Seed, glorious seed!

Who would have thought browsing an online vegetable seed catalogue could give one such absolute joy and excitement?! I received Living Seeds newsletter informing me that they were taking pre-orders for seed potatoes. I have thus placed a small order of "Buffelspoort" as my six "Mondials" I reserved from the last pocket I bought have not really sprouted well and I'm told there are far better tasting spuds out there. Sadly I couldn't find any red-skinned varieties, but I'll keep looking. Not many places keep seed potatoes...

The greatest fun however was choosing a few other seeds for the veggie patch. The tomato and pumpkin sections had me drooling!!! I finally decided to leave the pumpkins for now because they like warm summer weather and concentrate on the early spring veggies. I ordered the following and am awaiting their arrival with great anticipation:

Purple Dragon Carrots an heirloom variety, purple on the outside and orange inside

 Country Gentleman Sweetcorn first listed in 1890, has irregular rows of sweet kernels

Red Creole Onions beautiful red, mild, sweet onions

Scarlet Runner Beans perennial, vigorous grower (want to train them up arches over the gates), green beans

Albenga Bush Beans beautiful green and purple varigated beans

De Grace Peas great producer of snap and green peas

Melody Lettuce a loose leaf lettuce that one can start picking early and it keeps producing leaves

 

Wonder of Four Seasons Lettuce a beautiful butter lettuce with pink edging

Carbon Tomatoes black sweet tomatoes, considered one of the best tasting in the world

 Yellow Pear Tomatoes prolific bearer of small sweet yellow tomatoes

I also found someone in a Gardening Magazine that was happy to share seeds of a Spearleaf lettuce and white cucumber that his parents had developed. He lost the seed and was blessed to get them back via another reader in KZN. Their seeds are not commercially distributed. In return I sent him some African wild cucumber (which I got from my dad) and Malawian Pepperdew seeds.

Then my biggest and most exciting find: a gorgeous rust brown, deeply ribbed "Musket Pumpkin" according to the East London Fruit and Veg. I have never ever seen one of these pumkins before and even Living Seeds doesn't carry this variety. We simply had to make space for it in our heavily loaded car on the way to our holiday destination! Upon an internet search I could find no "Musket Pumpkins" but discovered that it is a heirloom variety from Long Island from the species "Moschata" and I suppose that does nearly sound like "musket"?! It is related to the "Butternut Squash" (similar taste and texture too) this specific variety is called "Fairytale".

The orange variety is called "Cinderella" as these are apparently the pumpkins that inspired the illustrations of the coach in the fairytale :-)

Roses & lavender - an old fashioned posy

Yesterday turned out to be a "garden day" as this is our only "July garden weekend" due to the planned holiday. The rose bushes needed moving and pruning (and just about everything else too!), something that can only be done in July. The rose bushes were being smothered by the periwinkle and needed a new sunny home where they could breath easy.

Our wonderful "Stochas" lavender had gone all woody and needed to be removed.

So this was an ideal arrangement: take out the lavender and replace with the rose bushes.

The job of transplanting roses however was not completed in one session as the rose garden has a tendency to distract one!

The team effort was therefore continued today but every time we looked for the King, he had vanished to the kitchen (gardening is not his favourite hobby or rather chore). We were however delighted to be presented with some oat crunchies at tea time (and a clean kitchen). Now what more can a girl ask for?!

I tried pruning the lavender (and planting cuttings) earlier in the season, hoping that new growth might be encouraged but it wasn't very successful. The lavender however understood that their time was drawing to an end and without my help resowed themselves in the cracks of the verandah pavement.

Prince 3 discoverd these little miracles a few weeks ago (the blessing of not having a regular gardener to weed). We were able to transplant 91 (that's right ninety one!) little lavenders to seedling trays! We have lost some, but definitely have more than the original nine bushes. Now isn't that "go forth and multiply"?!

We gathered what soft growth there was for essential oil before removing the bushes with a heavy heart. I love these old fashioned flowers (roses and lavender) and hope that one day whenever the young Princes catch a whiff of lavender they will be transported back home...

Celebrating Nelson Mandela Day

Tomorrow, Monday 18 July is Nelson Mandela Day. It is a globally recognised day sanctioned by the United Nations with the slogan "Make every day Nelson Mandela Day": A worldwide appeal to give up 67 minutes in pursuit of a good cause in the service of others. In the past I've read posts by other families taking time out to serve the poor as a family - aiming to instill a social conscience in their children. For me to reach out is stretching, but I have been giving it some thought. Last week my children told me that I'm an introvert, I've never thought myself to be one though. But yes, I 'm very happy to be by myself with my garden, my animals, my books, my PC and my family (no it's not an afterthought!). The Princes play a computer game called The Sims where they create families, pursue various careers and take various risks.The consequences of their choices sometimes kill them.I have been told that if your "socialization rating" in this game is low you could die, I have also been told that if some of them were Sims characters they would have died a long time ago. But I digress.

I read this very interesting piece that dropped into my inbox at work. It got my attention and I followed the link to the website which led to some history homework. I'm going to copy some of the text here as I know that most of my small number of (very silent) followers don't enjoy web-hopping. The author pointed out the similarities between Nelson Mandela and Jan Smuts and I quote:

"...both men have statues in their honour in Parliament Square in London and both are hailed globally as statesmen of stature. But you may not be aware that both grew up as farm boys tending to sheep and cattle with very rudimentary primary school education, both fought against what they believed to be illegitimate regimes, both were labelled, "freedom fighters", and both had capture rewards "dead or alive" over their heads. We are blessed that both were passionate about reconciliation and forgiveness in the face of almost universal hostility, both loved their country with unshakable commitment and both have made a significant and recent contribution to our complicated history.

Yet, the 130th anniversary of Smuts’ birth and the 60th anniversary of his death went unnoticed and uncelebrated in 2010.

Why?"

Further down in the article he asks whether the 60th anniversary of Nelson Mandela's death will also be forgotten, as just 12 years since Mandela stepped down his ideals (which are very similar to Smuts') have already been eroded and forgotten by those in government.

Now for the history lesson:
Jan Smuts was homeschooled! He only started "formal institutionalized schooling" at the age of 12. But he "caught up" so impressively (something very normal we're told for homeschoolers that have been left to develop at their pace instead of being pressurized and fussed over) that he gained acceptance to a top college and later was awarded a scholarship to Cambridge in the UK. But best of all: The founding document of the United Nations and the preamble to the Charter including the "declaration of human rights" were drafted by Smuts!!!

And today I hear on the news: The ANC want to rename all the streets in Cape Town including one named after General Jan Christian Smuts. The reason? It reminds them of the past.

We can't change the complicated history of our country, nor can we wish it away, but we can learn from it and we can avoid repeating bad choices and bad decisions that had bad consequences. We have a mandate to hold this government and every one that follows to Madiba's ideal of "We shall build a society in which all South Africans, both black and white, will be able to walk tall, without any fear in their hearts, assured of their inalienable right to human dignity – a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world,"

But it doesn't stop there, you and I can make a difference right there where we are: I can choose to develop my social conscience (and those of my children). I can choose to treat the people I come into contact with with respect and dignity, to spread peace and goodwill - I just have to do this one day at a time and in time we might indeed have a "rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world"...

There's a mouse in the spinach!

Yes indeed, and it's cooked spinach to boot! This morning we were trying to practice some daylight saving and put the chicken pie together early (all ingredients were ready and waiting) when the King of Avalon opened the pressure cooker just to find a tiny brown field mouse (the size of a dwarf hamster) staring at him! I'm afraid no photo was taken as we were all equally bewildered. I had lightly cooked the spinach (chard) yesterday and had left it on the stove overnight with the pressure cooker's lid on but not locked, as it was cold and wouldn't spoil. Sadly, our mouse friend and the spinach are no longer.

But here's that recipe, it's really nice:

The Blue Plumbago CHICKEN PIE

Filling:

1 Bunch (200g) cooked spinach (chard)

1 Deboned cooked chicken (we smoke ours)

1 Bunch spring onion

1 Punnet (250g) mushrooms sliced and cooked

100g Feta

Thin white sauce (Belchemel) seasoned with salt, freshly ground black pepper and thyme to wet everything through and bind it together:

250ml milk

40ml butter

40ml flour

Mix together and press into a pyrex dish

Pre-heat Oven to 200 degrees Celcius

Pastry:

Sift together dry ingredients:

½ cup (125ml) flour

4 teaspoons (20ml) baking powder

Pinch of salt

Combine wet ingredients:

4 tablespoons (50ml) oil

1 cup (250ml) milk

2 eggs

Combine dry with wet. If it’s lumpy liquidize it quickly with a hand-held “Shzjoosh”. Don’t over do it or the baking powder will lose it’s effectiveness.

SECRET: filling must be piping hot when pastry is poured over (put pyrex dish in the mic) and then it must immediately be placed in hot oven.

Cook for about 15 minutes or until golden brown. 


Sadly I can't take a pic as I've just made the filling. We'll be making a fresh pastry when we defrost it to use.

Our homemade laundry soap experiment

Three weeks ago I put my foot down and refused to pay R169 for yet another 5kg bucket of commercial laundry detergent that lasts me a month. The buckets are great (we have 3 years worth) but I suppose our soil and ground water also have stored 3 years worth of chemicals so the switch was made. I used the following recipe but doubled it:

Homemade Liquid Laundry Soap

What you need:
1 large bar (250g) pure soap (grated)
½ cup (100g) borax (they are sold in 100g containers and stocked with the bicarb etc)
½ cup washing soda (I found a 500g container among the detergents)
26 cups of water
A large bucket with a lid (this will be your storage container)


Method:
Put the grated soap into a large pot. Add 6 cups of water and heat gently until the soap has melted. Add the borax and washing soda and stir until it is all dissolved. Remove from the heat.
In your bucket add 20 cups of hot water to your soap mixture and stir it until mixed (I used my handheld blender fondly called the Shzjoosh). Let the soap stand for 24 hrs when it will become gel like.
You can add ½ cup to each full load of laundry in a small machine and 1 cup in a large machine.

The following day we had beautiful "ice cream" according to Boniswa, my domestic helper (who has taken the recipe home). It cost R69 and lasted 3 weeks (we do six full loads per week in our Whirlpool Toploader). Our second batch produced more - at least a months worth so we might have made a mistake when mixing the first lot. The clothes wash and smell clean, there is no soapy residue (it totally dissolves). We still use very diluted fabric softner though. The first batch worked out to R3.83 per wash, the second  will be R2.88 per wash excluding softner. A definite improvement on the R7.04 a wash we have been paying!

On my wish list is "Biowashballs", they replace both detergent and softner making the washing machine's water recyle-able (my spell checker doesn't like this word no matter how I spell it!). Bottom line is the water could go to the orchard. The King of Avalon says the wording on this website makes no scientific sense but I know of people that swear it works (real life people too not just these online testimonials) and it has won a few awards! Apparently they last approximately 1000 washes (nearly 3 years in our case). I would need two balls (2 x R450) as I have a big machine which works out to a mere 90c per wash! So why is everybody not switching to Biowashballs I wonder?!

So much to say, so little time...

I apologise to my (silent) followers for not posting once this week! Sorry if you eagelry visited us (ha!) and found nothing new. It's not that I have nothing to share, infact I have lots on my mind but the days just seem to run away with me! So, it's Friday evening and I'm sitting in the kitchen (with my laptop) blogging while smoking chicken (no not like that - it's for chicken pies). I'm stockpiling. We'll be at the sea for two weeks (when the masses return to the classrooms) and I'm not going to spend my time in the kitchen when there are so many other things to do! Now that you've been given fair warning go grab a mug of tea or coffee and make yourself comfortable, the blogathon is about to begin...

It's official: I live in a bubble!

I've been all over the web this week trying to educate myself concerning "sustainability" and "fairtrade". The first mention I read about fairtrade was in one of Wendy's posts last month on the link between child slavery and chocolate. The good news is that I have discovered that Cadbury's Plain Milk Chocolate is fairtrade! However I'm appalled at how little I know about fairtrade and I wonder how many others are also unaware? It boils down to " the labourer is worthy of his wages" in other words the small producer shouldn't be forced to accept low prices (not market related) for his produce (thus also forcing him to pay low wages) while the middle man and retailer profit (well at least that is my understanding). Sadly South Africa has very few registered fairtrade producers at this point in time and me living out in the rural Eastern Cape doesn't really bring me into contact with these producers' products. It does however bring me face to face with real hardship and extreme poverty, something fairtrade aims to eradicate. Our choices could make a difference to a struggling small farmer and his labourers. Sometimes the reality of our budgets force us to make less healthy; less "fair" choices, but if we do have the ability to choose, we should choose "right" (that goes for free-range and organic products too) and we should support the small local (organic) producer if at all possible.

And speaking about poverty: I was so encouraged to see the generosity of ordinary folk that are also battling to balance the budget. Again, I'm just so appalled at how calloused I've become, wrapped up in my own little world trying to make ends meet. I know that many South Africans feel a sense of resentment towards the current government: after all the poverty stricken masses have elected them into power, so let them deliver (I'm guilty of this too). Sadly corruption is rife, money that is earmarked for poverty relief goes into lining government officials pockets (this is not a uniquely South African phenomena by the way) and parents spend welfare grants on alchohol - at the end of the day children are suffering, children that didn't make any of these choices. So today we're going through our cupboards and throwing out all unused, outgrown clothing - hopefully a few children will be warmer because of it...

Banana Chutney

I discovered that the bananas at the local general dealer were selling for under R5 per kilo, so bought two kilos and made banana chutney. It's delicious with curries!!! I'm puzzled though as when I did an internet search I couldn't find that bananas are in season? These were mostly small and some were not firm which made me think that they must be "local"? I did find this blog though that was some food for thought... It concerns sustainability and fairtrade regarding bananas - thought it to be educational.

Anyway, here is the Banana Chutney Recipe (courtesy of my friend Dawn):
1kg Peeled bananas, sliced
2 Green peppers, finely chopped (if you have an aversion, leave them out but just so that you know - you can't even taste them in the final concoction)
2 Onions, finely chopped
2 Cloves of garlic, finely chopped
250g Sultanas
10ml (2t) Salt
1ml Pepper
10 ml Medium curry powder
5ml (1t) Turmeric
1 ml Thyme
1ml Ground cloves
750ml Vinegar (I use white)
500g Sugar

Combine all ingredients in a pot and simmer for 1 hour.

I doubled the recipe and added 2cm of freshly grated ginger this time. I also cooked my mix for longer than an hour to try and reduce the fluid. It didn't really work as quick as I wanted it to, so as I was making curry in a separate pot I ladled 3 soup spoons full of the fluid into the curry to help get the chutney to a thicker consistency. This did the trick, we filled 6 bottles ;-) Enjoy!

Things are a-happening!

This is not the usual kind of post, it's a little more personal than usual. I drafted it on Friday already but have been hesitant to post it. The bottom line for those that know where we've been this past year (living in that horrible little place called "uncertainty" where life is put on hold): Things are a-happening!!! I read a post titled "Bloom where you are planted" a while back and it inspired me to do just that - as a sort of step in faith and now it seems that we're staying (that's right, STAYING)!!!!!! The puzzle pieces are slowly clicking into place to make it possible.- yes I know, can't believe it either, but I'm so grateful and a little excited!

Puzzle piece # 1: The plans for a piggery next door (two plots down-wind) were approved last week. This has thrown neighbours that were interested in purchasing our property into turmoil. They are now reconsidering as their plans for an art gallery and tea garden will not be viable. We've had no other interest...

Puzzle piece # 2: The King of Avalon arrived home with our new (second hand) family car last night. Just having the finance approved is a small miracle considering our credit record (though we have been working hard at it). It was in fact approved on Thursday already, but I was holding my breathe until we actually drove her out of the Dealer (that's why I've been hanging onto this post)! Our dear faithful 4x4 Gas Guzzler has being traded in for a young little station wagon of questionable Indian decent. She'll be costing us less per month and she uses a third of the fuel that Old Faithful did (very necessary now that we do regular East London trips for tutoring). We'll also be getting a cash amount out that can be used to sort out the arrears on our bond that might put us in a position to refinance the house and consolidate debt  - did I mention that things are starting to happen??! So, today I have a very definite sense of gratitude and expectation of greater things to come :-) Please meet "Dory" aka "Cruella de Ville":

I have the new Veggie Patch planned!

It was fun and easy using the free trial offered by GrowVeg! However the hard works starts now transforming this:

into this:

I can't believe that I am able to fit so many raised beds in (we might indeed be able to feed the family!)! It's a whopping 30.10m x 10.30 m and I've kept most paths just wide enough (50cm) to accommodate the wheelbarrow's feet. My main concern was having enough potatoes, carrots, onions and sweet corn (and lots of salad greens of course) - the idea is to stagger the planting so that we continually have a crop throughout the season (it's called succession planting).

I don't think we have collected enough black wattle to build the twelve 1,8m x 1,8m compost bins (one for every month) never mind anything else. Problem is the growing season for some veg starts NOW (e.g. garlic & early potatoes) with most other in mid August (after the last frost) - time is short and the (willing) workers few!!! Removing the grass & building raised beds are the first priority - we have clay soil (very poor drainage) and this is the solution. We'll also be digging a "L-shaped" trench in the vacant space (top & left) to lead excess water away. In the long run raised beds are also easier to maintain and thus worth the expense and effort. I was hoping to use wattle for them (see below),

but to save time and labour we might have to resort to buying some of those slats which still have bark on the one side  for the really urgent ones (they're a little cheaper than perfect planks)...

Looks good, hey? Hope you're inspired too... :-)