All that withers…

…is Gold. Well, to gardeners anyway.

I made these two leaf mould bins from some plastic trellis and garden ties. I then filled them with the leaves from our trees and that of the tree on our nature strip.

For those of you who don’t know what leaf mould is, it’s just fallen leaves from deciduous plants that are stacked or packed in an open bin or bags and left to rot for a year or two. You add water to aid in the decomposition process. Unlike compost that is a product of bacterial activity, leaf mould is primarily fungal.

After one year you get a nice crumbly mix suitable for use all over the garden as a mulch and a soil improver.

After two years you get a rich dark mix which bears no resemblance to it’s original composition at all. This can be used as mulch or a soil improver as well as for a seed sowing and potting mix.

Apart from these two bins, I have 4 garbage bags which are packed full of leaves. When I say packed, I really mean packed and compressed so that these bags weigh about 6 kilograms each.

Think of Autumn leaves less as a nuisance but rather an organic and natural way to recycle what is given to you for free.

Another man’s trash…

… is truly another man’s treasure. I got this basket from someone’s hard rubbish collection pile along the nature strip last night. It looks like it was a clothes basket in it’s previous life. I inspected it as best I could in the dark and it seemed very solid to me, bar the two handles […]

Fruits of your labour

Garlic again. However, from looking at both photos, you can see just how quick this little baby has emerged from the soil. The photo was taken one day apart. It’s such an encouraging sight.

It pays to be picky

This is my garlic from last harvest, sorted into weight categories. The ones worth planting vary from 5 grams through to 12 grams. As the title suggests, it does pay to be picky because larger cloves produce larger heads of garlic.

Shy Garlic

Plants can be shy too – just not in the way WE are. Look at this Autumn Garlic, only planted last week. I love the way it almost ‘peeks’ out of the soil as it emerges, pivoting a clump of dirt up and pushing it to the side as if to say it’s safe to […]

Yellow

This room is decorated by American Interior Designer Mary Mcdonald who is also a cast member on BravoTV’s Million Dollar Decorators series. This isn’t my photo (by the way) and I think it’s not one of her recent works either. But, however old this photo may be, I had to put this up because to […]

River Bowls

These are my river bowls. I made them so that the looked as if they were cut out from a river bed or pond by using very natural looking gravel with a simple driftwood and plant grown on top. Placed in a sunny area, these add a natural feel to any room and with the […]

Colour Inspiration

The white lining in the petals bring out the their colour so well.

Hardware Hack

I went to my mum’s friends house last week. She grows a lot of fruits and veggies and she taught us how to protect her new seedlings from Cabbage Moth caterpillars and any other greedy aerial pest wanting to forage and reproduce on your precious crop. I called this a hardware hack because each piece […]

Hate mowing the lawn?

Do you hate mowing the lawn? Or (like me) do you have a lawn that’s not worth mowing? Then look no further. I have just the answer for you. Well, it was really an answer for me. You see, our lawn actually isn’t a lawn. It is more of a weedfield. There are probably about […]

It's So Khay

Food, Fashion, Lifestyle, Art & Design

Month: May 2013