Firsts

I was just out watering the poor deserted flowerbeds when I saw the first butterfly of the season.

The dead grass has taken on a distinct green shimmer and it will need its first trim soon.

The first harvest from my garden was a handful of cherry-red radishes i picked yesterday, crisp and white and deliciously sharp-hot on the inside.

Spring is here, still sleepy, but shaking the old autumn leaves from her hair and stretching her fingers deep into the ground.

Still no camera, eek.

My one dance instructor donated some plants to my garden, so I spent the morning transplanting a bed of wild irises, something she called a soap plant, and an as yet unnamed aloe although it's probably the ubiquitous red hot poker.

Hopefully the aloe takes, because I would love to have sunbirds and the like coming to my garden.

The transplanted cabbages seem to be doing well, alas the same cannot be said for the butternut, which are now dead, dead, dead. No sign of the courgettes or gems, and I have a horrible suspicion that some bird had a tasty snack...


On the plus side, I've moved the chilli seedlings outside, I have about 26 carrots pushing up their true leaves, and the floradade toms and the sunburst pattipans have sprouted.


I was weeding the pea-patch when I came across a rather unlikely volunteer - a dagga plant. I have no idea how it got there, but it's cute, so I'm leaving it until the cops break down my door. It weirds me out a little that a plant can be illegal.

Planted

By the cornflower patch: eggplant - black beauty, green pepper - grocery surprise.

By the swiss chard: cabbages - copenhagen, courgettes - caserta (an old pack, so we'll see if they sprout)

Long bed: Rolet little gems

Square bed: Butternut - grocery surprise

seed trays: toms - floradade, oxheart. (the plan is to plant the oxhearts by the square kitchen garden and the floradades out along the far North wall. The yellow pears are going to go where the weird cactus thing is now, with marogo as a companion plant rather like a ground cover - we shall see)

I'm going to tackle that area where I want the yellow pears and marogo to go tomorrow - right now though it's time to slap some wors on the braai to go with the potato and butternut and red onion roast.

sprout roundup

Alas, no pictures because I need to charge the camera.

I've finally found another brand of toms in the shops that wasn't either floradade or heinz. Hallelujah. Oxheart, you pink beast you.

I'm a huge fan of squash, courgettes, pattipans and the like, so this year I'm trying a yellow bush pattipan called sunburst. Cue mild irritation when I opened the seed packet and there were twelve seeds. Misers. Pah. Anyway, they better be worth it - apparently you get a big yield from a little bush.

This year I'm giving butternut a go, and we've got a few just sprouting.

Normally I have loads of courgettes growing, but last summer's crop was a bit iffy. There were no seeds at my local pick n pay, so I'll pop down to the Spar later and see if they have - I'm pretty sure I saw a yellow cherry tom packet there too - yay for diversity. Hopefully when I go get the other seeds I'll also be able to find gems. Mmmmm baby gems cooked and eaten whole are like little bursts of heaven.

The cabbages are still looking on the scrawny side, but I think it might be the weather. The temperatures are rocketing around - hot in the mid-afternoon, and then back to zero again at night.

Radishes are doing well, and the peas are just okay. I'm not holding high hopes for a stellar crop.

And now for your weather round up for good old Joburg:

Min:		4°C
Max:		18°C
Weather:		Partly cloudy.
Wind:	light westerly
Sunrise:	06:49
Sunset:	17:38
Moonphase:	Waning
Moonrise:	01:42
Moonset:	12:26

Still alive!!!

Wow it's been almost 2 weeks since I last posted.

We've had a spate of bad weather, and I came down with the plague which explains my absence - not much gardening being done by moi. Today though, I can say that I have more radishes sprouting, more turnips, some unexpected chillies, lettuce, and a few reluctant swiss chards.

And quite a few carrots. My biggest problem is that I can't currently tell the carrots from the weeds.

I've mulched another chunk of the neglected veg patch in preparation for the tomatoes so hopefully this year will be better than last.

I still need to do some research on aloes so I can find out the right ones for my area. I'm hoping that by planting more indigenous flora I'll bring more birds into the garden. Already there seems to be a small flock - flocklet? - of green wood hoopoes who make an unbelievable racket in the trees and on the chimney stack. They sit therer bobbing and cackling, like fishwives at a vulgar joke.

It's really cool to see them coming in to our garden on a semi-regular basis.

A list of things sprouting.

I had rather given up hope on the radishes, I guessed that mice had eaten the seeds.

Apparently not, for I now have a row of sprouted radishes.

And two turnips. I have no idea what happened to the turnips. They are usually the ones that sprout like wildfire.

The indoor chillies have just started to germinate so that makes me a happy cat.


I'm reading a bunch of blogs focused on reducing plastic waste. It's amazing what people can do away with when they put their minds to it. Quite a few of the things we do by default (like reusing containers rather than buying clingfilm) but i'll be putting some of the ideas into practice. At any rate just being more aware of the what I buy and throw away should have some effect on our plastic usage.

An attempt doomed to failure

The winter garden looking all dead and spiky. Those banana trees are rather ragged. Poor things.


So what's all this talk of failure - well, carrots, naturally. I have never been able to grow them but here I am trying again. This time they're in a large container so we'll see if that makes a difference.

The local Pick n Pay didn't have the energy-saving globes I was looking for, so looks like that's going to have to wait until we're willing to make the trek to the huge Pick n Pay by Greenstones.

It did however have biodegradable dishwashing liquid and laundry powder. Whee! The dishwashing liquid is from the Pick n Pay Green range and the laundry powder is Ecosoft 2in1.

In other exciting news, the dogs and cats have been dewormed and treated, except for Tarantino, who is presumably off killing things.

Thursday's weather:

Min: 2°C
Max: 21°C
Weather: Fine and sunny.
Wind: moderate north-westerly
Sunrise: 06:56
Sunset: 17:28

Ooh, looks like it's getting warmer, and the day is 1 minute longer. :D

ETA: Okays...I have to admit I was more than a little sceptical about how well vinegar and bicarb of soda were going to work at cleaning, but my bathroom tiles haven't looked this good since the last time I used Bang on them. Crazy. Chalk one up for the greener alternative.