Africanaussie

I have been MIA for a while now, a lot has been happening.  I suddenly found myself unemployed because of the company downsizing.  I am 18 month off of official retirement age, so am taking things slowly as I look for some part time work.   The first thing I did was to go overseas and spend a month with each of my daughters, one in Europe and one in the US.  Dear hubby stayed home and held down the fort.  He did a wonderful job and when I arrived home I found a bumper crop of carrots in the veggie patch just waiting to be harvested.  they are called red cored chantenay, and I will definitely grow them again - I love the short stubby shape.  Considering I have just been in France, the name also sounds a little exotic!  My veggie patch did really well, with flowers intermingled with the veggies.  The only pests are the little green grasshoppers.  Surprisingly my kale did very well, and i am still enjoying it, even though the weath...

There is lots of color out in the veggie patch.  The pigeon pea are flowering - they start off red and then open up to yellow. Aren't they pretty close up? These have taken a while to form beans, but in the meantime they have acted as a support for the winged beans, and of course they are nitrogen fixing plants, so are continually harnessing and trapping nitrogen for the other plants to use.  You can see a fuzzy bean just beginning to form.  I have not been so keen on the taste so use them mainly for amending the soil. The cucumbers are also twirling up into this bush - it seems to be a great year for cucumbers.  The flesh of the cucumbers is green and they are soooo crunchy.  My little two year old grand daughter loves them - it made my heart soar to pick a cucumber and then watch her eat the whole thing - not wanting to share! I planted a few more seeds a couple of weeks ago as the lower part of the vines is already dying...

I received an e-mail from Mr Fothergills  asking how my seeds were faring.  So I guess it is time for an update. I was hoping to have huge flourishing leafy plants to show, but the weather has been a bit strange this year. These are the seeds I originally received: Climbing snow pea - climbing up the back fence and looking quite healthy - I have successive sown some more seeds about a week ago. Basil seed mat  - doing really well in my herb spiral. Carrot seed tape - I have put these tapes in different areas - alongside the harlequin carrots, and between the tomatoes as they are good companion plants. They look very neat in their evenly spaced rows and are very easy to plant - great for children. Carrot Harlequin - these look very robust and are doing very well - I keep assigning more space to them - in fact all the seeds are now planted out! Parsnip Gladiator - sent to Sunny corner farm Radish beauty heart - I need to figure...

I first heard about moon planting from my 90 year old neighbor when I came to Australia 7 years ago.  He was our landlord and grew the most amazing vegetables.  He also sprayed chemicals to kill the bugs, so I did not agree with everything he was doing.  I put the moon planting in the back of my mind as mumbo jumbo.   Moon planting always seems to be portrayed with illustrations that quite frankly made me feel a bit uncomfortable.  Then I began to research the subject a little more, and it all seems so logical - not mumbo jumbo at all! The moon has tremendous pull on the earth - it is the moons force that pulls the mass of oceans back and forth creating the tides. In order to get to understand the whole subject I had to put it into simple terms, and for some people this might be simplifying it too much, but bear with me.  While the moon is waxing (getting bigger) the force pulls plants that grow ...

Well, how about that!  Despite all this rain and muggy weather the carrots have come up - wow!  they are forming little feathery bits already!  Now one of  my problems is that I HATE to thin plants out so I am going to wait a while.  I have heard that it is OK just to cut the tops of the excess ones off with a pair of sharp scissors as this disturbs the roots of the remaining plants the least. Pumpkin vines have been showing up everywhere and this one has muscled its way in.   I decided it could stay - part of the permaculture design is to grow up over a trellis in order to make the best use of the available space, and this vine is creeping up over the line of pigeon peas.  I think it must be a jap pumpkin, as that is the more common in this area, and I am sure there were plenty of jap seeds in the compost. I tried sowing some more amaranth seed, and this does look healthier than the last batch.  Funny that the last lot in t...

I am slowly realising that the wet season in the tropics is a totally different season to anywhere else. I joined the Yates challenge and planted some bean seeds, but not one came up. Regular vegetable just do not do well here. I got my free packet of carrot seeds in the mail this week and will give them a try. I haven't tried them before but who knows, they might like all the rain. My gem squash was doing quite well, and then it seemed to take on a new lease of life and start running rampant in the vegetable garden - oh no!  wait a minute! this is a different vine and the gem squash has totally died off again.  Succumbed to powdery mildew yet again! I think this is a jap pumpkin vine.  Instead of the beans against the fence I have planted long tropical snake beans, jicama (yam bean) and ginger.  Right in the corner my sweet potatoes are starting up again.   So in a little while this fence will be covered in greenery, and I have learnt a lesso...