Archive | organic vegetables

Spring is Coming…

My seeds arrived today! They all look so beautiful in their lovely packaging. I can’t wait to start working with them tomorrow. I bought them from a local company called Livingseeds, they sell heirloom and open pollination seeds. We have been doing quite a lot of work on our veggie garden to prepare it for Spring. The beds have been dug over and composted, my wonderful husband has attached shade cloth all around the perimeter of the veg garden to keep birds out  and to protect it from frost during the colder months. (we do share quite a lot of our fruit and veg with the birds, but I would like to keep this one small space bird free if possible):)

Caiden working in the veg garden hammering together a raised bed veggie box.

Kye is in his element, the crushed stone arrived today too, we are going to lay this along the paths in the veg garden. He has been digging in it all afternoon and looks slightly grey now, Ahem… time for a bath, I think…

Our 10 young chickens are sooo friendly, they follow us all over the garden…

Have a wonderful Thursday…
Warmly
Linda

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In the Garden

The weather is warm today, how wonderful! Besides putting my back out somehow, (just woke up and ouch), I am really excited because Spring is in the air! Outside we went this morning, wearing short sleeves for the first time since winter started. I thought I was being brave wearing short sleeves, but it was hot outside. Caiden and I started sieving compost for the veggie beds and I even tried to dig over a bed, but my back would not allow it…. What I did manage to do was plant up a few seedling trays of beetroots and mixed peppers. I also made some sweet little newspaper pots for our squash, pumpkins and Patti-pans to start growing in.
I just love these paper seedling pots, you can find the tutorial here. They are great for recycling your newspaper and for your seedlings to grow in…

Some of our beds have been dug over and filled with compost, I just can’t wait to start planting, I have ordered a few heirloom veggie seeds, but I am still looking for a wonderful online supplier, if you know of any, please could you let me know in the comments:)

Erin planting up the newspaper pots with some of her pumpkin seeds.

Gifts for our neighbours. I really enjoy swapping produce with our neighbours…

This is a little DIY cloche that I am trying out, in order to give some of our plants a chance to grow, without being discovered by the chickens. The bottle acts like a tiny greenhouse, forming moisture on the sides of the glass to water the plant. Now to find some bigger bottles, hmmmmmm…

Meet Bill, he is so sweet…

The Jasmine is almost in bloom…

I was so close to frogging my Shalom, just couldn’t do it though… I tried it on again and decided that a loose fit was ok and then I was happy… phew, I am so relieved I procrastinated:) I am quietly knitting on the couch, knitting the first sleeve, just letting my back rest a little, and then I will be back out there in the veggie garden digging, planting and watching things grow:)

Take care and thanks so much for visiting,
Warmly
Linda

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Weekend Gardening

We are well into autumn here in South Africa, you wouldn’t really say so though. The mornings are cooler but the sun is still incredibly warm and this lovely weather lends itself to wonderful days of gardening… We visited our favourite nursery yesterday, called Four Seasons and bought a whole bunch of organic veggie and flower seedlings to plant in our garden. We have an acre of ground here and I am going to try something different and plant up our garden beds with flowers and vegetables. I am enjoying learning all I can about companion planting, so I have transplanted some Pennyroyal to the strawberry patch to keep insects from eating the strawberries and I have mulched the lettuce bed with oak leaves to stop the lettuces from being eaten by snails!

Everyone worked together yesterday clearing this front garden bed. It has become overgrown with creepers and really is redundant as far as growing anything is concerned. We have cleared, deeply composted it and planted it up with carnations, calendulas (for pest control), puffballs, spinach, cabbage, broccoli and returned the irises and other bulbs back to the bed.

I love this time of year because this is when the Red Hot Pokers flower and give us such an amazing show…

The Aloes are also in full bloom and attract many songbirds to drink their nectar and plenty of bees too! The bees crawl right up the open flower tubes:)

Outside our kitchen door is another small spot where veggies can be planted, so Jenna pulled out everything, composted and turned the soil and filled this basin with veggies…

Our little windmill we bought while on holiday in Clarens…

The fully planted front beds, I can’t wait for them to be bursting with flowers and veg!

Remember those tiny day old chicks we brought home, well they have certainly grown quite a bit since then… They have been moved into their new enclosure and are very happy.

Kye even helped dad wash the car. We have had such a full and productive weekend, I love it!
What have you been busy doing this weekend?
xo Linda
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Growing Vegetables

Today has been such a productive day in our veggie garden. I planted up a bed of broad bean and pea seeds, mulched the lettuce and spinach bed to keep them warm during our colder autumn months and cut some bamboo to make teepee’s for the beans and peas to grow around… We usually have quite a lot of frost during our winter months so we have a shade net cover over our vegetable garden and it is amazing the difference this makes. It prevents our produce from being sunburnt in summer and frozen in winter.

I am grateful we have our own source of bamboo, we use it to make stakes for our tomato plants and teepee’s for beans etc… and it is economical and grows so fast too.

We picked some radishes and potatoes today, they are small but so full of flavour and the potatoes are so creamy.

Our naartjies are starting to turn orange at last!! I can’t wait to try one:)

We have companion planted Marigolds with our leeks and other vegetables, besides keeping insects at bay they are really nourishing for the soil as well. Once your Marigold flowers are finished you can either dry them and scatter the seeds throughout your veggie beds or use the flowers as a natural dye. I dye up merino wool with the flowers and it produces a lovely golden colour. Here is a post from a few years ago showing the wonderful colour from Marigold flowers.  A beautiful book for companion planting is ‘Companion Planting’ by Margaret Roberts. This is truly an amazing book, I love all of Margaret’s books. I have also found a wonderful local company that sells heirloom vegetable seeds, it is called Living Seeds, there are beautiful varieties available.

This is the window box outside from our kitchen door. For mother’s day I was gifted with these lovely herbs that you see planted here, coriander, Echinacea, Curry plant, Tatsoi (for our green juices) and parsley. As you can see Charlie just blends in beautifully:)

Erin washed our fresh veggies in preparation for supper…
Have a lovely day everyone:) and thank you for visiting here xo

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