Veggie garden

Since our potatoes in a bag are growing so well, I decided to try grow sweet potatoes too. I cut the bigger ones in half and put them in water to sprout....

From what I read on the internet, you're supposed to let them "run out" and make some "shoots" or "roots" before you plant it. Put the potato  into the soil and leave only a few bits of the greenery sticking out above the soil. So far, two of them have "sprouted" and I'm waiting for the right day to put them in the ground. Both will go in the same bag and we'll see what happens.

Happy day!

DIY wooden crate

Just something I knocked together (pun intended...hehe) the other day with a hammer and a few nails....

It went from this......

......which is off-cuts from this.....

to this........

The Captain was horrified at first, to see me hammering this box together with only nails, but after I painted it  and stencilled some numbers on there, he agreed it doesn't look too bad...hehehe. It's  very basic, perhaps even a bit ugly and a bit dilapidated old wooden crate/box for a corner in the garden, but I like it!

Happy day!

Veggie garden update

Hi all! Sorry I've been away for a while. The Captain and I have been busy again with the kitchen (which I will share with you as soon as it's done...)

Here's an update of the veggie garden which I wrote about here.

 This pic was taken three weeks after it was initially planted...

This is what it looks like today. I have put together a bit of a support for the tomato plants and we'll see how it holds up.  By the end of the week I'll have the other three boxes ready for planting too - my seeds have been ordered on-line from Livingseeds and I'm sooo excited to get busy with all that. Soon we'll eat fresh, seasonal vegetables from our own garden. There are some unusual vegetables that is impossible to get here,  like salsify, celeriac and shallots. I managed to find some on the Livingseeds website and these are the ones we are most looking forward to. I'll keep you updated!

Happy day!

Pot maker

Another recent purchase from Lee Valley is a Pot-maker for making paper pots to start seeds. Once your seedlings are big enough to be transplanted, the paper pots can be planted in the garden where the paper will decompose and the plants will take root. A while ago, I wrote a post about green gardening and paper pots here and this little pot-maker is so much easier to use than what I did before - rolling strips of newspaper around a wine bottle and trying to squish the bottom to make a pot.  "Ha!"

With a bit of Mel's mix in the pots, the seeds germinated in no time at all!! Okay, so I mentioned Mel's mix before and promised to explain it. It is the best recipe for garden/potting mix that I know of. You buy about five different brands of compost and mix one part of each, all together. Then you take one part of this mixed compost, one part medium grained vermiculite and one part peat moss; mix THAT all up and you have a perfectly rich, light "soil" for pots, veggie boxes and more.

It really is the absolute best of mixes. When I sowed the seeds in my paper pots (above) I made an experiment and used plain potting soil in some pots and the special mix in others. I'm still waiting for the seeds in potting soil to germinate, while the ones in the special mix are practically ready to go in the garden already. Wow!

Happy day!

Veggie garden

Wanting to grow my own veg at home for as long as I can remember, the day has finally arrived. The Captain ordered a book by Mel Bartholomew about Square Foot Gardening, or SFG in short. (You can read the review on his book here and visit the SFG  website here.) It gives you great ideas and a whole "new look" on how to garden.
I did my own bit of research in Jane Griffith's delicious book and on her website and blog about organic gardening which has been a huge inspiration to me.

We decided to go "above ground" and higher up than the usual raised beds, saving on our "broken" backs a bit. My first stop was at Stellenzicht vineyards here where I was lucky to get hold of 4 old wooden crates (about 1m x 1.2m) which was previously used for the grape harvests.

The next step was to source the ingredients for Mels's mix. Quite a genius mix, but I'll tell you more about that another day.

With the mix all mixed, we were able to fill only one crate; but for me that was quite enough. My seedlings went in there and voilà, all ready to grow into delicious, juicy, home-grown goodness!

I'll keep you updated on the progress of our veggie boxes.

Happy day!

Aspidistra

Aspidistra Garden Centre is one of my absolute favourites in my area. I often go there in search of unusual plants that one will have difficulty to find anywhere else, and of course for some fantastic ideas to "decorate" my garden. Owner Willie Schmidt has a slot on the weekly TV-show Pasella in which he gives very good ideas on creative gardening. See the pictures below to have an idea of the creativeness he gets up to.  If you missed any of these episodes you can catch it on the Pasella website here but also make sure you visit the garden centre near Stellenbosch to see for yourself!!

The latest post on the website is about  veggie gardening in a 1m x 1m pot, here. The Captain and I have been preparing to make our own veggie garden in huge, discarded wooden crates from a wine farm. One idea I've had though, was to try the ordinary plastic crates used by dairies which one can also buy at a plastics retail outlet. Since I have two or three of these around I will follow Willie's advice on the 1m x 1m gardening (on smaller scale of course) and see how successful it is.

Happy day!

Gardening mystery

Towards the end of winter I was very excited to get some spring and summer flowering annual seeds in the ground; and that is just what I did. With seed bombs and direct sowing into the soil. Several packets of seeds later, I decided to discard the empty packets and not make a note of what went in where. Hence my "problem" to identify this mysterious, monstrous plant in the garden. 

It is now about chest height and still going strong. Looks like a flower is about to unfold itself and I'm rather excited to see what it will look like. Perhaps then I'll be able to tell what it is. It might be a good idea to keep a gardening journal to record everything I do, as I have a habit of buying seeds and throwing them around the garden at random. Bouh!  I'll keep you posted!

Happy day!

Vygies

One of my favourite Spring flowers here in the Western Cape is the Vygie variety.  The Namaqualand region is rather quite famous for it's Spring Flower extravaganza and we try to visit every year to see the wide open fields, covered in wild flowers. (DO go to the hyper-link and check it out!!)

source

source

This year I also planted some of my own in an old, rusty wheelbarrow that used to be a vessel for beautiful, green moss. (see here)

Here is what the Vygies are like at the moment:

Early morning when the sun is just out, their petals are still closed; like they are sleeping. As the morning gets warmer and the sun comes out higher, they open up more and more until you can finally see them in full bloom with their pretty faces in full sun when it is nice and warm. They are really lovely and I am excited like a child each morning to see them open up like this.

Happy day!

Loving Spring

We are SO loving Spring at the moment!!

Happy day!

Directions!

pic from here 

I saw these very cute signs on Pinterest here and since I've decided that we'll be  having a playful and fun garden and outdoor space this summer, I decided to make some signs of my own.

So, from some old, odd pieces of wood that had been squirrelled away (by yours truly) and this....

...........to this!

Happy day!

DIY - concrete vessels

I've been wanting to make these for a very long time and the bag of ready-mix concrete was sitting there waiting for me to do something with it.

I will ask The Captain to drill a hole in the bottom

and use this one as a pot for a small succulent plant.

All you need is a few plastic containers. Get a ready-mix concrete mix

and once it's mixed, pour it into your plastic vessels. 

You then press another smaller plastic container into the concrete and push it down,

but not all the way down. Pour some heavy stones or sand into it to weigh it down.

Allow it to dry and then remove the outside container and then the inside one.

Allow for it to dry on the inside

For the round one I used a plastic bowl like this one

I like this shape a lot and I think I'll make a few more of these. 

It will make a nice gift if you put a small plant in there, no?

Happy day!

French Flair

A few pictures from one of my favourite sites Du Côté de chez Vous , although the pictures are from their Facebook page, here.

I love this idea for an entry hall; something dedicated to 

the "little ones" in the family. Very, very cute!

This idea for indoor pot-plants is just too clever

I love the bright, cheerful colours of this kitchen, don't you?

How I would LOVE to have an outdoor space like this one......

How gorgeous are these lampshades? 

Hmmm, the French have a fabulous sense of style that I just ADORE. Check out the links to this site for some lovely ideas, or just some delicious eye-candy.

Have a Happy weekend!!

Spring is here!!!

Spring is here, finally!! After a very stormy, cold and wet day yesterday we woke up to a bit of sun this morning. 

Happy day!!