How things are looking...

Tomatoes are getting big and ripening...



...but we're getting some cracks in them.



...and a leaf spot that's looking problematic.



A small wire compost bin.



Cabbage and lettuce living in harmony.



The melon pear (Solanum muricatum).



Lazy Housewife climbing bean.



Marigolds around the tomato bed.



Cherry or Strawberry guava (Psidium cattleianum)...



...small but starting to produce.



Bamboo shooting.



The Carob tree seed (Ceratonia siliqua) I collected in Cape Town germinated!



We're harvesting...



...butternut!



And the "wall of waste" is almost filled in.




"

Christmas Day update...

It's Christmas Day, the mamas from the village are dancing and singing, and we're getting some incredible summer showers sending people dashing for cover.



But when the sun pokes through it's stunning.


Flowers on the border...Salvia (Salvia splendens var. Magic Fire), California Poppy (Eschscholzia californica), and Cosmos (Cosmos bipinnatus var. Sensation)


Tomatoes filling in...


The beginnings of spinach as they call it here. In Canada it's called Swiss Chard or Silverbeet (Beta vulgaris subsp. maritima). It's a huge favourite.


10 varieties of tomato...Brandywine, Purple Cherokee, Black Plum, Red Pear, Yellow Pear, Six Pack, Orange Queen, Gold Nugget, Taxi Yellow and Tigerella, surrounded by French Marigold (Tagetes patula var. Naughty Marietta)



Cabbage is really coming on...

Cucumber bed with Charles...

This the last of the veggie beds in this section. We'll plant cucumbers along the fence and help them climb up and plant spinach, more lettuce and hopefully some bell peppers (if i can get my hands on some).

The quarterly report...

So it's been 6 weeks now and this is where we're at...broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage well on the way. Volunteer tomatoes getting big and the butternut almost eating size. Ten varieties of tomato in the nursery almost ready for planting out, plus herbs and flowers. Direct seeding cucumbers and others this week. Two windbreaks up with gates, expanded boundaries and new fencing, an additional new entrance, half the shade cloth up, new header tank stand. Childrens garden area prepared for layout, production zone two almost leveled.

New fence for Children's Garden and shade cloth...

The diamondback moth...

...loves plants of the cabbage family (Brassicaceae). This family includes oilseed crops like canola and mustard, cole crops like cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower and root crops like turnip and radish. It was the first crop insect reported to be resistant to DDT and now, in many Brassica producing regions, it has shown significant resistance to almost every synthetic insecticide applied in the field. It's scientific name is (Plutella xylostella) and it is a night flying moth that lays eggs from which hatch larvae that eat away at the underside of leaves.


If you see these translucent windows in your broccoli leaves you know she's paid you a visit.


View from the underside.


The larva goes through 4 instars (where it sheds skin and gets bigger) and this is one of the smallest.


Here's a larger one.


And here is a pupa.

I don't plan to spray, and our crop is very small so I've just been checking the leaves daily and squishing the little guys. We'll see how it goes.

Garden looking good!

Planting mielies with Mama Nono

In South Africa maize is called mielies, and this is how people most commonly plant it in the Transkei. Mama Nono graciously let me come along and lend a hand. In the planting season she starts around 5 am and works till 8 or 9 am when it gets hot.


The field is on a hillside of cleared forest.


Throw seed into weedy ground.


Hoe it in and wait for rain. She'll be back several times to hoe the whole field again until the mielies get well enough established to outcompete the weeds.

Planted cabbage!

Mulched and interplanted with lettuce.


The lettuce will be ready to harvest before the cabbage gets too big.


Tin Tin the cat schemes this looks like a pretty comfy place to take a nap.


So now in foreground broccoli, next cauliflower, followed by cabbage.