Hey hey! Welcome to my little bit of Internet space 
Practical Gardening Tips Not Readily Available From Books, But Comes With Experience – and some Science too!
Here I have regular posts on how to grow vegetables, fruits and herbs. I have several article series of vegetable profiles, biological control via insects, chicken keeping, home composting and whatever else I come across to share with you!
I am situated in South Africa, Roodepoort. South Africa is an semi-arid to arid landscape with many different biomes. We also sport the world heritage site of the Fynbos (Afrikaans, a native language & my mother tongue, for “fine bush”), which is an endemic shrubland of the Cape Peninsula – Famous for the majestic Proteas.
Roodepoort, however, is well within the Highveld region of South Africa. Thus my garden gets rain during the spring & summer months (Sep-Mar), which is a measly 700-800mm per year. Autumn (Apr-May) and winter (June -Aug) is relatively cold and very dry. In SA, water is precious and electricity very expensive, so we only use rainwater and grey water for the vegetable garden. Nothing powered by electricity is used in the vegetable garden – only elbow grease. I try to keep all pest and disease control to biological and organic (green) methods. The same goes for composting, fertilising and soil maintenance.
I started vegetable (edible) gardening during my 1st year BSc (Genetics) degree. The garden was mostly a container garden on our patio area, but that didn’t work so great, since it became a breeding ground for all kinds of pests. So I moved outside to a little space behind the kitchen, which had this small strange plot and soil mostly occupied by grass – and we converted this into a veggie patch. First we only dug up half of the plot, and later expanded. Now the whole plot in under veg, a few containers and mini green house is dotted around the space.
My approach to vegetable gardening is much the same as my approach to science – TRY EVERYTHING and see what works. So I have made my way through most of the vegetable types and cultivars available on the South African market.
I first experiment, then report back – this meant that I generally published “How To Grow Profiles” once every two months (but since I am moving my old blog’s content, it is a lot more frequent). These are substantial full articles between 3-5 A4 pages with just about everything I can get to put into the article – complete with photos to boot! I am trying to do a few smaller tidbit articles that are no more than 2 A4 pages (but I can’t seems to help myself when it comes to research )…
My Blog was on Google Blogger since 2011, where I nearly reached half a million pageviews before Google’s algorithm change knocked out 80% of its organic search traffic. I decided since Google doesn’t want me there I will move myself and my content to WordPress – and now I am here!
I cover a wide range of topics and am not just restricted to vegetable gardening. I have a large collection of botanical prints of herbs, vegetables and fruits featured on my posts. I have posts/pages on keeping chickens, composting, propagation, pruning, attracting wildlife to the garden (beneficial insects), biological pest control, water conservation, sustainable practises, books read, the exhibitions & talks I attended, and when the opportunity arises I’ll introduce you to the world of Genetics and Molecular Science.
TTFN!
Ta-ta For Now!
Whisker Flowers
Whisker Flowers blog and its contents are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported, CC BY-NC 3.0. This means that you are free to use, share and remix my photos and blog content for free for non-commercial purposes given attribution (https://whiskerflowers.wordpress.com).
Whisker Flowers 
Hi, I am Brigitta and really enjoyed your blog. Glad to see you are in SA as everything I mostly read about veg and permaculture is either in the USA or Aus, where both climates are not as in SA. We, hubby and I, just bought a piece of land in the Klein Karoo, Here I hope to start a permaculture farm and food forest, at age 61, so exciting! Hoping to leave a legacy for my kids! Thanks for a really interesting article. What is your name? Anyway, keep up the good work and I will follow you on Pinterest. Thanks.
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You are most welcome! Thank you for the visit and I wish you all the best with your new endeavour! 🙂
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Hello,
Thank you so much for your post: https://whiskerflowers.wordpress.com/2018/03/03/peppers-paprika-how-to-grow-fruit/
If possible we’d love a link back to our website when making reference to our PEPPADEW® Piquantè Peppers. (https://www.peppadew.com/za)
Please note that, as you may already be aware, the popularity of our well-known PEPPADEW® brand and our PEPPADEW® Piquanté Pepper products has resulted in some people referring to Piquanté Peppers as ‘peppadews’ or ‘pepperdews’. However, the term PEPPADEW® is our brand name and registered trade mark and is not to be considered as a generic product descriptor for Piquanté Peppers. The PEPPADEW® trade mark is also associated with a number of other product offerings such as Jalapeños, Pasta Sauces, Atchars, Relishes, Pickled Onions etc. and not only with Piquanté Peppers.
In light of the above, please make sure that all reference to Piquantè Peppers as an ingredient descriptor is reflected correctly as “Piquantè Peppers” and that, should you wish to make specific reference to our company’s well-known brand of Piquantè Pepper products, that it is referred to as “PEPPADEW® Piquanté Peppers”.
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Hey hey! You are most welcome & thank you for the visit! It would be most exiting for you to link to my site 😉 I have also made the necessary amendments to the article to honour your trademark 🙂
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Great to discover your new blog site. I live nearby so I benefit from all your experience and advice, and enjoy trying out the ideas in my own garden, despite my hens getting far too involved! Any comments on using mycorrhizal fungi? I’m focusing on building up the soil and letting plants help themselves.
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Hey hey, thanx for the visit! I have seen that Alfalfa (or lucerne) seems to attract mycorrhizal fungi, i.e., lots of white fuzz on the roots – so it may be worthwhile to let some of the Alfalfa grow among you other plants… you can check out my post on Natural Biofertilizers as well @ https://whiskerflowers.wordpress.com/2018/06/02/natural-biofertilisers-living-mulches-the-edible-legumes/
I have another article on the soil micro-ecosystem coming later in the year, in the mean time another good post to check out would be the Conservation Agriculture @ https://whiskerflowers.wordpress.com/2018/03/14/sustainable-productive-economical-vegetable-gardening-conservation-agriculture/ and the Integrative Organic Gardening post @ https://whiskerflowers.wordpress.com/2018/05/05/sustainable-productive-and-economical-vegetable-gardening-part-3-integrated-organic-gardening-2/
Hope that helps & Good Luck! 🙂
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Can I send some pictures of a caterpillar I found on our calamondin fruit tree? I need to identify it and know how to safely get rid of it since it is eating the leaves. Barbara
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Hey hey! Thank you for the visit! It is likely a Citrus Swallow Tail Butterfly, they are the most prominent pest of citrus in South Africa. You can read all about them on my Caterpillars post: https://whiskerflowers.wordpress.com/2018/05/12/caterpillars-garden-pest-of-the-month/
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