How To Kill A Cat

What do you do when your wildlife friendly garden is attracting the neighbour's cat?


Yes, the neighbour's cat doesn't quite qualify as wildlife especially when I have to deal with cleaning up after it's used a spot in my vegetable patch as a litter box.  This unwanted visitor makes his appearance in the early hours of the morning so I have not been able to catch him in the act.  All I see is the lovely 'package' waiting for me to dispose of every morning.


I've tried sprinkling white pepper over my boundary wall and that didn't work.
I sprinkled Citronella oil on the wall and around the favourite spot of this feline foe and that didn't work either.


Realising my frustration with the situation, my dear husband spent the better part of this afternoon creating a cat scare.  We don't want to make an enemy of the neighbour by maiming her beloved beast, so this has been tested extensively to ensure that no (visible) physical damage occurs.


This is the scene:-

How it works:
We've buried a rat trap on the left - the cat's favourite spot.  (Relax, kitty-lovers - we've modified it so that it will not snap shut and squash the cat's paw or other body part).
Once the trap is set off, the string will pull the balloon toward the acacia thorns, bursting the balloon.  This should scare the living daylights out of the cat, guaranteeing that it never returns to my garden.


Tonight is our first attempt at this so I'll keep you posted on the results.


In the meantime, if there are any other suggestions, please let me know.

Potato Harvest

We gave up the idea of expecting a butternut crop as the fruit were attacked by pumpkin fly.  But, our kitchen garden is not without some stars...

At the end of January, we planted out some potato sprouts.  This was a very low maintenance crop as we just left them to grow and do their thing.  All I did was form a mound around each plant to prevent the tubers from being exposed and going green.

Yesterday whilst doing an inspection of the garden I noticed that the plants were dying back a little - a sure sign that the time is near.

Cautiously, yet with the excitement of a child on an Easter Egg hunt, I dug around the plant to reveal the buried treasures.

Our largest potato was 16cm long.

We couldn't miss the opportunity to have freshly harvest potatoes for supper and they were delicious!  Two large potatoes was more than enough for the two of us.  It was quite tempting to have just potatoes for supper, but I cooked them with freshly picked thyme and rosemary (also from our kitchen garden).

Hypoestes aristata (Ribbon Bush)

A stunning shrub that's brought colour to a section of the eastern border is the Hypoestes aristata (Ribbon Bush).

This small shrub flowers between March and August so will brighten up my garden during winter when  very little else flowers.

The Ribbon Bush (so-called because the petals curl like florist's ribbon) has soft, dark green leaves and clusters of tubular mauve or pink flowers.  Bees, butterflies and other small insects visit the flowers, providing a source of food for insectivorous birds like Southern Boubou, robins, thrushes and barbets.

After planting a grouping of H. aristata we had a Cape Robin-Chat visit, but he just sat on the garden wall, scanning the developments.  After 2 weeks, he ascertained that it was safe to venture closer and is now a daily visitor.  He's obviously getting a good snack off the small shrubs.  This week we noticed that he even brought a friend!

Barleria obtusa (Bush violet)

The main picture is currently that of the Barleria obtusa.

I've planted a grouping of this small shrub next to the young Kiggelaria africana (Wild Peach) tree.

B. obtusa grows to a height of 75cm which is ideal as it will eventually be growing under the shade of the Wild Peach tree so it will create just the right amount of bushiness with its spread of about 1 metre.  I've used it for this corner because it tolerates semi-shade as well as full sun conditions; and, its stunning blue-mauve flowers attract butterflies and bees.

This plant flowers between March and May so I've been fortunate to have some flowers on the young plants to instantly brighten the corner of my new garden.

Tree Planting

Most people recommend planting trees in spring so that the plant can grow and settle into its new home and, in the case of Gauteng, benefit from the summer rainfall.  Well, what do you do when you move house in the middle of summer and you're ready to plant in autumn?  We've taken a leap of faith and planted at the onset of autumn.  I stopped feeling sorry for our plants when I read a banner at a nursery advertising their autumn sale:  "Autumn - nature's best time to plant".

Our garden has been designed to create an indigenous area focused at attracting wildlife. 

Since the garden is small, we had to choose our trees very carefully, taking into account their full-grown size.  Despite our love for Acacia trees, we had to accept that our property is too small to plant any of our two-year old specimens which we’ve grown from seed.  After weeks of research and lots of decision-making, we decided to use Heteropyxsis natalensis (Lavender Tree) as our main tree for the garden.  This tree is an attractive deciduous with glossy green leaves which develop rich red colours in autumn. The crushed leaves smell of lavender, hence the common name.  The small yellow flowers bear a fragrance that attracts bees, wasps, beetles and butterflies which in turn, attract numerous insectivorous birds. Flowers are borne between December and March.  We have planted 2 of these trees and at just 1.45 metres tall, they are already serving as perches to the birds visiting our garden.

The H. Natalensis grows up to 6 metres tall with a 5 metre spread as compared to the Acacia xanthphloea (Fever Tree), our first choise Acacia, which is 12metres tall and 14 metres wide. 

Digging the holes for the trees was a huge mission.  Not only do we have to deal with the numerous rocks on the site since we are on the foot of the Krugersdorp Hill, but we’ve also unearthed piles of builder’s rubble which were buried under a thin layer of topsoil with grass laid over.  Here’s an example of the average size of the rocks which we’re unearthing. 

(In case you're wondering, this is a normal hand spade.)

We bought the property with two queen palms in the garden, on either corner of the north side of the garden.  As these are not indigenous, we are replacing them with indigenous trees which will meet our wildlife garden goal.  The eastern wall in the garden borders an internal road in the complex.  There isn’t a high volume of traffic, but we wanted some subtle screening to help create some privacy in our garden.  We selected a Kiggelaria africana (Wild Peach) as the focal plant for the north eastern corner.  This will be our largest tree in the garden and could grow to a handsome 8 metre tall tree with an 8 metre spread.  This will certainly provide the screening as well as shelter to many birds.  The leaves of this plant are eaten by the caterpillars of the Acraea horta butterfly.  “Why,” you may ask, “do we want caterpillars to eat our prized tree?”  Well, cuckoos love caterpillars, so we’re expecting future visits from these summer migrants who travel all the way from Europe to graze delicious African caterpillars.  Besides, the tree recovers quite quickly from this worm invasion and produces new leaves.  Apart from the cuckoos, the fruit of the Kiggelaria africana also attracts Cape Trush, Cape Robin, Cape White-eye, Southern Boubou and mousebirds.  However, not all trees bear fruit as sexes are separate on different trees, with only the female trees bearing fruit.  We bought what we hope is a female tree with the hope that there is a suitable breeding companion close by.

What was so incredible is that this was our first tree that got into the ground and we planted it late one evening.  At sunrise the following morning, there was a great commotion around it.  We had 4 house sparrows perched in its branches to welcome it to the neighbourhood (no doubt with a ceremonial christening!).  It was incredible how they somehow found a place to perch on such a tiny tree.  Here’s a photograph of the tree:

We've kept the palm in place until the Kiggelaria is more established so that it can help protect it from winds and possibly frost this coming winter.

We created a focal point for our bedroom window by planting a Dais cotinifolia (Pompon Tree).  Well, this was also strategically placed to screen off our neighbour’s Bougainvilla, a shrub for which I bear not a singled fond memory – I think I got scratched far too many times trying to rescue tennis balls from one my mother had trained into a hedge.  This is again, a relatively small tree.  I’ve never seen a mature one, but according to the books, it can reach up to 6 metres tall with a 5 metre spread.  The books also say that it only flowers for two weeks in the year, but the one that we got to see daily was in flower for about 2 months.  Apparantly, if they get sufficient water, they flower for longer.



Dais cotinifolia flowers



This is a Dais cotinifolia which we used to pass everyday at our previous home.



We also planted a lemon tree.  We chose to not only provide fruit for the birds, but for ourselves as well.  We were fortunate to find a brilliant supplier who had a fairly mature tree in a 60 litre bag which came with fruit that was ripe and ready to eat.  What better advertisement could they use for their trees?

Lemons



Creating Compost

To gardeners, the soil is not merely a medium in which to grow plants, but the very stuff of life itself.  So it’s so important to ensure that the soil remains balanced with adequate nutrients and organic material.  In the case of our garden, the soil is clayey and lacks organic material.

Since we have chosen to have an organic garden it is only fitting to have a compost heap.

Our garden is small, so we don’t have the benefit of a hidden corner that no one will see to build a compost heap, so we have invested in a composter which hides the mess whilst it is busy being broken down.

We now put all our organic kitchen waste in there so we decrease our contribution to the local landfill site.  I can’t believe how much goodness we’ve previously being throwing away.  It does take a bit of discipline to truly separate the waste, but we’ve been separating our refuse previously so it is a little easier.

As we don’t have an established garden, we do not have any brown material to build the compost heap by the book.  We’re supposed to have alternating layers of brown and green material, each about 20cm deep.  The only brown material readily available is some of the dry fronds from the palm trees.  I just don’t want to remove all the dry fronds as the birds use them as perches.  I have mixed in some mature horse manure to substitute the missing brown material which should speed up the process.

The compost heap has been going for two weeks now and we’re amazed at the fact that all that rotting stuff isn’t smelling.

Butternut Behaving Badly

During the process of moving home, we dropped a butternut.  Not thinking too much about it, we pick it up and carried it off to the new home.  A week later, when we cut the butternut open to cook it, we found that the seeds had started sprouting, so we decided to plant the sprouts in our new garden.  The only readily available spot was under a palm tree which they didn't seem to mind as they very quickly settled in and started to grow.

One week old seedling


We've never grown butternut before, so I had to do some research to find out more about the latest, unplanned addition to our garden.

Cucurbita moschata is from the Cucurbita genus of about 27 species and has squash, pumpkin and zucchini amoung its relatives and it originates from South America.   One plant can produce an average of 6-8 fruits.  This was a scary thought as we have 50 plants.  That's a lot of butternut! 

First fruit


  I got very excited when one month into their growth, I noticed the first fruit.  Everything was looking very promising and little did I know that I still had a lot to learn about my little treasures...

The flower above the fruit opened up and looked absolutely stunning.  The down side to these magnificent flowers is that it only lasts for one day.  So, I missed the photo opportunity on our very first flower because I thought it could wait until tomorrow.  Lesson learnt: whenever I see a flower that I want to photograph - do it now!  


Female flower







All was well until all three of the first fruits started rotting.  I couldn't figure out what was happening.  I thought my plants were happy and getting all that they needed.  The leaves were still looking healthy.  I couldn't find an answer in any book, so I just had to wait it out and see what would happen. 

Rotting fruit



Just days after noticing the first signs of rot, the plants produced more flowers.  But this time the flowers looked slightly different.  These were male flowers.  They had a single stamen and did not have a fruit beneath. 



Male flower





This morning I looked up the rotting problem and learnt that I am not the only gardener experiencing this.   For some unknown reason, the female flowers on my plants developed before the male ones.  The fruit rotted because pollination had not taken place.

Today, I noticed one lone female flower and seven males.  I manually assisted the pollination process by brushing pollen onto the stigma.  While I was doing this I noticed a bee hovering around my flowers so hopefully nature will take over now.  In future I'll have to plant my butternut close to plants that attract bees.

We'll now wait with fingers crossed and watch our fruit daily...