In spite of the drought...

... my garden is slowly springing to life :)

This photo was taken two - three weeks ago - the
water level is even lower now.
As you can see from the exposed white paint on the
jetty supports, the dam level is very low.
Thank goodness we coated the dam with bentonite -
I am convinced that if we hadn't, it would not still be
holding water.

 Guess you can't keep Mother Nature at bay LOL

A tiny strawberry - the
first of the season

This is the first tiny strawberry that I harvested this week.  But, I am not discouraged...

This one (of about 70) plant is covered with
flowers / minute strawberries - it looks like it
is going to be a good strawberry season this year.
It would appear that the load of alpaca poo
 and straw that the strawberry beds were dosed
with at the beginning of winter has worked
a treat :)

... as the strawberry plants are well covered with flowers / tiny strawberries in the making :)

Having googled how to prune a berry bush, even
our youngberry bushes are full of emerging flowers.

Last year we had a very disappointing youngbery harvest - addmittedly the bushes were still young, and incorrectly pruned by moi.  This year I got clever and googled pruning fruit bushes.  The apparent results speak for themselves :) But, it is a thankless chore- the tiny thorns are hectic!!  I even had one work it's way deep into my finger and go septic.  Ah, the pleasures of gardening LOL

My pumpkins / butternut and tomatoes are all slow - but I think the ducks have been digging up the pumpkin / butternut seeds - it was a nice, wet, straw-filled hollow and just perfect for ducks to forage in...  So, (for the third time) I've started them off in seedling trays - well away from the ducks.

What a sight for sore eyes

Although, at the moment, I am madly harvesting broad beans, I'm not able to get into the garden as much as I want to - we have been so busy with work.  (As a side note, there is nothing nicer than cooked, (inner) peeled broad beans with a dab of butter and a splash of lemon juice - I'm salivating just writing it LOL)

But, I think I am keeping on top of the planting.  I have restricted the produce I am going to grow this year to what we enjoy eating the most - peas, beans, swiss chard, tomatoes, peppers - sweet, chilli and piquanté peppers (all three types of capsicum have, amazingly, survived the winter and, after a pruning, are already producing flowers), potatoes, carrots, garlic, onions and aubergines (once the seedlings are available in my local nursery) and, hopefully, pumpkins and butternut.

That should give us a good variety - and a good mix of the necessary orange and dark green vegetables recommended for healthy bodies :)  And all are preservable so we can continue to enjoy them next winter.

The grape vines have barely any leaves,
but they are already producing grapes :)

Fruit - well we have that covered with strawberries, youngberries, plums, apricots, apples, pears, granadilla's, pomegranates and grapes.  Lots of fresh picking / eating, and jams / preserves in that lot, plus, once I've googled "how to make cordials", and souced the necessary bottles, they'll provide for that too ;) 

I also pruned the pomegranate trees correctly
this year (thank you Google) and they are
producing flowers too :)

For me, it's completely pointless using precious water to grow masses of food we don't eat / enjoy, and which would therefore be a waste - of time, water and effort.

Early tomorrow morning - it's weeding time...!

When is a lemon tree not a lemon tree ...?

Seedlings in March this year

I don't know if you recall back in March this year I mentioned that I found three tiny trees growing from seeds that I had planted on the farm at the end of last year.  After I had eaten the fruit, the seeds were just been shoved into the soil, with no attention at all and no water (save the rainfall of the past winter).


This is what they look like now...

Seedlings in September this year

Well, this time, they are much bigger, and I was thus able to pinch of a couple of leaves, in order to smell, and correctly identify them.

They are not lemon tree sapling, they are... baby naartjie (mandarin) trees :)  Happy Days!  We now have both lemons and naartjies growing on the farm.


And, as for the lemon trees I planted in January, this is the progress they have made...

Lemon tree saplings in January 2011

Lemon tree saplings in March 2011

Lemon tree saplings in September 2011 -
they're peeping above the shade cloth.
Even the 2nd row has flourished beautifully :)

They are coming along beautifully.  With their timed irrigation and eco-friendly pest control recipes (1 & 2) they have nearly everything they need.  The only assistance my lemon trees most urgently require from me is... weeding!

Devil thorns invading the weed guard
around my lemon trees

Each plant grows hundred of these nasty thorns

A close up of these nasty b*ggers

These thorns are hectic enough that they will go straight through Crocs - and, whatever you do, don't walk anywhere without your shoes, nor kneel / sit anywhere without scouting around for this plant first - you WILL regret it!  But, even worse than that is the fact that when they get stuck in the sole of your shoe, the chances are that they will drop off as you walk indoors, which can create a nasty surprise if you walk barefoot in the house.  So checking underneath your shoes prior to entering the house is a definite.

And that, MKid, is the reason we always tell you to put your shoes on as soon as you wake up in the morning, and to leave them on all day :)

Over Wintering...

Seems I've come to an over wintering point...


Mr camera is broken.  My mobile, which I was having to use to take photo's, is frozen / broken, the skies are filled with black, heavy clouds and outside it is cold and miserable, and we can't find a moment to get to the farm...


However, to be grateful whilst I'm complaining, our home is warm and protected from the inclement weather, we have food on the table, and I can read about all the summer warmth and progress on others' blogs :-)


And have I ever found some brilliant idea's out there...


...more uses for those damn plastic bottles...

Image source:http://www.insideurbangreen.org/2010/03/
simpletomake-green-tote-box-sip.html 

This is called a SIP - a sub-irrigated planter.


I am fascinated with "wicking" / SIP type planters and have no idea what is attracting me to them.  But I think they are extremely clever.


What also fascinates me is the fact that apparently the yield in a wicking / SIP planter is noticeably more than in a conventional in-ground bed.  I believe that they have their place in any garden, no matter how small or large.  Certainly our 2 Ha farm has more than enough space to grow what we want, but we are hoping to plant it up with mainly fruit producing trees.  One of the reasons we are going to be doing that is because trees, even fruit trees, absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.  And any assistance this planet can get in that regard is a must in my book!

Recycled bath

I will be having a shade cloth vegetable patch on the farm - as large as I can make it, for the summers there are wickedly hot.  This will house raised beds, straw bale beds - whilst outside it I will have wicking and SIP planters for those plants which need the benefit of all the bees :-)

This experimental one that RMan made me worked a treat :-)

The plants on the southern side of the vegetable patch will need some protection from the incessant summer wind.  I am visualizing a large "barn sized" vegetable patch, of at least 9 mtrs long by 3½ - 4 mtrs wide - big enough for at least three horizontal beds with paths in between.  That should give me approximately 27 running mtrs for vegetable production - which should produce more than enough food for RMan and I, and still have some left over to barter with / gift :-)


But, my herbs will be planted in wicking / SIP planters close to the kitchen door.  I'm trying to convince RMan that we can (and should) take our recycled bath with us - not sure if I'm going to win this one because he's not mad about the sight / thought of it, even though I have told him I can disguise it better...


Another great site I came across in May this year is this one.  Grant and Max Buster are two young brothers who are applying their brains to assisting the starving millions with their ideas.  There is hope for this planet if youngster like this are in the next generation.

Raised beds (Image source:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Natural-Wood-Raised-Garden/ )

The beauty of all the above systems is the fact that there are a zillion plastic buckets out there, especially food grade one's at restaurants / take away outlets.  When they buy their supplies in bulk, a lot of their consumables are supplied in buckets, and there are just so many buckets they can re-use.  So there will never be a shortage of plastic buckets to go round, all you have to do is become friendly with your closest restaurant / take away and do your bit for recycling...

Straw bale beds (Image source:
http://www.growandmake.com/straw_bale_garden )

And the final benefit of this type of growing container is the water preservation - we all need to conserve our water and use it as sparingly as possible.  I have been fascinated to read in the past couple of years that England goes through periods of drought - England??!!  My country of roots has droughts?  Hard to believe, but it's true.


If England is experiencing droughts, what does that say about South Africa's worsening situation in the years to come?  Help Mother Nature, and she's sure to reward us - but it will take a concerted effort from us all.


Linking the wicking / SIP planters to our irrigation system will ensure that the water will go where it is intended - to the roots of the plants and not to the surface of the soil where it will evaporate.


Itchy - damn so itchy.  I want to get going...  So much to do, so little time.  And patience is not one of my virtues.


Does anyone have any other sites which could provide further inspiration?




Aside:  As I was typing this I received the following message from TUT (Totally Unique Thoughts).  And I thought this mornings message from TUT was particularly apt :-)


"Some will hear, but not listen.
Some will listen, but not understand.
And some will understand, but not act."


I hope someone - anyone - a single person - out there understands what I am trying to do / doing and is influenced by our journey to the extent that they make a change in their life.  Change happens one person at a time...  And "thoughts become things" LOL

Burglar and weather proofing

We managed to slip away to the farm again last weekend - heavenly!  Perfect weather, little wind and enough time to get some all important jobs done.

Firstly, due to the increase in petty break-ins we installed some burglar proofing on the windows.  Very simple system - and I was so busy assisting the main worker that I forgot to take photo's.  Perhaps it was also the fact that I'd forgotten to charge my camera batteries and they ran dry... or that I was so busy cleaning up the dust from the drilling.  I did use the vacuum cleaner hose, strategically positioned, to catch the bulk of the dust whilst RMan was drilling, but some always manages to escape and settle everywhere.

But, the empty batteries forced me to try something that I had been contemplating, and that was to try and charge my camera batteries in my solar light - they both take the same size.  It worked!  So perhaps I don't need to purchase a special solar battery charger for our AA size batteries after all!

But, we also noticed that the kitchen door, which faces south and subsequently never gets the sun, was sticking at the bottom due to damp, so that prompted us to install the back porch roof.  Again I say we, but the main worker did 99% of the work.  And what a good job he did too.  We had extra Resin roof tiles left over from the main roof, and, together with a couple of wooden supports, the job got done.

We still have to get the side walls where the roof meets the walls built up to enclose it totally, but I reckon it's brilliant.  It completely changes the appearance of the back of the house. 

RMan constantly surprises me, even after almost 30 years of marriage, I never knew that he was capable of such handyman feats.

We also made some progress on the raised veggie patch - installing the main support beams.

And we have discovered that apparently a local resident, who is squatting on the land he occupies, has no water connection, so he is helping himself to everyone else's!  Share and share alike - but 13 Kl in a month?!  That is going a little too far - we never used that even whilst we were building.  So we'll have to make a plan.

When we returned to Cape Town I immediately went to check my special lemon tree cuttings - mother hen syndrome I guess.  I had, after all, been away from them for 4 days.  They were doing well - I can even see some tiny leaf shoots growing!  But I thought perhaps I should share my mini-greenhouse system - a perfect way to recycle empty plastic bottles and propagate cuttings simultaneously!

I love it when a plan works.

Biding time

Our grandson came to visit us for the Easter holidays - how lekker (nice is the normal translation, but obviously you all know that I mean much more than nice :-) ) that was.  Very special!  All he wanted to do was swim - but late March / early April in Cape Town is not really swimming weather - and the water has already cooled down quite substantially, although he did get in twice - very briefly - the water was 21oC.  Much to cold for me!

BUT, whilst he was here I took delivery of my Stack-A-Tub - the name says it all.  I have placed it on our back patio - the only place which gets sun in winter, and, co-incidentally, it is right outside our grandsons' bedroom window - so when he's here he can peep out of his window to see how "his" vegetables are growing.  We planted baby spinach and a (centre) garlic clove in the top section and peas in the middle section - aiming for them to grow down the tubs as opposed to needing support.  Trial and error - if they don't do that well hanging down then I'll give them support to climb up.  My other half loves peas in the pod, which I can't find anywhere in Cape Town, so, providing we get enough from the nine plants, I know who I'll call if I need some shelled for dinner.  In lower section I planted some basil, but I think I'm going to replace them with lettuces - basil will grow perfectly in a stand alone pot.  The beauty of the stack a tub is that as all three tiers are detachable, it's obviously mobile, so when we go to the farm I can take it with us.  I'm thinking of using it as a herb garden on the farm - close to the kitchen door.

I have also ordered some very special lemon tree cuttings from overseas.  But I'm not going to say anymore until I have some fruit photo's to share with you - sorry, that'll take two or three years.  But I'm very excited and can't wait for them to arrive.  If they arrive alive, and I manage to root them successfully, then I will be ordering more.  I can't see why I shouldn't be successful as I have managed to root two pomegranate cuttings in the past four weeks.

We are still unable to get away to the farm - perhaps later this month...  We  need to install the newly painted security gates, and, of course, my freecycle kitchen counters.  But we have a neighbour who is also building his house there and he tells us that our plants / trees are all doing well with our irrigation system, and we've had a bit of rain, so we don't have to worry about them.

Would be nice to get away to the peace and serenity again though...