Preparation paid off

How many of you remember me telling you about some raised beds we made back in February last year?

For those who are new readers I'll  give you a quick recap:

Granite tile crates

We got some crates which had been used to pack / transport granite tiles from the local tile shop and placed them in our shadecloth veggie patch.

Once in position, the crate base was lined with stones - to keep
moles out, and to allow for adequate drainage / prevent compaction
 at the base

 The base of the crate was lined with rocks - to allow for drainage.

one of the layers of alpaca poo

  Then we lined the sides with plastic to prevent the soil washing out, and to retain water.

Lined and layered - it was allowed to settle for a month

Then we layered straw, alpaca poo, soil, straw, alpaca poo, soil, etc (plus some bone meal) until it was full.  it was watered and allowed to "sit" (a.k.a. sink / settle) for a month, after which it was topped up again.

I have always had difficulty growing ginger, turmeric and carrots in our stony, clay beds.  So, I throught I'd try growing them in the raised beds and see if I had more success...

Those turmeric leaves are +/- 4 feet high

Well, I'm please to say the attempt was successful.  The pic above is the turmeric.  Actually, I planted the corms in the wrong season, and forgot about them.  Lo, and behold! one day I spotted growth, and thinking back, I recalled that turmeric had been placed there.

I always think of alpaca's when I see carrot tops
 - they l-o-v-e them ;D

The carrots - they did bloody marvellous mate :D  with no distortion of the carrot due to stones ('cos there were no stones in the bed lol).

My finger gives you something to compared the carrot top to

 I didn't succession plant them (yet) - I wanted to see how they would do.

Matchbox for size indication, and scale weight as proof

 To give you an idea, one carrot weighed 540 gms (19 oz).

Proof that the 540gm carrot was not an isolated thing -
 there are others still in the bed of a similar size.

And there are more like that...  Lots more :D

Yummy, home-made coleslaw

How did it taste?

Absolutely bloody delicious :D  Juicy and sweet.

Half of the 540 gm carrot immediately went into a coleslaw, the rest will make some yummy carrots in honey butter.  And the tops were wolfed down by the alpaca's.

No waste here lol

All that alpaca poo, soil and straw layering definitely paid off.  I'm very happy with the results and will now allocate one of the three raised (crate) beds / year to carrots - rotating each crop between the three.

Biblical fruit

We planted our pomegranate trees 6-odd years ago.  I had read that they are hardy, drought-resistant fruit trees that can handle slightly brackish soil - which is just what we needed 😆  

However, I did them a dis-service by incorrectly pruning them for the first 2 years so our harvest has previously been disappointing.  So disappointing that RMan and I were discussing where it was worth continuing to give them some of our increasingly precious water supply.

Notwithstanding the drought conditions we are currently experiencing, the trees managed to grow 3 dozen-odd fruit between them.  I wonder how much the mulch helped??

I waited until the fruit showed a small crack on the skin and I harvested them at that point - before the birds could eat their fill.  The crack is a result of the seeds expanding within and overcrowding the confined space.  They are said to be at their best at that point.

Pomegranates hanging on the tree

Naturally, we couldn't wait to harvest them.  

It wasn't as difficult to harvest the kernels - I had read various reports on the complexity of doing so but we found it a breeze.

Apparently there are 613 seeds in a pomegranate

A couple were used in salads.

It was quite quick and simple to extract the seeds -
 certainly not as difficult as I had been led to believe it was

 And the rest were blitzed in order to harvest the juice.

The seeds were blitzed to access the juice

The inner "kernel" is a pest, but I discovered that the chickens will eat them - well, some of them.  Perhaps they were given too big a portion for their first taste 😂

The remaining "kernels" were drained in a sieve,
 to get every precious drop.  The chickens were then served
 the remains ;)

After they were blitzed I drained the resulting pulp in the sieve...

5 pomegranates produced 900 ml of pure pomegranate juice

 ...and retained the juice in a jug.

Chilling the jugful overnight in the fridge, we drank it's deliciousness the next morning with our breakfast.

How did it taste?

In a word - absolutely amazing!!

Is is slightly reminiscent of cranberry juice - with a slight tannin aftertaste - but it is amazing and naturally sweet.  Not overpoweringly, but pleasantly so.

I said to RMan, if I was lost in a desert and came across a single pomegranate tree - just one fruit would quench my thirst and give me enough energy to continue on my dry journey.

I will had always wondered how I would extract the juice.  Now I know how, I will be tending these trees more carefully next year.  The more delicious pomegranate juice we can harvest and drink the more RMan and I will love it 😆

T'is a pity I can't dehydrate the juicy pomegranate seeds.  As I hate to waste anything, I think I'm going to investigate drying the juiced kernel remnants and, if I can find a press, I am going to try and extract the oil that resides therein.  I reckon that would be amazing to add to my homemade soap.  Lots of if's - let's see what happens......

Mid-to-end April 2017

Bearing in mind that we are supposed to be in mid-winter in just over 2 months time, I have absolutely no comment to make about this...

Mid-April 2017 predicted temperatures

... apart from the fact that this is not usual.  Not usual at all...

Add to that these rainfall figures, and you know exactly what is happening here...

The rainfall figures so far this year are very, very worrying...

All that will help is prayers.  Lots and lots and lots of prayers.  Please.

Winter propagation

I'm going to try something I've never tried before.

Propagating during the winter months to give me an early start next spring.

So sad looking - but also a source of future seeds

Yup - I confess, I am someone who prepares for tomorrow, today.  I don't live for tomorrow, but just try and plan ahead whenever I can.  Something done today frees up time tomorrow I believe.

I'm not going to propagate anything fancy - there are just two plants that I want to try and get going early.

The basil plant in my shadecloth veggie patch
 still has some leaves below the flowers

Firstly, I have basil plants in my veggie patch that are all rapidly going to flower.

Propagating basil cuttings in water

I cut some of the basil "flower heads" slightly longer and then removed the flowers.  These were shoved in a pot of water on my kitchen windowsill and, 10 days later, they already have a healthy bunch of roots.  I reckon that as they grow, if I keep cutting off the tops and shoving them in water then maybe - just maybe - I can keep them going through the winter whilst still also "harvesting" from the growing cutting for culinary use...?

Just a touch of (useful) greenery on my kitchen window sill

My second winter propagation plant is going to be my gorgeous yellow heirloom tomatoes.

I have kept loads of seeds from this summer's harvest, so if this doesn't work I'll just do the normal seed sowing come next late-August / early September.

But I have read up that shoving a tomato cutting into water will also cause the cutting to grow roots.  Let's see.

One vegetable that I constantly propagate is onions.

New onions sprouting from small sections of the bulb.
 Top left and top right will grow three new onions when planted.
 The onion top centre will grow two new onions.

Leaving the last 1 - 1.5cm of onion on the root side of the bulb, I place that portion of the bulb in a shallow bowl of water and just let the roots and leaves grow.  Once the roots are long enough I then plant the onion in the ground.   I also take some of the newly sprouting onion leaves and use them like spring onions in a salad.

I have discovered that for every "set" of leaves that sprout on a rooting onion segment I get a whole new onion i.e. 3 sets of newly sprouting leaves on a segment grow 3 new onions - per bulb section.  I never have to plant onion seeds - why should I when the old (mother) bulb remnant does it for me naturally :D

On the left are Jewel sweet potato slips,
 in the middle are my basil cuttings
 and on the right are the ends of onions rooting / sprouting

My kitchen window sill is my go to spot when it comes to rooting plants - it's close by, it gets the autumn / winter afternoon sun, and, being just above the re-purposed two plate caravan stove and next to the kitchen sink, I'm always reminded to check the water level.

Just something to keep me busy during the cold, Rosie-filled, hopefully rainy, winter months... 😂


By the by, for those of us who celebrate it, Happy Easter.  If you're driving on the roads, please - be care out there...

What a week...

...or two it has been!!

Our President stated that his political party - the ANC - comes before
 the country.   Nope -SOUTH AFRICA COMES FIRST JACOB!!!

Our government - or more specifically our President - threw his toys out of the cot, and removed two of the most hard-working, excellent and ethical ministers from their top positions in Cabinet (namely the Minister and Deputy Minister of Finance) for what is generally seen as: 

1) a way of installing unaffordable nuclear power for the benefit of his cronies who own uranium mines;

2) earning the "cut" the Russians have apparently promised;

3) plunging this country into a debt so large that it will take until 2100 to start recovering from;

- basically, the firing of Mr Gordan and Mr Jonas is a blatant act of capturing the next helping of illicit income he can take from the people of this country.

This willful, illogical action has resulted in South Africa being downgraded by two ratings agencies (Standard & Poor and Fitch - with Moody's reserving judgment - for now) - to JUNK status.  Good job, Jacob!!!

So, RMan and I responded to the call to action and took part in a nationwide (peaceful) protest yesterday.

The government states only 60 000 people took part, but those who called the protest place the number who took part above 220 000.  The fear of violence kept many people away, I reckon.  Thankfully there were only 4 - 5 incidents of intimidation in the entire country - and those incidents were nothing major.  it could've been much, much worse!

From the sounds of it, there'll be more action next week - and I'm THERE!!!  And, hopefully, now that the "fear" of intimidation/ counter reaction has been removed, more people will respond to the call to action.

But, back to more mundane matters...

The mulch we put down certainly helped in the veggie patches.

Harvesting and preserving has been going on at a steady pace.

 Piquanté Peppers are bountiful this year and have been both pickled and dried in the Foothills DryAway.

The dried ones have been turned into Piquanté Pepper powder - for sprinkling on top of scrambled eggs, omelettes, roast chickens, pizza's, etc.

Jars of pickled peppers for RSon, Natasha and us.  The next
 batch will be for gifts...

Tomatoes, also, were brilliant.  They were coming out of my ears at one stage ;)

I love heirloom tomatoes :D

Again, some tomatoes were dehydrated and I now have sun-dried tomatoes residing in my fridge for those grey winter's days when one needs sight and reminder of brighter days.

Homegrown heirloom tomatoes - drying in the
 Foothills DryAway

Although tomatoes take more time to dry than other vegetables, the end product is well worth the effort.

Perfectly dried sundried tomatoes

  The majority, though, were boiled / simmered in their own juice until they...

Sweat the entire (skins, seeds and flesh) tomatoes slowly
 until they produce enough  liquid to simmer in order to reduce
 the mixture down before  blitzing

 ... reduced down to become...

Blitz the reduced tomato mixture (skins, seeds and all) until
 you have a smooth tomato mush which is slowly reduced
 until thick enough.

...containers and ice trays full of tomato concentrate.  Plain tomato concentrate with not a single chemical additive.  These are also waiting in my freezer.

Finally, to help counter the cost of keeping them, I also managed to successfully grow sunflowers this year.

The easiest way to remove the sunflowers seeds is with the
 assistance of a fork.  Much kinder on the hands ;)

Getting the seeds out of the flowerhead isn't the easiest, but when you see the amount you've harvested it's well worth the effort.

Gorgeous sunflower seeds - for the chickens and for us :D

The chickens will love them over the winter months.

It's a messy business removing the sunflower
 seeds from the dried flowerhead

Be warned though, getting the sunflower seeds from the flower heads is a messy job, and best done outside :)

For info on how you can obtain your own Foothills DryAway solar / wind food dehydrator please click the link.

Squeak to the rescue

My solar oven and Foothills DryAway are stored on our front patio near the front doors - for quick and easy access  ;)

Can you see Squeak enthralled with my solar oven?

Squeak was acting very strangely the other day.  She was crouching in front of my covered solar dryer - just staring at it.

Me - even though I try and "gather" the remaining loose bit of the cover under the solar oven, gaps sometimes remain.  So I'm used to frogs skulking in the bottom of the cover - so, even if I'd seen it, I probably would've not given it another thought.

But RMan is more alert than me.

He gently opened the patio door to see what she was staring at.

And saw a head.  A head too big to be a frog.

Something is peeping out from under the solar
oven cover...

He quickly closed the patio door again.  Very quickly.. And said "... "(I can't repeat it I'm afraid - my grandson reads this blog 😂) but I'm sure you can fill in the blanks.

...and when it moves it goes on, and on, and on...

I ran to the bedroom window that overlooks the patio.  And saw something moving in the cover.

And moving.

And moving.

There was no end to the movement...

This was no frog!

Locking Stellar inside (she would definitely have seen it as something for her amusement) and calling on the assistance of our neighbour, J, and some workers he had there, between RMan and the 5 of them they managed to get "it" out from under the cover.  My personal Foothills DryAway was destroyed in the attempt to prevent it from escaping.

RMan's DIY catcher

Then RMan came forward with his hastily manufactured catcher.

What did he catch? 

I.8 mtrs of Cape Cobra

A bloody 1.8 mtr long Cape Cobra.

On our front patio.

Right next to our front patio doors.

And we leave those doors open for at least 15 - 16 hours of every bloody day.

And have tea / coffee on our patio most every morning.

And sun downers there in the evening.

Sitting at a table less than 1.5 - 2.0 mtrs from it.

Well, we used to leave the doors open.  Not any more.

I understand why it was there - it's a very handy spot to nab a frog or two or three.

And just the day before I had been watering the plants on the patio - and even some seedlings which were in a tray on top of the solar oven.

Talk about luck...!

It was obviously not my time to go.

But, thanks to alert Squeak, who normally spends all day, every day sleeping on our bed.  Without her alerting us to the danger who knows what might have happened to either RMan, Stellar or me...