Category: Miscellaneous

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Christine's garden Home page features Miscellaneous

Gifts from the Garden

Gifts from the Garden - Photograph © Barbara Mueller-Thiart

Gifts from the Garden - Photograph © Barbara Mueller-ThiartWhat a way to start the weekend … with a visit from one’s best buddy who arrives bearing a basket of gifts from her garden! Ah! Life really is good!

As you can see from the photograph, said basket looked almost too beautiful to unpack … but unpack it I did because it was so full of yummyness. Firstly, the big bunch of Lavender, from your garden – I put it in the vase-like bucket in my bathroom. The whole bathroom smells of lavender now and it looks just beautiful. Then the gorgeous roses picked from Barbie’s garden which are now in a vase on my dining room table, fresh Rosemary which we will use in cooking this week, although I’ve put one sprig into my Olive Oil decanter where it infuses the oil with a wonderful taste and aroma. Then of course the freshly laid eggs from Barbie’s “Girls”. I Love those eggs – the yolks are so yellow, the eggs taste a whole lot better than even the best free-range eggs one can buy at Woolies.

Then to start me off in my “veg-growing” career, I got a Tomato plant – its too gorgeous, I can’t wait to watch it grow. I’m keeping the seedlings to plant in my “veg-grower” when I get it. I’m just too nervous to plant it in the ground here where the “nasties” will get to them … I think my first foray into planting seeds should be in a controlled environment. So I will wait with that. The last little surprise package in the basket was a pack of Xylitol which I had yet to try – I rushed out this afternoon to buy a nice container to keep the Xylitol in … its the same as my salt container, just bigger. One of those glass ones with the snappy lid type thingy …

I felt totally spoilt by all the gifts … thanks my friend! You are one in a million!

xxxx

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Barbie's garden Miscellaneous

Baby Dove thriving

Baby Dove Day 3

Baby Dove Day 3Day 3

Today she is actually recognising me – she follows me with her eyes. She loves posing for the camera. I’m becoming very attached to this little one. She wakes at 6am for her first feed. I am now getting the hang it. I bought baby bird feed from the local pet shop. It is a powder mix of all sorts of goodies – corn, wholewheat, soy, pro-biotics, and I forget what else, but it smells yummy. I make it the consistency of drinking yogurt and use the same feeding method. Oh boy! Does she love this! She is going to be a fat, happy bird soon! I feed her every 4 hours – so I’m a newborn mom again!

Can you see the big difference in her? The feathers are forming quickly, especially her wings. You can see her crop is full because we just had a big lunch! Very hungry little bird! She now has fluffy down feathers on her rear end. It was so difficult to get this shot because she was wriggling and the focus is so critical. Photography is my new hobby, so I still need to get to know my camera and what it can do. She is developing so quickly that I will have take a photo every day so you can see her progress.

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Barbie's garden Miscellaneous

Baby Dove is doing well

Baby Dove Day 2

Baby Dove Day 2Day 2

I am happy to report that the baby dove (just calling her ‘peep’ for now) is doing well. She immediately took to the feeding syringe – thanks to the internet. We changed the rubber glove finger tip to a latex glove finger tip. It is softer and the baby beak has more freedom to get to the food. We have to get a better baby bird feed. What we are mixing is clumpy and dries out – not very smooth in consistency. Checked online and they sell baby bird feed so I will go to the pet shop and find out.

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Design Miscellaneous

The Nogg Urban Chicken Coop

Nogg Chicken Coop

I just stumbled across this Urban Chicken Coop by Nogg and thought you might like this. If I was going to have chickens (would love to, but Dexter & Hercules … well, you know!) I would so get me one of these for them to live in. How cool and stylish is this?? The blurb goes … A stylish & sculptural piece of garden furniture with breakfast thrown in!

Here is a review I found about it …. “The prefabricated chicken coop from British designers Matthew Hayward and Nadia Turan offers an alternative to the traditional chicken houses of yesteryear. Dubbed The Nogg, the egg shaped chicken coop appears to focus on aesthetics over long-term functionality and practicality. Any chicken farmer, urban or otherwise, knows that the key to chicken health is a well-ventilated spacious coop that is easy to keep clean. The Nogg is constructed from locally sourced cedar and features a glass top for sunlight and ventilation“.

I think its über-cool, but it might not be the best thing for the chickens it seems …
Website: http://www.nogg.co/

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Door open – Nogg Coop

Nogg Chicken Coop[/one_half]

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Door closed – Nogg Coop

Nogg Chicken Coop[/one_half_last]

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Christine's garden Gardening Home page features Miscellaneous Products

My Gardenias and insect repellent

Gardenia

GardeniaI thought I was finished for today, but then I had some more I wanted to say … remember that discussion we had about the insect repellents and how toxic they smelt (and felt)?

Today I had to do some major spraying because I found aphids on quite a few of my Gardenias – also on the Camellias in the garden. So I got hold of Ludwig’s Insect Spray to try. It was easy to mix up, and was quite okay to use. It smells of garlic – for people who don’t like garlic that might be an issue but I didn’t feel like I was “poisoning” anything in my garden.

According to the blurb … “Ludwig’s Insect Spray is Authorised for use in organic agriculture by ECOCERT SA F-32600. Ludwig’s Insect Spray +Broad spectrum organic insecticide for the control of insects on edible crops, roses, herbs and ornamentals. Contains: garlic juice extract, canola oil, natural pyrethrum (pyrethrins). It works on ants, aphids, red spider mite, white fly, astylus beetle, chafer beetle, CMR beetle, Flower beetle, American bollworm, thrips, wood-eating termites”.

I felt okay using it Dexter and his “doggy-nose” stayed way clear of me whilst I was busy with it! Quite unusual for him because he does like to interfere and sniff everything when I’m gardening, so he obviously doesn’t like the garlic smell either 🙂

I’m still very under-whelmed by the performance of my Gardenias. Only one of them really does well and gives me beautiful flowers. I think the others in the front are probably getting too much sun? (the performer is in more shade). I will have to find out what is wrong with them because I do like these plants, a lot.

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Gardening Miscellaneous

Setting up a gardening blog

Lavender

LavenderSetting up a new blog is indeed quite a challenge for me. First you have to decide what you want to do with your blog, then there is the choice of blogging software, then you need a theme (design) and then you need to set it all up and add some blog posts to get it going.

For this blog I chose to use wordpress (only because I know it faily well, but it is still a challenge for a techno-phobe like myself to set it all up, not to forget that I am quite a dinosaur in age compared to those that do this well and quickly!). The installation and set up is all fairly simple, it’s the more intricate details that get to me.

But I have it set up now and hope this will give us many hours of blogging satisfation in the future …

PS: This serves as a test post – we will delete it eventually once we have a few more posts going.