Despite the big dry, there is still plenty of new growth in spring. It's wonderful to wander around the garden after I've been away for a while (which I'm doing a lot of at the moment thanks to a run of work trips) and see what tenacious little plants are popping up and getting stronger.
Our friends gave us some water chestnut and it died down over winter, as it does, but the new growth is now back and looking gorgeous. You don't get much greener than that. I've put these two pots of water chestnuts in a a large bowl so I can keep the water up to them. Then the bowl is in the middle of the raised garden bed area. But when the dogs come into this area to "help" me water, they also help themselves to a lovely drink from said bowl. It took me a while to work out how the water chestnuts could possibly use up their water so quickly.
Pinto peanut makes a great ground cover and so I've planted it in several places along the swales. And despite everything, it seems to be happily establishing itself. Other friends in our Growers Group have it like a carpet in their orchard. Is it wrong to have ground cover envy?
We are trying tamarillo for the first time. This plant was a present from my son for my birthday and its about twice the size from when it was planted at the end of August, with lots of little flowers showing the promise of fruit. Its one of the joys of moving from temperate to subtropical in that there are lots of new plants to try.
Another plant that was new to us when we moved here was Pidgeon Pea. Its a fast growing nitrogen fixer that produces these wonderful seeds. You can mill them for flour, cook them like lentils or feed them to the chooks who'll gobble them up.
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