What a glorious sunday. 
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Still dry
The only problem with living so close to one’s garden is that you start getting this feeling of sadness because you can see how the trees and plants are suffering with the drought. The consulation is that you also experience feelings of extreme happines when it does rain and the trees get new green leaves and everything looks happy.
The cape robin is helping himself to cheese in the kitchen all the time, and if you don’t give him cheese quick enough he starts singing aggresively untill you do.
There is a Leonotis leonaris outside the kitchen window that is flowering and the sunbirds come and drink nectar all the time. So beautiful, everybody should have plants in their garden that attract sunbirds rather than those bottles of sugar water.
The Stapelia’s are in full bloom and quite stinky and magnificent.
A Giddy’s yellow clivia is starting to flower – unusual for this time of the year.
The veggies seem starange at the moment, they seem to be only just hanging in there, not lush like they were. I am still watering them, maybe their lush time is early summer, although maybe I’m spoiled as we are still eating from the garden every day.
Thank you episode 2
It started raining last night. Very softly, right through the night. Hopefully it carries on like this for another few days. I can feel the garden just relaxing a tiny little bit. We need a really good session though. There are a few of the trees that I am quite worried about, like the wild olive as you come down the steps to the front door. It is one of the original trees here, and took a knocking when it was brutalised with the plot clearing. It was looking very weak the last few weeks.
Through the dryness there are a few beautiful flowerers. The Boerboons are really looking spectacular.
The Stapelias are also budding. Such interesting flowers, I can’t smell them but apparently they smell like rotting meat to attract flies who pollinate them. They look like flowers from the underworld.
We watched a cuckoo laying her egg in the olive thrushes nest yesterday. The other birds were’nt too happy about it. The olive thrush has been making nests and babies non-stop for about a year now.
Thank you
The garden has its own special way of saying thank you for the little bit of rain it does get. This week we had about 6 mm in total and gracefully the scotias (afra and latifolia) boerboons, burst into flower to show their appreciation.
Unfortunately the peligela in the bottom of the garden died from the drought.
There are a few bulbs flowering at the moment. The boophane are giving it their best shot as well as a couple of scadoxus. So beautiful
The veggies are struggling with the weather and the hot dryness brings all kinds of pests and goggas with it. I got rid of the ant on the brinjals with good old fashioned water and then neem oil.
The giant pumkin is growing quite fast.
It’s a new year!!
This year started off on a good note with the Gasteria flowering so beautifully. We put it by the big lounge window so we can see the sunbirds getting nectar from the flowers.
It is very very dry, today there is a hint of rain in the air. We need a weeks worth of rain. The plants are struggling, with the big trees throwing their leaves for mulch.
The cape robin came back for cheese yesterday after being chased by the flycatcher. It is still as tame as ever, taking the cheese from our hands.
I harvested potatoes last week. They were really nice, would have liked to have more. I think I need to work on the soil a bit. I need to use older sand that is more loose.
The globe artichoke is making bulbs!
The chickens have been working in the veggie patch quite a bit the last week or so. They do a lot of good, but sometimes they are a bit rough on the seedlings.
The giant pumpkin is growing a bit every day. It has one pumpkin already.
We got a whole lot of new bronze clivia seedlings that Michael swopped for a natal yellow.
