Then start filling it with your kitchen waste, garden waste and lawn clippings. You will get a feeling as how much of each to layer, but I would imagine about 20cm of leafy material, then thin layer of good garden soil, then about 10cm of your kitchen scraps, a dusting of lime over these and then about 5cm of your lawn clippings. Then repeat the layering until you fill up the bin. A sprinkling of water will keep it happy. In very wet weather you will need to cover the container so as not to allow the material to get sopping wet. But do not be scared to fiddle around. It is a bit like baking bread and you will quiclky learn what layer system works the best for the materials you have.

After a few days it will sink and so top up with more layering. After about two months you can tip it all out and see what has happened. If you feel it needs more breaking down then simply put it back into the container, keeping back the most decomposed loamy material and using this in your garden. I would love to see your pictures.

Apparently the tree is a larval food plant for the butterflies Acraea horta and Cymothoe alcimeda, and these larvae can totally defoliate the tree. (According to Field Guide to Trees of Southern Africa, by Braam van Wyk & Piet van Wyk)

My questions are:
1. Is it true that the tree secretes a toxin (possibly cyanide) to discourage predators? And that only the above mentioned larvae can consume the leaves?
2. Is it true that only cuckoo's (and not other birds) can consume the larvae? And presumably digest the small amount on toxin.

I was told of this a number of years ago by the part owner of a well known Tree Felling company, but I've never been able to verify the fact. My only evidence is that our tree (a female, our neighbour has the male) gets attacked every year, but never completely defoliated. Also we often have both Diederik cuckoo's & Piet-my-Vrou's in that part of the garden at the height of the infestation. The robins never sit there although always present in other places in the garden.

1.Yes the leaves are able to produce a toxin that discourages game to eat the leaves. The leaves contain hydrocyanic acid and my understanding is that the amount of toxin in the leaf can vary, and the trees have the ability to produce the toxin quickly in response to grazing. Trees therefore growing in a game reserve will have higher levels of the toxin in their leaves compared to trees growing in a city environment and who have never been grazed. Trees with the lower levels are therefore defoliated to a greater degree by the caterpillars. I have seen this in a neighbour’s garden where one Kiggelaria was not touched by the caterpillars, and the interesting thing is that that specific tree had been purchased at the nursery at the Kruger Park!

2.Only the Cuckoo family eats the larvae. In general caterpillars are not eaten by birds because of the hairs or spines that they have on their bodies, their colours and the fact that they, like the trees, have developed a defense mechanism in the form of a toxin to stop them from becoming a tasty snack. My gut feeling is that it is not necessarily because of the toxin contained within the Kiggelaria leaves as although these butterflies love the Kiggelaria, they will use other trees to lay their eggs on, as well as the fact that other caterpillars that eat my delicious organic non toxic veggies are also not eaten by birds! However the toxin in the leaf must have an effect as so clearly shown in my neighbour’s tree. I can’t tell you what the Cuckoo’s have that helps them overcome the hairs/taste/toxin and will ask Gary to put it on the Q&A programme. Prof. Kevin Balkwell from WITS will probably be the correct person to talk to.

Trees
- Celtis africana (white stinkwood) a big tree that would be well suited to a medium sized garden but not a town house sized property.
- Combretum erythrophyllum (river bush willow) same size as the stinkwood and prefers a spot with decent water.
- Any of the fruiting Prunus trees (plums, peaches, prunes etc.) ideal smallish trees with the bonus of fruit in summer.
- Rhus chirindensis (indigenous red current) a lovely tree, it may battle with heavy frost initially, and so will need protection in the first few years.
- Indogofera frutescens is a lovely tree for a small garden, very pretty and delicate with pink flowers.
- Dombeya rotundifolia (wild pear) tough, hardy and very rewarding

Hedges
- Rhamnus prinoides (indigenous dog wood), lovely glossy neat green leaves.
- Ehretia rigida (puzzle bush) a more natural loose style hedge that makes an impenetrable barrier as it gets bigger.
- Dovyalis caffra (kei apple) may battle with very cold weather initially, but produces wonderful fruit for birds and humans.
- Quince, the mostly forgotten exotic fruiting quince is a very useful hedge with glorious spring blossom.

Climbers
- Wisteria
- Catawba grape or the non fruiting ornamental grape.

What I would suggest is going along to either the Pretoria or Walter Sizulu (in Roodepoort) botanical gardens, where you will be able to see the tress growing (in very similar conditions to yours) and see what grabs your fancy. Both gardens have nurseries with reasonably priced plants. They will not have the exotic fruit trees, hedges or climbers but you could try Garden of Eden Nursery (011-7081945) in the Kya Sand area for a good selection of fruit trees.

While long, your planter box is shallow and so please make sure that it has proper drainage and that it is watered and fed regularly to ensure your plants have the resources to produce flowers. Generally ,if people want constant colour you will need to plant seasonal annuals such as impatiens in summer and primulas in winter. However they are costly and need lots of work to keep them looking good. Have you considered our wonderful indigenous Clivia, which will flower once a year in Spring but provide neat glossy leaves for the rest of the year. The potted Kalanchoes are also tough and hardy and as they are a succulent they will happily grow in the shallow soil and flower in winter. These are normally sold as flowering pot plants from nurseries and grow easily from cuttings.

Be a little more patient with your lemon tree. Give it a good soaking once a week during the hot summer, feed it with a small handful each of 2:3:2 and superphospate and give it a monthly liquid feed with Nitrosol or Seagrow. Mulch the exposed soil around the tree with some well rotted compost and sing to it once a week (something gentle, avoid rap or heavy metal!)

WOW! Harvesting mielies at the end of winter in Johannesburg. I bow down in front of you in admiration! Yes I would pick them now and look forward to hearing how they taste. If you have the time please send us a photo to post on JCW’s veggie page on the 702 web site.

My other question involves my Aloes. What can I spray / treat the white stuff on the leaves of the Aloes with? I prefer something organic.

Hopefully the soil in the containers does not go all the way to the top of the pot; it should end about 5cm below the lip of the pot so that you can empty a 5litre watering can without it overflowing. If your pots are to full it makes it difficult to soak that whole root ball. Unlike lemons, limes do not like our cold winters and will probably look a little off every winter but they will respond well in September when the weather warms up. Currently my lime trees have pale leaves and look a little cold, so your trees may be feeling the same way. During the winter a good soaking twice a week should suffice, say on a Tuesday and a Saturday. Water in the mornings so that the trees do not go to bed cold. However as it warms up you will have to increase this to three times a week, say on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Towards the end of August give each pot a small handful each of superphoshate and 2:3:2 as well as a teaspoon of Epsom salts. I would also add a liquid feed to one of your watering in the week. Use an organic one like Nitrosol or Seagrow. About six weeks after the first firtilising, say middle of September, give the trees a small handful of 3:1:5 and repeat every six weeks or so throughout the summer. Continue with the liquid feeding every week. I know that this sounds like a lot but citrus are heavy feeders.

If your lemons are also in pots then simply follow the same routine with the limes. It may take them some time to settle and with the winter you are probably not seeing much progress, but they will improve when Spring arrives.

I do not use chemicals and have found that the first thing you need to do is to find where they hide during the day. Often this will be under a leafy plant, behind a down pipe or under pots. They seek out cool damp places and so scout around and see if you can find them. The kids will love the challenge. Secondly go out at night with a torch and see if you can see them. Dress warmly! Finally you can use simple polystyrene cups, cut the bottom off and place these, now open ended, cups over each seedling. This forms a barrier which stops the slitheries from getting to the seedlings. Finally crush up your egg shells and sprinkle them around the base of each seedling, the sharp edges make it difficult for the snails and slugs to crawl over. Comfrey and Borage leaves are also handy to mulch around each seedling as the little hairs on the leaves are nice and prickly! Most importantly, make sure your kids are involved in this process. Get them to identify snails and slugs, get them to find them, make them crush up the egg shells and do the sprinkling. Do not see the fact that your first attempt resulted in problems and therefore failure, get them to be part of the understanding and solving of the problem.

I would also suggest you get a copy of Jane Griffiths (www.janesdeliciousgarden.com) book on growing organic veggies. It is local and Jane is Joburg based and it is filled with good ideas and how to sort out problems.

- You will need three plastic storage containers. The ones you can buy from Makro or Game are good, those that have clip on/off lids, which are stackable and are about 50cmx40cmx50cm in size. The idea is to use one of these as your base container which will collect all the liquid tea, one as the middle container where the worm castings will accumulate and the top container with a lid where you will place the fresh food source for your worms to feed on.

- Starting with the bottom container you will need to drill a hole in the side of it, a few centimeters above the base. The idea is to install a simple tap, so get on of those simple plastic irrigation taps with an on/off valve. You may have an old tap floating around in your store room. You could even use a cork from a wine bottle. Get inventive and if possible recycle where ever possible. The reason for this tap is so that you can drain off the liquid that accumulates in the bottom container without having to take it all apart from the top. The size of the hole you drill will need to accommodate the thread of your tap and you will have to use some plumbing tape and some silicone to seal around the edge of the hole. Test it using water to make sure it is watertight.

- You will also need to place this bottom container on four bricks or blocks so that you have enough space to place a jug under to tap to catch the worm juice when the tap is open. You will need to find a place that is cool in summer and warm in winter, so that your worms are not affected by extreme heat or cold. In the shade of a deciduous tree for example.

- You will now need to drill 6-8mm sized holes over the entire bottom of the other two containers, that will make up the middle and top layers of your wormery. These holes need to be about 5cm apart and spread evenly over the entire bottom area. The reason for these is to allow the worms to migrate between the boxes.

- You will also need to drill a series of 6-8mm holes around the side of these two containers to allow for aeration. These need to be about 10cm from the rim of the container.

- You will also need four spacers, for each level which you will place on the bottom, in each corner, of the base container and middle container. This is to create a gap between the bottoms of the bases of the containers so. Again look to recycle things, blocks of wood, glass jars, old glasses or cups will all do the job. The idea is to separate the bases of the containers by about 15cm.

- The lid will obviously clip on to the top container. If you feel aeration is needed you could drill a hole in the lid, but to start with leave it whole.

- You can now introduce the food source into the top container and add your worms to it. Depending on temperature and moisture content they will start to process the waste and produce castings.

- When they are about ¾ way through you can transfer this top container to the middle section, placing the new, empty container on top with its base just touching the castings of the middle container, but not squashing it. Your spacers will help with this Continue to place your kitchen waste into the top container and the worms will slowly migrate from the middle section into the top section as their food source in the middle section starts to run out.

- Once the top section gets to that ¾ point of process you move it to the down to the middle section, removing the old middle layer of castings which are now ready to go into your soil.

- So it is this constant rotation from the top down to the middle section that keeps the worms eating and producing the nutritious castings. You will also need to drain off the liquid that accumulates in the base container from time to time.

- Each worm farm has its own character and you will soon figure out what works best for you, where best to place the womery in your garden and the right sort of air flow and moisture content you need to keep your worms active and happy.

I see no reason why you should wait until you get to Cape Town to start this up. Look around your property in Malawi and get a womery going. You can use old plastic paint containers, old buckets. Get creative and start experimenting. It will only cost you some brain power and lateral thinking.

It will take about a week or so for the seeds to germinate and a further six weeks or so before you can start harvesting. This may take longer in the winter months. Do not plant all the beds in one go but stagger the planting so that you sow a patch every ten days or so, this means you will always be planting a patch, growing one on and harvesting another. This will ensure a constant supply.

Hope this helps and do not give up, do the preparation work properly and you will reap the rewards.

As you can imagine, there is a wealth of information on the internet but nothing pertaining to this area in South Africa. Could you perhaps recommend a source of information for me?

From Roger: I have a small holding and utilise bore hole water for my flower and veggie garden. To date my success rate with a variety of flowers and shrubs as well as assorted vegetables has been extremely poor. I am of the opinion that the acidic borehole water is the culprit. Other than some sort of filter system is it possible to treat the soil with dolomitic lime as a counter measure. What other options can I consider

From Mark: I live on farm near Tulbagh and although we do not farm the lands at all, we had success with a vegetable garden that we planted. It gets very hot here, often in the 40’s and Baby Marrows and other squash thrive in the heat. Unfortunately after Christmas nearly all the Baby Marows were sting and get worms in. The also then grow ina deformed manner and become inedible. Is there a way to stop the fruit fly (so I am told that this is what these pests are) from destroying the Baby Marrows.

Also we are pretty cold (no frost) and wet in winter with short days. Is there a way to rig a very small tunnel with ultra violet lights and a heater to grow baby marrows in winter? I really look forward to my own vegetables and prefer summer veg.

Personally I would not try to grow marrows in winter. Seasonal eating is what it is all about and when you try and grow veggies out of their natural season you are simply asking for problems. However it is possible to grow marrows in tunnels but you will need to provide them additional light and heat, both of which, on a small scale, make it expensive too expensive to grow. Home grown Tulbagh peas and broad beans would be a much better crop in winter.

Obviously we are moving closer to winter and would like to know what kind of seeds we can plant that will grow successfully at this time of year.

I should also mention that the allotments are in an area where they will probably suffer from frost from the middle of April onwards.

• CABBAGE
• BRUSSEL SPROUTS
• PROPER SPINACH
• SWISS CHARD
• PEAS
• CHINESE GREENS
• CAULIFLOWER
• LETTUCE
• ROCKET
• CORRIANDER

All of these will handle the cold winter, but if you know it is going to be frosty you may want to invest in some nursery fleece from your local nursery, so that you can cover the plants on very cold nights. Please have a look at www.janesdeliciousgarden.com for useful Gauteng veggie garden ideas.

As for frost protection, building a structure over your veggie garden and then covering it with a low percentage shade cloth will help but is an expensive operation. Straw is a versatile product that can be used as a mulch as a way to blanket the soil and keep the soil temperature moderated. You can also use it to wrap the stems of frost tender plants and if I know a there is a heavy frost due I even lightly cover my winter veggies just to give them a bit of added protection.

The grasshoppers are probably a result of the hot start to summer followed by the good rains in the second half of summer. As an organic grower I do use insecticides, but I would use your shade cloth to physically cover your crops and way down the sides with bricks to simply prevent the insects from getting to your plants. What you could also try is to kill some of the hoppers and stew their bodies in a bottle of water in the sun for a day or two. Spray this water onto your plants and the smell of the decaying corpse will repel the hoppers. Generally they swarm and then move on and so hopefully this problem is just temporary!

Two contacts that may be helpful are www.siyakhana.org who is an organization based in Johannesburg and Braamekraal Farm who sell organic seed. Contact them on mikro2nd@gmail.com

Finally a garden blog in Johannesburg that I always read is www.kahnage.wordpress.com It is not vegetable related but is a good read.

I would imagine that you are in your dry season and this is often the time when termites invade gardens looking for forage and moisture. Their nests lay below the ground and what often happens in developed areas is that their natural food source is removed and often replaced with ornamental planting which brings gardeners and insects into conflict. I can only share my experience with you and hope that you will do the same. I moved to Johannesburg to a garden that was very typical in that it had a kikuyu lawn, some exotic trees and flower beds.

The first step was to reshape the land to take advantage of the slope and its ability to slow and trap any run off water. Some large gum trees were cut down but instead of removing them they were buried in large holes on the property, for the termites to eat! New indigenous trees were planted but more importantly we planted lots of veld grass and allowed the garden to become wild. By that I mean there were no neatly mown lawns and ordered flower beds, but rather an environment that mimicked the natural Highveld that surrounded the property. Although the young plants were watered initially, as they established themselves they were expected to get on with what rainfall we got and again by choosing plants that naturally grew in the area, we worked with nature by selecting plants that would grow in those conditions. Each winter the termites would harvest this veld grass and in doing so returned the goodness and seed to the soil and they showed no interest in the veggie garden which was kept close to the house.

Simply by providing them with there natural food source we were able to live happily side by side and we all got something to eat at the end of the day. We live in a world where everything has a role to play and a reason and so instead of fighting them, learn as much about them as you can and if you can provide the insects with their natural food source they will often stay away from your herbs.

However if you want to protect your herb garden you could make up a very weak solution of Jeyes Fluid ( 1ml of Jeyes to 1litre of water) and water down the sleepers with that. Jeyes is toxic but at that weak dilution it is not a problem. You could also paint the underside of your sleeper with creosote which will repel them. Please remember that creosote is toxic and you must wear gloves and a mask when painting the wood. Allow the wood to dry off as much as possible before replacing the sleepers into the ground so as to minimise it leaching into the soil. Although these are considered “soft options” as opposed to applying a chemical that will kill the insect, by using any toxic chemical (no matter how safe) you will not be able to say that your herbs and veggies are organic.

If this does not help then it may be an idea to grow your plants in containers which are raised off the ground (on bricks) or placed on a concrete floor.

Please also remember that a lot of the traditional European herbs such as rosemary, thyme, basil and oregano are not happy in hot tropical climates such as the Congo and so you may battle to grow these, but you will be able to grow wonderful curry leaves, vanilla, pepper and all the wonderful herbs and spices from India and the Far East. I hope this helps, I have never visited the Congo but have read The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver and so have an idea of what a challenge it must be to garden in the Congo.