growing nice big bunches of parsley. Firstly it doesn't like to be transplanted, so plant the seeds in location- lots of them - because they seem as if they are never going to come up, and you want to be able to choose the healthiest. Once you get enough stalks to harvest, start to hill up the soil around the base, the plant will branch out along its stalk and if it is supported it grows stronger and bigger. sorry! I have only just noticed the weeds - they take over while you are not looking!

On the outside edge I have some spearmint and garlic chives, which also grow like weeds, and the chive flowers attract pollinators.

In the middle section of the herb spiral I have a strange looking plant - it reminds me of a hen and chicken, but my gosh those chickens have a sharp edge.

It is called sawtooth coriander, and even though it looks nothing like coriander it tastes exactly the same! Once you have chopped up those big leaves up into your salsa, nobody would know the difference. This is a bit weedy - I notice it popping up everywhere, but there is nothing I love more than the smell of coriander, and a little water brings the clean fresh smell wafting up to me as I wander through the garden, so it can stay.

The very top section that I thought would be good for rosemary just never worked,and now I have some nasturtiums there - I love to add their flowers to my salads, but alas they don't like the heat at all and will die off as the weather warms up.

The other very interesting herb I have is just locally knwn as mushroom herb. It looks very much like a weed, but when you put a couple of leaves of this into whatever you are cooking you would swear you had added mushrooms to the mix! It certainly doesnt look like mushrooms to me, but it is a very useful herb.

So my herb spiral has been adapted to this climate - grown low and wide now instead of high, and filled with the plants that survive in this climate. Gardening for me is like that - I start off with an idea, and by the end it might not look anything like the original idea, but if it works it is OK by me!
KG I is having a focus on herbs this month so click on the link on my sidebar to see more about growing herbs.

Ulysses butterflies on the yellow cosmos

2011-05-26T12:32:00.000+10:00

I have these cosmos that have taken over in the vegetable garden - they are bright and cheery and
oh my! - they attract my favorite butterflies -
I missed this display - it happened while I was at work so once again the praise goes to my hubby's photographing efforts. ( I told him he needs his own blog!)

all the talk about how they only like red flowers.... this one seems very happy with orange. Look at the proboscis sucking out the nectar - normally it is rolled up in a tight little coil.

Can you find the cross where this ones legs intersect? I wonder who sent us this beauty? Look at the torn wing - I think they lead a hard life.

I think blue and orange go so well together. Don't you?

they flit around so fast that you only get a glimpse of that iridescent blue.

- welcome to my garden you pretty little things.

I wonder if one of these (there were two) is the same one that hatched out of its chrysalis in our garden a couple of weeks ago? I like to think they hang around their "birthplace". Maybe she will go and lay an egg on my special host plant and we can begin the cycle again....

Hubby thinks I should buy him a beer - I think he probably deserves it what do you think?

Curb appeal?

2011-05-25T09:09:00.000+10:00

As the back garden (side garden really) has become our entertainment area and the area where most of my plants are growing, the entrance to the garden has slowly evolved. At first we used the little wooden gate, and I tried to get visitors to wander through the little path I had created. Most visitors would have none of that and would rather squeeze between the post and the car in the carport!
Then the decision was made to permanently close off one of the big double gates, and use the other big gate as the actual entrance into the garden. Having the path visible through the gate did the trick and suddenly I had created curb appeal! This weekend I decided to extend the front bed, therefore leading the eye directly to the gate. Don't you think the two white pots seem to shout - hey come this way?

I think it flows nicely, and I have planted one cordeline, but also needed another plant to fill in the remaining space. Cordelines are just the best plants around here - if you want another plant - you just cut the top off and plonk it into the ground and it will grow. I need to cut off the yellowing leaves, but really wanted to fill in the area for now. I have to now re-train everyone not to walk through this area!

I was thinking of a yesterday today and tomorrow. My mom has a lovely one at her front entrance and I think it creates a welcoming feel, with the sweet smelling flowers. My mom-in-law offered to get me one for mothers day but there were none available. I could also grow another hibiscus as the variegated one is growing nicely. Since the bed is open back and front there is good circulation for the plants which hibiscus seem to like. In the end I just inserted two cuttings and will see how they go - one is very much like an ixora but with fleshier leaves and branches. It doesn't seem to suffer from sooty mold the way ixora does here. That flowers most of the year with lovely red or yellow flowers and is a great butterfly attractant. The other is the Chinese lantern hibiscus - I love how the buds form. In the end I mostly create new plants from what I have already, that creates continuity and the price is right!

This bed has just been an accumulation of plants and now I find I want some sequence to the planting. The foliage is tending towards green and white variegated, with a few Cordelines to break the monotony. Along the front I have kalanchoe and will fill in the areas to make that a bit of a border along the front. They should start to bloom soon and don't mind the full sun. I am finding that I do like to have stretches of the same kind of plant as a border, but different borders for the different beds. This has the little wooden edge and it holds the kalanchoe upright instead of flopping down.

The bougainvillea to the left is growing like mad, and we would like the entire side fence to be covered with it - maybe another bush will be added halfway. This will shade some of the morning sun from hitting the front door. Originally there was a big shade cloth over this area, but I am liking the way it is turning out with vegetation providing the shade instead. That bed is quite messy, and might be the next area I try to organize. Maybe I crammed it originally with too many different types of plants, but now which ones should go and which should stay? I love the way the bleeding heart adds little bright spots of white in amongst the bouganvilla.
Next weekend I think I need to cut back some dead leaves, tidy it all up and give the whole area a good drink of seaweed tea!

The emergence of the Ulysses butterfly at last!

2011-05-17T09:46:00.000+10:00

Yesterday I noticed that the Ulysses chrysalis was turning brown, and I thought either the butterfly was going to emerge or that it had died. It was dark when I got up this morning, grabbed the flashlight and peered into the bush to see ......... the butterfly hanging there alongside the chrysalis! It was way too dark to take photos and I stayed as long as I could before I had to leave for work. Gosh I wanted to stay there so badly.

My hubby had strict instructions to take lots of photos and this is what he took.....

Isn't he a great photographer?

Just look at the detail.

The inside of the wings is a brilliant iridescent blue, but as soon as it opened its wings a gust of wind came and it fell to the ground. Then it took off and flew away - high up into the tree. I hope it is all right - it needs someplace out of the wind to build up its strength.

So my thoughts of you actually getting to see the iridescent blue wings have been dashed.

I will persevere though, and the good thing is that I now know where they lay their eggs.....

Bacterial wilt and growing tomatoes

2011-05-14T17:55:00.000+10:00

A very common problem in the wet tropics is bacterial wilt. This affects any plants in the Solanaceae family, tomatoes, capsicums and eggplant specifically. The almost wild cherry tomatoes seemed more resistant although last year even they did not do well, but that could also be because the dry season was very wet. I think we are overdue for a good dry season so I have planted a lot of vegetables in anticipation.
I started a new bed along the back fence in order to practice crop rotation and also imagined that if I grew them in pure compost, the problem would not occur. Wrong - I bought a six pack of "tropic" which is supposed to be resistant and they all keeled over, along with all the eggplant. There are a few cherry tomatoes that seem to be surviving. Funny though that I have an eggplant that has been growing for over two years in the front garden, and although it doesn't look that healthy it just keeps producing. I wonder if it has generated its own resistance (I have saved some seeds) or if there is no bacterial wilt in the front garden.

While in the big smoke last week I found these gimmicky plastic bag vegetable systems marked down to 5.00 each.

They are filled with a sterile coir and you have to add fertilizer, which was also marked down. There was just enough room for it along the back fence with nothing else going on. Tomatoes are 8/kg right now, so I have a real hankering for them. Gosh, I thought, I better give it a go, but by the time I do harvest tomatoes they will probably be dirt cheap in the shops. So I filled my little plastic bag with water, and the coir puffed right up. Into the holes I mixed some of the fertilizer and the Roma tomato plants, and also a couple of eggplant seedlings that I grew from heirloom seeds.

The remainder of those will go out in the front, amongst the flowers.
Gardening in the tropics is certainly an adventure. Next on my list is a way to find out how to stop the little green grasshoppers. Garlic chili spray seems to have slowed down the tiny green caterpillars that made lace of every green leaf in the vegetable garden, but the grasshoppers seem to like the taste!

Vegetables at last

2011-05-08T19:56:00.000+10:00

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 of zucchini so i have been trying out some recipes - check this one out http://africanaussie-recipes.blogspot.com/

Because of all the bugs around I have been spraying pretty regularly with a chili garlic spray, and that seems to be working quite well. .

The ginger has started to flower and the leaves are turning brown but I am not going to harvest them - I just pick what I need and stick the growing portion back into the ground. Hopefully that works.

Little red flowers peek out of the sides - aren't they pretty?

This is my favourite time of the year - the humidity dies down, and the temperature is very mild, and suddenly we can grow what other people can grow. "normal" vegetables. Up next though is my troubles I have with tomatoes, but that deserves a whole post of its own.

A new rest area in the garden

2011-05-07T17:27:00.000+10:00

My neighbour asked me if I wanted her chair, and I jumped at the chance. we have been trying to hang an old hammock and my hubby spent so long getting it right and then we noticed that the fabric was rotting so gave it up. This is so much nicer than a hammock!
doesnt it just look as though this spot was made for it?

I thought it looked good jsut off to the side of the pathway. There were some ground orchids in that area and I moved them over to the other side of the path - I wanted some more orchids there so it all worked out very well in in the end.

I have scattered my new pots around the area too - the big pot is still empy - not sure what I should put in that one.

So now I have a new tempting spot to sit and rest. I tried it out a few times today and it is very comfy - gives me a new angle to survey the garden.

Bouganvilla - a bunch of thorns, or a bunch of flowers?

2011-05-04T09:27:00.002+10:00

Hubby really likes the rather wild hot pink bouganvilla, and kept asking me to plant one somewhere. This is a very heavy plant and has been known to pull down fences with its weight, so I was not sure I wanted one in my garden.. I stuck one in the corner, and didn't really focus too much on the fact that it has lots and lots of horrible sharp thorns. It also has lots and lots of flowers....

It is sort of out of the way here, and hopefully will climb along the fence, creating lots of welcoming colour and enticing visitors to enter through the gates.

Unfortunately at the moment I think it just looks rather messy. I have tended to just plonk plants here without much thought. Originally I had the strelitzia - which will have orange and purple flowers, then the Chinese lantern - a reddish color, then the bleeding heart vine - white and red. What on earth was I thinking when I added hot pink to the mix? I am really not sure about the bouganvilla, but it seems to have made itself at home now, and is covering the area - what none of the other plants were doing. I guess it is here to stay. I cut it back and wove it around the wires in the hopes that it will train into a draping flowery mass along the fence. Of course I wore gloves because of all the thorns - horrible thorns, so many thorns, gosh do I really need this plant in my life?, in my garden.....then I took a closer look......

Look at that! out of every thorn emerges a tiny bunch of flowers.... so the more thorns, the more flowers, and I do like flowers.... Above every leaf there is a thorn which turns into a beautiful little bunch of flowers....

So once the thorns turn into flowers you have nothing but beauty left - I took some of the branches I had cut off and put them into my vase. I suppose life does comes with thorns, but isn't it marvelous to know that every thorn has the ability to turn into a bunch of flowers?

May Day Basket tradition

2011-05-01T07:32:00.000+10:00

If you lived close by I would be giving a quick knock on your door and leaving one of these on your doorstep.....

To wish you a happy May Day!

I first heard of this tradition when travelling though Mexico on a boat and a group of likeminded women got together and shared the crafts we knew. Linda taught us how to weave baskets and my daughters and I wove our first May baskets and left them full of wild flowers on everyones boats. This time the baskets were crocheted, but I have tried to do this every year.

This is supposed to be an anonymous gift, and where I live it is autumn not spring, but I do wish you all a very happy spring day, and a lifetime filled with flowers!

"You are as welcome as the flowers in May."

- Charles Macklin

Geurilla Gardening

2011-04-29T10:38:00.000+10:00

My neighbour behind me was thinning out some of her spider lilies so I asked if she had any to spare. She has also cleared out a lot of the red gingers that was a backdrop to our garden, and I miss them - I had enjoyed that continuity. It made it seem as though our garden extended on into hers, making ours seem much bigger than it is. I gave her a sexy pink lady and red heleconia in exchange for the spider lilies. Soon we will have that green backdrop again.
We live in a set of units, so there is a communal area that I have been trying to spruce up myself. If our surrounding area is lovely and well cared for then the value of our property is increased, so to me it is a win win situation. I have more garden to play in as well! The path leading to the pool has two rows of palm trees and it is notoriously diffiult to grow anything under palm trees, so I had been thinking I should look out for something that grows like a weed. Well spider lillies fit the bill I think. I cut the tops off, and loosened the soil as deep as I could, althuogh you couldnt really call it soil - not a worm in sight! I hope they are as hardy as they seem.

The area looks a bit tragic now, but as soon as green shoots start appearing it will look nice.

This is another area that had nothing but a golden palm, and about a year ago I started to add a few plants, and now it is looking really lovely. It hides the rubbish bins from view. A bonus is that the red flowers here attract Ulysses butterflies.
I guess this could be called geurilla gardening.

Bleeding heart vine

2011-04-28T07:22:00.000+10:00

I read about this vine on a Florida blog a year or so ago (I think it was Floridagirl) and was excited to see one on the clearance rack, so snapped it up. It suffered badly during our wet season - I could never see the bugs, but something was madly attracted to its leaves. A couple of months back I cut it right back and it began to send out some branches and this time the leaves stayed, and then I was excited to see some little white flowers. Oh pretty, I thought, but in the back of my mind I had thought there was some red involved in the flowers - then I saw little red buds appearing at the base of the flowers.

Then some of the red flowers opened up - how cool is that!

I am so glad I persisted with this vine. It is called a bleeding heart vine.

Apr 27, 2011

2011-04-27T19:19:00.000+10:00

This is a re=post of my garden tour - somehow the original video got deleted! I was a little hasty in my tidying up of excess photos.
Just double-click on the photo and you will be directed to the video. Just ignore if you have already done the tour, but I wanted to keep it as a reference when I do further videos.

Easter break was a time for refreshemnt and renewal

2011-04-26T14:31:00.000+10:00

Coming to the end of a five day weekend (yes I do love the fact we get so many holidays in Australia) we had a brunch out in the garden this morning and I realised just how special it is to live here in the tropics. This is my favourite time of the year when the humidity and temperature drop. We have had a lot of wind and two days ago I mulched up every single leaf and now the back garden is full of fallen leaves again. There is nothing I would rather be doing though than messing about in the garden.
There are deep depressions in the vegetable garden where I cleared away the sugar cane mulch and planted out my little parsley seedlings. I suspect that horrible can toads have gone and sat on the seedlings, wiggling their ugly bums into the earth and squashing the seedlings flat. I am going to have to find a way to get rid of them. the cane toads, not the seedlings!

My Ulysses caterpillar curled himself up against the branch and has now formed its chrysalis. I am counting down the days and will begin to keep an eye on it - thinking it will be about 10 days to 2 weeks.

This is now known as orchid corner. we hung a piece of bamboo across the corner to suspend the orchids from. Hopefully that will give them just that little bit of morning sunshine. It is looking a little untidy at the moment, but as the stephanotis vine fills in I am hoping it will look better. Above the fence is a pink bougainvillea so that area should be quite colourful. Orchids are actually quite untidy plants no matter what you do with them, I find.

My white orchid is looking lovely and seems to like its new home.

I feel renewed and refreshed after my Easter break.

vegetable garden april 2011

2011-04-23T16:02:00.000+10:00

Garden tour april 2011

2011-04-23T13:34:00.000+10:00

Oh, oh oh - new catterpillars!

2011-04-22T13:41:00.000+10:00

By now you probably think I am a caterpillar fanatic and I must admit I do seem to be turning into one.
About two years ago at the local markets I bought this little straggly tree/bush and the lady said that it would host Ulysses butterflies. I have moved it around a few times and it is still a very straggly tree/ bush... but.......
we were sitting on the swing enjoying a avocado sandwich when I suddenly looked at a spot on the straggly tree/bush. Wow! that is exactly what a Ulysses butterfly caterpillar looks like - big smile - I rushed to get the camera.

This one seems to be gathering the leaves together and there is some sort of web on the leaves.

Oh now this plant is paying its way!

Two more Orchard Swallowtail butterflies emerge

2011-04-18T08:38:00.000+10:00

Over the weekend two more butterflies emerged. Now hopefully the lime tree can get back to the job of producing limes instead of hosting catterpillar sleepovers. This was the first to emerge.

There is a lot of black on this one - it is a male. You can see the empty dry crisp chrysalis. In the final days it becomes quite black and I realise it is becoming quite thin and the black you see is actually the butterflies wings.

Arent they the most delicate design on these exquisite creatures? It reminds me of the stippling technique my daughter used to practice in art clases. Intricate tiny dots.

Then this little lady appeared! Isnt she pretty? this is the female - you can see how much white there is on her wings.

They spend quite a few hours hanging onto the branch before they can fly off. They seem to be quite wet too, and need to dry off in the early morning sunlight - they always emerge just before dawn. You can see a little drop of moisture just hanging from her body.

Here is the back of the female, so now I can quite easily tell the difference between the male and the female.

I feel so blessed to be able to witness this miracle of life transforming right in my very own yard.

Tumeric - now in a more accessible place

2011-04-14T11:00:00.000+10:00

During the last wet season I simply forgot about the turmeric, and then when I did venture down the scary forest path I saw that it was leaning drunkenly over and I thought maybe it was planted too shallowly. I added a bit more compost around the base, but realized that might make the rhizomes too wet. This weekend I began to dig around the area and discovered that in fact some of the rhizomes were a little soft and pulpy. I dug out a large bit and am moving that into the "perennial" bed in the vegetable garden. Besides being more convenient to harvest I can also see the wonderful flowers easier. Here you can see what I dug up. Look at all those cool mycellium strands - that means I have good soil :)

I washed off the rhizomes and put some into the fridge. Most people say to dry it and grind into a powder, but because the humidity is so high here I mostly shy away from drying things. In the past I have just kept a piece of the rhizome in the freezer to grate as needed - the same as I do with ginger.
The perennial bed started out with 4 asparagus, but the crown alongside the paw paw died, so I just have a row of three asparagus crowns. Behind it I popped in some galangal which has done well, and next to that, my clump of lemon grass. So now I have added turmeric to my little spice corner. I hope the asparagus doesn't feel as though it is being crowded out. I also have one purple asparagus that grew from seed (out of a pkg of 8 seeds!) I will plant that out and maybe if any other asparagus pop up I could have two rows of asparagus, with the exotic spice section behind it.
I think this weekend I will try and cook a tasty meal using galangal, lemon grass, ginger and turmeric. Maybe Thai chicken soup, although that doesn't use any turmeric. Turmeric has lots of health benefits, and I might try making some turmeric and ginger tea as well. It is good for diabetes, preventing Alzheimer, reducing inflammation - in fact it is the new wonder drug! Growing right in my backyard!

Watching and waiting...

2011-04-12T12:09:00.000+10:00

The weather is cooling down a bit now and the humidity is definitely a bit more bearable. It is lovely out in the garden and since I have been a bit under the weather I have been spending a bit of time just sitting in the swing enjoying the garden. I need to do more of that, I think.
Once the flowers fell off off the lipstick plant it developed these long tendrils - arent they strange? I wonder if they contain some sort of seed?

In other news I broke down and bought a bale of sugar cane mulch. It is much more expensive than the hay mulch I normally get from my farmer neighbour, but he doesnt seem to have any this year. It is quite finely chopped so spreads easily and right away I could tell everything was happy to be bedded down between these billowy clouds of mulch.

I have never grown zuchini before, and it seems quite happy. I am waiting to see which of these pawpaw plants it a female - she will stay and the rest will go. I am hoping they are the red ones, since I planted quite a lot of the red seeds in this area, but pawpaw still come up as weeds everywhere....
I have quite a few seedlings that are slowly getting bigger, nothing seems as quick as I had hoped for though. Cucumbers are forming so they might be our first harvest. Oh! I forgot - I have nibbled on a few green beans and one cherry tomato. What I really want though is the need to buy one of those lovely harvesting baskets so I can stuff it chock a block full of veggies :)

Oh, I am so hoping for a prolific vegetable garden this season.....

Slash and drop

2011-04-08T12:58:00.000+10:00

I got into the garden over the weekend and slashed down the excess branches instead of removing anything. Most of the leaves that fall from the lychee tree are mulched for the compost but some just lie around on the ground in the tropical plant area under the tree. If there were some greens mixed in they would not be robbing too much nitrogen as they decompose. (just my theory). That is what works on the forest floor anyway. I thought it might be a good idea to stand at the end of the stone path which is pretty much the middle of the tropical garden and take a panoramic series of photos for you. This is looking out towards the big gate, with the side fence off to the right. This is facing approximately south.

This could be called palm corner I suppose. Two fan palms are against the fence, with one sago palm in front of the tree fern. There is a franzipani and some amaryllis, that have had trouble flowering and I hope they do better in this area, amazon lilly, ground orchids, persian shield, with bougainvillea and stephanotis climbing over the fence and gate. My favourite plant in this area is the tree fern, and I love how the leaves uncurl from this...

then looking out towards the gazebo - I think I might put a few extra anthiriums in this area - not sure if they need more sunlight in order to flower. The red leaves are the back of the rex begonia leaves, they like this spot, so I could subdivide those as well. It does look a little sparse since I put in the path, and maybe the plants just need a bit more time to adapt and fill in. I am tempted to try some potted violets here since Dianne wrote about them on her post here bat plant and violets - I think one of those bat plants would be stunning here as well. This is the area you look out at from the gazebo so I want to have a few more interesting things going on.

Then behind the tree - if the plants weren't in the way you would be looking out towards the back where the butterfly garden and then the vegetable garden is. These red gingers are the sort of backbone to the garden - always in flower. The African mask in the foreground does need to keep being cut back, and you can only see it once you go down this path, but I like to keep some surprises for people that venture into the garden. Right in the very front of the photo is this ginger that doesn't seem to have flowers but the underside of the leaves is red, and so it always supplies flashes of colour which is nice.

Then straight towards the back fence - if you look carefully you can just see the back of the big heleconia. The fence is the end of our property and the stone path provides access to the back of these plants. (you can get there from the other path) As you can see I have used similar plants to my neighbour and this creates the illusion that I have a garden that goes on forever - clever hey?

then we are back to the wooden fence again - right in the back corner is the very tall sexy pink lady which goes right up into the lychee tree. Off to the left is a plant with burgundy leaves that I inherited in a pot which it had overgrown, and am hoping it will eventually climb the whole fence - it is lovely when the light shines through from behind and casts a red glow.

So there you have it - a 360 degree tour of my small tropical garden, but I think it packs a punch. I am glad I cut things back - it makes it easier to control what is growing too wild, and also I am hoping for more flowers once more light gets in.

Heleconia opens up more

2011-04-07T15:14:00.000+10:00

I think this heleconia deserves a post of its very own - it has opened up even more now - you still have to go into the "scary, deep forest," as my grandson calls it.

I first noticed this starting to colour up on the 21st March, so it has taken about three weeks to open up this much. I am always tempted to cut my big flowers that you don't see easily, but I like the idea of having to work a bit harder to access this one. We have some friends visiting from England this weekend - I wonder if they will venture down the scary deep forest path to see it?

Colour co-ordinated butterfly

2011-04-01T13:46:00.000+10:00

Can butterflies see colour? How on earth did this butterfly know that he would match this bucket so perfectly? It is full of some compost I dragged out the bottom of my composter - there must be some good stuff in there.....or maybe this was a modelling opportunity he couldnt miss?
I was hoping for some dry weather this weekend, but it looks like more rain is on the way.
Never mind, I dont have much time for gardening. We are hoping to have a family brunch out in the garden on sunday so still holding thumbs for good weather for that.

My hubby took the photos while I was at work, so I missed seeing him.
(Hubby is a good photographer isnt he?)

this is aptly named the blue triangle butterfly.

I wish you a butterfly filled sunny weekend!

Large Heleconias

2011-03-30T11:18:00.001+10:00

The sexy pink lady has been blooming - right in the back corner, and high up so nobody could really get to enjoy it.

I cut it down and put it inside in a vase - luckily I have this wonderful vase big enough to accommodate such a large flower.

a week or so ago I noticed that the other large heleconia is also blooming - there was just a bit of red peeking out between the leaves.

Now it is beginning to unfurl - I always think the flowers that take so long to open seem to last the longest, so I am curbing my impatience.

It is a fairly large plant, but hopefully I can curtail its growth enough to have a few flowers yet not allow it to overtake the whole garden. I have already transplanted a few cuttings out into the central island where there is more room for it to grow and spread.

I am linking this post to Noels hot loud and proud meme - check out more hot loud and proud tropical plants and flowers here hot

Ground orchids are a staple in my garden

2011-03-28T10:00:00.058+10:00

I just love my ground orchids, and have three different colours. this is the most common one

Then the white one is less common, and I love the way it brightens up the area right under the base of the tree. They grow mostly in the leaf litter, and are so easy to subdivide when they get bushy - you just gently pull apart one of the tiny bulbs and re-locate it into another area. I am so lucky to have these as staples in my garden.

Then further up right where the new path turns towards the fence is the other colour - a much deeper purple - they have not flowered for a while since I was laying the path and moved them a bit. . Lots of new little shoots starting up though, so I don't think it will be long until they flower as well. They are in fairly deep shade on the other side of the tree in this photo. I see some on the Florida gardeners blogs which have a few different colours - I will have to look out and see if they are available here in Australia.
You can also see how we now have the stony access path around the corner to the back - I couldn't get the exact same stone, but think it blends in OK. I seem to be nipping around to check on the veggie plot a lot lately. In my dreams the whole garden is overflowing with bountiful produce and I am always surprised when I turn the corner and find spindly seedlings. I have great faith in my veggie garden this year though.

Yes that is right - you saw a hammock, and my little grandson climbed right inside. Not sure if it is going to stay in that area, or what we will suspend it on. Here it is attached to the tree on one side and fence post on the other. The fence post is not strong enough to support an adult, so maybe it will just be a play swing for the grand kids.

I am just loving the back garden at the moment - so nice that the flooding rains have stopped, and because of all the shade it is really pleasant working out there.

The tropics is not for sissies.

2011-03-24T14:38:00.000+10:00

My little seedlings had all shot up overnight and when the sun came out over the weekend I thought they might enjoy it, but they all flopped over like skinny 18th century ladies in a faint. Well, they need to toughen up a bit to survive the tropics. The tropics is not for sissies. Anyway I put up the shade cloth that will give the little seedlings a bit of shade during the day.

My hubby spent hours cleaning out my potting table area, and we cut down an old picnic table to add a shelf underneath it. It looks nice and tidy now, I will have to try and keep it that way.

I heard that with a long big wet season such as we are just coming out of, that the insect population explodes. Well they are not wrong about that. Every lettuce seedling is now just a few little stalks! I suspect grasshoppers, so am going to brew up a batch of chili garlic spray, because this year I am going to grow lots of vegetables, come hell or high water.

I wonder what beneficial insects I can attract? I looked up dragonflies and discovered that they eat mosquitoes - yeah! I have seen lots of dragonflies around, and our mosquito problem has definitely eased. I thought it was the stones I laid in the wet areas, which I am sure has helped somewhat. I have planted marigold, calendula, nasturtium and cosmos seeds, so there should be some colour mixed in with the veggies.

Now after months and months of rain we have not had any rain for 6 days - sometimes a bit of a sprinkle overnight I think, but not enough to have to empty the rain guage. Now I cant wait to be harvesting vegetables.

Pathways

2011-03-23T10:56:00.000+10:00

Just recently I posted about an area that I thought was getting too full.
This is the pathway leading to that area, and I do think I need to thin it down a bit, but which plants do I get rid of? It is so hard.

The little ground orchids multiply fast and so I have been subdividing them and scattering them all over to add greenery and colour. This bud is just starting....

then once they open the flowers stay around for ages

With all the rain we have realised that walking on the grass continually when it is wet and muddy does not do the grass any good, so I have removed the end of the bomeliad bed and am filling it in with stones so that we can avoid walking on the grass.

Hopefully that will give the grass a chance to recover. I didnt really want to make a path through the grass and this idea looks as though it will work.

The sunshine brings out the flowers

2011-03-22T08:39:00.000+10:00

My wonderful hubby gave me a huge hand tuned wind chime for my birthday, and the sun shone all day so I was a very happy camper working out in the garden with the gentle sounds of the chimes ringing in my ears every time a gentle breeze wafted by. Oh heaven!

The sunshine has brought out all the flowers :) I knew that would happen - sunshine does marvellous things. I never even knew this plant flowered - I have had it for years, in quite a few places, and mostly at the back so never really peer in between the branches.

Isn't it lovely against the background of its striped leaf?

so many tropical flowers are like this, a bunch of succulent little bulbs that the flowers peep out of.

The crepe paper costus is similar- it will soon stop flowering as we enter our dry season

and then this little beauty carries on throughout the year - tiny flowers, but oh so pretty with the variegated foliage

and the stephanotis are opening up - aren't they so pretty? - but they don't have a scent - I thought they would :(

Isn't it amazing what a bit of sunshine will do?

Guest post - the other brother

2011-03-21T07:25:00.000+10:00

For my birthday my older brother sent me this photo (and gave me permission to post it on my blog) . It is a malachite kingfisher. Isnt that colouring just amazing? He is a very talented photographer - maybe it will rub off on me some day.....

I feel a bit responsible for his marvellous talent - I gave him his very first digital camera!

Are there too many plants in my small garden?

2011-03-20T19:37:00.000+10:00

I was sitting on the swing this weekend with my hubby sharing our morning cuppa and revelling in the fact that there has been no rain for two days. "I think this area is geting too full - That big heleconia has to go"

"What? I .....love feeling like I live in a forest, dont change anything..."

A lot of our conversations go like that..... - a gardener knows things do well after a big cut back, but maybe nongardeners dont have that confidence. .but this area has got a bit overgrown and when I bought that big plant I really wasnt thinking how small our garden is..... so I thought I would take a little wander down the back garden path.
and saw.....a bud. a beautiful big red bud!

Quickly I ran in to get the camera. "You know that plant I was going to rip out? well its flowering. My hubby just smiled - he knows that once a plant flowers it has wedged a plance in my heart (and my garden) forever.

Right in the back corner I have another sexy pink lady that was going over the neighbours fence, so I yanked it over more into ours, but it is quite high up. as the flowers open up it drops down lower in a zig zag fashion.

so I guess I will be wandering down that overgown back path with camera in hand a little more often....

Gardeners Sustainable Living Project

2011-03-18T13:49:00.000+10:00

I mentioned that next Saturday is earth day and that we should turn off the electricity for an hour..... mmmm - maybe just the lights? Not the TV surely :) that doesn't use much power.....

So how sustainable is my lifestyle really?

I wouldn't consider myself a "greenie" as they are called here in Australia, but the more I garden the more green I become. As I watched five caterpillars eat half of the leaves on my lime tree I thought about the butterflies that this would produce. If I was greener I would probably have left every Caterpillar I ever saw, but I do recognise the orchard swallowtail caterpillar and so they got to stay (just five of them mind you, I would like some limes in my future). When you have seen a butterfly emerging out of its chrysalis something changes deep within you:

We compost everything we can and I so enjoy digging that black gold into the earth and finding my soil wriggling with earthworms. Since we live in the tropics and everything breaks down so quickly here I add the compost to the soil when it is not completely broken down. The final stage of composting seems to be the earthworms doing their bit, so they might as well do it in the garden as far as I am concerned. This means I have a quick turnaround in the compost bins. (about 2 months) Here I was emptying a full bin of compost into my new tomato bed just before the wet season started- I planted the tomatoes about 4 months later.

Note:
I do turn my compost a couple of times a week so it gets quite hot and composts quickly. As the bin gets full I will drag some out from the very bottom where I cant quite reach down to mix it. At this stage it mostly looks like compost with a few "undigested leaves or eggshells remaining, so this gets placed into the garden somewhere. I don't dig it in - the earthworms do that. I don't put it directly where something is growing - preferably where I am getting ready to plant something in the next couple of weeks, and by that time it has normally been incorporated into the surrounding soil, and I just brush away any large pieces before planting.
I also bury all the prawns shells (we eat a lot of prawns !) and after just a few weeks if I dig down in that same area there is nothing left, so it decomposes rather quickly. If nothing else I am keeping them out of the landfill! I also grow comfrey and collect seaweed and you know what that means? - I don't have to buy any fertilizers as I am providing them all myself. Yippee! Here I am making some comfrey fertilizer by compressing the leaves and catching the juice in a bucket.

We do have a very small bit of a garden, but the amount of lawn compared to the rest is very very minimal - and this makes me happy. I know this makes my garden more productive and it is giving back rather than taking from the atmosphere. Every year I grow more and more vegetables, hoping to be able to have produce from my garden year round. Some of the tropical vegetables I have tried and wont try again, but I have developed a few favourites. One of the permaculture principles I really use is growing upwards - behind us there is a Telstra yard and the happy plant on their side of the fence is fifty foot high - so my passion fruit and loofah have forty feet of height to climb!

If anything can grow up I let it, rather than scramble around taking up precious ground space.

The back corner where I grow my sweet potato scrambles over the fence, and now as the season changes I am planting butternut there - might as well get into guerrilla gardening as well!
A lot of these phrases I would have not known before I started blogging, I have learned so much about how I can improve my little corner of the world. I have become more sensitive to what gets thrown into the bin - my hubby often says that our rubbish bin is hardly worth wheeling to the kerb these days. That makes me happy. I want to know that if I can possible make a difference by doing these little things day by day that I am doing my bit. Recycle, re-use, reduce. Earth day is good advertising to make us aware of the things we need to do for the environment, but in reality it is what we do in our day to day lives that really makes a difference.
I want my grandchildren to be able to go and explore the rain forest and breathe in that fresh pure air just as we do.

I am entering this post at " thanks for today"'s competition,
http://thanksfor2day.blogspot.com/2011/03/gardeners-sustainable-living-2011-win.html
thank you Jan for the opportunity. Hopefully we can all pick up some extra tips from the entries submitted.

Since I live in Australia I wont win the big prize, (boo hoo - I would love that rain barrel), but who knows, I might just win a book or something they will be willing to ship all this way. Why don't you check out all the other wonderful ideas, or enter yourself, and remember to turn off the lights at 8.30 on Saturday March 26th.
Happy Earth Day!

Stephanotis

2011-03-16T08:42:00.000+10:00

Years ago at the sunday markets I bought this vine - stephanotis - she said it was called - it has lovely white very fragrant flowers - the type that florists use in bridal bouquets. Well, I planted it and forgot about it - firstly it just grew one long stem, which wouldnt twine around any supports I provided and kept flopping down. Eventenually I nipped off the growing end and it began to put out a few branches. Not too many mind you, and since it was in the corner out of the way I really just stopped thinking about it much. It has been a couple of years, and then then, during all this rain I noticed a few buds - yeah. :) I guess maybe I need to be more aware of some of these plants that seem to require a lot of water.

Originally I thought I would start this post and track the progress as the beautiful flowers opened up and even have a scratch and sniff ( :) ) since they supposedly smell so amazing.

for a week now the buds have looked exactly the same - maybe they dont open up - oh no!

I think they need sunshine!

Dont we all?

Hoping for some today - there have been glimpses of blue sky!

This and that and the sunshine....

2011-03-14T11:09:00.000+10:00

"You are my sunshine,.......... you are my sunshine" has been playing through my head this weekend. We have been having a few days where the sun is shining during the day although it still rains at night. The garden is loving it, and look! a butterfly hatched! I only found out after the fact, so didn't see it emerging, but there are three empty chrysalis cases. One has still not hatched, so hope I can catch that one in the act.

It is weird that this one has so much white on the wings - maybe this is a female and the other one might have been a male? http://africanaussie.blogspot.com/search/label/orchard%20swallowtail%20butterfly

I saw an image like this labelled a female on wikipedia.

In other news around the garden:
The cats whiskers are always lovely, and I thought this one looking at its own reflection in the birdbath as a few petals dropped off was rather a nice image.

The beehive ginger flower has collapsed under the weight of all the water embedded in the petals. They do die down when the big rains stop - could this be a forecast?

This little fern has taken off under the base of the tree, I wonder if it too will die down now.

Grounds orchids are so reliable, this is the most common colour in my garden, then I also have a very pale one, almost white, and a darker one which has not flowered for awhile, maybe a bit of sun will change that..

I am so happy that this little anthirium has taken off again - I subdivided it and gave it a bit more room, and it seems grateful for that.

I got this plant at a plant swap and now cant remember much about it - does anyone know what it could be? The stem is forming a bit of a swollen base and originally I thought it needed to stay dry as it was planted in sand, but it seems to like the wet shade...... and has recently taken off since I re-potted it into regular potting soil.

Herb spiral opened up and flattened out.

2011-03-10T15:49:00.000+10:00

One of the major reasons for starting the herb spiral - growing rosemary - was a huge flop! I now have some little cuttings in a pot. Rosemary is clearly not happy in a hot and humid climate. The arch over the top for passion fruit to clamber over provided too much shade and the ground in the herb spiral never dried out. Firstly the arch was tidied up - old dead branches of the vines were removed and tied back to allow some sunlight in. The mandevilla lies over the arch too, with its very heavy branches, so it all got a good cutting back (what I could reach that is - it is aiming for the sky!).

I removed the Ceylon spinach - I still don't call it edible! I would rather make room for something I am going to eat. One thing we eat a ton of is parsley and so I removed the top layer of rocks out of the herb spiral and extended a parsley bed out to the side. This has made it flatter and wider, and also will allow more light.

Most herbs do not do well in this climate so I really have to think hard about what I am planting. Cuban oregano, or mother of herbs can stay, and in fact have the one whole side of the spiral as it likes the shadier side. I scattered shallots in the very front of the low curve and then filled the rest with parsley seeds. I know they both take a long time to come up so I will try not to get impatient. I want to get some sawtooth (tropical) coriander, and will also scatter some dill seeds, which does OK. I got some thyme on the clearance rack, and the stevia is still struggling along. Even the spearmint and regular mint have complained but maybe with cutting back they will take off again. So think that is it for the herbs unless I hear of some wonderful herb I really need to try. The lemonbalm was lovely but died off so have put some seeds into the same pot, along with a bit of extra potting soil. I do grow lots of basil but have it scattered around amongst the other plants in full sun as I have the idea that it might help with pests.

So the herbs I am growing this year are as follows:

In pots... Rosemary, lemon balm, mint,

lower level...... shallots, parsley,

mid level..........spearmint, peppermint, wild basil, stevia, cuban oregano

top level...........sage

Vegetable garden makeover

2011-03-08T15:16:00.000+10:00

After a shopping trip on Saturday I was anxious to get out into the vegetable garden. I had purchased some seedlings and soil amendments and seed starter mix. This is the first time I have used seed starter mix, but I often have trouble with damping off. I think it might be worse in this hot humid climate, so want to do all I can to prevent it, and losing all my precious little seedlings. I will water them with chamomile and seaweed tea as this is also recommended. So in the interests of full disclosure (so I cannot just remove the evidence if my seedlings die) the seeds I planted were Zucchini, spaghetti squash, parsley, tomato tropic, lettuce, Chinese broccoli.

Then I went out to the vegetable patch - looks different now doesn't it?

The first thing I did was remove the pigeon pea plants - I suspect they should not be kept in the garden for another season. They were originally planted as a green manure crop, and then I thought they could stay as supports for climbing cucumbers and loofahs, but lately have been infested with stink bugs which is sign they were not in optimum health. Praying mantis seem to enjoy eating the remaining stinkbugs. The loofahs were picked still green and I am looking for a dry place to put them - not so easy as it is still raining every day. I am not putting up the shade cloth as I think the soil needs all the sunshine it can get to dry out between showers. Then I cut back the asparagus - they have been mulched with seaweed, but will get a new layer soon.
Talking of mulch I looked at the sugar cane mulch and balked at 13.00 a bale. I see all the chemicals that most farmers spray on their sugar cane and really don't want to have that in my garden. I often get organic hay from a neighbour but he hasn't cut any yet because it is all too wet. So what to do? I trimmed back my lemongrass and snipped that into smaller pieces, I still think it does act as a natural insecticide, but have no proof, just a hunch, then I mixed in some shredded leaves. . . that will be the mulch around my vegetables for now.
The sweet potatoes in the back section are still quite weedy and the potatoes I have bandicooted have been quite small so they will stay for now.

When harvested that area will grow squash, I wanted to grow butternut, but just had spaghetti squash seeds. I am hoping that area will be big enough for squash, but they can clamber over the fence. I also have to put the zucchini somewhere, so know that I will run out of room. Down the side fence the long Chinese green beans are a bit slow - maybe too much rain and not enough sunshine. In front of them I planted two eggplant. There have been no solanacea in that bed for two years. The ginger is starting to flower, so think I will harvest most of it and see if I can get some to winter over. I cant see why it cannot be a perennial in this climate.

Then the big bed with the pigeon peas removed was a blank slate. I kept the basil, paw paw and a jalapeno chili, and then spread out some capsicum, cucumbers (at the back so that I can erect something for them to climb.. ) a few more eggplant, and silver beet. I have amaranth popping up, but had no success with the mixed green seeds I got from green harvest. Maybe they are designed for a different climate. There is room in the front to add the lettuce and other seedlings when they need to be transplanted.
During the week I had been reading "Carrots love tomatoes" and surprisingly she recommends growing tomatoes alongside asparagus. So I got some marmande tomatoes and am holding thumbs. I also put two along the back fence with the cherry tomatoes. We suffer from bacterial wilt here and I am hoping the soil is so super rich now that it has been eradicated. I practice crop rotation, and the center bed is where I grew the tomatoes last year. The cherry tomatoes don't suffer from it.

For another option I did plant a few greens into a pot next to the back door - if this rain doesn't ever stop at least I can move these out of the rain.

So I think that is all I can do for now, other than pray that the rain moderates somewhat.

There are big changes to the herb spiral too, but that deserves a post all of its own.

My favourite bird on my favourite flower - how good is that!

2011-03-07T10:24:00.000+10:00

This weekend was a very busy one, and as I hurried past the lipstick plant I could feel something watching me. The little yellow honeyeater was busy sucking nectar and clearly did not want to be disturbed. He was not moving though, and I hurried to get the camera, to find him still there - hopping from branch to branch sucking up what must have been delicious nectar. Here is his head right inside the flower

Looking around to see if I am still there,

Are you still there? he seems to say, and assessing the situation, decides I am not a threat.

Lovely yellow tummy and bright blue on the throat.

Just need to get some more of this....

then he posed quietly - thinking he would be invisible......

The iridescent blue needs a flash of sunlight to show its true beauty.

what a lovely find - and thank you dear little bird for posing for the camera :)

I think this is the olive backed honeyeater - the male has the iridescent front bib, whereas the female is plain yellow. They are quite common in my garden and we enjoy seeing them have a bath in the birdbath every evening. They make a sweet little chattering noise. We have even had a couple of nests outside the windows. The dusky honeyeater is more common, and less shy- they don't have the brilliant front section.

Comfrey - the wonder plant! and other fertilizer ideas

2011-03-04T10:15:00.000+10:00

Only the comfrey in the pot survived this very wet season that we are just coming out of! This weekend I will be propogating some more plants from root division. I hope they will be soon be flourishing and providing me with free fertilizer. I had propogated these plants and they were growing quite happily against the fence. I am not sure why they didnt survive and dont even seem to be re-shooting - they were quite shaded and also very wet - two things they seem not to like. I do want to grow them in this area though.... I might cut back the vines growing over the arch above and give them another go in this area. I might also re-think the front of the vegetable garden and remove a row of grass and grow a row of comfrey there - full sun - it might be the perfect spot.....
Can one have too much comfrey?

Here is the lone pot, tucked under the pawpaw tree.

I was in my mind thinking that seaweed tea and comfrey juice were pretty much the same.
No so, seaweed tea is more of a hormonal tonic, but comfrey is the real thing;

I dont really know who to give credit for this information. I first saw it when Glen from KGI published it.You can find the link to KGI in my side bar. In fact it was through his posts that I first became interested in comfrey.
Comparative Nutritional Analysis of comfrey, compost and manure

Material           1. Water%    2. Nitrogen (N) % 3. Phosphorus (P) % 4. Potash (K) % 5. Carbon-Nitrogen Ratio

Manure                76.0               0.64                       0.23                   0.32                          14 - 1
Comfrey               75.0               0.74                     0.24                   1.19                          9.8 - 1
Compost             76.0                 0.50                     0.27                  0.81                            10 - 1

It seems that completes the cirle - seaweed tea for the tonic, comfrey for an instant hit and compost for the body of the nutrition.   I am continually adding compost as soon as it is "done".
I also normally at this time of the year get a product called 5 in one. these are the details form their website about this product

" Searles 5 in 1® Plus is a brilliant organic plant food containing Cow, Fowl and Sheep Manures, Mushroom Compost, Zeolite, Blood & Bone, hoof and horn plus added Trace Elements and Minerals. Mix one part Searles 5 in 1® Plus to three parts existing soil to enrich the soil and provide long term organic nutrients to plants. Flowers and vegetables respond extremely well to this product.
Because Searles 5 in 1® Plus is in an organic form, when organic fertilisers are subsequently applied, the existing humus and organic material store the new nutrients resulting in a 'slow release' effect. Chemcial fertilisers have a tendency to leach away very quickly."
Hopefully this will cover all bases.
what do you add to your soil?