Today has been a scorcher. 27 degrees Celsius (80F). Odd to say the least as we are currently in the middle of winter in South Africa.
I don't have much of a garden, but to help with the anxiety that Covid and our country's multiple lock downs caused, I started gardening last year. There is no ground surface for me to garden in, so I turned to container gardens.
My father has been in agriculture since well before I was born, and he helped me with a few tips here and there, but mostly I just planted whatever seeds I had and waited to see what came up.
My oldest plant are my paprika's which will be 2 years in December. I started them in a egg tray and they are still going well. With a mellow winter, they have managed to produce throughout the last year and a bit, and are flowering again, even though it is winter.
One of my pride and joys is my mint in this long container. Mint is a voracious grower and will take over a raised bed if you give it half a chance. It is always your best bet to grow it in a container instead. The reason there is a gap between what appears to be two plants is because it is where a friend buried their guinea pig.
This mint started as a single plant which didn't start out very well as I struggled with powdery mildew. After fighting it for weeks I decided I was done and allowed the plant to die back. This growth is the result of cutting the diseased plant to just above the ground level and allowing it to grow back by itself.
I have pruned these two mints as I allowed the previous growth to go to seed to see what to expect. Looking forward to see these guys recover in the coming weeks.
You wouldn't believe these three pots are from a single tiny strawberry plant I bought in October. Spent some time pruning and removing some dead leaves. Looking forward to seeing them grow this summer. This is one of the easiest plants I have propagated. I even grew out two smaller plants which were given away as gifts.
Here is my gooseberry. It's not doing too well at the moment. I first thought that it had red spider mite, as this is what killed the other plant I had. I couldn't find trace of the pests, so I can only assume this is either due to a disease I am yet to identify or it is lacking a nutrient. I gave it some slow releasing fertilizer and we will see what happens from here.
And yes, it is making berries during winter, shows you how mild our winter has been!
Then we have my problem child, and I say that with all the love in the world. This is my blueberry I purchased end of winter last year. I had plans to pot it out into a larger container, was thinking 20L food-grade bucket (20 gallons). I read this needed to be done during winter, and was getting ready with my plans when it started to make buds.
Now I have no idea what to do with it. It can't remain in the tiny bucket another year. It also needs have some mulch to cover the roots that have been exposed. Was thinking some peat moss to help lower the pH to get more berries.
In the background of the blueberry you can see my self-watering container which was amazing last summer! I grew radishes and cucumbers. The cukes were amazing! However, I made a few crucial mistakes with with vegetable. The male and female flowers don't always open at the same time, and I only had one plant that survived to adulthood. Despite this, I have several fruit. From that I taught myself how to pickle them as I am a huge fan of pickled cucumber.
So this is my current garden, which should be resting, but it making me do so much work at present. I am hoping as soon as we are in mid August to start some cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, and baby melons inside before hardening them to be outside. I will be getting a few buckets to grow these guys in. Will also be getting some Nasturtiums not only to attract beneficial insects, but to deal with the aphids I had issues with on my cucumbers at fall's end.
Wish me luck for when spring is officially here, with night temperatures which won't kill my seedlings!