A liittle progress

Nothing seems to progress for a while and then one day you realise that the seedlings you planted are producing flowers and the house that is being built has the roof started.

In this sandy soil that I am slowly building up and that plants seem to struggle to survive I am slowly seeing results.
The sunflowers started to bloom and right behind them the cosmos and marigolds are budding.

The lemon grass has decided it likes it here and is looking lush.

The first lettuce that we have picked leaves from daily for a month now is starting to go to seed which is a good thing.
It is a red oak leaf and they are meant to do well in the heat,so I am looking forward to harvesting the seeds for next season.

In the mean time the lettuce that the Karen women gave me a few weeks ago have settled well into the cow manure enhanced bed and we are eating them now. I was surprised at how well they settled in as when the seedlings were pulled from the nursery bed they didn't have soil attached and I'm sure had many damaged roots.

The old mango trees on the land are putting out many flowers. Many of the trees look like they are past it, so we'll see how the fruiting goes before deciding whether they stay or go.

We managed to track down some grafted Hass avocados and the 4 trees we bought are settling into their new home.
So little by little we are seeing results and setting the gardens up to benefit from the next rainy season.

Tarantulas,Toads and Snakes

While clearing off the over grown stubble on land we are about to move on to in the mountains of Northern Thailand we have met some of the residents.
The tarantula I stumbled across while cutting the grass. He was wandering around the long grass. Apparently it is a he as the females live in their burrows and rarely wander around.
The toad was dug up in the temporary garden, and hurriedly recovered with dirt. There also seem to be a few snakes hiding out. One of them got taken home for dinner by the fencing guys.

A temporary garden has been created against the new boundary fence. The soil isn't great. It is quite sandy which is good for drainage but it will need to have lots of organic matter added to stop it drying out so fast during the dry season. I have a lead on some cow manure-conveniently sold by the bag, so that will be a start.
Hopefully the fence will keep out the neighbourhood dogs and chickens and the odd water buffalo that stumbles onto the property.
At the end is a small shade house for the seedlings.
Slowly we are filling up the garden with veg, herbs and flowers.

The temporary electricity was then installed.

And the most important thing - water. Fortunately the land is supplied with town water, so until we can start saving rain water(for the garden) we have a good water source.
A few days ago we went tree shopping.
The start of our orchard now includes bananas, mangoes, papaya, mulberry, pomelo, lime,coconuts and kaffir lime.
Building plans are being worked on and it looks like they may start building the house in the next few weeks all quite exciting.
The weather has been great. Lows as low as 9'C and highs of around 23-25'C. perfect for working and sleeping. It'll probably get even a little colder over the next month.