Reading this week:

• American Imperialist by Arwen P. Mohun
• Hunting Trips in Northern Rhodesia by D.D. Lyell, F.Z.S. (pretty racist)

As it has been over a year since my previous update on our garden, it is time to give you all the latest, and the last. You see our time in undisclosed country is drawing to a close and so therefore too is our time with this particular garden. And um there isn’t actually a whole lot to update. We did not grow as much this year as in previous years. The seeds we had did not really take this time, so there was no big harvest of various foodstuffs. For a while there some pumpkin vines were sprouting of their own accord, and really taking over the garden area. The trellis we had gotten set up the year before was still there, even though it never really served as a rain shield, but with the pumpkin vines it could instead serve as a very nice sunshade with vines growing all up an around. But although the vines covered the sky and ground and there were many flowers, never did any begin to grow a pumpkin. Oh well.

Instead my real big successes were trees. This was all touch and go for a while. I see in my last post that I was excited for my avocado tree to grow taller than I was, and I can happily report it is significantly taller than I am, all in only about two years. Still no avocados of course, but I am sure the next occupants of the house will find them delicious. In the dry season the leaves were getting coated with some sort of grime, or perhaps a fungus, though it would still push out new leaves occasionally. In the rainy season it seems to have recovered its mojo and shot right on up. It is my single most successful tree I’ve ever grown.

In that last post you’ll also recall my small citrus tree in the ground. Unfortunately it has remained small and rather unhealthy. I don’t know what is wrong or what to do right, though it is still hanging on. Instead above is a picture of a totally different citrus tree, this one I think orange though I mixed up all my seedlings and can’t remember. I think keeping it in a pot on that concrete platform helped, as it made it harder for pests to get to it from the grass. I think. It is really now much too large for that pot but I was reluctant to change it as I knew I would give it away and didn’t want to make it too unwieldly. In our wrap-up here it has indeed found a new home where it will live for some time, and they have already created a much larger box in which it can reside. A proud legacy! Though also in the back of the house there are several small citrus trees I planted which were quite sickly for a while but are now growing quite strong. Maybe someday there will be tons more citrus.

A fun part of the garden (when I am not accidentally walking through spider webs) is all the bug (and frog) life. In fact the frog above is the first I have seen, and I spotted it hiding out in a new leaf. I suppose that might actually be a baby toad, and those we have seen plenty of, but I am no herpetologist. The various other critters have also been cool, and it has been interesting to spot them as I walk around. Some I see often, like the spiders, but I only ever saw one of the anime-looking mantis, and the pictured jumping spider is the only one I’ve seen in the midst of catching prey. Life is truly wonderful. Besides the tiny critters and the toads, also this year a rather large rat-looking thing moved into some of the bushes in the corner. I was happy to have it there, as I figured that its presence meant our yard must not have many snakes. Not that I dislike snakes in general, but I wouldn’t want to disturb one in surprise as that would be unpleasant for both of us. Oh and lizards! There are lots of lizards!

At any rate that has been our gardening experience here in undisclosed country. It has been a lot of fun and it is so nice to have some greenery outside the window. I hope the trees will continue to grow big and strong and bear fruit, and more importantly that the friends we are leaving behind will take pictures of the trees with that fruit and send it to me. I will be so proud.