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.

When life Sends you Lemons...

Easy peasy recipe today although it's so easy I'm not sure it counts as a recipe!

I found these gorgeous Grolsch Beer bottles on their way to a bin in a house that doesn't recycle (I know, right?!?!?) and rescued them... It's taken a couple of weeks but i've managed to make something that's perfect for them - Lemon Cordial. The recipes I have say it will keep for a year but with the sixteen year old in my house I'll be lucky if it lasts until next month!

Basically dissolve sugar in freshly squeezed lemon juice (at a ratio of about 1-1.2kg sugar per litre of juice) by warming it gently until the sugar is disolved. I haven't done much experimentation here but the research i did suggested that the mixture shouldn't reach the boil. In reality the sugar disolved by the time the juice was body temperature - which is when I stopped heating it and bottled in sterile bottles. You can water bath preserve if you're pedantic but I really don't think this is necessary. Having left the cordial for a couple of hours I've decided that next time I am going to strain it before bottling - this version has separated with quite a lot of scummy lemon cells on top... Yes, I can be a silly, annoying perfectionist some days!

The sixteen-year-old did a taste test (tot of syrup and fill the glass with cold water) and gave it a massive thumbs up (in teenager that's a grunt and gulp and then pouring another for those of you who haven't got a teenager in your life...)

It's been a while....

Matilda

So much has happened since my last post and it gets to a point where I feel so overwhelmed about posting I procrastinate indefinitely :( 

Anyway I'll  just pretend that my last post was yesterday and be normal!

I added a new member to the farmyard a week ago - she's wiggled her way into our lives and hearts in record time (think girls and puppies and you'll get the idea!) The only relationship that isn't going to work out is that between Matilda (or Piggity as my mom insist on calling her so as to avoid naming her and dealing with the consequences surrounding the naming of a 'farm' animal.......)






The other thing I've done is ban boring salads. Now by boring salads I mean a typical greek salad (lettuce, tomato, cucumber, etc.). The consequences of this decision have been entertaining :) We've gone from a teenage lad who had to be persuaded to eat fresh greens to one who, if left unsupervised to dish up, cleans the salad platter before anyone else can get a look in...

Roasted Tomato and Feta Salad

Today's salad to go with a mid winter braai for mom's birthday - as usual there are many people at this table!


I've got a very simple yet impressively tasty recipe:


Cos and Iceberg Lettuce (I find the mix is way nicer than a single leaf choice)
Rosa Tomatoes
Feta
Pine Nuts (Toasted in a nonstick pan - but don't let them burn or they'll turn bitter)

Cut the lettuce in manageable chunks and spread on a salad platter (not a bowl as this salad doesn't want to be tossed!) Toast the pine nuts in a pan (if the oven is on for something else you can roast them instead). Set aside in a bowl. Put a little olive oil in the pan and toss in the tomatoes - roast them until they're soft but not squishy (experiment with what you like here). Add the feta and stir in to melt a bit. Pour this gooey yumminess over the leaves, sprinkle with pine nuts and dress vinaigrette just before serving. 

Vinaigrette Recipe

50ml vinegar (you can use pretty much any vinegar but the better the vinegar, the better your dressing!)
150ml Olive oil 
1tsp sugar
Fresh parsley (or any herb of your prefeerence)
White pepper
Salt

Mix all the ingredients in a glass jar and allow to stand for an hour for the flavours to develop. Super simple. Super yummy!

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!