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For the whole of South Africa, except the area in which I live, summer had arrived. But only in the last two days, have summer really reached my area. We are in the middle of the summer heat now. Just before this heat, we had a couple of rainy weeks, with some days feeling as cold as winter again.
But now, the summer heat has hit us like a brick in our faces. I think our bodies are still adapting, but the garden as well. For even though the garden grew so many new plants, many of them are now struggling to cope under the new heat of the summer. Maybe it was too sudden of a change. For use humans and the plants!
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Even though this is the case, my rocket plants, the few that was growing in the winter, is now flowering, indicating the end of the growing season for me. I have tried to grow salad rocket in the summer at various stages, but it always seems like I fail. Even now, the rocket seedlings that looked promising is somewhat suffering under the summer sun.
But even though the rocket seedlings are suffering a bit, I finally have my amaranth seedlings going! Earlier, most of the seedlings were eaten by slugs and snails. Now, they are growing rapidly and I hope to be able to harvest some of the leaves soon. I am craving some amaranth leaves in my cooking!
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The Swiss Chard is also growing nicely again after my hard cut back. It has been almost ten days, and it is looking so nice again that I want to harvest again. But I have not yet been craving Swiss Chard since the previous harvest. I might leave it for another couple of days.
The pepper seedlings are also coming along nicely, even if they also suffer a bit from the sun. I am thinking of making some nice vertical gardens for the peppers, trying out this growing technique, and seeing whether it is better than horizontal gardening.
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With the summer heat, the various rosemary plants that I have around the yard is looking beautiful. I have about 20 or so of them, and they are all responding to the summer heat. Soon, I will need to cut them back a bit. I love to use these cuttings then to smoke some meat!
And then there are the random finds in the garden, like this cape gooseberry that has so many beautiful fruits hanging from its small branches. I have had some of the berries when walking in the garden, and they are so lovely and sweet!
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There are a sea of spring flowers now blooming in the summer sun. A lot of the spring flowers in my garden love to bloom until early summer. These "forever flowers" have a paper texture, so they start to bloom in spring but in early summer they start to show their almost snow white colour.
The many deciduous in the garden, like the Celtis africana or the white stinkwood, have the most beautiful of foliage now. It is so beautiful and almost poetic to think about the quick growth from winter bare branches to the almost full coverage now.
The same with the many fig trees in the yard as well. I cannot wait for the first figs to appear...
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In the summer sun the garden is finding new strength, but it will also again face many challenges from long and hot weeks with few rainy days to the opportunistic bugs that want to eat its leaves and new growth.
For now, happy gardening, and keep well!
*All of the musings and writings are my own, albeit inspired by the garden and the summer sun. The photographs are my own, taken with my Nikon D300.*