Harvesting and rooting

Youngberries at various stages of ripeness

I have started to harvest youngberries - and have discovered that I have competition.

Not the normal competiton - not the normal mousebirds, mice nor snails, but the four-legged kind of competition.  Actually, (without jinxing it) in contradiction with last year, I haven't seen a single mousebird this year...?

Stellar searching for ripe youngberries at ground level

It turns out that Stellar has a penchant for youngberries, and, braving the countless prickles / tiny thorns to her nose (I can't see how she can avoid them) she helps herself to ripe youngberries down at floor level.   She even takes them straight from my hand 😆

I never knew dogs ate berries...

Just a bowl of unimaginable yumminess 😆

Tonight we are having a fruit salad with freshly picked plums and youngberries and I have already harvested enough berries already to make 3 bottles of youngberry cordial and 4 large jars of jam - and I have at least 7 more harvests to gather in...

Help!!

I reckon I'll be giving away a lot of fresh youngberries this year... 😀

Then, the other day I wanted to make mashed potatoes and when I went to get some from my pantry I saw that they had all started sprouting.

My potatoes had started sprouting from the eyes

I was faced with a conundrum...

I normally plant those, but, on that day I didn't have enough potatoes to allow for dinner - and planting.  And I felt sorry for the effort that the potatoes had gone to - I couldn't just remove the sprouting bits and toss them in my worm farm.

Freshly harvested potato "sprouts"

So, I carefully removed the sprouting bits of the potatoes and placed them in my (microgreen) sprouting tower.

Giving them a quick rinse, and leaving some water in the lower section, I put them aside.

Potato sprouts at 1 week

 I gave them a fresh rinse every day for a week.

Potato sprouts at 2 weeks

 This week they're beginning to grow leaves...

The roots are happily making their way to the water in the lower
 section of the (microgreen) sprouting tower

...and the roots are developing in the lower section.

I have never planted potatoes in this state.  Will they grow??  I guess they probably will, but I'll have to keep the soil good and damp until the 2nd set of leaves emerge.

Will be an experiment to end all experiments.

If it works, then I never have to sacrifice potatoes anymore - I will just "cultivate" the sprouting bits...

I'll let you know 😁

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 😃

Propagating tropical fruit

At the end of last summer I was craving, and so purchased, a couple of pineapples.

I had also read that one can propagate new plants from the tops, so naturally, when the pineapples were eaten I had to try and see if it would work.

To prepare the pineapple top you carefully remove about 2.5cms (an inch) of the leaves from the bottom of the pineapple stalk until you see some root buds, and then pop them into water.

Changing the water every 5 - 6 days, it only took about 6 - 8 weeks on my kitichen windowsill  for those roots to grow to a decent length. 

It looks promising - new leaves appearing whilst the pineapple
 head is producing roots in the water

But, eventually they were long enough to transfer from their watery life into their permanent home in the garden.  It is recommended that they get potted up in soil first, but I went ahead and shoved them in the garden soil.

I reckon those roots are long enough

Being winter, ad frost tender, they were protected with a light covering of mulch to ensure that the frost did minimal damage.  When the bushes have (hopefully) grown too big for a mulch cover, they will get a hessian frost cover in winter.

New leaves appearing in the centre of the crown

But, I'm happy to report that all three pineapple plants are showing signs of new growth, so hopefully, before too long we may be able to harvest some home grown pineapples 😁  It will be good to be pineapple self-sufficient to any degree - one less thing to spend hard earned money on... 😉

Rose hip oil

I recently read an article on rosehip oil...

https://www.rodalesorganiclife.com/well-being/7-amazing-benefits-of-rose-hip-oil

...and, being midwinter / July, it is almost time to prune my grey water irrigated roses.

Rose hip in the top left corner of this pic was just
waiting for me to pick it.  I didn't disappoint ;)

But, not before I collect as many rosehips as I can.

Excess waste matter removed

 After removing the remains of the stamens and petals, the rosehips were rinsed/

 Cutting them open...

A halved rose hip showing the remain of the stamens, and the rose
 seeds

Halved rose hips in the sun for a bit of extra Vit D before they
 were warmed in oil

 ...I placed them in the sun for the day - to absorbed as much additional vitamin D as they could.

Almond oil

 I added (non-eco-friendly) almond carrier oil to a  stainless steel bowl...

The oil didn't look like much, but, thankfully, turned out to be enough

 added the halved sun-kissed rose hips, and, because I didn't have a slow cooker, I placed them over a pot of boiling water (double boiler)

Halved rose hips as they were being heated

 Thankfully, we had the Rosie going that day, so I left them to slow cook on the edge of the stove.

12 hours of warming through the rose hips are all soft

Then, I made a mistake.  In an attempt to "squeeze out" as much rose hip goodness as possible, I tried to be clever...

"Mushed" rose hips - I will avoid this step next time.  I think the
 oil would've been easier to drain if the rose hips had not been
 quite so "mushed".

 ......and I blitzed the lot.  Not a very appealing mush presented itself to me at the end of that step.

Rose hip infused almond oil being
 strained out through a bit of muslin
 cloth suspended above a jug

I placed that mush in a muslin cloth and suspended it over a jug to drip.

Mushing up the rose hips in the oil cost me about 80ml of oil :(

 The next morning I was rewarded with just over 230mls of rose hip infused almond oil.

Strained rose hip oil with vitamin E and a few drops of essential oil
 added.  It is recommended that the infused oil is stored in dark bottles.

It is recommended that Vitamin E is added to the rose hip infused oil (as a preservative and as additional skin nutrition), as well as a few drops perfumed essential oil.  I only had lavender and lemon grass - so, after dividing the rose hip infused oil between two dark bottles (recommended container for storing this oil), one bottle received 3 - 4 drops of the lavender and the other bottle the lemon grass essential oil.

The almond oil is very readily absorbed by my skin which pleases me no end, as now I don't have to purchase a commercial moisturiser anymore :D 


The guilt I felt regarding the almond oil (growing almonds is very water demanding) is, in my head, counter balanced by the lack of chemicals and reduced shipping footprint of all the ingredients in commercial moisturisers.

Info on "Whole Rose Hip Oil"

Rose Hip oil is obtained by low temperature extraction of the whole rose hip in a carrier oil. Whole rose hip oil is different form rose hip seed oil, which is obtained by liquid extraction of rose hip seeds. Whole Rose hip oil is believed to possess skin rejuvenating, revitalising and general health beneficial properties and have been used in cosmetic and herbal medicines for centuries. The oil is all natural, free of synthetic or artificial additives.

Water wise boundary decor

I started this blog posting back in July last year when we first started on this project...

RMan and a neighbour, E, used to do the installation and maintenance of the potable water system, and the reading of each individuals water meters in our smallholding communnity.  Even though there are 150-odd smallholdings in our area, we are not "formally" recognised by the local authorities as a "settlement" and are thus not entitled to "services".

Whilst travelling to do the water meter readings RMan spotted these plants growing at the entrance to once of the smallholdings.

I'm sorry I didn't get a pic of them in flower - they looked seriously impressive!

However, RMan did pick up some of the fallen flower buds / seed carriers.

No exactly sure how to propagate agaves,
 I just plonked the base of the "flower" into
 some potting soil and hoped for the best...

Not finding any info online on how to propagate agaves, I just plonked the bottoms into a pot of soil in effort to try and grow them, so that, if I am successful, we could then place them, together with some aloe plants, along the front (dirt road) fence of our property.  They may not look like much sans flowers, but they are certainly water-wise, and will help to distinguish our property from the others nearby.

Aloes with red flowers...

Isn't it funny how your tastes change.  Before we had our smallholding I used to think that these types of plants, and aloes, were damned ugly.  Now I understand why they are grown - for their hardiness, drought resistance, and striking feature qualities.

... and aloes with yellow flowers

Fast forward from July to March 2017 and this is actually what was planted along our boundary this week:

The successfully rooted Agave plants
http://www.southafrica.net/blog/en/posts/entry/a-spiky-kind-of-beautiful

Kei apple trees
https://www.plantzafrica.com/plantcd/dovycaf.htm

Spekboom - propagated from our existing plants
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portulacaria_afra
Also, I understand that spekboom is excellent at
 carbon fixing - so, to help reduce our carbon footprint,
  I need to grow as many as I can, I reckon.

Home propagated lavender

NumNum bushes
https://www.plantzafrica.com/plantcd/carisbispin.htm

Geraniums propagated from our existing plants

The boundary fence March 2017 - it looks like nothing at this
 point in time, but I have high hopes of a stunning boundary in
 years to come.
 We have planted groupings of 14 plants / section so it
 should make quite a feature - once they are all grown up... 

We have planted groupings of 14 identical plants per section, so in years to come it should, hopefully, look stunning! 😉

Three of the plants are edible (Kei apple, spekboom and numnum) and all are waterwise 😃  Which is just as well as our drought continues and we have had only 5.5mm ( .2 of an inch) of rain since the 12th February...😟

Although I have never served spekboom in a salad or soup for our personal consumption - yet - apparently, alpacas can also eat it.  Due to their carbon fixing properties I'd love to plant up a whole field of them...  (Don't tell RMan, but I think I'm going to surreptitiously get that going.)

You can read more about the history of South African agaves here.  It's a pity that neither RMan nor I drink tequila... ;)

Foothills DryAway offered

Following numerous requests on how readers of my blog could get their own Foothills DryAway I am happy to announce that after employing 4 different manufacturers who produced 4 different prototypes, I now have a model with which I am happy and am thus in a position to fulfill those wishes :)  

Please check out the Foothills DryAway page on the top of the right hand column of this blog (or click on this link).

The final "Foothills DryAway" prototype

Growing mung beans

I always buy dried mung beans in order to sprout them during winter.  Just having those to munch on prevents withdrawals of crispy fresh produce during the colder months of the year.

This year I wanted to grow some more chick peas.

But, I accidentally grabbed a handful of Mung beans from the pantry.  My brain was obviously elsewhere - thank goodness I went to the right cupboard though lol

It was only once I had chucked them in the ground of the one raised bed, and had just covered them with soil, that I realized I had sown the wrong crop lol

Never mind.  I thought I'd let them grow and see what happened.

What a stroke of fortune.

A fortuitous, accidental crop of mung beans is
growing in one of my raised veggie beds

The mung bean plant is roughly 40 - 50cms (15 - 20") high and wide.  Given it's compact shape and size, it would be an ideal plant to grow in pots on a balcony too.  Perfect for using as a companion plant with next summers chard, eggplant, raddish and tomatoes, it will also provide some important shade for the ground at the base of those pants.

It is quite a bushy and compact plant.  I planted these quite late in the season, and the plants didn't send out runners and therefore didn't require bean supports and just got on with what they do best - grow mung beans.

Fresh mung beans in a pod

The pods are about 7 - 8cms long and 3 - 4 mm wide.  

Inside, the fresh mung beans sit snugly in their pod.  They are roughly twice the size of a dried mung bean.

And the taste...?

Almost ethereal lol  They are very delicate tasting and different to rehydrated / sprouted beans.

Fresh mung beans compared to dried beans

Honestly, it is quite fiddly to remove the beans from the small, tight green pod, but is well worth the effort.  The dry, dark brown pods 'crack' open quite easily though.

The beauty is, each mung bean plant grown from a single seed will provide 30 - 40 pods per plant or roughly 150 - 250 individual fresh, or future dried mung beans.  The pods form 4 pods together on the plant.  The mung bean plant can hold both fresh green pods, and dark brown pods (which encase the dried mung bean).

(Don't forget to freeze the shelled, harvested dried beans for 24 hours before storing in an air tight jar in your pantry. This helps to prevent weevils infesting your dried beans.)

Apart from providing that necessary crunch factor, mung beans are good for you too.  Check out their health benefits here.

One less thing to cross off my future shopping lists :)

Please-don't-keep-secret revealed - "Foothills DryAway"

So, for all of you who have been waited with baited breath for the reveal of my not-so-secret secret, with no further delay here it is.

But first, a bit of background.

I have been trying, far and wide, to source wood locally which would allow me to manufacture and sell, a solar food dryer / preserver in order to preserve my excess harvests.  I have looked longingly at all those wooden ones overseas - and trust me they come in all sort of different shapes and sizes.  I even purchased plans to make one.

However, the wood, which is the majority component in all the various solar structures, was the only drawback, because all the wood available here has been chemically treated.  So, enclosing that chemically treated wood inside a closed "heated" space would only cause the dehydrating food to absorb those chemicals.  A completely wasted exercise as far as I'm concerned, and completely against my eco-friendly ethos.

Then, last year in November, a post of Tania's cause me to have a lightbulb moment.  She posted about her husband manufacturing a structure that would allow her to air dry her excess produce.

Duh!!  Why am I thinking like someone from the more inclement northern climes?

There is a flimsy molded plastic model available here which is mainly used to make biltong (jerky), but that requires plugging in a 40watt light bulb, and that, together with the small circulating fan is left on 24 hours a day for as many days as it takes until the food is dehydrated!  40watts X 24 hours = almost a kilowatt of electricity per day!  I don't need to add anything unnecessary like that to our electricity consumption.

I need a unit which will allow me to take advantage of our warm, sunny weather.

I wrote to Tanya and asked her permission to copy her idea, and received a generous reply in the affirmative.

So, I got to work, and using into the skills of a local woodworking craftsman, I now present the "Foothills DryAway" :)  (Like our animals, and chickens, I love naming stuff, so ditto this has also been given it's own identity lol  "Foothills" after our smallholding and "DryAway" after the function of the unit that happily works away on it's own, and after the fact that I can fold away the legs to make wall-hanging winter storage of the unit easier).

Dehydrating grapes worked very well using a black
oven tray and food net, but didn't prevent the
flies from accessing the food on which the net was
resting

Whilst I was waiting for the craftsman to find time to make it, I used a black baking tray and a food net cover to dehydrate some homegrown grapes.  What I noticed was that the flies could still easily access the food through the netting as I was unable to prevent the netting from making contact with the food.  Not good!!  I had to ensure that the food was well away from those filthy probing proboscises.  

"Foothills DryAway" - the perfect solution to dehydrate
excess harvest.  And it is 100% Proudly South African

The "Foothills DryAway" is a modified version of Tania's model.  It has two outer surfaces of extremely strong fly-proof netting...

I couldn't wait to use the unit, so I shoved in some
pineapple sage as the first item

Dehydrated pineapple sage - specifically made for
a very special friend...

... and a "suspended" middle drying surface net which prevents the dehydrating food from coming into contact with any flies whatsoever.

Flies have tried their very best, but they are
unable to access the food drying within :)

The unit has two latch hooks on the longer opening side to :

1  ensure a tight fit of the two frames to prevent smaller fruit fly type of insects from entering the inner area;
2  prevent the wooden frame from warping during it's long exposure to the sun / any humidity in the air.

As the pineapple sage was drying I added
half a peeled pumpkin

The legs enable the heat / air to easily circulate around the dehydrating food.

The dehydrated pineapple sage was replaced with
piquanté peppers - I have a longing for some ground
piquanté pepper this winter :)

In addition, the wing nuts which secure the legs to the unit will enable folding away the legs to allow for easy winter storage of the unit.

The unit is easy to clean (a hosepipe and some spurting water, or a jug of water and washing-up brush takes care of any food which may, or may not, stick to the drying surface) and all the wood has been sealed with an eco-friendly, food safe sealant.  (I purposely left the legs lying in a puddle of rain water for three days, and discovered absolutely no swelling / distortion whatsoever.  Please note though, that leaving a unit filled with your excess harvest out in the rain is pointless as the food will, obviously, just absorb the moisture, and you'll have to start the dehydration process all over again.)

Whoohoo - the "Foothills DryAway" will enable me to preserve more without having to rely on available freezer space, nor loads of cupboard space for all those (potentially limited lifespan) water-bathed, or pressure canned, jars of food.  Plus, dehydrating my excess harvest means that I'll never have to top up my veggie stock out of the growing season by purchasing shop sold produce in order to serve it for dinner, or when I have unexpected visitors.

Properly dehydrated food lasts for ages and offers the convenience of eating easily reconstituted summer produce out of season.

What a pleasure :)

This dehydrator is working so well, I need to order more units so that I can dehydrate whilst the weather is still suitable... :D

Footnote:  The pumpkin slices I dehydrated were cut a little too thick so they took 4 days to dehydrate.  In future I am going to try 1) cutting the slices much thinner, and 2) coarsely grating the pumpkin and spreading that on the drying net.  Other than that I'm very happy with my South African solar dehydrator