Sweet potato prep paid off

Prepping the sweet potato beds started in March 2016.

March 2016: Two long trenches were dug - a spade  deep

A trench was dug roughly a spade deep.

Those trenches were filled with alpaca poo, wood chips and soil 

It was filled in with alpaca poo, wood chips and soil...

Mounded trenches full of magic were left to themselves for a few
 months before the sweet potato runners were finally planted

...so much so that the trenches formed mounds when they were finished.  These "mounds" were left to do their thing from March to September when the runners were planted.

After carefully inserting the sweet potato runners, the porous pipe (leaky hose) was placed on top, and, with a good covering of mulch, I walked away.

They remained in their beds throughout this last winter - with me harvesting some here and there...  The leaves were killed off by the frost, but I knew the potatoes were safe below the ground - our frost is fleeting - it soon disappears once the sun is up, plus we only had 5 - 6 days of frost in total.

The photo doesn't show the size of these beauties

 Today I went to harvest some more for our dinner and thought I would share it with you.

To give you some idea of size, I pooped one on my scale

 The bed is full of giant sweet potatoes.  Placing this whopper on the scale it shows that it is...

A 1.57 kg sweet potato.  There's nothing wrong with that 😉

...1.57 kgs (almost 3½ lbs).  I'm well pleased with that result.

Alpaca poo and wood mulch - a sure fire winner 😁  I'm over the moon at the result - and at the apparent harvest ahead.  

Why apparent harvest - well, because of our climate I leave roots / tubers in the ground until they are required.  Why dig it all up and then have to try and find a spot to store it?  Field mice climb (yes, we still have those rodents - even with Squeak in the vicinity) and they have nibbled my stored veggies before.  Underground, those sweet potatoes are safe from those nibbles.  If more sweet potatoes grow from those remnants in the ground after everything has been harvested, well, I'll just let them grow.  March 2018 will see me prepare another bed to transplant them into, and then this sweet potato bed can rest for a year or so.

Yum, yum.  Orange fleshed "Jewel" sweet potatoes are our favourite 😃

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......

Mulch rescue 2 a.k.a. preparing for water shortages

The signs have been there for the past months.

Our rainfall for the passed three years

Our rainfall this year is averaging out at 43.3mm / month, compared to last year at 60.3mm or 2014 at 53.5mm.  Looking at the graph you get the full sorry picture.  And, all the forecasts are not predicting any rain whatsoever in the next 10 days... :(

So, most things hereabouts are crunchy, crisp and dehydrated...

http://www.fin24.com/Economy/drought-is-a-wake-up-call-on-sas-water-needs-20160911-2

We were warned back in September that our dams were in dire straits.  Harry commented last week that everything looks so lovely and green compared to his brown, hibernating winter scenery.  Well Harry, pics can be deceptive.

As you can see from the pics below, we are well in the throes of a drought. 

Dead looking, dry and drab - that about sums it up

Between the unusually high temperatures for the time of year, plus the hectic drying winds, and finally with the lack of rain our garden is in a sorry state.

 But, forewarned is forearmed.  Between my rainfall records, and what has been published in the newspapers, we knew that it was gong to be extreme this summer.  So, we took steps to counteract the situation as best we could - without going greedily overboard with municipal water usage.

That was in our best interests because if everyone decided that bugger the cost, they were going to water willy-nilly, then how long would the water in our local dam last?  That municipal water supply is all we have - there is no nearby stream or river that we could use.

Believe it or not, our 8 X 5 000lt rainwater tanks are also empty... :(

Piquante peppers under a protecting
 blanket  of wood chip mulch

So eight trailer loads of wood mulch (roughly 8 X 1.5mtr3 or 12mtr3 in total) from our local sawmill has certainly assisted our fruit trees to produce their fruit - not as big as last year, but at least it was enough for me to bottle some - and make some jam / cordial.

And the wood mulch is a Godsend for my veggie beds.  A dose of organic nitrogen (a mix of seaweed liquid fertilizer / alpaca poo / chicken poo and worm casings) helps overcome the nitrogen leech than wood mulch causes.

An added bonus with the wood mulch is that weeds can't grow - so weeding is, for once, at a minimum :D  Yeeha!!!

There's not much we can do for the grass, and, as far as the alpaca's grazing is concerned, we managed to buy in oat and barley hay from the local farmers, so the alpaca's won't starve.

4 large round bales of hay to help the alpaca's.
The infamous, and over worked trailer is on the right hand side of the
pic, under the self seeded wattle tree.

But, the extreme dryness is not pleasant on the eye.  And the crunch underfoot makes one aware how dire the circumstances are.

A single turmeric leave is visible in amongst the rocket

But, on a more positive note, a few months ago I saw turmeric root for sale in the shops, and, as I had never seen it in our shops before, I couldn't help myself - I had to buy some. 

I immediately planted it all into one of the three raised beds in the shade cloth veggie patch - and forgot about them.  They hadn't forgotten about me though.  In the last week I noticed some strange green leaves poking up between the rocket, and deduced that the turmeric had decided it liked being where it is, and, by way of thank you, it would peep a lookout above ground to see it's surroundings.

Great excitement LOL

In the centre of the pic you can see a ginger stem, which
 was accidentally left in situ last year, and which is growing again too

I thought if it grew it would probably look something like ginger, but it doesn't - it's completely different.

Finally, an errant sunflower seed, which wasn't gobbled up when I fed the chickens one day, surprised me by showing it's face in the berry patch.

Sunny, bright and cheerful - an unexpected
 sunflower to add to the seeds I purposely
 planted in order to feed the chickens throughout
the coming year.

Aren't we blessed with being able to grow all manner of amazing plants - both big and small ;)

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