Seedlings and some soft-core guerilla gardening

4 little beans I planted last week in what I am now calling the 'Awkward Tiers'
Will keep this blog posted on how they fare in this yuk shallow soil with no drainage

Small beginnings...

I decided to plant out my 5 little lavender bushes into the municipal lawn area just below our neighbour's driveway.  They will grow into a stout hedge and form a wall giving our front door some camouflage from passers-by.  I'm wondering how long it will take for the municipal garden services to report me....

That wasn't enough.  I decided that a rosemary would do grandly against our garden wall.  With a little sage.  Also municipal lawn.  But I did it neatly, so hopefully even if they do notice they'll leave them alone.

And I really got going.  I've been checking out the vacant house across the street for signs of life.  Nothing.  So this morning I let myself in and discovered a very lonely garden, and spotted the perfect place for another rosemary bush.  Here!

The soil here is very sandy so I mixed in a whole lot of compost, and then set the rosemary in

And then I thought the rosemary would be lonely, so I put a sage in next to it.  I'm going to have to keep checking up on them in the next few weeks because they'll need attention.  But after that they'll be ok on their own.  They're sturdy and stout and will hold up to the winter well.  I am sure that when it comes time to showing the house, the estate agent might or might not get a surprise.  Either way I am convinced these two will be welcome.  Well, anyway, they got there first.

How to clean the oceans

Environmental crises.  There are intelligent solutions.  We have the technology.  There are people who have the money.  Let's get them together.

This young man has an excellent concept for cleaning the Gires (ghastly continents of plastic floating in our oceans):

Watch this video  and check out his website: http://www.boyanslat.com/plastic/

12 day Permaculture Design Course nr East London 28 April

News: there is a 12 day Permaculture Design Course being offered near East London by Permaculture South Africa (see this link for more info) starting 28 April. 

March moves on and winter is coming

We managed to rescue a lot of hardy plants from our big veg garden - plenty of oregano, rosemary, sage...

Carrots are coming!  So are the spring onions and the oregano we planted seems to be a roaming ground cover oregano rather than the more common tall bushy variety

Basil is loving this new spot.  Yum pesto...

Anyway, that's all we have to report for now with regards to our own little garden.  There's still the space at the back of the house:

(stay tuned) 

AND **** the landlord's garden **** woohoooo!!!! which he has graciously allowed us to look at for a new design YAY:

 Until the next post here is some lovely meme stuff and posters - artivism to keep you sharp:

"just the way the world works, my girl..." Yeah but it doesn't have to be anymore.  Never really should have been in the first place.  But hey, now we've got the technology and the information to give a shit again

Now what?

We have moved.  Larger cottage.  Tinier garden space.  The Ultimate Permaculture Challenge: 

The Tiny Suburban Garden

looking left...

very Zen, yes.  But how do we make it productive and not just decorative?

Start with a few carrots, spring onions, tomato plants, oregano, basil, pineapple sage and plain sage, a spekboom and a rosemary...

An awkward project: a tiered...thing that was built to have a water feature but abandoned.  There are a large number of succulents and a lot of bulbonella in the very shallow soil.  Yes, very shallow, and no drainage.  Great

Someone once had a garden here...possible compost spot?  Way too much shade in here for growing what with the giant Natal wild bananas hogging all the sunshine...