Africanaussie

I have mentioned before how comfrey is a hugely important part of my little garden.  In some areas I understand that you cannot get rid of comfrey, but I ofen lose plants during the wet season, so always have some that I keep in a pot and then I can add plants in areas that have died off.  I like growing it against this fence behind the herb spiral. Because of its long root system it mines minerals from deep in the earth and stores all this goodness in its leaves.   I keep cutting the long side leaves off and add them to the compost, the inlet to my wicking bed and then also into my comfrey fertilizer factory.  I dont like to soak the comfrey leaves in water as they get very smelly and then my hubby and my neighbour give me strange looks and wont come near me for days. What I do is make a concentrate, and this can be diluted down and used as a (non smelly) foliar spray. I use the 2 litre empty milk bottles, but you could use whatever size you want.  You wil...

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

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...

One of the first things I did on returning home was clear some of the weeds in the vegetable garden.  The lemongrass had become monstrous, and so I chopped enough leaves away to clear the path.  Some went into the compost where  they are a great compost activator.  The others were just laid on the bare earth (now that the weeds are gone).  They are a sort of mulch, which I also hope act as a bit of an insect repellant, being lemony and all.  I had put up a small shadecloth before I left, and in my absence a pawpaw tree had grown right up under it and was beginning to bend sideways.  I couldnt remove it as the loofah has got all entwined with it, so just changed it to a different angle to allow the pawapaw tree grow up alongside it.  I do hope it is a female pawpaw.  I have quite a few new papwpaw trees shooting up at the back of this bed, and those should be the red pawpaw, so am holding thumbs.  Hubby didnt pick any asparagu...

On our beach walk today I noticed that we once again have seaweed - for some reason it disappears during the dry season - I must remember that and stock up next time!   It started raining but I couldn't stop myself and was running around dragging bunches of seaweed back to the car.  I like to think I looked like a mermaid emerging from the deep bringing armloads of pure gold, but that would actually take a bit more imagination.  I certainly felt as though I had struck gold! The asparagus is now mulched with seaweed and some new shoots are appearing. Yummy - time to start harvesting them now! The other thing I have been wanting to do for a long time is make comfrey juice. I do already use the leaves as mulch and add them to the compost. Glen, who gardens in a community plot in England has posted some very interesting reports on comfrey.  Find him on kitchen gardens - link to the right. Loosely following his instructions I have a pot of comfrey leaves which...

In December I transplanted a little volunteer passion fruit vine that I brought over from the last place we stayed in. It is right alongside the fence and surrounded by stones, as there is a 2 foot edging of stone all along the side of the property. I worried that it might be forgotten, but it does get watered occasionally. Well, I didn't have to worry as the other side of the fence is the neighbours chicken coop....called a chook pen here in Australia! Obviously those roots go deeply and mine up all the good stuff, because the vine has now travelled about 15feet along the fence in each direction and at least that far up the neighbour's happy plant! The plant only really survives about 3 years here, so it is recommended to plant another plant to take over after about two years. I guess I have found the right spot to plant it, and I think I am going to plant a row of comfrey right in front of it - going to get all that chook manure into my garden without having to deal with the ...