Weirder and weirder

Is there anyone out there who still doesn't believe in global warming / climate change?

https://www.enca.com/south-africa/vredendal-sets-hottest-global-temperature-october

Then, this weekend it is predicted that, like my home town, Grimsby, South Africa will get it's first snowfall of winter!  Three months early.  Have we ever had snow in March before????  I doubt it!

https://www.facebook.com/snowreportsa
24 March 10.54a.m.

Plus - we are currently experiencing our worst drought in over 100 years.

Add to the above all the blogs I follow who have commented that their most recent winter was abnormal and I rest my case...

"Later that night I held an atlas in my lap

ran my fingers across the whole world

and whispered

where does it hurt?

it answered:

everywhere    

everywhere... 

...everywhere"

      ~   Warsan Shire

Happy Easter everyone.  If you're travelling, please drive safely, if you're at home, enjoy.

Dried pineapple sage

Just before I took possession of my Foothills DryAway I was standing at the kitchen stable door staring out into our back garden - daydreaming.

A movement caught my eye, and, re-focusing my eyes, I spied this beauty on the pineapple sage plant which stand at the entrance to my covered veggie patch.

It was a spectacular Southern Double-Collared Sunbird.

If you click on the image you'll see that the
  Southern Double Collared Sunbiords beak is deeply
 embedded into the pineapple sage flower

He was the reason that I thought to shove an armful of pineapple sage into the DryAway

At the end of the day the armful had reduced down to a cereal bowl full, and...

...30 grams of dried pineapple sage will soon be on it's way to a very special person.  Who can that be...?  ;)

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

Tomato salad

Apologies - I can't reveal my secret just yet - I have been down with a hectic tooth abscess which has left me feeling pretty miserable, not to mention the subsequent dental assistance this past week.  As you can imagine, that is not conducive to blogging lol

I can just imagine how impatient all those living in the northern hemisphere are to start planting their tomato seeds for their summer crop.

So I thought I'd give you some encouragement :)

Clockwise from the top left:
My new purple tomatoes, golden yellow,
red beefsteak heirloom and cocktail tomatoes

I posted here about how I have started preserving my tomato harvest this year.

And in that posting I promised you a peek at how amazing a tomato salad composed of different tomato cultivars looks.

Are you ready?

5 different tomatoes cultivars:
purple tomatoes, golden yellow tomatoes,
2 X cocktail tomatoes and beefsteak heirloom
tomatoes.  To me it is as beautiful as any
 bouquet of flowers :)

There is something so satisfying about slicing through a fresh, juicy tomato with a sharp knife - with a delicious homegrown salad as the end goal.

All those tomatoes in a salad - with
homegrown red onions, and shop bought
avocado's (our avo trees which I grew from pips
aren't bearing yet)

Being a typical male, RMan prefers his slab of flesh, to greens, on his plate, and so, if I give RMan a salad chopped into small pieces, he is more likely to eat it.  This salad was a pleasure to make :)

"Listen...

...do you wanna know a secret?

Do you promise not to that you'll tell?

Whoa oh oh

Closer.

Let me whisper in your ear,

Say the words you long to hear..."

(amended lyrics from : "Do you want to know a secret?" - The Beatles 1964 )

Stay tuned :D  

All will be revealed next week.

Vital crop

The one vegetable / fruit that I need to plant, and harvest in quantity, each year is tomatoes.

Last year I was devastated when the mice managed to eat / damage / decimate most of my tomato crop.  The little buggers weren't picky either - sampling this one, that one, any-which-one, and never finishing the meal they started.

What a waste!  Haven't they heard of food poverty?

Thankfully, this year we have seen very few mice in the garden, so I am harvesting enough tomatoes each week to keep me busy in the kitchen over the weekends, when the pressure of (income producing) work is lessened.

Clockwise from the top left:
My new purple tomatoes, golden yellow,
red beefsteak heirloom and cocktail tomatoes

Earlier in January I found a tomato seedling in the local nursery that had me intrigued - so, naturally, I had to buy a specimen.

It was a black (purple) tomato plant.

I have been excited - yes, it doesn't take much, does it ;) - to see what developed.

They are much smaller tomatoes, and really interesting.

A sliced purple tomato

As you can see in the pic above, when they are sliced, the inner edges still retain a touch of that "bruised" look.  I will be saving seeds from one of those I harvest in order to grow my own next year.

I need to make a salad from the different tomatoes I'm growing to show you the different colour contrasts.

A mixed tomato salad with a bit of basil and crumbled feta, sprinkled with balsamic and olive oil - heaven!!

But, the main reason I grow tomatoes is so that I can preserve them.

There are approximately 16 large beefsteak
 tomatoes reducing down in this pot - with 1 single
 yellow one added (it was almost over-ripe and I
 didn't want to waste it).

The must have staple of my pantry / freezer is tomato purée.

Cocktail tomatoes are to throw into a mixed salad.  Only.  I tried preserving them whole a few years ago, but it was a waste of time.  They disintegrated down into an insipid watery mush, and the small jars took up far too much space in my pantry.

Heirloom tomatoes, on the other hand, are invaluable.

My main source of tomato purée is from the heirloom tomatoes -  the beefsteak and the yellow one.  I love the irregular shape of the heirloom tomatoes - it almost gives each one a different character.

(Did you know that perfectly round tomatoes are a result of needing a suitably tidy shaped tomato to put on a take-away hamburger?  Have you ever hear anything more ridiculous?  The bloody hamburger dictates what tomatoes are commercially grown these days - if you can call them tomatoes, as I find them completely tasteless and pasty in colour.)

This is what I mean about a disfigured
 heirloom tomato.  Don't you love the
 uneven appearance of them :)

The heirloom tomatoes around the stem are normally "disfigured" as in the pic above.  I have no idea what causes that, but their taste is amazing, so I don't give a hoot.  The "disfigured" section goes to my worm farm occupants - the worms don't know any different lol

The yellow tomatoes are my favourite, too - and they make the most amazing tomato purée - producing a much deeper colour than that of the beefsteaks.  The purée from the yellow tomatoes seems almost tinged with a dash of turmeric. That is quite a contradiction, as I had imagined, given their yellow appearance, that that purée would have more of a yellow appearance.

I use the purée in a myriad of ways - for pizza bases, in casseroles, soups, dips, sauces, etc.  This winter I also want to try using it in bread, in place of water :)

Recycled plastic containers holding yummy
 thick tomato purée paste cooling down
 before they are popped into the freezer.
1.125 ltrs of tomato to enliven those wintry
 nights.  One of those oval 125ml containers is
 enough for a meal.  I have also water bath preserved
tomato puree in larger Ball jars for my pantry :)

There is something about the luscious redness of tomatoes in winter which, together with a roaring "Rosie" uplifts the cold, dreary days.  The hint of spring around the corner, with the promise of the next tomato harvest...

Raised beds

Back in November when we scored some pallets from a local tile shop which were turned into the second chicken coop, we also scored some "boxes".  I use the term boxes loosely, as they do not have full sides - they're more slatted.

This looks like a pile of junk, doesn't it.
 To RMan and I it means sooo much more...

RMan and I had a "together" moment when we saw these babies - we reckoned they'd make perfect raised beds.  My lower spine is not (and cannot without a major op, which I'm not keen on) getting any better, and the less crouching I have to do, the easier it is for me to garden (which is another reason I planted the pumpkins in tyres so that they could grow up and along the fence of the other veggie patch).

These "boxes" will make that possible.

So, when we had a spare moment in January, I got to work.

I started by clearing out everything in my shadecloth veggie house.

Stones from our fields were added at the base to
  act as drainage

Serendipitously, the three "boxes" fitted perfectly between the two internal support poles - a sign I took that they were meant to be placed where they are.

I layered loads of newspaper on the ground underneath them.  Then, we uploaded some of the gazillion stones we have littering our fields and layered them at the very base of the boxes - on top of the newspaper

The sides of the "boxes" were covered with black plastic
  which was stapled in place

The sides were covered with black plastic which was stapled in place - to prevent the soil from being washed out.  Then layers of straw, alpaca poo, topsoil, straw, alpaca poo, topsoil...

Then we proceeded to fill the mtr3 with a lasagne
 layer of goodness

...were added until the new raised beds were full.

Nearly full.  We were surprised how much it
  took to fill the mtr3

Finally, after watering everything in well, I let it settle, topped up the soil the next morning (it had sunk a little due to the watering) and started sowing seed / planting.

This is what it looks like just under a month later...

Luscious yumminess growing happily in the
 raised beds :)

I'm chuffed.

Carrots, lettuce, radish, chard, some garlic, even a "trial" single tomato plant and the odd-companion planted onion - they're all doing well - and we've already harvested chard, radish, lettuce leaves.

Yeeha!!  Ginger growing for the first times ever
 in my garden

Due to the rich well-manured composition of the soil, I am even able to grow ginger for the first time ever.  (Ginger, being a plant which grows in a mediterranean climate, requires a richer soil, which retains water and loves being grown below other plants - so that their leaves can shade the soil and filter the light.)

These raised beds are certainly assisting my back :)

And the "boxes" were just sitting rotting at the tile shop where we found them.  Another good recycling project completed :)

Although my pumpkins are producing madly, RMan is not mad about growing anything in tyres, so, we're going to go back to the tile store to get some more raised beds, which will be dedicated pumpkin beds next spring / summer.

Grape Harvest

Thank you, kymber - you are a special friend indeed :)

Well, t'would seem that I finally got the pruning of the grape vines right last winter.

For the first time ever I have been able to harvest more than 1 or 2 bunches of grapes from our grape vines.

Some of the grapes I harvested this summer

I always thought that it was the hares that were emptying the grapes from our vines before we had had a chance to munch some, but have just discovered that the mousebirds don't need any help from that quarter and that I had erroneously attributed the loss of grapes to the hares.

When I set about protecting our fruit trees from the mousebirds with the foil trays, I didn't have enough to protect the vines.

Recycled onion net bags - used to protect the
 grapes from the mousebirds

I did, however, have a few empty onion net bags from waaaaaay back when I was still buying them (yes, I am a hoarder, and proud of it ;)  ) so they were wrapped round the larger bunches of grapes.

Thankfully, the limited number of net bags I had worked their magic and allowed me to harvest a third of the bunches of grapes - the mousebirds got the rest.

Big bowls full of grapes to munch on after dinner...

Dessert in the evening :)

... and some to turn into raisins and sultana's.

Dried fruit in the making - they will be a good reminder
 of summers harvest in winter when we eat them :)

 All the squishy grapes weren't wasted either...

Soft, almost discard-able grapes weren't wasted
 either

 ... they were quickly gobbled up by the chickens.

Did you know that chickens l-o-v-e grapes?

I have recently seen those net bags for sale at the co-op, and I will need to get a stock in for next summer.

It has taken 3 years to come to grips with how to prevent (larger) pests from eating our fruit - be that the strawberries, youngberries, apples / pears / apricots / plums / pomegranates, or grapes.  Next year, hopefully, I will be able to harvest more so that we have enough to eat, and a surplus which I can preserve through drying and canning.

That is my aim for summer 2016 / 2017 - to have enough of summer's fruit bounty left over, in one form or another, to tide us through the winter.