In my garden

I am going to use this page for sharing the happenings in my garden. You may find plants here that you wish to grow, or potentially see ‘problems’ that you share in your garden. My garden is the one I take the most photo’s in becuase I am nearly always around when the light is good.

Background info

We live in Westcliff, Johannesburg. This suburb is notorious for its ‘park’ like feel and stunning gardens. Where I live has needed quite a bit of work over the last two years. My boyfreind/fiance used to live here on his own so never really did much work in the garden - it’s not really his thing. But the established nature of this rather old plot has allowed for the back bone to be there. I’ve only really needed to added foreground filling in. I live with my boyfriend Matt, and my two favorite dogs; Zeb and Cosmos. We all help where we can in the garden.

My favorite ‘feature’ - for now

Our pool is actually  a mini-swamp, its broken, and we can’t fix it because it will cost an arm and a leg. So we just popped in some frogs and some flag irises, water lilies and dwarf papyrus. The frogs are useful little pest-controllers and I often find them around the place - they are especially good at keeping the mosquitoes down (another natural side-effect of having the swamp).

For now, the swamp is my favorite ‘feature’ in the garden. This is because it hosts a heap or irony as well as flowering water lillies (Nymphaea nouchali). I have never grown lillies, so this excitement adds to my momentary favoritism of the swamp.

The most important - food garden

The truth is, there are various food items scattered around the garden. There is however, a dedicated veggie garden. I started this garden in June 2008. The previous site of the veggie garden (now currently the soft fruit garden) was not sunny enough. The new site proves a much better space. It still has not been ‘fine-tuned’ into perfection, but we’ll get there as time teaches us what to do and what not to do.

The veggie garden has excelled in the squash family this year. We have had endless baby marrow and marrow, patty-pans galore, beans in abundance and now the gems and Crown Prince pumpkins are coming along. The cucumber are also looking good right now. So my huge displeasure the tomatoes dissappeared while we were on holiday. They may have been harvested by someone else, but I am suspecting that some rats found them.

After the rain

Joburg has been a wet, wet place over the last 2 weeks. Its been calming and invigorating for the garden to have so much water at its disposal. After the continuous downpour today however, I’ve been starting to feel a bit concerned. I’m starting to wonder whether the trees on the pavement might fall over from being so waterlogged and muddy. Or if the absorbant trunks might just snap. Eeek.

The veggie garden is also quite waterlogged right now but things are still growing, despite the bit of mildew here and there on the squash. The brinjals are seeming to enjoy their time at the moment. I was so pleasantly surprised when I saw that one of the aubergines are the white variety. I knew I had planted the seeds but I was’nt certain that they survived. But I see they are!

Autumn catch-up

The last few weeks of gardening have been somewhat unexciting due to the lack of visual feedback at this time of the year. We have been busy mainly with pulling out of the old summer crops that have come to their ends such as beans, tomatoes, marrows and all the squashes. A few of the summer okes are still hanging around. Depite that I’ve actually had enough aubergine, they obviously are’nt done yet. In our home we have roasted, fried, marinated, curried, pickled, antipasto’d, breaded, baked, boiled, lasagne’d and just about everything else’d with all the aubergines. Maybe they have so many names (aubergine, brinjal, egg-plant, egg-fruit) because they have so many uses…? I am done with them for 2009 and happy that they are not a winter veg. The seasonal eating idea acutally makes so much sense. When you think about how much of one thing you can eat when it’s in season, and thus, in your garden - there is no fear of living without it for a while. Being seasonal simply means being gatvol at the end of the particular season in question. Enough delicious brinjal is enough delicious brinjal.

We have mainly been occupied with putting the home-made compost on the beds and starting up with the new compost heaps. When autumn compost heaps are well activated and well aerated they can be brewed and ready to use within 1 and a half months. I have been adding Biogro’s compost activator to our heaps. It’s a new product for me but so far the results have been very good.

The air in Joburg now certainly has it’s autumn crispness. I felt the first day of autumn a month ago and have since been in many challenging discussions with others about when autumn actually starts. In my understanding of the cycles of the sun, autumn hits the southern hemi between the 12th and the 19th of Feb. However there is also a different understanding of how the seasons work, and that is that autumn starts on the equinox, and summer starts on the solstice. I run with the idea that the solstice is the middle of summer/winter as it is the longest/shortest day of the year whent he sun has reached the ‘end’ of its journey. [ eventhough, yes, the sun does not move etc etc...]

We are now only a few days away from the equinox. This, for Joburg means a gradual drying up of the air and a faint breeze constantly stirring. The ground kind of suddenly gets harder and if, for some unknown reason, you haven’t already mulched the beds, you should do so now.

Before I put down fresh mulch a week ago, I harvested all the black gold that I could extract from my wormery and inoculated my veggie garden with this. I layered the mulch on top and already one week later the soil has a very soft top layer, ideal for germinating new seeds.

And on the topic of seeds - we have been planting. Over the last three weeks I have done staggered sowing of broad beans (4 seeds per week) peas (6 seeds per week) broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, rocket, viroflay spinach, mustard, leek, cress, beetroot, turnip and baby cabbages.

This morning I did a round to take some photos of what’s happening out there as I write.