South African Gardening Blog

Cape Town in bloom

Niall — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:49:12 +0000

I’m down in Cape Town this week, visiting family and having a break from Durban and work. And I think I’ve timed it perfectly! I took a stroll along the Pipe Trail on Table Mountain and the fynbos is in bloom. Such beautiful, interesting flowers. I didn’t have my camera with me, but snapped a shot of this fascinating plant with my phone.

Cape Town flora

SA Blog Finals! A vote for Sprig is…

mol-d — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 08:45:06 +0000

a vote for mulch love

Dear Spriggers,

We are happy to announce that we have been selected for the finals of the South African Blog Awards under the category ‘Old Mutual Best Green Blog’. We would greatly appreciate your vote. Please click the above picture and share with your friends with the following link:

http://website.sablogawards.com/2010/vote/voteforme/1430

Sprig will automatically be selected under ‘Best Green Blog’ with the message, ‘The blog that sent you here has been selected for your vote.’

Please then submit your email address (it will not be used for anything other than your vote). You are able to vote every 24 hours from the 1st September 2010 until midnight 17th September 2010. We would obviously like as many ongoing daily votes as possible.

Thanks!

Sprig

Arbor Month

Helen — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 09:57:29 +0000

Arbor Month starts today, and isn’t it also the first day of spring? In any case, you have a month to plant a tree and some of the larger supermarkets (Pick ‘n Pay, Woolworths, maybe others?) have made it really easy, selling young, indigenous trees in the flower aisle.

So no excuses, get planting

My tree fern and other plants

Elsa — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 08:31:32 +0000

So the tree fern has given us a show of exuberant happiness this season, along with the chocolate cosmos which nestles … (okay, will leave out the silly pun) – but seriously they even smell of chocolate, and a moment of chocolate sniff does *not* stay a lifetime on the hips. Along the fence the petunia baskets hang above the pots of parsley, overseen by the tomato plant. What a lovely garden in the late London summer, even if I say so myself.

Subscribe to get updates via email

mol-d — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 06:41:32 +0000

Okay Spriggers, we’ve made it even easier to stay up to date with our latest blog posts. Click here to subscribe and get updates mailed directly to your inbox.

Another use for sardines

Niall — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 14:47:49 +0000

The sardine run has recently hit Durban and people have been pulling sardines out of the sea in bucket loads. If you’ve ended up with a fridge full of the little fish, and can’t face another sardine meal, then you can use them ‘as fertiliser like them Pilgrim fathers’, according to regular commenter and occasional blogger Khalid. Anyone tried this?

Permaculture in a pot

Niall — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 10:02:21 +0000

After visiting the recent Sustainable City’s exhibition, and seeing the Giba Organics display, I was inspired to set up a permaculture vege patch in a series of containers, with a helping hand from Mr Wooden Spoon. It doesn’t look like it from the pics, but it was a hella windy day and topsoil, kraal manure and leaves were flying everywhere!

Check out our step by step photo-guide at our Flickr group.

‘misunderstood little gardeners’

Niall — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 12:04:19 +0000

Here is a pic, as requested by Pi, of one of the ‘over-enthusiastic and misunderstood little gardeners’ , looking cute and innocent (see evidence of her active side here).

Scout

Permaculture food gardening guide for schools

Helen — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 09:51:08 +0000

The Imagine Durban project has recently published a permaculture guide for schools, freely available through the Municipality. Written by Bev Ainslie, the book covers all aspects of permaculture gardening with information on soil, water and seeds. There are also chapters on garden design, composting and natural pest control.

Hopefully it’ll soon be available in electronic format!

Durbanville Garden Expo

ZeldaW — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 12:43:05 +0000

The forthcoming garden expo and open gardens event will be held in Durbanville on 30-31 October this year. Here is a press release to download.