I love gardening. My garden is a small plot and I grow lots of food in this small space. At the moment I am harvesting lots of Snake beans and acid free German Cucumber. The Snake gourds, Pawpaw, and Winged beans are all growing well, and in a week or so I can start harvesting. The Arrow root, Lemongrass, Cranberry hibiscus, Spinach, Ibeka and several tomato varieties are happy all year round enjoying the company of my many herbs. The Ice cream bean tree will soon flower. Ice Cream beansI use the young leaves and flowers of Cranberry hibiscus in my salads. The older leaves I use for a herbal infusion/tea. Snake gourd came into my life about 5 years ago and I am very intrigued by this vegetable. First of all, it has a peculiar shape and does look like a snake hanging on for life. … [Read more...] about My Amazing Garden
Gardening
Down Memory Lane
My late Grandmother (on my late Father’s side) and her siblings were all born on a very beautiful and rather isolated island by the name Læsø in the North Sea bay of Kattegat in Scandinavia. This is where they grew up and this island became a wonderful place for holidays from my early childhood and when I get the opportunity I still go there. The size of the island is 118km². Last time I visited Denmark (2019) Peder and I went for a visit together with my Mother and my Aunt.On this island you will find unique houses with thick layer of seaweed as roof and it is only found on Læsø nowhere else in the world! Læsø is known for these old houses. That’s awesome. At the time of writing this article there were 19 remaining seaweed houses on the island and 11 of them are preserved. I learned … [Read more...] about Down Memory Lane
Growing a Small Garden
From the Good Old Aussie Big Back Yard to the New Suburbia Living Lifestyle it is time to connect with Mother Earth. It is time to start a garden. Gardening is a great passion of mine and so rewarding when you plant your seeds and see them germinate and grow into beautiful flowers, herbs and vegetables or even trees. You don’t need a lot of space to grow successfully. A few years ago I decided to prove just that with the New Suburbia Living Lifestyle in mind. I hope I can encourage people with small space to grow a garden so please keep reading.I wanted the garden to easily fit into the new and modern suburbia where there is not much room for playing cricket or airing the family dog so I decided that 34m2 of kitchen garden would help feed a family quite nicely. A small garden can easily … [Read more...] about Growing a Small Garden
Seed Saving
Seed saving goes back to the dawn of agriculture so we are looking at very ancient traditions. Seeds were carried by nomads and planted where they stopped for spring, summer and autumn. Many of their seeds were sacred to them and very important for their ritual life. I was taught about seed saving when I was 4 years old my Grandmother as my Mentor. She had a compost heap. We got cow manure from an uncle out of town. We collected lots of seaweed at the nearby beach. We got leaf litter from the nearby forest where we also filled up our water containers from a sacred mineral spring. Grandmother had a beautiful garden full of edible stuff and lots of herbs and flowers for medicinal use. She taught me how to save seeds and she had a small personal seed catalogue full of information about when … [Read more...] about Seed Saving
Garden Spirit and the Wildlife
I always tell the garden spirits that I am going away on a holiday of any length. They like to know my whereabouts and this way they don’t feel left out. More important is for us humans to acknowledge that the garden spirits are our helpers and supporters and they perform a lot of magic that you might not be aware of if you can’t see, feel or hear it. If you still your mind and take time to observe with all your senses what is going on in your garden or nature you will eventually start learning and understand.The spirits all present themselves one way or the other. Sometimes you will see a different light or energy movement between the sunflowers. You might get a pat on your shoulder or you hat will get knocked off your head while walking through your fruit orchard all caused by the garden … [Read more...] about Garden Spirit and the Wildlife
My Cow Horn Mandala
As some of you know I am a textile artist and I love being just that. A very creative textile stirrer, they call me. I do artist stirring of like minded people to be creative and go with the flow. I love being with people who like me think out of the square. I love creating anything from materials such as fabric to garden hoses, old onion bags to hand spun yarns, paper bags and rubber bands. From flowers and bamboo leaves to spider web and banana trunks. I love working with colours. I love creating patterns and making travel journals. I love beach combing collecting washed up sticks, shells and beans then string it together and hang the stuff in the almighty Beach Almond tree while soaking up the colours of the sunset crashing with the white sand and the turquoise water. I am in my … [Read more...] about My Cow Horn Mandala