Moonlight starbright

As I was closing the curtains on Saturday night I saw this just peeping above the tree tops...

Apparently, it is Venus and the crescent Moon and they are shining through the twilight in beautiful conjunction, less than 10° apart (http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php/266671-Go-out-and-look-at-the-moon-right-now!)

A crystal clear night sky - with a view forever.  I hope I never take that for granted.

An Eco-friendly meal?

We had friends round for dinner last night, and, as always, I had to figure out what to serve that wouldn't cost the earth in electricity - either in wattage used or in money.

I think I came up with a brilliant solution.

We had a fondue!

So how was it Eco-friendly...

In the afternoon I cleaned the copper fondue set using wood ash for our fireplace - dab a damp cloth into the wood ash, rub on the surface to be cleaned and watch the dirt disappear.  Then all it takes is a rinse under a running tap, and quick dry, and the copper looks amazing!  No dirty hands full of Brasso and no chemicals needed - if only I'd known this years ago...

Garden fresh salad

The salad came, in it's entirety, from my garden - four different types of lettuce, chives, onions, tomatoes - and the bean sprouts grew in my sprouter this week.

I made all the sauces, bar one - the pureed apple to go with the pork.  We don't have an apple tree - yet :-)

We also had tahini (a sesame seed sauce - perfect with the chicken), a chilli sauce (peppers, onions, garlic, chillies, dried apricots and honey - brown the onions and then add the rest of the ingredients and cook together until semi-mushy - to go with the pork chipolata's) a mushroom sauce, bbq sauce (the last two to go with the steak) and guacamole.

I had also made a salsa with red, yellow and orange peppers, apple, onion, courgettes and sweetcorn - mixed together with a dash of lemon juice and olive oil and salt and pepper.

Finally, I made a loaf of fresh Artisan bread.

It was delicious.

Otherwise, all the preparation - mixing, chopping and puree-ing was done by hand.

I am well pleased with the resulting power usage.

I used the oven to bake the bread - for half an hour - and the stove top to heat the oil.

And I was asked for my bread recipe.  I love that - for there is nothing better than sharing knowledge with whoever asks for it.

There is surely no nicer way to spend an evening than with friends, round the dinner table, with everybody cooking their own food, in their own time.  A fondue is such a "gemütlich" (warm, congenial and friendly) way to spend an evening. 

It's finally Spring time in Cape Town

The lovely warmer mornings, and days, in Cape Town compel one to get out into the garden and to start weeding, and tidying.  And planting...

So I did just that.

But, to keep RMan occupied because he is always fretting that he needs to get to the farm to do this or finish that, and we just can't just get up and go (this is the start of the business' busy time of year), I suggested that we re-do the tiles in our guest bathroom. They were pretty grotty Biggie Best tiles from the early 1980's.

The start of it all...

He liked the idea - so much so that he started removing them the next morning - a Sunday! (Hope our neighbours aren't too mad at the noise - we did wait until 10.30 a.m.) But with all things renovation-wise what starts out as a simple "we'll re-do the tiles" became a "we're re-doing the whole bathroom"! That meant removing all the wall tiles, and the floor tiles, the basin in it's pedastel cupboard (which was rotting underneath and at the back - chipboard!) and the bath - well, it was tiny, hardly ever used (only by my grandson when he comes to visit) and finally, baths are a waste of water! Who baths these days?

So, the renovation has been proceeding at every available spare moment - but I gained something from the stripping down of the bathroom which I have been able to recycle. Apart from the wall tiles, which are great for the base of all my pots which I plant up, the bath has become one of my veggie patches!  And a raised veggie patch at that :-)

The bricks are for me to sit on whilst I harvest the produce - making it easier on my back.  Also you can see the lettuces on the left growing in the two stainless steel bowls I mentioned in an earlier post.

And I went one step further - because the bath is situated in the one spot that gets sun all year round, and is very hot in summer (my lettuces tend to bolt at the first sign of upper 20's heat) I decided that I would fashion a shade over the bath. All it took was some old irrigation pipe secured to short rods in the ground and covered "tightly" with the shade netting - to prevent our pesky snails from having a nightly munch.

I have left the front of the shadecloth loose so that I can lift it up when I need to get inside - afterwards I secure it with an old dowl type rod / support.

In the bath I placed some some lettuce and chives seedlings which I purchased from a local nursery (for instant "growth"), and sowed carrots and celery in situ (with the aid of my Magic Seeder :-) ), as well as garlic and onions. My hubby is still trying to come to terms with a bath in our back garden, but as he is already eating the produce therefrom he can't really complain. I think (and hope) that it is not as disturbing to his eyes as it was when he first saw it?!

Once I started sowing and planting I couldn't stop.

We are located on a hillside and thus have retaining blocks in our garden. I had previously planted them up with flowering plants - but, hey, they get full sun in summer, so this year they are planted up with corn, dwarf beans, parsley and tomatoes. It took me ages to remove all the soil from each block and mix it with compost and organic pellets (mainly chicken manure from the smell of it) but it was necessary. It gave me time to think of exactly what I was going to plant. Nothing more thought provoking than a good dose of manual labour - all on my own - well, the hubby was (and still is) busy with the bathroom :-)

And to finish it off I cleaned out under some hibiscus trees and sowed some more carrot seeds and planted some turnip and rocket seedlings. I have to cordon off the area as it was a favourite summer afternoon snoozing area for our dog - perhaps that is why I had never thought of using it before?

More carrots to the left, beetroot and rocket

I have also sown broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and turnip seeds in the empty loo roll holders I have been saving all winter - you'd be amazed how many loo roll holders one can save once you start. Sowing seeds in the holders allows one to transplant them straight into the ground when they are large enough, and once they are there they help prevent attack of the roots by cutworm, etc.

This last week I harvested 2kgs of sweet potatoes, which I had grown in a 20lt bucket, two small cabbages, +/- 200gms of peas and too many lettuce leaves to count - not to mention fresh herbs - rosemary, sage, basil, parsely and chives.

I can't explain it but these were amongst the best sweet potatoes we have ever eaten

I love it!!  Salad has never tasted as good!

It took me a full week to complete all of this, and just as I settled back yesterday evening to enjoy the view who popped by but this friendly Robin - almost saying, "Thanks for digging up all these insects, and I like what you've done with the place".

Can you spot him - he's checking out what I've done from the top of the rake

Well, Roger Robin, I like it too - very much!