An indigenous touch.

Out of the six main biomes of our beautiful earth, Fynbos (which many consider synonymous with the Cape Floral Kingdom) is the smallest, but richest per area. Over a third of all South Africa's plant species call this biome their home, even though the Kingdom covers less than 6% of the country! One of the most famous Fynbos species is of course the Protea, with the King Protea being our country's national flower. Out of all the different Protea species, the one that joined our rapidly-growing little garden is the Liebencherry.

We planted her next to the sunflower bed - seeing as they love the sun. They are very drought resistant, low-maintenance plants that can bush out a width of 1,5 meters and reach a hight of about 2 meters. Not to mention their beautiful red-pink flowers, whom I'm told will arrive around our winter (June/July).

Despite all the beautiful plants that have made their way to South Africa from all across the world, I still think its important to look after and promote indigenous plant growth. We will definitely be adding a few more members of the Fynbos family to ours pretty soon.

A Heart-Shaped Bed

Whether you see it as a kind-of-homage to Kurt Cobain's Heart Shaped Box, or an attempt to bring more love into our garden, or simply the most suitable shape to fill a space, a heart-shaped bed was our next addition. We needed to plant six more beetroot- and six more tomato starts - this would be their home. It took a good while to dig the bed out. Between breaking up super-hard clay and cutting away old hard roots, it seemed never-ending - but, after a good while of manual labour, we could start preparing the soil.


Once our usual compost and Gold Dust had been mixed with the clay-rich-soil, the new occupants moved in. We would have to put up some bamboo to support the tomatoes at some point - but that can wait for now. We framed the bed with some white stones we got from the nursery in order to make it stand out. Tree bark and some of our stones were used to join the bed into rest of the garden.

Although the sun had already left us, the finished
product still stood out very well.

Painting with Sunflowers

Apart from the few baby sunflowers we had planted in our vegetable beds, we still had a small army of ready-to-plant ones waiting in trays. After scanning the unused sunny areas in our garden, it was clear that they would find their new home behind the wall that runs along our watermelon patch. Although the soil was - again - rich in clay, this spot gets a nice amount of sun throughout the day. After the tedious task of digging six holes, each about 30 cm's deep, we started mixing in the Gold Dust and compost. 

Saya getting in there with her fashionable-lady-
gardening-gloves.

Once the soil seemed like something could actually grow in it, we deemed it ready and started removing the babies from the trays. Saya carefully planted them, two in each hole. Once everyone had settled in, we watered the bed and rounded the bed off with some bamboo.

Mimilu added the final touches, which were Teddy-bear sunflower seeds being planted in the remaining open areas of the beds. We were told these don't need to be tray-planted first, and can be planted directly into the soil. So now, all that remains is to wait until we have our own row of sunflowers colouring in the old, blank wall behind the watermelon-patch.

Britney and Pepe

Our last visit to the nursery also saw to the arrival of two new perennial plants - a spearmint plant, who Saya named Britney, and a pepino melon plant, which I dubbed Pepe. We planted Britney into a fairly shallow but wide pot right next to the tomato patch. We mixed a lot of compost with some of our clay-soil. Pepe found his way into a tall-rectangular-shaped pot, right by the watermelon patch's entrance. The pot has a lot of decorating potential seeing as it has flat, large sides.

Our spearmint on the left and our Pepino melon on the right.

Besides the amazing smell of spearmint, I am told it has quite a lot of uses, ranging from medicinal to food-related. Here's a link to a site with a lot of uses and information for this special herb. The Pepino melon I chose because it already has it's first melon and because I'd never before seen one of these plants - although I'm told the fruit is delicious.!

A Quick Update..

Some time has past since we dug up our first beds. Despite the grub-attacks that have claimed two of our beetroot plants, everyone has been doing well. Casualties aside, all the plants were still there and have been joined by four Bok Choy (Chinese Cabbage), some tiki-torches and tiny sunflower plants. Here's a few photos to show how they're doing.

Beetroot, Spinach, Egg-plant, Cucumber,
Bok Choy, Rocket and Sunflowers.

The cucumber bed.

Three little sunflower plants with butternuts surrounding them.

Invisible hostiles!

Unbeknown to us, creatures lurk in the darkness of the underground! Fat, parasitic grubs that are clearly hungrier than we are! Like the rotting foundation of an old house, these critters slowly munch away at the roots of plants, leading to the mysterious collapse of whole building! Our grubs are after the beet roots - a sad event! Due to our aversion to chemicals, fighting them off will have to become a cosmic task. A dear friend advised us to fill an aluminium pie-tin with fresh cucumber and put it in the garden.

Apparently the reaction between the aluminium and cucumber gives off a scent that sends certain pests like slugs and underground hostiles running. We are awaiting their mass evacuation! Some more advice was given to us.. Plant more!! Sharing is caring, so why not plant some more beetroots, thus there will be plenty for us and nature will get some too!

The Zucchini bed.

We had planted some baby-marrow (zucchini) seeds about a week and a half ago into a tray of six. Finally, one breaks through. A day or two passes without any others breaking through the soil. Eventually it became apparent that the others were duds and we were going to have to make due with just one for now and plant some more later.

Building the bed.

The spot we chose for the lone baby-would get great sun, but was neighboured by lots of bamboo, whose roots are very strong and hard to remove. We therefore decided to make a raised bed using a string of small logs, that we got from the nursery (seeing as we couldn't find something in our backyard to do this!). We dug into the ground to mix up some of the clay-ish soil - the soil here was a bit better than that of our first two beds. Then we started mixing in compost and a bit of our garden soil.

Once the empty shape had been filled, we planted one lonely-zucchini into it's new massive bed - although we had been told they do go crazy and cover a lot of ground. We watered the bed and let if settle in.

Trekker and the Zucchini.

Catching A Dream

With everything we had planted till thus far peacefully stretching their roots and leaves, the time had come to add some more personal touches to the garden. A bit of raking here, weeding away the latest batch of tiny intruders that seem to pop up daily and fantasizing about what our garden will look like by March 2011, can only take you as far.

We decided to make our own giant dreamcatcher from some of the wood that we had recently machete'd off to allow some more sun into our overgrown garden. We started by taking some smaller branches that hadn't dried out yet and twisting two together at a time into an arc-shape, then securing them with string into this position. We kept adding on twisted-branch arcs until we had a big full circle.




Once the outline was ready, we carefully wound cotton-wool around some areas to decorate it. We decided afterwards, that it would have been better to do the net first and then do this, seeing as the points where the fastens onto the frame will then run over the other wool, making it a bit rough - but, this was fine for now.

I started with the netting, but buggered it up after about 20 minutes and had to restart.. The joys of trial and error! This time I followed a circular netting pattern using one single long piece of wool. Seeing as we wanted to suspend a rose-quartz crystal (the size of a fist!) right in the centre of the net, I went over every part three times (Yes, it took long - better way would have been to take three threads of the same length and do them simultaneously - noted for future projects!) to hold up the crystal's weight. After the net was done, it was just a matter of decoration. Each of us three added our own touches to the massive web, ranging from feathers, old bracelets, smaller stones and crystals to our centre-piece.

The end product was even more beautiful than we had imagined. It found its place in our garden with ease, joining our other smaller dreamcatchers, as it was hung from a strong hemp rope. Whether it is, as many of the Native-Americans believed, catching bad energy passing through it's web or simply colouring in our garden, we were one more step closer to our own backyard-paradise.

Although this photo doesn't do it's size much justice,
the circle has a diameter of about 1 meter (+/-  3.28 feet)

The HOT SPOT - Attention all chilli lovers!

The Hot spot is a post to follow if you are a chilli-lover. Whether using jalapeños as the main dish (as popper), or using bird's eye or habanero for additional flavour and spice, chilli's are essential in my kitchen. Chillies play a huge part in my life and ultimately, what would our garden be without some spice?

I have planted a chilli-mix, jalapeños and hot baby peppers from seed. We sowed them at the same time we did the sunflowers and I was bitterly disappointed when the sunflowers snuck out, but no sign from my hot-seedlings. Another week past and yet - nothing. Just before giving up hope, my mother (also a big chilli-fan), told me that chilli-seeds take really long to pop-out. They grow super-slowly, therefore require a lot of patients. So, if you're a chilli-lover or a rookie-planter (such as myself!), don't be de-motivated if your chillies are not growing as quickly as your other plants - they like to take their sweet time!

So, a HOT SPOT post, will be published every-so-often to show progress, if any, as I am still waiting on my hotties :) and to include you on the road of chilli-growing. Recipes and facts about chillies will also be included, so keep your eyes open for the next HOT SPOT.

Jalapeno chillies -
image taken from http://www.greenbarngardens.com/catalog/i68.html

Our Melon Patch & Unexpected Visitor

It was an early morning when I decided to carry on with fining the clay ground between our proud bouganvilla & bamboo. My dog was patiently sitting beside me watching the activities of the early morning. It was then I heard a rustle in the bamboo behind me. I thought nothing of it at first as our kitty spends most of her time in the garden. It was upon a second rustle that my very brave, yet confused dog, Trekker, jumped up and looked at me as if calling me with his eyes.
I knew not to take his reaction lightly as it was peculiar behavior. I dropped the spade and peeked around the corner only to discover - eeeeeeeeeek!! - a Boomslang! (Tree-snake - directly translated). 

A Boomslang -
image from http://www.africanreptiles-venom.co.za/boomslang.html

It was slithering away from the bamboo where I stood, had a peek into my sister's bedroom and shot high up into the next patch of bamboo. I must have frightened it with the shoveling. She was a beautiful, fully-grown femail of about 1,2 to 1,3 meters long - better check for eggs!
She did not hang around too long, but long enough for everyone to see her greatness. She cut her visit short by sailing of into the neighbour's yard. What an experience!

Despite the goosebumps that I had for the entire day, we all chipped in and finished our watermelon patch, knowing that the spirit of the snake watches over them. Our watermelons received lots of compost as the ground had many stones which had to be removed. We found some rich top soil beneath some trees further down in our 'jungle', which we also used. The patch was decorated with a big log and bamboo sticks and of course our beautiful tree bark!

Seeds

Seeds are life. It has always amazed me, this miracle of growth, transformation and manifestation. Seeds represent new life, birth. Without seeds, nothing would exist. From such a tiny object, something as majestic and massive as the Giant Redwoods of California, are born. Each with a purpose and a link to every ecosystem on earth. Seeds are to be treasured, they are more special than we realize. Already seeds have been patented. Huge corporations are capitalizing on- and monopolizing those precious gifts from nature.

Already there is too much mass control of which seeds to buy, how to grow them, quantities thereof and how much they yield. Many seed-banks offer seeds - especially for commercial farming - that produce fruits and flowers whose seeds are sterile. Just so you can go and buy more! If you have plants that produce usable seeds, keep them and look after them. Treasure them! Watch this space and follow the birth, growth and flowering of our beautiful sunflowers.