Spring has Sprung!

I've been a bit quiet when it comes to posting but that's just because I've been so busy cooking, entertaining and finally, GARDENING!!!

I scored a major luck while running through my neighborhood on Monday evening - a building site was chucking out a few hundred plastic plant pots and big seedling trays. I went back to fetch them and it looks like I'm sorted for seed planting for the foreseeable future!!

The garden is starting to take shape: the veggie boxes have been moved to where the trampoline used to be (we've kind of outgrown it in the family...!) and the troughs have been cleaned out ready for strawberry seedlings when they finally become available again. 

I may have cheated a little and bought a few seedlings the other day (they were just sooooo tempting when I went through the nursery I couldn't help myself...)

Comfrey - it's coming up all over the place. I'd previously planted it as green manure
which the chickens got hold of and I thought it was gone so emptied the soil out of the
boxes where it was growing... Needless to say, wherever the soil ended up I've got baby comfrey plants jumping up
and now I'm JUMPING for JOY!

Mint - ready for Summer Mojitos!

Mint and pots of peas

Potato Plants in tyres

New growth on the Rose Bushes

Rosemary ready for Lamb Roasts

How awesome are these seedling trays?! 

Seeds planted and labelled - I can't wait to see the little green faces!

Tomato Seedling - unplanted! They came up where last year's ones were growing!

Cheat seedlings from the nursery :)
Tomato plants in the back box, new Lemon Tree in the pot
and a raspberry plant to grow up the wall.

I know it's still winter, but.............................

Cape Town had a cold front last week (I know you're thinking "it's winter, of course you had a cold front" but we've had the mildest winter I can remember and most of it hasn't felt like winter at all...) which promted mom to light the coal stove in the kitchen. This is such a treat and all of our cooking and baking happens as it would have a hundred years ago with temperatures at the mercy of whoever takes responsibility for stoking the fire.


The house is divinely warm and we all spend most of our time crammed around the kitchen table. I still have to venture outside to feed the chickens and on one such morning the gardening bug bit. Hard. I dug the seed box out of the garage and finally put to use some of the toilet roll inners that I'd forced the family to collect for me for months! I only planted a small seed tray but it's got some basics that I can't wait to get into the veggie boxes once the threat of cold fronts has passed... the tray has pride of place next to the stove but gets moved around the kitchen during the day so as to catch as much sunlight through the skylight as possible.

Authentic Farm Experience

I'm not normally one for promoting stuff through my writing but it may just happen this time :) This is mainly because I had such a great experience that I felt I just had to share it!

Prompted by uploading photos from my camera (I have this nasty habit of forgetting to upload them as I have 6 massive memory card's which I swap in event by event...) I was reminded of an absolutely fabulous day we spent on a very special farm. Aunty Karen (coming from an Afrikaans family this just happens...) and Oom Michael have been family friends for many years - they used to live in Cape Town before they moved to Lelieblom Farm in Darling. Karen has an amazing sense of style and has translated this into a farm restaurant. We spent Father's day being spoilt rotten with the yummiest of plaas kos (potato and bacon soup with homemade bread for starters, roast goat meat with sweet potatoes, pumpkin fritters and veggies for mains and an amazing chocolate mousse and coffee for desert). The menu is decided based on what's fresh on the farm (yes, the meat is from Michael's goat herd) and in the village.

Lunch was a lazy affair - don't for a moment think you'll stop by for a quick meal! In the country there is no such thing... After lunch Michael decided to test my horse riding skills (he says I'm OK for a city girl!) and we were shown around the extensive property before being plied with yet another cup of coffee... The potbelly pigs get the lunch leftovers at the gate which was fun to watch and chickens free-range through the garden (they've been banned from the dining room!) The restaurant is open on a booking only system and Karen and her daughter Nicolette buy and cook accordingly. They're open every Sunday and are more than happy to open during the week for functions - the farm would make for an amazing small, exclusive wedding venue. All in all a fantastic day and a truly authentic farm experience. 



Check out Lelieblom Farm here or call Karen on 082 573 7736

Happiness Is...

Heading into the garden with my cup of tea yesterday morning I couldn't help but feel like the luckiest girl in the world! How can you feel anything else when you share your morning cuppa with the chickens, bunnies and such pretty flowers and exciting new seedlings? 

After the upheaval of moving the garden from one suburb to another, the veggie boxes are finally installed in their 'forever homes' and filled with straw and chicken litter and potting soil (the idea is that the chicken litter breaks down and the veggies on top grow like they're on steroids!)

The beans are 4 days old and looking strong

The bath full of carrots is looking so promising!

Lettuces just showing their faces in the first veggie box

Lettuces and Beans in the first veggie box

Sunday Ramblings

I finally got it together to start the strawberry beds on the walls (remember the Strawberry Plan?)  and I'm quite pleased with the results :-) Proud to say I managed to do it all myself - from cutting the gutters (disastrous!) to drilling the walls (a little more successfully!), etc.

This was inspired by our trip to Stellenbosch on Friday. The strawberry farms already have red berries by the thousand (granted they're growing in tunnels!). I've noticed they're getting a little less ridiculously priced at woolies (they're still darn expensive, even if someone else is paying) and there's more variety.

I owe my mom a MASSIVE favour (or ten - I'll blog about that one tomorrow) so I'm going to put up some strawberry gutters for her this week... I'm thinking of planting some more things than strawberries though and I'll have to put lots of them up as it's a very hot and exposed area (my thinking is that if I put up enough it'll cool it down a bit...). Hopefully I can turn it into a relaxing and productive space for mom (and Dad) to enjoy :-)

 

I've started off with just 3 tiers to test out the plan (plus, I didn't have washers for the screws I'm worried that the screws might pull through the plastic...) Seems like a good thing I'm planting them out as the seedling trays have stunted their growth - they were pretty root bound.

The white powder was my over-zealous gardener adding bone meal to the planting process... I'd asked him to mix a handful into the soil and this is how he understood it (I was fetching a cup of tea!)

The lettuces and beetroot are growing like crazy! The rain and warmer weather have done them the world of good (I thought they were duds as they struggled to get going!)

Close up of the lettuce. I think I can make a salad with all the outside leaves soon and leave the inside to keep growing

The onions are coming along nicely - the stems are strong and thick

Self-Sufficiency

A couple of months back I wandered into Exclusive Books (as I do very often!) and a book caught my eye... The New Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency: The Classic Guide for Realists and Dreamers by John Seymore. The catch phrase is something like for idealists and dreamers (I can't remember off the top of my head now...) I'm not sure where I fall between those two categories - some days I'm the ultimate idealist and others I just have these dreams that run away with me - but I can honestly say that John Seymore's books are nothing short of inspirational! Given that they were written many years ago (he gives instructions for the construction of cold houses as there were no fridges, etc.) there is much entertainment to be found between the covers. I not only purchased The complete guide to self sufficiency but The New Self-Sufficient Gardener too! I have read and re-read them hundreds of times already, drawing inspiration, motivation and skills from their beautifully illustrated pages... Both books cover a very wide knowledge base that has been put into simple words that bring the ideas and concepts to life. I have learned much about planting, looking after my vegetables and trees, culinary skills such as preserving my produce, etc.

The books have pride of place on my coffee table and proudly bear the stains of use as a manual in the kitchen and garden. John Seymore's experience is worth a thousand times what I paid for the books! He's unfortunately passed on but his teaching farm still exists in Ireland and his family is keeping his legacy alive. We could do with more wonderful people like this around today!

Since starting my green journey a year or so ago I have learned much. The biggest lesson I have learned is that we really don't know all that much! There is a wealth of information on the internet which is the most accessible information - it seems there are many experts on every concieveable topic. This has proved time consuming but very interesting.

I have successfully grow bags and bags of sweet and juicy beans (these get eaten by the handful by everyone who visits so I didn't even bother to cook them!), about 20kg of tomatoes which my Ouma helped me to bottle most of them for sauces and stews (very easy to do and absolutely delicious!). I have struggled with growing potatoes (they died while the tubers were still only the size of marbles) and gem squash (these plants succumbed to leaf mould which I was unable to get rid of)...

I have tried one last planting of gem squash in a brand new bed which I am hoping doesn't have any disease in the soil so we can have some healthy squashes... holding thumbs!

I got my dad to help me make some raised veggie beds. We made boxes that a 1 sqm and 0.4m deep. This box is on legs that have the top of the boxes at 0.8m off the ground. It's a little late for planting beans but I have given it a go anyway - I planted beans in one row at the back of the boxes and planted carrots in the front 3/4 of the boxes. These are year round crops so they should be fine still.

I've been cultivating a few sweet potatoes in my pantry for planting out the vines. This is done by putting the sprouting sweet potato into a bowl of water and topping it up regularly. There are probably 20 vines coming out of each potato which are 50cm long - perfect for planting in my newly prepared beds... This will hopefully happen tomorrow.

I am training my domestic worker to use green techniques in cleaning (she's of the school that uses a whole container of handy andy and domestos a week...) which has been a true challenge but I am hopeful that we'll get this right! I have stopped buying harsh cleaning chemicals which has been met with moans and groans about the new stuff 'not cleaning properly'... However, now that we're following the directions on the pack we're doing much better!

Getting my fingers green in my Kitchen Garden

Growing up, my Ouma always had fruit and vegetables growing in our garden. Fond memories of strawberries and gooseberries lovingly picked and stored while we were away for Christmas holidays. Arriving home from school to fresh tomatoes and beans with lunch.

There was always a recycling program happening in the kitchen (this used to drive my Dad mad as it was a space consuming exercise!) and a compost bucket next to the sink where food was prepared... While this seemed like an abolute mission, my mom was always very proud of the fact that there was only one bin bag leaving the house every week (for a family of 5 this is pretty impressive!) with the compost going into a heap in the garden and the recycleable materials being rinsed and sent to an organisation in our neighbourhood that sorts, processes and sells the materials, keeping a large group of mentally disabled people employed and cared for. Mom's recycling program is a lot more organised and tidy now - three different coloured bins in the front driveway for glass, paper and plastic get cleared out every other month or whenever they're full and there's no more 'junk' in the kitchen! The organic material from the kitchen now goes towards feeding the chickens outside the back door (there are about 15 of them at the moment) that provide a constant stream of lovely eggs which Ouma still uses in her regular baking and there's a new tradition of an omlette day once a week when the eggs are adding up!

In my own house, I have struggled with the recycling principles my mom instilled in us from a young age (two of us fill an entire black wheelie bin every week!) and am very aware that this is something we need to work on and improve. In the meantime, I've purchased a worm farm (it sounds really awful but you get over it quickly!) which takes care of the organic waste (you chuck all of your raw food scraps into it and the worms turn it into natural fertilizer (which comes out of the tap at the bottom) and vermicompost (worm poops - they don't smell a bit and are completely sterile no matter what the worms eat!). The by products of the worm process lead to me getting really excited about my garden! I started by putting the liquid fertilizer on my roses and other flowers and these all started growing like wild-fire... Then I heard an interview on sustainable food gardening and decided to do a little research on a food gardens. Within a day I'd rushed out to buy seeds and cleared space in my courtyard pots! I added compost and planted gem squash, tomatoes, beans, basil, mint and parsley. I am proud to say that everything I planted not only made my courtyard look and smell wonderful, but also provided crunchy, fresh vegetables all summer long! I have gotten even more ambitious and planted bunching onions, chives and lettuce as well as a pot of Thyme which I see as a long term investment (it's perennial and as I remember from Ouma's garden they are hardy and last forever!). I also followed a successive planting scheme so there will be a constant stream of veggies for a while still! I have planted more beans, tomatoes and squashes every 3 weeks or so and the last ones are just coming up now... I feed them with worm juice regularly (possibly more than I need to but once you get excited you tend to do more than necessary!) and make sure they have water every morning - once you get into a routine it's easy... and the day you harvest your first crop (no matter how big or small) you'll suddenly realise it's all definately worthwhile - in fact, it was so exhilirating picking tomaotes to go into a salad when I was having friends over for dinner I couldn't help telling everyone!!! I picked the gemsquash very young and and steamed them - the skins were soft and they were wonderfully fresh and tasty...

I'm not brave enough to have chickens yet (well, my boyfriend isn't ready to have managery in his garden but I'm working on him!) and I'm more keen on ducks anyway! In the meantime though, my rottweiler (Billy) wouldn't approve of birds taking over his garden... So the garden belongs to Billy and the vegetables (and big trees, hadedas, guineafowls, squirrels and a miriad of other wildlife that can get away quickly!)

My next project is a greenhouse - I'm going to start small and see how it goes but it extends the vegetable growing season to all year round which I find very exciting! I also intent to propagate avocado and hydrangea cuttings... Can't wait to document that journey!