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!

The Nutty Butts

On our last trip to the nursery we brought along some watermelon and butternut squash starts that were looking for a new home, along with more compost and bark. We decided to create a bed below the first two beds, where the butternuts are sure to get good sun. We wanted to make this bed different so we decided to make a circle shaped bed to create some visual differentiation.

Mimilu and myself began to clear the  ground after it was picked of stones and unnecessary roots (per usual), however  this time round the roots took  exeptionally long because we discovered thick, tough roots that poised a fight of note. But alas, after tugging, pulling, cutting and chopping we eventually managed to complete and  prepare the ground.

This area of the garden has a slight slope and there where the butternut bed is, the slope sightly steepens, therefore when we mixed the ground together with our compost and levelled out the bed to

prevent any unnecessary run-off. Yay, our butternut patch is ready! We
placed the starts in the circle formation and surrounded the bed with pieces of cut bamboo. We then began to finish off that area by making it a united patch. We completed the stone formation by linking it to the other two beds and placed the other bark pieces onto the path.

Tomatie Party

So the time had come to plant our little tomato starts that have been waiting so patiently to be planted. We once again began to pick away at the oh-so-barren clay ground that we are faced with. But after some vicious picking, we managed to mix in our bags of compost and introduced the tomatoes to their new home. 

Before planting the starts, Yakattack first cut some bamboo poles which we rooted into the ground to act as support posts for when the starts get to the right height. On completion of the bamboo supports and settling the starts we surrounded the new bed with stones and spread some bark as a garnish. As tomatoes grow upward, we decided to put a butternut squash and cucumber in the same bed as they grow along the ground thus making the

tomatie party so much more fun...