the delight is in the detail

I took some early morning photos at my place, these complement the previous entry.

Before the garden, something creative. We have two house minders from Montreal, Kimberly and Jeremie, who arrived early for our absence rest of this week and they jumped at the chance to discover making mosaics, for Helen's garden.

More of that later...

Meanwhile the micro view of garden early morning.

This is a crozier, the unfolding young frond of a tree fern, otherwise a fiddlehead...
the wikipedia link says they can be eaten, but these are protected plants...
... and the thought of eating such a piece of vegetation, just because it can't run away,
reinforces my carnivorous inclination

an ordinary thing, fuchsias, but such pleasant colour elements in understorey.

We await the ripening of the tamarillos, they need a deep orange-red

Frogs eggs. People said you will have mosquitos with ponds. We do not. We have frogs and tadpoles.

Our own mulch, from 7hp mulcher.
Apart from logs over 7cm in diameter, which go into hugel beds, great compost mounds,
all prunings and all domestic cardboard and paper waste goes into the mulcher,
which with fresh leaf fall makes this lovely ground cover.

Stalks of water chestnuts, a bit battered from tree pruning above. Invaded by tomatoes.
Several water chestnut corms in 10cm of soil, covered by 10cm of water,
pH lifted with a bit of crushed gypsum plaster board
fertilised with a bit of manure now and then, wrapped in newspaper and buried under the soil...
and in winter when the stalks die back, roll over the root mass and find many corms to eat.

Rhubarb, tomato and sweet potato (kumera) leaves.

I had to prune a large tree, Pistacea chinensis, away from the house,
then needed a support for its sideways leaning weight.
Recently sprayed lightly with cheap red gloss paint, to fade.

Guava waiting for us to go travelling so they can then ripen and be enjoyed by house minders

Not so long ago the cane chair was there to guide the first shoots of passionfruit up a trellis.
Now the cane chair has become part of the vinery.

We don't plant pumpkins, they just come up from compost. Sitting on more of our mulch.

This is not part of the micro story, these 35cm tapered pots are part buried in the ground in a sun trap
and are the beginning of a system for growing and harvesting root vegetables (potatoes, carrots) easily.
For the potatoes, the soil will be added as leaves grow.