Quite a few gardeners believe in planting by the moon.

Planting  by the moon means that you take into consideration the phases of the moon before you do your planting. Gardeners who plant by the moon also tend to harvest,  cultivate or deal with pests according to the phases of the moon.

Here in the southern hemisphere, the 22nd September is Spring Equinox day when knowledgeable organic and moon gardeners arrange to do their planting.  It’s supposed to be a very favourable time for planting because moon gardeners believe that plants thrive hugely when they are planted this way.

Well, I don’t know if planting by the moon works or not but I was willing to try.  So I prepared the soil carefully with compost the week before.  All my garden beds were ready and waiting for the important day.  On exactly the right day I bought all my plants and seeds early so that I could spend the day planting.

Then as luck would have it, as soon as I had completed all my planting, the first spring rains came and gently watered all my handiwork. What a win!

All I had to do was to rest my weary limbs and wait patiently for some noteworthy results.

But there’s one more thing – moon gardeners are also supposed to talk to their plants.  I’ll be jolly careful to do this while no-one is watching or listening.  But talk I will.  I’m even prepared to sing to them! No point in doing things half-way!

An update on  my garden – It’s interesting to compare the results on two separate beds of aubergines.  I planted them at the same time but in one bed the plants are twice as tall as those in the other bed.

I can’t quite work out why.  Maybe I haven’t been singing loud enough!

Here  is my pumpkin fritter recipe. These fritters are easy to make and they really are delicious – especially when you have grown the pumpkins in  your own garden! The fritters always turn out puffy and golden brown.

My Easy Pumpkin Fritters

2 cups mashed pumpkin (500gm)
½ cup flour (125gm)
2 level teaspoons baking powder,
Pinch of salt
1 beaten egg
A little milk if the consistency is too tight.

Mix well and drop with a tablespoon into hot oil. Lightly brown both sides.
Drain on absorbent paper and serve hot with cinnamon and sugar.

Tip: I don’t like to deep fry or use too much oil so about 1cm of light sunflower oil covering the bottom of the pan is quite enough.   I also don’t use olive oil as the flavour is too distinctive.

Pumpkin fritters do depend on a good pumpkin to start with.  And as pumpkins don’t always have the same consistency you may have to adjust your ingredients.

Try not to use a pumpkin that is too young as it tends to be rather watery.  If you do find that the pumpkin is a bit watery, add a little more flour.  The consistency should be firm but not sloppy.

Let me know how your pumpkin fritters turn out!

Pumpkins are surprisingly easy to grow. I proved it and I’ll tell you how it all happened.

I kept a few pumpkin seeds from a really good pumpkin we had bought at the supermarket.  I knew that pumpkin vines needed a lot of space. So I planted just 6 seeds at the bottom of my garden.

Our garden slopes towards the bottom boundary so they were well out of sight and I forgot about them until a few weeks later when I saw some big healthy pumpkin leaves.

It didn’t take long before yellow pumpkin flowers started to develop and soon one plant in particular began to trail down the slope bearing lots of little white pumpkins.

A few good rains and some overhead watering and the pumpkins really started to take on a life of their own.  It wasn’t too long before I began to invite visitors to see our giant pumpkin plant with its huge white pumpkins.

They grew and grew till I didn’t know what to do with them. I didn’t even know when to start picking them.

Eventually it seemed that they couldn’t grow any more.  And I was right. I needed a wheelbarrow to transport them one at a time up the slope. They were huge.

I had a lot of happy friends and family who each received a prize pumpkin. I also had enough pumpkins to last us through the winter.

The joys of organic gardening!  I hadn’t used any fertilizers beyond a little compost and certainly no toxic sprays or poisons. But I must be honest.  I didn’t really need them – the pumpkins  grew so easily!

Next time I’ll share my special pumpkin fritter recipe. The fritters are puffy and delicious.

The worst time to pick roses

Roses, like people go through periods of relaxation and times of stress. Their worst stress is when the sun is beating down on them and they are thirsting for water.

And because they are feeling stressed and miserable they may even be drooping their heads. This is to avoid the direct rays of the sun.

This is clearly not the best time to pick your roses.  If you do, they will simply  collapse on you and fade away very quickly in your vase.

The best time to pick roses

The best time to pick roses is when they are feeling fresh and happy.

• This will be early in the morning with the dew still on their faces.  They will be standing tall and erect and this is undoubtedly the best time to pick them.

• Another good time to pick your roses is towards evening after they have had a good drink of water and feel refreshed.  They will then have recovered from the heat of the day and will have regained their loveliness.

• Remember to take a bucket of cold water with you when picking and submerge the roses almost up to their necks in water.  After that you will be able to arrange the roses in vases without having to worry about any drooping heads.

If you follow these few simple guidelines your roses will last much longer in the vase.

Secrets of Roses

As the weather becomes hotter, deadheading seems to be forgotten.  This is a pity because there are several reasons why we should deadhead our roses regularly.

What is deadheading?

Deadheading is what it’s name implies.  It simply means removing the dead rose head from the bush. Some people just pull the spent rose off the bush but this isn’t the best way as it leaves a naked stalk on the plant which tends to die back.

An easy way to deadhead roses

I have found an easy and effective way to deadhead my roses. But I only do this when the roses have been newly watered and the sap has risen well up into the stems.

To deadhead I hold the base of the stalk between the thumb and forefinger of my left hand and then with a quick one-two back and forth movement with my right hand I snap off the rose head neatly together with the short stalk that holds it up. In this way all the leaves are preserved and the rose will soon flower again.

Why should we deadhead roses?

• Firstly, the rose bushes look much neater when we remove the spent roses from the bush. A rose bush looks tatty when there are fading roses among the buds and full blown flowers.

• Secondly the rose needs every bit of energy, food and water for its growth and future flowering ability.  A great deal of energy goes into the making of rose hips.  If you allow the spent heads to remain on the bush all the energy is diverted from the growth of your rose bush towards the development of seeds.

• If you remove spent roses from the bush, the rose is encouraged to flower more frequently by replacing the flowers that you have removed.

How to Plant and Care for your Rose Garden

• Before you go out to buy your new roses it’s important to decide where you want to put them first.  If you only have a small space reserved for roses consider how many rose bushes you can plant within that space. This may seem elementary but believe me when you get to the nursery you’ll be tempted to buy more than you can use.  It’s happened to me many a time.

• It’s also important to think about the colours that you want to have in your garden.  I’m always amazed by gardeners who will plant a row of white icebergs against a white wall.  You’ll be surprised how often something like this happens.

• It’s a good idea to plant a standard rose or any tall growing rose in the center of a bed and then to surround it with a mass of low growing floribundas in a different colour beneath it. For example I planted five Amarula Profusions under a white iceberg and I’m waiting to see what that will look like in a few weeks. It should be stunning.

• Sometimes individual roses can get lost or overlooked. So try to plant a few roses of the same variety next to each other.  This is always effective as it gives a good, solid splash of color to the garden.

• A very important point to consider is the eventual height that the rose bush will reach.  You don’t want to mix low growing roses with tall varieties indiscriminately.  Small bushes can get lost and overshadowed by stronger growing varieties.

• Remember to plant your tall growing roses at the back of the bed and place the shorter bushes towards the front of the bed.

• Underplant your roses with a carpet of white alyssum or candytuft for a stunning effect. If you prefer a cloud of blue, you could use blue lobelia for a striking contrast. These annuals have shallow rooting systems and they won’t disturb your roses.

• Also consider planting some specially fragrant roses near the pathway so that you can enjoy the perfume while you admire your roses

With these few tips in mind you will be ready to tackle that nursery.  Good luck. If you have any other good tips to plan a rose garden feel free to share them in the comments below.

Whenever I visit a nursery, I tend to go home with roses that I didn’t have the faintest intention of buying.  And it happens every time.

My problem has always been deciding which roses not to choose because I love them all.  Roses of every size, shape and colour.

Trying to select roses from a rose catalogue doesn’t help much either because all the pictures are so tempting.

So I find it helpful to draw up a list of qualities that I want from my new roses before I hit the rose nurseries.  But before doing this I run through a few questions like the following:

• Am I going to go for perfume this time?
• Do I want a particular colour?
• Do I need a new climber for the pergola?
• Do I want a few rambling roses for the bank?
• Do I want a rose for a container?
• Do I want a prolific and very free flowering low-growing floribunda?

Once I have decided what I need a particular rose for, I have a much clearer idea of what to buy.

For example if I want a bi-coloured rose with perfume I would choose Double Delight.

If I wanted a tall growing red rose to disguise a wall I would choose a row of Mr Lincoln.

I discovered my magnificent Kordes Brilliant climber by combining one or two requirements in this way. I have never seen a brilliant scarlet like this in any rose. I chose it both for its vibrant colour, its health and its ability to climb and cover an archway.

If you combine one or two requirements such as colour and purpose beforehand, it helps you to narrow down the choice.  And that is a great help when choosing new roses.

For tons of info about your roses check out:

How to Plant and Care for your Rose Garden

But it isn’t so easy because we are mostly programmed into thinking that only the big prizes are worth writing home about.  Like buying a new house, getting a new car, going on a long-awaited trip or buying a computer, an ipod or an iphone.

Sure these things can make us happy while they’re new and before they lose their novelty.

But what a lot we miss by failing to appreciate the little things in nature.   Our gardens alone can provide us with more inspiration than we will ever need – if only we allow ourselves to be more observant and aware.

Just looking out of the window this morning I saw a pair of black collared barbets starting to build their nest in an overhanging branch nearby.

With their lovely red breasts catching the early morning sunlight they were a joy to behold. They were so lively, energetic and totally absorbed in what they were doing that they were quite inspiring.

What an example of complete concentration! When we become alert to those seemingly insignificant things in nature that are all around us – we start to notice them more and more.

Nature Competition

I think that this type of awareness is so important that I want to start a competition about “Getting Inspiration from the little things in Nature”.

So in the comment box below, write and tell me of any little inspirational event in your everyday life and the effect it has had on your outlook.

I’ll choose the best one – or the one that resonates with me most – and as a prize I’ll give you a digital copy of my book “Flower Pressing Secrets” which you can see and read about here:

The competition starts now!

I have had the actual flowers eaten off at the base of the flower so that all the  petals fall to the ground.  The birds don’t seem to want the flower at all, just the juicy bit below.

So today I thought of a plan.  I would shield the flowers with tin foil.  So I grabbed a roll of tin foil and proceeded to give each iris bud a protective collar so that the flower could emerge but that the juicy calyx would be protected.

I didn’t have to wait too long for the result of my experiment. I went inside for lunch, and when I came out to view my handiwork, there lay the tin foil on the ground together with the bitten off iris buds.  The birds had simply bitten off the stem below the tin foil.

Frustrating?

Yes!

But I haven’t given up yet.  I’m  determined to devise another plan and I’ll keep  you posted as to my success or otherwise.

Meanwhile, if you have any suggestions please send them in.  I will be ever so grateful!

photo: flikr firecatstef

Add some yellow roses to your garden to bring happiness by the armful!

Yellow is a happy colour and yellow roses have always conveyed a special message of celebration.

People send them to celebrate happy occasions and to bring cheer into the lives of friends and loved ones.

You may have noticed how a patch of yellow roses can liven up a whole rose garden.

It’s as if a ray of sunlight has settled into the garden to show up all the other colours.

If you would like to grow yellow roses in your garden there one or two things to bear in mind before you go out to buy your rose bushes.

Unfortunately, yellow roses are notoriously difficult to grow successfully.  Many of them are prone to diseases such as rust and black spot.

So before you even think of visiting the rose nursery remember to consult your rose catalogue first to make sure that the yellow roses you have selected are disease free.

This is essential because when roses are in bloom at a nursery they all look wonderful.  They get specialist treatment there so you won’t see a sign of any rose disease or insect damage. Only when they are in your garden will you discover the problems.

So do your homework first before you allow yourself to be tempted.

For detailed info about growing roses check out:

How to Plant and Care for your Rose Garden