Sweet Peas & Sunshine Backyard Flower Farm

09/04/2024

01/04/2024

Zinnias are so abundant right now.

27/03/2024

Snail vine flowers... such a lovely fragrance. 🥰

28/02/2024

What a scorcher! Hopefully my garden survives... 🥵

24/02/2024

Linda's Baby 😍

16/02/2024

Zinnias have totally won me over this season.

15/02/2024

Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes.... 😁

11/02/2024

Beatrice dahlia 😍

10/02/2024

First potato harvest of this season. Variety: El Mundo from Living Seeds. Planting to harvest in 70 days. Despite poor, sandy soil with zero organic matter or soil aggregates, no use of compost, infrequent watering, the constant tunnelling of moles through the bed, repeated days of extremely high temperatures, very late planting, Mother Nature still worked her magic and we have a harvest. Grateful for these little garden miracles. 😊

10/02/2024

So this is my Wizard of Oz dahlia, so the one I picked the other day is some unknown variety that does not match any of the ones I ordered. Very curious. 🤔

07/02/2024

Wizard of Oz dahlia. I am not generally a fan of the colour pink, but it does become something special in the garden and then I love it. 😄

07/02/2024

First zinnia for the season and what a beauty!

18/01/2024

We are roasting. Just focusing on keeping the garden alive. And us. One day we will live in a more moderate climate. For now this is what we have to deal with. Any other small-scale flower growers dealing with extreme heat and NOT growing under shade net?

06/11/2023

An unexpected visitor today... 😮

23/10/2023

These thorny weeds grow profusely throughout the entire back garden space. When we moved into this house 10 months ago you couldn't walk outside without picking up dozens of these thorns in the soles of your shoes each time. You still cannot be barefoot out there. We have been steadily working at eradicating them, but with all the winter rain we had them popping up all over again and they seem to thrive here. You just look away for a second and they are taking over. Or that is what it feels like. 😜 But oh my, it is a painful experience pulling out these weeds. Hopefully this season we get them all pulled out before they have dropped too many thorns and slowly but surely we will get rid of them. Those little thorns though with their gremlin faces... 😂

23/10/2023

Of course Oreo thinks the hessian shade cover over my seed tray table is really just a giant hammock we made especially for him. 😂

23/10/2023

After snacking on a bug, this little lizard hung out with me while I was weeding, totally chilled out and unfazed.

06/09/2023

Wasn't going to grow these as they seem so awkward to work with in bouquets, but after watching a video from Northlawn Flower Farm on how she trims these and works them into stunning arrangements, could not pass up the opportunity to give them a go.

05/09/2023

30m of 1.8m wire mesh from DIY Shop for trellising of beans, melons, tomatoes, cucumbers, cucamelons, loofah, as well as a few climbing flowers. Definitely not the same wire gauge as the cattle panels I see so often used in the States, so will not work so well for a tall arch (been there, tried that), but works fantastically for straight trellising and is very affordable.

05/09/2023

50 more seed trays from Martin Dale Seedlings. I think I just might have enough seed trays now... 😄

28/08/2023

Living Seeds order:

Alverstone Russet seed potatoes (most excited about this one)
El Mundo seed potatoes
Tyson seed potatoes
Up-To-Date seed potatoes
Seedling tags
Seeds:
Sweet Purple Asparagus
Hyacinth Bean (for bouquets)
Dill Forrest
Summer Savory Midget
Russian Tarragon (for bouquets)
Winter Thyme
Sage (for the herb garden and bouquets)
All Year Round spring onion
Yellow Scallop Squash
Patty Pan Alba
Buckwheat (for interplanting with veg but also a pretty filler in bouquets)

28/08/2023

So excited about this order from Adene's Farm Flowers:

Dahlias:

Beatrice (specially for my mom whose name is Beatrice)
Boom Boom White
Cornel Bronze
Cornel Red
Genova
Linda's Baby
Small World
Wizard of Oz

Seeds:

Scabiosa Stellata Starflower
Amaranthus Upright Mix
Celosia Flamingo Feather
Rudbeckia Indian Summer
Giant Strawflower Apricot Peach
Bells of Ireland
Cosmos Double Dutch Mix

25/08/2023

Deliveries are rolling in with supplies to get this little backyard farm started.

From DIY shop (a lifesaver to order online as I don't have easy access to many of the things I need, given that we live in a small country town):

Twine for corralling flowers and doing Florida weave on peppers and for general garden purposes
Cable ties for securing trellises
Assorted seedling trays (still trying to find a size and style I like)

From Hydroponic.co.za:
Seed trays
Vermiculite
Plant pots

From Mountain Herb Estate:
White Yarrow
Feverfew
Purple Broom
Shasta Daisy
Black-Eyed Susan (for hiding some less than pretty garden walls) 😄
Snail vine

From Seeds for Africa:
Carnation Giant Chabaud
Gomphrena Las Vegas
Zinnia California Giants
German Chamomile
Roman Chamomile
Rosemary
Chives
Garlic chives
White Lisbon spring onion
Strawberry Fragaria x Annanasa
Roma VF tomato
Heinz 1370 tomato
Alyssum Snow Cloth
Alyssum Royal Carpet
Marigold Lemon Drop
Cannolini runner bean
Nantes Scarlet carrots
Garden soft tie (for eggplant and zucchini)
Tomato clips

And more deliveries to come next week. Of course I have loads of flower, veg and herb seeds already... but you can never have enough, right? 😂