in the garden, it must be
death that is turned into life
The garden is always full of death (think composts) and life (think fruits hanging ripe for the picking from the branches). I visited my fiance about a month or so ago, again leaving the garden in the capable hands of family members. As life is always in the constant motion of life and death, I returned to a mixture of both; this was good and bad. If there was no decay and death, we would not have beautiful compost, for example!
A couple of weeks ago, I reported my first sightings of the basil seedlings. Sadly, as can be seen above left, none of them survived the beginning of the summer. I will need to try again.
But, for the first time in many years, I had some successful harvests of the gooseberries that have suffered the ill fate of the wind here in the Western Cape. At last, the wind and the birds left these gooseberries alone, and now I have some to feast on tonight!
Also when the basil seedlings stuck their heads through the ground, I planted some rocket seeds, but these are struggling, with many succumbing to white mould... This is a usual problem for my rocket and I can never identify why...
But in the same garden, I am also seeing purselane starting to grow! This is always the key sign that the summer is on its way, and I am glad that some are already growing. Soon, I will add them to my salads!
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Also just before I went to my fiance, I made a bunch of cuttings. Almost all of these have survived, and I think I already have to transplant some of them! I am so happy that most of them have grown in the little pots that I provided them. Now, they are already screaming that they want to be planted in the garden!
And these cuttings above, which I made almost three months ago, have grown fully into the beautiful flowers and plants they will soon become! I cannot believe that they have grown this big, and I am so glad!
I did not successfully grow amaranth this year, but I managed to get some seeds from very small plants. These have since died, and this morning I "self sowed" these seeds. That is, I helped them along! I removed the plants and threw the seeds where they had been, and covered them with some compost. Let us see if they will grow this year...
And lastly, it seems like the hard cut back from my Swiss chard plants worked to get rid of the spider mites! It does not seem that there are any infected plants left, even though some of the leaves have gone a little yellow.
I will see how the garden will adapt to the summer now, especially with the late rains we had. Some of the fig trees are carrying so many new figs...
But more on this later!
I hope your garden is treating you right, and giving you produce!
For now, happy gardening, and keep well.
All of the musings and writings are my own. The photographs are also my own, taken with my Nikon D300.
I hope everything improves in your garden, a pity about the basil plant, but it's trial and error and at some point you will have good results 😊
Thank you so much, my friend! And I agree with you. Everything in the garden becomes trial and error at some point, as the garden has her own rules!