Day 78...

Wow!  This morning I had a whole crowd of winged visitors playing in the Lavender.  These are 4 of about 150 photos I took from all possible angles trying to capture them on film...er digital film that is...Nature is so incredibly amazing!!!

Day 77...

The nearly deceased...hmmm nearly-murdered - cucumbers are doing extremely well in our summery autumn...let's pray the weather will last for these little ones to find their feet...

...and the sweet peas are showing some fantastic growing potential...hahahaha...Am I the only person who can look and look again and yes, look again and convince anyone that they just grew by a millimeter?! :)

The GREENhouse kids are ecstatic in their new home...The Borage are showing buds...and the cabbage plants which survived the Trying-to-be-ruthless day...also seem to have joined on the band wagon...Welcome to my Winter Wonderland :)

Day 74...

Very excited about the baby sweetpeas, I had to do something about the trellis issue...I replanted a tree fern that weren't doing too well in the pot, and had a fantastic day playing with the saw and the drill today...Took apart an old piece of fence and screwed the shape together using the drilled holes...Sprayed it with clear lacquer and looking now...don't think I did a bad job of creating a centerpiece trellis for them...

We've had fantastic weather in Pretoria the past week...and Autumn seems very close to summer...One of the Clivias are flowering...yay!! Hopefully this will add some colour to our garden...

Day 70...

AM
Today I'm having salad for lunch from our own garden...pity tomatoes are not big in winter...or cucumbers...hmmm...

I also planted some multiflora sweetpeas today which I received with the gardener magazine...In time I'll have to build a trellis, as these guys can apparently climb to up to 2 meters!

While watching The Edible Garden series I heard that one should be ruthless...sometimes you have to take out some established plants in order to make room for new ones...Hmmm...That will be my mission for today, except instead of just making room, taking out the ones that doesn't seem to do well...

PM
9 days ago I planted some cucumber seeds I bought at the Crazy store...Cucumis Sativus it's named, and can be sown all year round...From my Googling I presumed that cucumbers are only summer plants and should be sown in the spring...but holding thumbs I planted them in a small pot instead of the growing pack and covered it with a ziploc bag...I left it on the windowsill for a few days, but was afraid it's too hot in the direct sun and moved it to the GREENhouse instead...

During my trying-to-be-ruthless mission today, it seemed that nothing was going on in that container, and as I started pouring out the growing medium I saw that all 3 seeds sprouted...With a handful of seedling soil and  a heart filled with a apologies I planted them back just below the soil...Wow! Cucumbers in Autumn! Fantastic! :)

Day 68...

But not all is bad in Winter Wonderland...I think I've finally found out what the seedling box we bought at the coast contained...The obvious ones - the chard, cabbage, peppers, onions and beetroot are doing extremely well next to the fish pond...and some of the mystery plants started to flower...

If my matching up with Google images are correct, then ladies and gentleman, we have an eggplant! :)

I found an upside down tomato planter from way back when and cut some holes into it, now serving as a hanging strawberry planter, without having to build or buy another one...More stuff for the GREENhouse! Woohoooo!!! :)

Day 64...

The opening above the door, seems too inviting to those white cabbage butterflies...

So I got a piece of wood from our neighbour and painted it black...but it still needed something more exciting....Armed with a screwdriver I carved the name on the board and while I'm catching up on some very neglected Leverage episodes, Quinni coloured it...On went the butterflies...maybe these will scare the cabbage ones away...and I lined the lettering with the glow-in-the-dark paint....

Meanwhile I'm taking leaf by leaf off the Broccoli and Cabbage plants...the one cabbage plant right at the back is about a quarter of the size of the rest...the hair on my neck rose as I turned over the leaf...hundreds maybe thousands of aphids...Took it out completely and discarded of it. I then sprayed the rest with the garlic/oil/water/peppers mix...I also found a few green worms presuming they're Cabbage white larvae...caught in the act while scrumptiously munching away on the succulent leaves...Ughhh I wish summer would come back....I loooove growing summer vegetables....

Day 60...

Ok so the other side and bottom were netted today...Just about finished...complete with rolling windows and all :) I bet you wish you had such a handy Quinni with fantastic ideas, hahahaha :)

Bought some cucumber seeds in a Grow-your-own-kit today...The instructions included suggest that it can be sown all year round...I guess that's if you keep it on the windowsill...I thought cucumbers should only be sown in spring...but I guess I have nothing to lose...Let's try it...

Meanwhile we're very excited about the new GREENhouse...And the kids seem very happy as well....