I think I’m cheating and choosing just the cloudy days to create these posts… but what an incredible rainy season we’re having in the Gaborone area! 70mm to bring in the new year and then another 18mm a couple of days ago; 2mm & 5mm. I’ve never really had to de-junglerize my garden before, but pathways are little more than guesswork now beneath the swathes of plants. Now to end this month off a further 23mm, 5mm, 25mm, 39mm. Amazing!
In the Indigenous garden, the Mmilos are still green, getting larger and juicier; the Grewias have yielded some ripe fruit but largely they’re green too. All the trees, including the wild gardenia, cassia abbreviata and kudu berry which normally struggle a little bit have sprung to life and are sending out new branches. I planted a few marama beans around the yard in the sandier spots to mimic the conditions of further north in the Kalahari where I got the seeds from, and they have sprouted and seem to be liking where I’ve put them for the moment. A few wild cucumber vines have been fruiting, plus a new type I haven’t seen before, which I think is Kedrostis foetidissima.
Kedrostis foetidissima fruit 
Kedrostis foetidissima flowering
Foxglove and hibiscuses are in full flower, their tall stems surrounded by a sea of flowering grasses, which is really unusual for January.
Hibiscus engleri 
Ceratotheca triloba 
Hermbstaedtia fleckii 
Waltheria indica 
Justicia betonica 
Acrotome inflata
In the Fruit garden, the peaches are almost ripe, and the Elder is fruiting for the first time. I’d never tried the fruit before, but it tastes very similar to the garden huckleberry. Pomegranates are ripening, lemons too, and the Buddha’s hand is still flowering off and on.
Elder fruiting
Peach 
Pomegranate
In the Herb garden, this rainy weather is good for most of the herbs, but rosemary, thyme and sage appear not to be doing so well, whereas catmint, fennel and gotu kola are exploding with growth.
Fennel
In the Vegetable garden, I have grown peanuts from seed from the first time, and now they’re flowering. Absolutely beautiful. Being nervous on how they’d do, I started them in a pot instead of in a mound of soil in the ground, and so they probably won’t yield lots of peanuts, but I got to see it grow which was lovely.
Peanuts flowering
In the Garden, a new plant that I’ve grown from seed has just started to flower and wow was I disappointed. Verbena bonariensis looks glorious in UK gardens, but the one in my garden looks like a weed. However with the increased shade from all the rains it’s probably in the wrong position, so I will persevere. A couple of the dahlias did really well, but a few got spider mite too. All the begonias are still flowering, a small orchid from Spar is still flowering, the Petunias from Builders warehouse were too irresistably beautiful and are still flowering, and the roses are bursting into bloom at odd intervals. I also got a carnivorous Saracenia plant from Spar, which I’ve never grown before, so will see how that does too.
Dahlia 
Dahlia 
Orchid 
Petunias 
Saracenia 
Verbena bonariensis
For a green manure, I managed to grow some sunhemp, which has normally bolted or died in our usual super hot conditions, but in this rainy weather it is doing really well.
Sunhemp
Gardens Botswana 