Tannie Kruiwa!

When we first arrived in Jacobsbaai we rented a little house while ours was being built. I think I have written about my frustrations in wanting to start a garden and hitting on the brilliant plan of using old wheelbarrows! A kind of mobile garden. I bartered for the first two from the builders next door with bottles of Coca Cola and packets of chips (crisps) and then they kind of bred. Unchecked. I now have eighteen! I became known as Tannie Kruiwa, or Aunty Wheelbarrow! Sounds better in Afrikaans somehow!

Every now and then a builder friend will stop outside and tell me that they have a ‘delivery’ for me, and will off-load a couple of rusty, dented, cement encrusted old warriors! I have begged old ones from building plots and pushed one with a wheel that screamed, halfway round the village! Our house is easy to find as it has three outside the perimeter wall, so we simply tell people to look for the kruiwas. And on Sunday we had a load of wood delivered by a very nice chap who said that he had one for me and would bring it the next time that he was in the area!! All gratefully received!

Pink lachanalias and a terracotta gnome!

Some are really battered and hanging on by sheer willpower, but one or two still look roadworthy with complete framework and wheels that still turn. These are very useful as I can move them around as the mood takes me and the seasons change and I plant geraniums, tomatoes and parsley (manna for the bokkies though), linaria and gazanias. I have some with arums in that can be ignored during the summer and another with ‘vetplants’ (succulents) that can be ignored all the time! Several have rocks tucked under various parts to keep them from falling over and others have lost their handles!

Yellow lachanalias

Now that we have had some welcome rain, there are several with winter bulbs that are starting to flower, ixias and Sparaxis, and our favourite, lachanalias!

Bokbye vygies. (Livingstone Daisies)

This one toppled over one day, fortunately there was a handy rock nearby!

And I am thrilled to think that the age-old tradition of ‘kruiwa gardening’ is being carried on by future generations!

Taken at school. What a star!

My gorgeous grandson Mateo, proudly standing next to his strawberry barrow!