A visit to a Permaculture Garden

Dear Family & Friends

One cold autumn's day, we got the opportunity to visit a permaculture garden open day event. We are very keen on this gardening method because it's more natural to do so. 

sharing and learning from each other

I read and watched so many videos to guide me along, but this is my first time to actually see a garden demonstration with other like-minded people. 

a pond to encourage a balance garden system

My fear of putting a pond in our garden is reassured. I wanted a pond to give home to frogs so they can eat the pest such as slugs and snails...on the other hand, I don't want to make a habitat for mosquitoes. I've learned that if you make a proper pond specifically to home the frogs...no mosquitoes will survive either! So... a natural pond building project is on my garden wish list now.

never leave soil exposed to wind and sun...mulch and let plants grow as cover

I'm not really attracted to a clean manicured garden. It's lovely to look at...but it is a lot of work to maintain. I just can't see the logic behind it and it's too much for me. To see veggies and flowers growing together in random to benefit each other is more appealing! Basically, it draws beneficial insects to take care of the garden pest and diseases. Soil is enriched which means our food is much more nutricious in it's content too...plus...lesser work por moi:)

mounting soil to create beds and trenches to hold water next to it

I've seen swales and mounted garden beds in demonstration. It's all makes sense and I really have to focus on implementing this as we have very dry garden. Mulching is a key issue. I want to direct my work energy in a more efficient way when gardening.

recycling what you have to use in the garden...forget about buying garden furniture

There's also the importance of understanding how some trees and shrubs can improve soil and retain moisture. In a forest, everything grows by itself in a rich and abundant way, with no human help nor intervention. No chemical fertilizers nor spray needed!

free leave mulches falling from existing trees - nature's beauty

Putting a lot of mulch in the garden is only a good thing for water retention and soil nutrients. So...don't sweep the garden clean...it's not necessary. Our soil is supposed to be dirty...that's why we also refer or call it 'dirt'.

propagating herbs to fill up one's garden is a good, cheap, and easy option

Working with nature is easier...I need to be wise and work is not about slavery. Keeping things simple is best for us. To solve my thirsty garden situation for next year, I started making swales while the ground was soft. All that digging kept me real warm on a very cold day but I didn't managed to finish all that I intent to do. It was time to have a break. The old body is going to groan badly tonight but tomorrow is coming with another sunny day to carry on.

All for today.. hope you have a good day too.

Yours

Preparations for next year's garden

Dear Family & Friends

For me, autumn seems to be the saddest season of the four we get in a year...but saying that...the cheerful perennial flowering plant - Chrysanthemum, flowers at this time of the year. I have so many of these plants lined in our garden and it does bring in a lot of cheers when most of the other plants starts to go  into deep sleep.

my new pink chrysanthemum gift plant from a sales lady in a garden shop

So, this year I planted more chrysanthemum, adding a few more new colour varieties too. I propagated a lot of the old ones to line up every nooks in our garden as well. If nothing else, next year will surely be a cheerful autumn season when they all come into bloom!

planted a long line of chrysanthemum to form a mini hedge

The man in our house has plan to upgrade the little hut in one corner of our garden for next year. Perhaps we will turn it into a summer kitchen?! With this in mind, I decided to change and upgrade the garden area leading to this little hut too. I will put a new pathway in the middle of this garden, under the cover of the lined grape vines. It should look good...

creating a new pathway under the grapevine area leading to the little hut at the end

There were three bushes of gooseberries in this area where the new pathway goes. We had to relocate them to a more sunny location, in between fruit trees in our newly created mini orchard. We were so happy with the outcome. Out of the three bushes, we managed to divide it into nine more gooseberry plants:)

lined up gooseberry bushes in between fruit trees

There are many division and propagations to do at this time of the year. It is the best way to fill up the garden with plants without spending a single penny!

We find gardening a very satisfying job...like my husband says: 'Annie lives in the garden!' If weather permits, I surely would! For now, our winter season has already arrived. The first snow of this season has already poured in...nothing much I could do. Hope you still can find some happy gardening days where you are!

Yours

Autumn fruit trees planting

Dear Family & Friends

So far, we have forty or so fruit trees already planted in our garden. But I thought I would still need around 6 more trees to fill up the mini orchard that I'm establishing. We dropped by the garden shop and brought home more fruit trees to join in the garden...probably after this, our garden won't and can't take more anymore!

Positioning the tree:  We're told to face the graft point facing 'south'

Fruit trees are good investment. Once established, they will bear fruits for years to come, with minimal care requirements. And who doesn't love fruits?  Fruits are good food!

It's good to add compost for a healthy start

Here's the five trees we planted this season:

1. Got another almond nut tree for a second tree. The first one is still OK but after 3 years, it is not really growing fast! So we need a back up.
2. A honey pear tree. The Sales lady went into detailed explanation on how sweet like honey the fruit is..and harvest time is later than other pear varieties. So I was sold out on that!
3. A pomagranate tree. This one cost only 4 euros...I paid 8 euros for the same tree two years ago, unfortunately it died on me...so, I want to have another go...after all, it's cheaper this time! Although all other fruit trees are priced for 2.50 euros only:)
4. A mystery tree. It looks like longish red fruit in clusters on the picture. I couldn't get the translated name in English. The sales lady said it's good for compote or as fruit juice. Sold again!
5. Persimmon. I've been looking for this fruit tree for years. Finally we found one! 

Planting fruit trees is a very satisfying job

Now that these trees are planted...we hope that by spring time, we will start seeing new shoots. In about three years, if not earlier, they would start bearing fruits for us to eat. Fruit trees take time to give the return, so it's good to plant them as soon as possible.

Another autumn gardening chore is done....but there's more for us to do. 

Wishing you a happy gardening day too:)

Yours,

The lingering blooms from the summer's garden

Dear Family & Friends

The summer this year was pleasant...not too many super hot days - just enough...although perhaps some of our plants wanted it a notch higher in temperature thus resulting to less yield. Nonetheless...I would say...it's all perfect in every way.

The lingering summer's bloom in our garden

We had a lot of amaranth this year and I've gathered a big bottle of it's seeds to use in the kitchen...perhaps incorporate it with bread baking. We've never tried amaranth seeds before but we will have a go. It certainly takes a lot of flowers to harvest a handful of seeds.

the last of the rose blooms for this year

As summer lingers on...although I'm pretty sure the air is saying that autumn is now here...some of the roses are still blooming...our last chance to enjoy it till next year again.

the roaming tortoise in our grden

Some of the herbs like the mint have started producing lots of flowers that attracted so many bees to itself... The tortoise is still roaming the garden...but we know he will soon prepare for his hibernation.

the grapevine area

This length of the garden with lined grapes overhead has by now been harvested...but most of the leaves are still there taking in some food for itself before they start leaves dropping - as the weather is now turning cool.

morning glory vine as day comes to close

The morning glory vine are still giving the pleasure with their bright blue/violet blooms every sunny morning, at night they shut their petals up.

the four o'clock flower shrub at night fall

On the other hand, this four o'clock flower shrub that volunteered to grow in our garden in the midst of the flowering mint, opens up their flower from late afternoon onwards. So, they're called 4 o'clock.

As night falls...some flowers carry on working happily to catch the attention of the nocturnal creatures...but as for me, it's time to flop in bed to rest the weary body. It had been a productive long day...tomorrow will be another day to look forward to:)

Sending you wishes of a brilliant week ahead:)

Your

Success and Failures in our garden

Dear Family & Friends

Every gardening year is different from the last. Most of it has something to do with the weather pattern, the timing of sowing and planting, plus soil condition. There's always the successes and failures - but that is not important...I just take in the joy of all surprises that comes our way, then dream and hope for a better one - next time!

My first time success with luffa - I'm happy:)

I have my share of garden failures, but today I am sharing you my garden joy. As you can see, this year I pat myself for I managed to grow luffa that bear us some fruits to eat and use - for the first time after my 3 attempts!! It took me 3 years!!

This one will be left to become sponge and for seed saving

Look...just loook!! The fruit looks good, heavy and big, although the leaves and the whole plant seems pathetically small. I have about 10 fruits out of the whole packet of seeds I've sown in early summer, which came to about 5 plants! I am already happy with that. I will leave 3 big fruits to dry, get its seeds (my very own this time) and turn it into luffa sponge. The rest of the fruits will be cooked. It's delicious eaten as stir fry with garlic and tomatoes - using the young fruits.

my rows of 5 buckets of the exotic kang kong plant:)

Another exotic plant that I never give up with is the Kang Kong. (also known as water spinach or cong xin cai). It's not a local plant, so it gives me a lot of challenges...but it's my comfort food. As a child I never like eating veggies but somehow I like eating this, stir fried with just garlic and salt.

leafy kangkong greens which is a cut and come again plant

This plant doesn't grow robustly here as it is more of a tropical plant. I plant them in buckets and water them as much as I should. Every now and again, I snip the leaves for cooking...you need a lot of it because they just shrink once cooked. Oh...it's so precious here -that I have to divide a small bowl of this stir fry into 4 to share...LOL! I'm thinking of ways to overwinter them so that next year I can replant a lot more - for the moment, I'm not too sure if I will succeed on this plan.

Aloe vera,  boxwood cuttings, apples from seeds, citrus plant - growing in pots for the time being

There are many other plants I like to grow which need extra care that I'm not prepared to do. This year, I grew aloe vera. From last winter's mandarin oranges we ate, two citrus plants sprouted from seeds! A few boxwood cuttings I potted because I'm hoping to trim them for indoor decor. There's few apples that sprouted from seeds that came along the pot of tomato seedlings that a neighbor gave us this year. These are bits and pieces of plants that I'm experimenting with:)

our boxwood that was attacked by moth :( really sad looking.

When you learn as you go, everything seems exciting. Although not everything will go well as I dream it to be. The above photo of a big boxwood in our garden was attacked by moth this year. I didn't know and understand what was happening that time - until the aftermath. Now...I'm wiser...just hoping it will recover.

drying onion seed head blown by the wind and landed into this tub

It's time to sow veggie seeds that would grow in cooler days. I should be more meticulous with this chore, but sometimes it doesn't turn out as I planned it to be. In a tub of soil fell my onion seed head, blown by the wind, so they sprout in bunches. It's still a keeper...I will dig and separate them individually to replant on garden beds later on. For the moment they are all growing haphazardly:) They're happy - I'm happy:) 

Sometimes it's good to just chill out. I wish you a happy week too:)

Yours

Making a garden room

Dear Family & Friends

As years pass by, slowly I see our garden getting more established. The trees are taking shape, the perennial plants are happy where we planted them as they come back year after year. Annual plants are left to seed, so they can replant themselves the following year. Our goal is to have minimum maintenance garden...and it is taking place:) 

In progress garden room project by the water well area

Gardening is not a big chore...only if you choose it to be. Having found some inspiration, we recently made a garden room around the water well area. With just a few long straight tree branches we stole took from a nearby private land forest (there was no one to ask), we simply attached it to four post. This year I planted bottle gourd to climb over it to form a green living wall. A wooden cover is also made to cover the top of the well. The next thing I plan to do is to stick a mosaic tiles around the well structure. That's coming soon as time permits. Planned projects sometimes take time...but it's all part of gardening...a day at a time!

Stone crop sedum started to bloom

The ground around the water well is poor and sandy. But I've noticed that the stone crop sedum I've planted last year started blooming! Obviously the plant likes the stony soil in that area.

...with pretty pale pink colour

There's a lot of pleasant surprises I find in the garden...the beauty of this sedum flowers are just some of the little joys that I think everyone should have from time to time. Have you found some time to enjoy the beauty around you lately?

Hope you have a lovely day that will bring you great joy too:)

Yours

The joy of collecting seeds

Dear Family & Friends

Summer is the time when you can take advantage of collecting seeds from your garden...either for kitchen use or for re-sowing back into the garden, without having to go and buy for more.

These are Lunaria flower seed heads

During the week, I have been busy and patiently collecting all of the Lunaria/Silver Dollar flower seed heads. The dried seed pods were peeled one by one so that I can use the empty flower seed pods on stem for flower arrangement. Some seeds were sown back into the ground directly so we can have some of the earliest spring flowers for the bees to feed on next year.

Inside each flat heads are flat seeds

Much earlier in the season, there were brassica plants, lettuces, radishes, chards, chives and onions that bolted as summer heat arrived...so after drying them....I managed to collect bottles of seeds and stored them. Most of them can be sown latter this summer for autumn and winter veggies. The cycle goes on in our garden. These work routines give me a lot of comfort.

The Lunaria seeds are attached to a papery case

More seed collecting will go on till autumn season... I always collect my summer flowering Zinnias seeds to spread them out in the garden for next year and to keep friends and families supplied too:)

After peeling off the seeds, I'm left with silver case still attached to it's stem

Oh the joy for collecting free seeds!! Whether you collect seeds or not at any season of the year, I wish you joy in whatever you are presently occupied in too!

Yours

Our happy garden

Dear Family & Friends

First of all, I want to say that I'm proud of the Brits who made their brave stand for their own country! Blessings for the coming success!

It's summer time, the heat is increasing, the garden plants are all going crazy with super growth, lots of food and beautiful chaos. The bees, butterflies and all other beneficial garden creatures are all frenzily busy all the time. The new lot of chickens bought earlier in the Spring are now growing big. They too are happy as we move them about in the grass lawn pecking and scratching for food insects and clipping the grass and weeds, at the same time fertilizing the soil:) Yes, it's one big happy garden!

From under our grapevine area, you can view part of the garden where our chicken tractor is.

Yet, we find that the mobile home we made for the chicken is not good enough. So we recently made it higher for the chickens to be able to roost on at night when they go to sleep. It's now a two storey mansion...with a summer look, just by adding an old chewed up parasol!! Rustic look huh?!

This is our latest chicken tractor mansion - summer looking with a chewed up parasol for joy of the hens

As you can see, their previous house was just a tunnel made out of tubes...and as weeks pass by, we noticed they started flying to the roof top of the low tunnel to sleep. It's amazing that the tunnel took all their weight!!

Last week, the chicken mobile tractor was just a tunnel - and they all perch on top to sleep for the night!

Now, in their new mansion, there's perches to perch on...so far, they are not using it. The first night in their two storey mansion...they all flew up to the roof top and it collapsed. We fixed it again and hopefully tonight...they will learn to perch on the inside perches and not on roof top! Our silly chickens can really be silly sometimes!!

This week, the tunnel was rennovated and turned into two storey mansion...so they can have indoor perches

As a family, we all seemed to get entertained by the chickens in our garden from day to day...oh...it's never a dull day in our happy garden... We are still working on this model of a light-mobile chicken tractor..if I've got more updates...you'll surely be told.

For now, I wish you good week ahead and hope that it is pleasant where you are. It is very warm here and I'm literally wilting in this weather, but..this is summer and it is just for a season...I might as well try to see the joy out of it! Wish me all the best!

Yours

two teeny weeny mice

Dear Family & Friends

Mid day is just too hot and unbearable to fiddle in the garden these days...instead, I took my crochet hook and a bit of thread and came up with two crochet mice in just a matter of minutes:) It is so 'kawaii' - CUTE - measuring just half an inch big (perhaps a little bit under)!!

The two girls loves my creation...so one of them took the little mice for photo shoot in and amongst the flowers in my garden.

The two mice visited my Hostas!

They also checked out my daylilies which are blooming everywhere...a flower a day!

Oh you won't believe it...these mice are too small that they managed to wedge in between the rose petals for a sniff!

This one managed to get into the centre of this very bright yellow flower...I don't know the name of this flower but it's bright colour is colouring our garden here and there!!

After wandering in the garden, the two mice got into my bright lime green garden reclining chair...opppss...they better move on as I intend to go back to this favourite chair to crochet a few more of these teeny weeny mice...

We're all having fun here...I hope you are too -  right where you are!

Yours

More Tomatoes to Come This Year

Dear Family & Friends

Now's the time to start growing tomatoes. Every year we grow plenty tomatoes...it's a plant that does very well in this country. I am starting to think that you can never kill a tomato plant. Few years back, I meticulously and purposely sow lots of tomatoes indoor with care as early as January (mid winter). ..but hah! confidence is getting better of me...or is it laziness?? I don't do those things anymore...I now sow them as late as end of March outdoor, as 'few' as I could, because there's always volunteers growing somewhere in the garden later on.

Some of last year's last tomato fruits harvest, lining up to get ripened a bit more

This year, I thought I got very self controlled because I only sow a couple of seeds per tomato variety that we like...I counted a total of about 25 plants. BUT....a neighbour insisted that we have their spare tomatoes plants because they are specially handpicked and this variety bears fruit all the way to late autumn...so I gladly received it! When our village people gives...it comes in volume! I received more than I sowed!!  Not ungrateful...but I can see that we will have a big glut of tomatoes harvest again this year...just as we have every year!! Hmmm.... I think I should start a new career as tomato vendor!

our organic tomato comes in odd shapes and sizes

Hope you have a beautiful day...ideally a wonderful gardening day too!

Yours

All things bright and beautiful

Dear Family & Friends

Today I've got some artful photographs taken by our big girl. There's so many beautiful things we could see just inside the garden. Let's go and take a peep:)

Let's go to our garden

Tulips are fascinating flowers. They move a lot. At night they close their flower to look like a 3D triangle...once morning comes, they open their petals to expose the fascinating colours and design of  the flower centre. The colour is so intense!

The centre ore of a tulip flower

We don't own any special camera...but my girls seems to know how to use it to make impressive photos. Even the common weeds of Dandelion flowers looks gorgeous:)

zig zag edges of the individual dandelion petals

Fruit trees produces lots of blossoms in spring time...the colour of the flowers varies a bit depending on the type of fruit. This white five petals flower is of a pear tree...but the plum tree blossom also looks the same except, the stamen is yellow instead of pink.

pink anthers of the stamen - a pear blossom

My garden friend...the honey bee was caught in action...busy as always...and they love visiting flowers to flowers.

busy fuzzy honey bee

My last photo is of the bright green of a succulent plant. I don't know it's exact name, but they love to cover the grounds of our garden.

a succulent plant leaves - up close

Hope you enjoyed these photos....they are just everyday thing we see at the moment...but don't forget to see and appreciate it more closely. Be encouraged...there's many beautiful things that surrounds you each day:) Enjoy your day!

Yours