vegetables at last

You will have to see my blog for photos to go with this - www.africanaussie.blogspot.com
At last I have a few vegetables forming in the garden - it seems to have taken forever. My baby butternut look just like the real thing, only very tiny :) I want to pick some when they are still quite small - in South Africa they make a kind of stew in a cast iron pot called a potjie. It is normally a mix of meat and vegetables, and they often have whole miniature vegetables in it - very yummy. Is it only me or is this the cutest little butternut ever?

the zucchini are also forming - I wanted them to ramble over a frame, but this one keeps heading the other way. I thought if it was over a frame it would stay drier with less chance of mildew problems. Already there is some powdery mildew and so far all I have done is remove those leaves and throw them away. If it gets any worse I will get out the milk and water spray. Now I don't want to get ahead of myself but I have heard stories of people being overwhelmed with lots and lots of zucchini so i have been trying out some recipes - check this one out http://africanaussie-recipes.blogspot.com/

Because of all the bugs around I have been spraying pretty regularly with a chili garlic spray, and that seems to be working quite well. .
The ginger has started to flower and the leaves are turning brown but I am not going to harvest them - I just pick what I need and stick the growing portion back into the ground. Hopefully that works.

Little red flowers peek out of the sides - aren't they pretty?

This is my favourite time of the year - the humidity dies down, and the temperature is very mild, and suddenly we can grow what other people can grow. "normal" vegetables. Up next though is my troubles I have with tomatoes, but that deserves a whole post of its own.