Z is For Zucchini (Also Called Courgettes/Baby Marrow)

Zucchini plants fruited continuous till mid-April

Let me start out by thanking you all for staying the AtoZ challenge course with me. I had a lot of fun, met really interesting people, some of whom I hope to continue an online relationship with, and I learnt things I didn't even know I wanted to/needed to learnt.  It's really been a pleasure, even when the schedule became rough.

Now on to the last post - Zucchini. I don't think my family has strong feelings about zucchini squash one way or another.

It's one of those vegetables I regularly throw into stews and soups, use to make breads and cakes etc. Basically it's just there, adding its flavour to our meals but not standing out. I like it.

I also like the fact that it's a prolific producer and that a few bushes can keep you in zucchini all season and you'd still have plenty more to freeze for winter.

How to grow zucchini

Site selection: Choose a space where your zucchini will have room to spread out a little, or you can stake it to grow upwards. You can also plant your zucchini among vegetables that don't like too much sun so that its large leaves can act as a little umbrella for them.

Soil preparation: Zucchini likes warm,  soil that is loamy (i.e. soil that is made up of sand, silt and clay in relatively even concentration.) and very well composted. That said, it has performed well enough in my well-composted clay soil.

Planting process:  Each of my y zucchini yielded around two fruit per week through the season, though I've heard some people say theirs produced a much higher yield.

Decide how many seeds you want to plant and then sow the seeds  2.5cm (1inch) deep in your soil, then water them. I usually just mulch the planted area and leave it alone, but you can also cover the seeds with cloches or horticultural fleece if the weather is still cool in the season.

Caring for the plant: When the seedlings have developed, thin out the plants to leave the strongest ones. Water the plant at least once a week under the plant (to reach the root system, not on the leaves). This ensures that your plant gets as much water as possible, as zucchini is a thirsty plant. Feed your plant occasionally once it starts flowering and bringing forth fruit to encourage it to fruit as much as possible.

In terms if pests and diseases, one of my crops  tended to have the blossom ends of my zucchini turn black and rot. I later found out that  the condition was caused by uneven soil moisture levels and wide fluctuations between wet and dry soil. I couldn't do much about that, as we were going through a drought at the time. But unless you have a drought, try to make sure that you water the plant deeply and that your water is directed into the soil around your plant.

If your zucchini is sort of bent and has a hole or dippled area, check for stink bugs in your garden. I had the orange and black type and ended up waging a bitter battle on time to protect my protect. This included picking the bugs off by hand, spraying with garlic and water mix and mint and water mix (separately). I also tried a bit of cayenne pepper, just in case.

The next season, I increased my percentage of beneficial plants like marigolds and nasturtiums in the garden to attract the bugs away from my crops, as they eat everything.

Harvesting: Once the zucchini plant flowers and starts to bring forth fruit, feed your plant fertilize occasionally for vigorous growth and lots of fruits. I tend to pick the zucchini around once a week from each plant, though you can harvest more frequently if your plant is a heavy producer.

Serving suggestions: We usually just throw zucchini into soups and stews. Sometimes I even grate it in.. and you don't have to "know" it's there for you to enjoy its benefits. But my favourite way to serve zucchini is in bread.

Basically, I follow this recipe found at the Down to Earth forums, but then I add a cup of grated zucchini once the bread had been fully proofed. I'm not sure the originators of the recipe intended for it to be adapted like that, but it makes a really nice savoury snack for the family.

Y Is For Yarrow

Red Yarrow. Source: Wikimedia

On Monday Mma turned 75 and I hosted a luncheon for around 40 family members and friends including kids.

Then yesterday we spent the day at the hospital for Mma's regular medical review. So I'm completely knackered.. but very satisfied with the way it all turned out.

Today I'm taking it a bit easy - back to finish the A to Z and  doing final packing of crochery and cutlery used on Monday.

I'm also enjoying the numerous vases of flowers littering the house - some were from the table settings, others were gifts for Mma. They bring  very cheerful air to the house.

I have no plans to plant yams and that was the only vegetable I know of which starts with that letter. However, I'm considering growing yarrow in my far off long-term plan to expand my herbal garden.

I've read that yarrow can be very useful herb, appropriate to treat fever, a common cold, hay fever, dysentery, loss of appetite, gastrointestinal  tract discomfort and to induce sweating.

Pink Yarrow. Source: Wikimedia

I'm not sure how it tastes, but apparently it can also be used for salads or as a tea, which in theory means I can easily introduce it to our bodies. Add the fact that it brings out very pretty flowers and  it's a perennial and it's a good prospect for my garden.

How to grow yarrow

Site selection: According to the research I've done so far, yarrow is a good companion for maize and cucumber. It likes well-drained, average to poor soil in hot dry conditions.

So it will go to far off, neglected areas of the yard where it can grow and act as pretty ground cover, and I can pick it if and when I want it. You can also grow your  yarrow in neglected borders or your rock garden or even as  part of your wildflower meadow.

It may need staking if you grow it in more fertile soil, as it grows to around 2 to 4 feet tall. It is  also a bit invasive, so choose your site with care nd if you're even a bit unsure or your garden space is limited, consider growing it in a container.

Soil preparation:  My plan is to just soften the soil, mix in a bit of compost, plant the seeds and mulch.

The planting process:  Plant the seeds 12-15 inches deep and one to two feet apart, mulch the area and water it regularly until it germinates.

Caring for the plant: Yarrow does not tolerate wet soil very well, so water it regularly in summer or  when there is drought, but don't drown it with care. Yarrow  spreads, so divide your plants every three to five years. You can then plant the separated plants in well-prepared soil or share them with your gardening friends.

Harvesting: Pick young leaves for salads. Or you can pick

Suggested uses:  You can pick the young leaves, chop them and then in your salads. As mentioned previously, I haven't grown it yet, but I understand that the leaves are bitter. Has anyone here tasted yarrow? Was it OK as a salad or should we rather stick to the medicinal properties?

You can also use yarrow leaves to make a tea, which is drunk for medicinal purposes (e.g. to relieve indigestion).

X Is For Xeriscaping

Xeriscaping is a water-wise/water-efficient gardening technique. As we are in a semi-arid area and recently went through a severe drought, this technique has become a very important factor in my gardening plans.

 Here are some of the lessons I've learnt so far:

The xeriscaping process begins right at the planning stages of the garden.

31/12/13/mid-summer back garden I created wild

I didn't take water-efficiency into consideration when planning my first garden in Phokeng and I paid the price through dying plants and heavily reduced harvests.

My challenge was that I had a big patch of land that had been neglected for over 10 years and the weeds were displacing us out of the yard. So I needed to do something and since I was already planning to grow our food, I decided to grow as much as I could.

I do have a designated garden which has structure. But there were also areas I needed to cover with something until I could properly plan for them time and resources allowing. The above patch is one of them.

After some of the vegetables I planted became crispy critters mid-season, I had two options: give up and do a lot of hard landcaping or try to work with the land and climate to get the results I want. I opted for the latter. Hopefully xeriscaping can help me do it.

Select a site that allows the efficient use of water 

Grave vine. Planning to build arbour here

My main garden site was allocated and fenced by generations before me. 

So for me it was not so much about selecting a suitable site, as it was about making the availabe site suitable for water-efficient gardening. It's a work in progress, with many issues I've yet to resolve.


Planting fruit trees allows me to meet several objectives at once: access to a consistent supply of free fruit and providing shade in my garden.  

I am keeping in mind that many vegetable plants need 6-8 hours of sunlight. However, it doesn't have to be direct sunlight all the time, so while we already had a number of trees in that garden, they are not enough to offset the problem of extreme heat.


My challenge is making sure I don't plant too many trees and create too much shade. Then there is also the fact that fruit trees need water AND they will compete with the vegetables and herbs for water.  

It's a conundrum. But I figure, if this solution doesn't work as advertised, the fenced vegetable garden will be designated as an orchard and I'll make the backyard space as my vegetable new vegetable  garden (the space is bigger than the current garden and what you see in pic 1 around an 8th of the space, so I'd be OK with that)


In addition to the main fences, our whole yard is surrounded by trees which create a natural privacy wall. So the protection from strong winds is already in place.

Ensure that the soil has plenty of organic matter, such as manure, compost and mulch and that it is very well-drained.

The marrows did very well despite the heat. Surplus frozen for winter soups

That's just smart gardening, even when you don't have to deal with drought. But as I'm learning from gardening friends, mulching heavily and regularly is the key to retaining moisture in your garden.

Choose plants that are drought-resistant/can live for very long without water

See watermelon thrive midsummer. Photo date 31/12/2013

I've found that sweet potatoes, pepper, peas, watermelon, spinach, onion and beetroot are very drought-resistant.

This past summer, during which we went through a scorching summer with temperatures averaging late 30 degree Celsius (over 100 degrees Fahrenheit), the vegetables I mention above did well enough.

The watermelon and butternut leaves were drooped a lot, and some leaves were even burnt to a crisp, but they survived well enough.

Look at my little basil fight to live

Herbs like coriander (cilantro), rosemary, marjoram, thyme, bee balm, oregano and sage  also didnt show much distress, even in the midst of summer.

By the time the summer heat came, the greens were hardy

We didn't expect the cauliflower and broccoli to fruit. However, it did though the heads bolted, as it does better in cool weather.

As you can see, the plants themselves lived through the heat and they were a great source of greens, which we cooked in a similar style as we would cabbage leaves. They are now green afresh and ready to start fruiting again.
 
Position your plants strategically so that plants with the same watering needs are together. 

I'm still learning on this one and have killed a number of plants in the process. But that's fine... I will keep trying.

Water your plants for maximum impact
Check out my post on W is for Water for some watering tips.

For me, xeriscaping is a work in progress. So please share your water-efficient gardening tips so we can all benefit from your knowledge and experience.

W Is For Water

Water tanks linked to our borehole

April is not a good time to plant watermelon and I have no plans to grow watercress, watercelery or waterchestnuts, so I'd rather focus on access to water, a critical aspect of growing your own food in any month.

Most urban gardeners have to rely on municipal water, so they are limited in how much they can grow unless they don't mind having an exhorbitant water bill.

In South Africa, we have a limited number of litres we get free, then a capped amount to use at a specified rate. If you exceed that cap, the municipality charge you an exhorbitant rate. The objective is no longer just to charge you for your usage, but to punish discourage you from exceeding the cap.

Even if you live in a rural area or municipal by-laws allow you to have a borehole, there is still a cost to install the borehole and water tank infrastuctures, but to run them, whether they run on gas/petrol or electricity. Then there are the maintanence costs...

The third potential source of garden water is rain water.Unfortunately, the tanks are not cheap either.  The fourth source is grey water, waste water from baths, showers, laundry and hand basins which you can recycle to water your garden.

As for us, we use the first three water sources: the borehole, municipal water and rainwater.  Unfortunately we don't have tanks to capture rainwater yet, so my strategy so far is watching the seasons and planting extensively in rainy seasons and scaling back a bit during dry seasons.

The major hiccup with that plan is that we've been going through drought the past couple of years, and it was only earlier this year that it started to rain enough to make a difference in the soil. As for redirecting our grey water, that too is still in my wishlist.

My water-saving tips for the garden

1. Mix in lots of manure and compost to improve your soil
Have you ever gardened in heavy clay soil? It doesn't retain water well, and when it's dry, it's like a brick. Hard enough to kill your poor plants. When it's wet, it's heavy. So I'm working hard to add organic matter to it, mixing in manure and compost in it, and then throwing in grass clippings whenever we or our neighbours mow our lawns (yes, we do ask for neighbours' grass clippings:)

2. Include water crystals in your soil
I admit that so far I've only read about this from my fellow food gardeners at the Down To Earth forums, but they had good things to say about it. The way they work is that you mix them with the soil and when you water your garden, they hold onto the water for an extended period of time, slowly letting it out into the soil by transpiration. That means that when you water your garden, the water evaporates from the soil more slowly when the soil has the crystals, giving your plants' roots a bigger opportunity to drink it up.

3. Plant drought-resistant and/ water-wise plants
Unfortunately, this is one principle I didn't think of when I first started my garden here. I'd been living in Johannesburg for more than 20 years and well... we had rain throughout the year. The region is also slightly cooler. So while I knew in theory that this region was much hotter and drier, I didn't understand the implications until I lived here day in and out.

The climate has completely changed my gardening strategy. I am now conscious of whether a plant is water wise and /drought resistant and I'm very cautious of thirsty plants. Water from the borehole means that I do have a bit of leeway, but there have been times when water from the borehole is better saved for household use, especially when the municipality starts rationing water during drought periods.

4. Mulch as much as you can
Mulch protects the garden bed from the sun and helps the soil retain water. Unfortunately, I've only recently started doing it on a large scale, now that I managed to buy a mulcher. Before, I was limited in the quantities of mulch I could get as I was unwilling/unable to spend too much money on the gardening venture.

5. Collect rain water for your garden
Earlier this year while it was raining heavily and non-stop, I wished that I had water tanks to collect water for future use in the garden. Unfortunately, I don't have the resources to make that investment yet. But in time, it will happen.


6. Water your garden wisely

• Where possible, water your garden in the  evening so that the water can have a chance to seep into the soil without the sun evaporating it.
•  Be aware of the watering needs of your plants. Some plants need more water than others; others need to be watered frequently while others need a deep soak every now and then. Giving your plants what they need means you won't waste watering plants that don't need it.
•  Make sure that your watering system is very targeted, so that there is very little water that hits non-planted areas of your garden/beds. 
•  When you water your garden, aim for the base of the plant, so that water can easily seep into the soil and into the roots, instead of giving your plant leaves a shower.
•  Remove the weeds so they don't drink your plants' water. When you have less weeds in your garden beds, your plants have access to more water, as there is less competition for it.

V Is For Vining Plants & Vertical Gardening

At some stage in my gardening adventure, I'm going to invest time and resources to create suitable vertical structures for my vegetables and fruit to vine over.

Here are some of the ways I'm planning to create the vertical gardens:

1. Build cages for my berries, tomatoes, pumpkins and other types of vining plants we grow over. I don't have enough cages for all my crops, and some of them are still being allowed to just run over the mulched beds. It's not ideal, as it makes it difficult to see harvests that are hidden under the bushes when they are ready. It also makes them vulnerable to bugs. 
2. Build an arbour for the grape vines- I have two grape vines and they are still young enough to be OK being staked to a long stick, but pretty soon they'll need more. I've already collected the reclaimed material I need for the arbour. We just need to put aside time to build it. After I've read up on the Internet and watched videos on YouTube one more time to get the instructions clear in my head :)
3. Use existing vertical infrastructures, such as boundary fences and water towers to create permanent vertical gardens. I'm not sure how viable the water tower plan will be though. We have two main  towers,  installed during the apartheid years when government would not provide municipal services like water, electricity and waste disposal in villages.  My parents installed the first towers in the early 70s and today, we still have the associated boreholes as our secondary water supply used mostly for the gardens and SIL's chickens. The towers do their job, but they are ugly!! They irritated one of my nieces so much she tried to paint them maybe two years ago. She didn't get to finish the job though. She was 12 then and that paint was going to be used for something else! I think plants will provide a better camouflage, soften them a bit, help them blend into the environment.
4. Use tires to create container towers for vining plants to cascade over. I already have a large number of used tires that we use as containers in inhospitable areas of the garden. They've proven to be one of the easiest methods to cover unsightly yard areas. What you can do is paint your tires to fit your garden's colour scheme, arrange them in a pattern that suits you, creating towers. Fill the towers with potting soil (I used a combination of newspapers, kitchen waste, soil and compost), then plant them up. 
5. Stake plants using tree branches; an old method that still works today.  The only challenge are finding branches that are strong enough to create stakes and to into the soil in such a way that won't topple over and can withstand strong winds.

We're repurposing material I have/I can get for free to do most of the work. For example, two of my cages are made of very old bed frames... the kind of beds that used to have springs...and tree branches.And as I mentioned above, tires make very good towers for vines to cascade over.

U Is For Underplanting

As you might have gathered, I'm growing what amounts to a food forest in my garden. In time, the gardens are expected to provide the majority of our vegetables, fruits and herbs.

In theory, we have a big enough land to be able to accomplish our goal. However, I have no plans to grow our main grains (maize and sorgham) on a large scale enough scale to support us year-round, as my grandfather used to do.

There are plenty of maize farmers in our province and I'd rather support them than try to duplicate what they do at a much higher cost.

This gives me enough space to grow a wide variety of vegetables, fruits and herbs - some being our staples; others the type we buy based on availability and affordability but not necessary, while others would be to experiment and liven things up a little.


My plan is to grow fruit, vegetables, herbs and flowers all interspersed with each other so that I have productive garden that is attractive, where the plants support each other to grow and that I don't have to work  like a slave to make it work.

Below is a basic framework of how the various plants would be interspersed with each other.

An illustrated  7-Level Forest Garden via The Good Life

So how does under-planting come into it?

Under-planting is just that - planting crops under each other. First imagine that I live in a lightly forested area (which I do). There are a lot of indigenous plants, some of them producing some kind of wild fruit.
So I'm adding traditional fruit trees to the mix, planting them up all over the yard to create the canopy level.

This year I planted around 15 fruit tree saplings. The plan is to try to have as many varieties of fruit as possible, and we should have one or two in season throughout the year.That's the first layer of the garden.

The second layer is dwarf trees. Some will go into the soil, others into large containers placed all over the yard. The majority of my trees are still saplings, so it will be a long time before I see a return on any of it.

The third level is shrubs and berries. These are the plants that grow into medium-sized bushes. We've planted a number of chilli, capsicum and strawberry bushes, but I plan to plant some more.

The fourth layer is herbaceous - that's most of the leafy annual crops we grow such as lettuce, cauliflower, cabbage, kale etc. This also includes many of the bushy herb plants.

The fifth layer is the root vegetables like onions, carrots, turnips etc while the sixth layer is ground cover crops. Many herbs and berries make excellent edible, evergreen ground cover. So far I've used mint and thyme. I also want to use cranberries, blueberries, chamomile, oreganum, lavendar and sage. 

The seventh layer is the vining plants - cucumber, sweet potatoes, grapes, strawberries, pumpkins, butternuts, kiwani etc. So far I'm just letting them run wild on the ground, but that's not ideal, and I'm slowly building movable structures/cages that I'll put in to vine over.

Here are some of the tips I found on the Internet while researching under-planting:

1. Place your fruit trees in their ideal location, as they'll occupy that space for decad
3. The next step is to add your perennial plants, as they also form a permanent feature in your garden.
4. Grow crops that need shade under your tall plants that love the sun e.g  my broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage crops are planted under trees,  and lettuce hides very well from the summer heat under the big leaves of marrows (zucchini?).
5. Plants crops that  structurally support each other close together e.g. maize and beans are grown together, and the maize provides the beans with a structure to run over.
6. Plant crops that may have a beneficial impact on each other e.g. my companion plant chart shows that onions are a very beneficial plant, and can be planted with beetroot, strawberries, tomatoes and beans and potatoes. So instead of having a bed full of onions, I transplant them to the borders of most beds.
7. Mix your plants up to ensure biodiversity in your beds. I usually start out with seedlings from one crop and then add different companion plants into the bed to mix things up. 
8. Make sure that the plants you put together have the same water needs. Also try to get plants with differing nutritional needs together (e.g. a nitrogen-releasing plant with a nitrogen consuming plant)

I hope that you find this information useful for your own under-planting effort. You can also get some tips on under-planting  your ornamental garden in this article.

T Is For Tomatoes

Tomatoes that survive me!

Tomatoes are my orphan crop. There was a season - the summer of 2012 - when I managed to get the crop just right.

The harvest was incredible: we snacked on them, made meals, gave away to friends, family, neighbours and employees.

I froze bags and bags of them, made sauces and gravies and still had enough to sell for weeks on end.

Since then, none of my tomato crops have brought out a decent harvest. Just enough for salads, a meal here and there, and that's it.  I tried different varieties; I planted seedlings instead of trying with seeds..and some of them survive enough to fruit. Barely.

This coming Spring I'm planting my tomato crop in containers and putting them in my kitchen courtyard. Maybe, away from the main garden, with each bush getting special attention, I'll get a better harvest. We'll see. Because while I'm tired of the hassle or trying over and over again, I'm not yet ready to give up on the incredible flavour of a home-grown tomato.

Back when my tomatoes loved me:)

So this post is different in that, it's not a tutorial. Instead, I'm asking for tips and suggestions on how I can successfully grow tomatoes again. I'll give you the basics of what I've been doing so far:

Site selection: The plants are in the main garden, but I haven't been planting them in beds that were previously used for tomatoes. Some of the tomatoes are planted in their own beds, others are planted with basil.

Soil preparation: Clay doctored mostly with manure and some compost. Still a bit heavy though.

Planting process: Seeds in a bed and in some instances, seedlings from nurseries.

Plant care: Make sure you water the roots of the tomato, not the leaves.  I was desperate enogh to feed some crops Seagrow's Organic Plant Food. I've been a number of tomato cages, so so when they are the right size, I cage them to help them stand upright and to allow them to vine.

Problems I've experienced:  Drought (which I couldn't control), scraggly plants, plants that look to be thriving but don't bring out enough tomatoes, plants that bring out tomatoes but they rot while still small and green (I think something was chowing on them!), tomatoes that have a greyish tinge, plant leaves that have a graying ashy tinge.

Harvesting: I harvested the first crop when some tomatoes were ripe and others I picked green and allowed them to ripen in a big flat container in the sun or even on the window sill in my pantry.

S Is For Sweet Potatoes

The largest sweet potato from Saturday's harvest

On Saturday we harvested a batch of sweet potatoes from the garden. It was a very big harvest, by our standards... enough potatoes to last us three to four months. That is, as long as my nephews, who've been crunching on the potatoes raw, don't succeed in winning the Man vs Sweet Potato war:)

I used to eat sweet potatoes if I had to, but they were not something that I would choose to put on my plate. However, I started growing them because Mma loves them and they were  another source of starch for the family.

Then I had my first home-grown sweet potato and I enjoyed it so much I expanded the crop to a bigger patch the next season.

And the wonderful thing about my sweet potatoes is that I haven't had to do anything but keep the patch watered and weed-free, not even to replant, since first crop.

Growing sweet potatoes


Site selection: Sweet potatoes like warm sunny areas, and while they do very well in well-composted soil, they can also grow in poor soil well enough.

You can grow sweet potatoes in a separate patch where they can regrow season after season (though there is a danger of disease in that option) or you can grow them in your main garden but out of the way so they have room to stretch out. They make great ground cover, and I've seen several varieties of sweet potato vines that I want to get just for their ground cover and cascading window box potential.

Soil preparation: I planted my sweet potatoes outside the main vegetable garden. The soil initially had a good dose of cow manure and compost put in, but we let that seep in for months, as sweet potatoes don't do well in soil that has too much nitrogen.

The planting process: You can buy your slips, the green plantings coming out of sprouting sweet potatoes, from your local nursery. I got my slips from my sister-in-law, who had a couple of sweet  potatoes from a retail chain start sprouting.

We were very surprised, as we'd read that sweet potatoes provided by retailers were waxed to prevent sprouting.

Anyhoo, we cut off the numerous  slips when they were around 6 to 9 inches long and then cut and threw away the bottom inch from each slip, as that portion sometimes harbors disease organisms. We then planted the slips by burying them with soil coming up to the leaves.


Caring for the plants: From there is was only a matter of keeping the slips well-watered and weed-free and occassionally lifting the growing vines to keep them from rooting at the joints, as that allows them to put their energy into forming many undersized tubers at each rooted area rather than ripening the main crop at the base of the plant.  

Beyond that, it is recommended that you handle the plants as little as possible to prevent wounds in the plant that might be invaded by disease spores.

Also make sure that you don't over-water the plants, as the plants may rot. If the weather is a bit dry, no worries! Sweet potatoes can withstand dry spells in the weather.

Harvesting: You can start harvesting your sweet potatoes when  the leaves start getting yellow. Let the soil dry out for around two weeks before you start harvesting, as you want to be able to dig them out without mud getting into them and spoiling them.

Unless you're planning to let a new batch of sweet potatoes grow in that patch, make sure that you dig out all the tubers, even the thin roots deep in the soil.

I found washing the harvest to be very hard work, LOL, but once that was done, I left the tubers to dry in the sun for a couple of days before I put them away in a dry well-ventilated place in my pantry.

I wish I had a proper storage area for crops like potatoes, sweet potatoes and pumpkins.This weekend I realised while I was cleaning the sweet potatoes how ill-equipped I am to deal with the harvests that my garden is generating. I'll just have to make do for now, though.

Serving suggestions: Sweet potatoes taste great eaten raw, especially when newly picked from the garden.

I also like to boil them and leave them on the table for everyone to grab as a snack, cut them up and stuff a roast chicken with them or even put them with a mix of carrots, onions, robot peppers and a dash of herbs in my lazy roasts.

That's when I just rub a chicken with a garlic/ginger/herbs mix, put it in a roast dish with a bunch of fresh vegetables, sprinkle some black pepper on them, cover the dish with foil and put it in the oven to slow roast for a long time while I attend to other things.

My favourite recipe though is the baked  sweet potato. I wash and cut full potatoes up into thick slices, sprinkle them with a dash of salt and peri-peri and a spoonful of olive oil, then put them in an oven to bake at 180 degrees Celsius (around 350 degrees Fahrenheit, I think) for around 20 minutes or until they are soft but not mushy. Sometimes I then turn the oven to grill for 5 minutes or so, just to crisp them a little bit.

Q Is For Questions

I don't grow quinoa or quince and have no plans to do so in the foreseeable future, so it was hard to decide what this post should be about.

In the end, I decided to use this opportunity to consolidate some of the questions that I've been asked since I started growing our food in Phokeng.

Q: You seem to know quite a lot about growing vegetables. How did you become so knowledgeable?

A: Let's annihilate that myth immediately:  I'm learning as I go along and spend hours reading up on vegetables and fruit I want to grow. I've also made big mistakes that cost me a whole season's harvest of the affected vegetable (e.g. a whole season of lettuce, broccoli and cauliflower that bolted in 2012 because I'd just moved back here after more than 25 years away and hadn't realised how hot it could get. And yes, the seed pack said I could plant them during that period!).

However, I've found that if you take care of your soil and keep your plants well-hydrated, they are much kinder to you. So yeah, some of them thrive despite my attempts to kill them out of ignorance. Except for sage, poor thing.

Q: How do you decide which vegetables and herbs to grow?

A: I started out growing vegetables that were familiar with me and  whose seeds I could find in the supermarkets: cabbage, onion, spinach, beetroot, tomatoes, pumpkin etc. Some were harder to grow than others (e.g cabbage), others started out well and then I killed them with care (e.g. sage), others delivered bumper crops at the beginning and but now plants seem prone to disease (e.g tomato) while others are reliable producers (spinach and beetroot).

The problems I encountered encouraged me to learn more about growing vegetables and herbs in my region, and the information I learnt made me reconsider my planting strategy. Now I grow my vegetables based on these considerations:

1. Plant what we eat, eat what we grow - Introducing new-to-us vegetables is a good thing, but I also need to provide a solid supply of vegetables and herbs that we like. This ensures that we have a reliable food supply that is guaranteed to be consumed.

2. Focus on perennial and self-seeders - I'm increasing my ratio of these types of plants because it means that we will have consistent produce with less work and expense buying seeds.

3. Grow drought and disease tolerant plants- This is a semi-arid region with baking hot summers and I need plants that can survive that.  I also need plants that can provide shade for the more sensitive crops.

Then there are the plants that we eat often and in large quantities, but the problem is that they are prone to disease (e.g. cabbage and tomatoes). Right now they remain my indulgence crops, just in case we succeed in getting a good harvest. But they have been relegated to foods I prefer to get in large quantities from local suppliers. I then process and freeze them, with fresh tomatoes from the garden just being served as salads.

Q: What proportion of your food is from the garden at this stage?

A: I don't know. I get all my herbs from the garden. On Saturday I harvested enough sweet potatoes to last our family 3-4 months and most of our meals have at least three vegetables from the garden. But I still buy more vegetables than I like.

I hope that this post answers some of your questions, but if you have more, please feel free to ask either in the comments section or by emailing me.

P Is For Peas

Pea seedings in the April garden

I love growing peas. They are one of my favourite crops, as they are very easy for me to grow and I have plenty of opportunities to use them in soups, stews and salads. Peas also release nitrogen into the soil, enriching it, so I like to move my pea crop around so that they can help me doctor my soil.

I planted most of my winter pea crop in March, but I also added a late batch in April. Just for extra.

Site selection: Peas like a sunny spot where it is also protected from winds. In autumn and winter, I usually plant in mine near the fence barrier between the vegetable garden and the main yard.

The space gets sun most of the day and the fence is ideal for allowing the plant to be staked to. In summer I plant my peas along with my maize crop. The pea plants can then run up the maize plants.

I've also grown dwarf peas in soil that seems to be deficient in nutrients, more to help the soil than because I expect to get a big yield out of it. Dwarf varieties don't really need much support, so they are happy to go anywhere as long as there is good drainage and sun.


Soil preparation: My soil is clay, with a good dose of manure and a bit of compost and mulch.

Planting process: I usually use one of those small plastic spades to make a small flat-bottomed trench that is 5cm (2in) deep and 15cm (6in) wide on soil that has been softened for planting. I then sow the seeds  in the trench approximately 7.5cm (3in) apart and cover with soil and move on to the next row.

Or sometimes when I'm feeling lazy, I take  a walk along my bed, basically inserting the pea seeds and guesstimating the depth space apart. Peas are kind, so they've germinated anyway.

Caring for the plant: Most of my plant care has just involved keeping the pea plants well-watered, but not so much they become water-logged. I also stake the runner-type plants.



My research on diseases and pests that could plague pea crops was a bit disturbing though. I would definitely have been a bit intimidated if I'd known at the beginning that peas are popular with aphids, pea weevils, thrips and pea moth, fusarium wilt, which turns the plants yellow, then brown and causes them to shrivel and die, and root rot fungi which happens if your peas are water-soaked for a while. Then there's mildew... By then I was thinking, "Good Lord! It's a wonder newbie gardeners still attempt growing peas!"

Still, don't be discouraged too much by the literature because adequate crop rotation, keeping your crops watered but not water-logged and if need be, growing your crop under an insect-proof mesh, helps you avoid  most of the problems. But I did decide that I was going to speak to someone more technically savvy about the diseases, because surely I'll run out of luck sooner or later :)

Harvesting:  Pea pod are ready to harvest when they look well-filled, but to be honest, I usually start munching on the peas when the pods start growing bigger while I'm in the garden.  All in the name of testing to see if they're ready, of course.


The great thing is that they'll keep fruiting as you keep picking them, so you can have numerous harvests from the same plants. They stop producing flowers or pods if you stop picking them or wait too long to pick the batch though.

Serving suggestions: Freshly picked peas are soft and sweet and don't really need cooking.  I just put a dishful of pods on the table and the family shell  and snack on them throughout the day.

I also love throwing a bunch of them into a stew maybe two minutes before I take it off the stove. They bring in a sweet fresh taste to a dish and they also add some colour.

I also mix fresh peas with mashed potatoes (after mashing) and with my potato salads. Once the peas grow a bit solid/tougher, they start  being boiled with soups. Or I cook them quickly with carrots, add a bit of butter/margarine, fresh basil, salt and pepper/paprika/cayenne pepper depending on the flavour I'm after, and I have one more dish for my table.

7 Lessons I'm Learning While Taking Part In The A-Z Challenge

If you've been following my series of tutorials on how to grow vegetables in the semi-arid, summer rainfall region of South Africa, you might have noticed that I had an unscheduled pause in the A to Z Challenge. Sorry about that. The break was not intentional.

The long Easter weekend begins late today (normal schedules resume on Tuesday) and many offices are closing as we speak as South Africans, including some of my family members, are going on holiday. So I'm going to have a lovely quiet time to blog and catch up with the challenge with very few interruptions.

Before I resume publishing the series though, I thought I should share some of the lessons I learnt so far:

1. The A to Z is marathon blogging, not a sprinting session - Yes, I heard veterans saying "pace yourself," and I thought I had. But clearly I didn't, because I did need that minute to pause to attend to other life related things and recharge.

2. Life happens; deal with it - In my case, it was needing to take Mma to a doctor and having to attend to some extra things related to her care.Nothing huge, but when you have a business to run, a household to manage and are involved in a daily blogging challenge, then one more task can tip the dominoes.

3. Manage your time as efficiently as you can - Again, I thought I was doing that. All I needed was Mma being off and some close cousins to make an unexpected visit for a number of days to tip my house of cards.

4. Set up a back-up plan to keep publishing - In hindsight, I should have seen all these life issues coming and planned for them in advance. Maybe not the exact issues, but something to upset the applecart, because Plan A is messy like that :)

5. If your pre-write your posts, make sure that they are publishing ready so you don't need human intervention to at least keep publishing, even if you cut down on blog visits- I pre-wrote my posts, but they're not publishing ready. So I have to take a look at them first before we go live. Which takes time.

6. Have fun - For a moment there I was getting stressed about it all. Then I had to remind myself that my reason for joining in was to make new friends and have fun, not to add another source of stress to my plate.

In spite of the above, a lot of things have been happening out here:

a). Mid-challenge I wrote an ebook proposal to a publisher, asking if they'd want a consolidated 3 book version of the series (vegetables, herbs and fruit) They've emailed to say "Yes" and want to see the full manuscript of the vegetable ebook.  Can I just say "wooot!"

b) Emboldened by their response, I contacted several local organisations to ask for support so I can improve my gardening and blogging processes.

I met with them and one organisation has offered a lot of technical support in growing vegetables and will help promote my blog within their own networks. They will even consider translating and publishing the books in print to distribute locally.

Another organisation offered whatever seeds/seedlings I need to get my crops going. I'm still excited by my meetings with all the people - they were as excited about what I'm trying to accomplish as I am :) This brings me to lesson 7:

7. Your posts can have life beyond the challenge - We all have different reasons we blog and joined the challenge, but while the challenge was going on I realised that the challenge need not be the end of the material I was developing. Hence the book proposal.

So. I hope you're still enjoying the challenge; that you're learning things you didn't even know you wanted to learn; meeting interesting people. But most of all, I hope you are still enjoying blogging.

See you tomorrow.

K is For Kale

source: wikipedia

I apologise for this post being so late. I spent the whole day in the garden planting seeds, transplanting seedlings including kale, weeding and watering different sections of the garden.

I enjoy blogging and would have loved to hang out with you but playing outdoors on a sunny but cool Autumn day won out. And it did feel like playing, sorry:)

About kale: I want to grow different varieties, but so far I've only grown the curly leaf variety.

I still have May to plant kale seeds for this season though, so I have time to look for lacinato/dinosaur kalewhich has tall and narrow leaves.

I've never grown/eaten it before, but I understand it has a slightly sweeter and more delicate taste than the curly kale.

I also want to grow redbor kale, if I can find it. I looked it up online when I first heard of it and it's beautiful, with curly, dark red leaves that look like they are deep purple. It's apparently sweet and mild too, but even if we don't fall in love with the taste, I want those colourful leaves in my garden.

Growing kale

I've found kale to be one of the easiest vegetables to grow in my garden in Phokeng. It became my default brassica when cabbage crop after crop failed or brought a poor harvest. By contrast I found kale to be more resilient and less prone to damage from pests and diseases.

Site selection: My biggest challenge was making sure that the crop is sufficiently cool and in consideration of our relatively hot semi-arid climate, I plant it under the trees around the property. That keeps it mostly in the shade, but it doesn't seem to mind.

Soil preparation: I read that kale doesn't like too rich soil, but that's not a problem for me, as it has to compete with trees for nutrients. However, I do keep the soil well-composted.


The planting process: Planting the seeds involves inserting them a centimeter and half (½ in) deep into the soil, then watering the patch. I then keep the area moist until the seedlings break through
.

Caring for the plant: From then onwards I give the patch a good soaking every second day until each seedling had five or six leaves.

Today I thinned the seedlings moving them around under various trees so that there is approximately 45cm (18in) between the plants in the beds. After this, I only need to water them once or twice a week and mulch the beds to help the kale and its companion retain moisture.


Harvesting: I've found that kale tastes best for us when the leaves are still young. I start harvesting the leaves when they are around 10-15cm (4-6in) long. When I cut, make sure to leave the small leaf growing in the centre, so that the leaves can grow again.

I usually harvest kale within the day that I'm going to use it, so I don't store it long. But I understand that you can keep it in the refridgerator for a couple of days. 

Serving suggestions: Don't forget to cut off the veins when you wash your kale and prepare it to cook or make a salad.

My family loves a  kale and potato mash-up. Basically, we boil potatoes with a medium onion, and when it's half-way cooked, we put in fresh, shedded kale leaves and boil them both until they are soft. A spoonful of low-fat margarine, a dash of salt and they are happy to eat this with any meat or fish dish and a green salad.

We also include kale in most of our stir-fries, coupling it with julienned carrots, thinly sliced onions and robot peppers, broccoli and whatever fresh vegetables we have on hand.

For an extra dish that can go with most meals that involve rice, we just shred it, boil it until all the water is drained and fry it with a bit of oil, add a bit of salt and cayenne pepper and we're good to go.

You can also use this recipe for broccoli and cauliflower leaves, which we slice a bit more thinly and boil longer before frying. They taste like combination of cabbage and spinach.

OK. Did I mention we like brassicas? Cos we really do:)

J is for Jerusalem Artichokes (Also Called Sunroots) and Jacaranda Trees

Source: Wikipedia

The time to grow Jerusalem artichokes in my region is past (January and February), but come September, I'm going to plant a big crop of them.

Jerusalem and Globe artichokes are part of my plan to grow as many perennial edibles as possible, providing my family with food year after year without my having to replant/re-seed.

As I mentioned when we unveiled our AtoZ Challenge themes, my life goal is to develop a food forest at home which provides 80-90% of our vegetables, herbs and fruit 12 months a year without making gardening a fulltime job /time-consuming/stressful /expensive activity.

I hope to reach that target by the summer of 2018.

Growing Jerusalem artichokes

Site selection: Site selection is critical when it comes to growing Jerusalem artichokes. Any tubers you leave in the ground when you harvest will bring forth another crop of artichokes, which is great if you want them perennially but irritating if your resources are limited and you want to use the site for something else.

So if you have a big garden, make sure you plant them in an area where you won't mind if they keep coming back. If your garden is small to tiny, plant them in big containers.

Also, Jerusalem artichokes grow very tall, which means that they can cast shade over some of your crops. So co-plant them with shade-loving vegetables.

Soil preparation:  Jerusalem artichokes like composted, well-drained soil. I'm going to plant mine on a former rubbish dump. When I was growing up, the village did not have refuse removal. We dug a big hole  in a corner near the kitchen and threw food wastes in there. Plastic and paper products we burnt every week or so.

The planting process: Like potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes are grown with tubers. You just put them around 10-15cm (4-6in) deep and 30 cm (12in) apart and water the site.

Caring for the plants: You don't have to water Jerusalem artichokes unless you are experiencing severe drought. I also read that they are not prone to disease either. How cool is that?

When the stems are around 30cm (12in) tall though, draw some soil around the plants to a depth of around 30cm 15cm (6in) to help stabilise them as they grow. When they've grown to a foot or so, mulch the area around the plants with grass clippings and rotting leaves to help them retain soil moisture.

Around midsummer, when your Jerusalem artichokes are around 1.5m (5ft), cut back the stems including flowerheads. This ensures that they are not rocked by the wind and you won't have to stake them either.

Harvesting Jerusalem artichokes: Begin harvesting your artichokes in late Autumn in cold areas and mid-winter in milder areas. To harvest, you dig them out with a fork much like you'd do with potatoes, making sure that you take out all the tubers if you're not planning to grow the plant there again. 

Like potatoes, you can wash and dry the artichoke tubers and then store them in a cool area. They can also keep in the fridge for months.

Serving suggestions: I've only ever had artichokes in restaurants and friends' houses, so while I'm sure what I like, I've never had the chance to experiment with different recipes. I've had them boiled, with a touch of salt, herbs and butter and also as a roasted dish, cooked much like roast potatoes. 

I'm looking forward to  experimenting with them once I have a crop growing. Meanwhile, please feel free to share your favourite Jerusalem artichoke recipes.

A short tribute to Jacarandas

I also want to pay tribute to Jacaranda trees  while I have a chance. Every year from October through December, jacaranda trees bloom in South Africa and Johannesburg, the city where I lived for over 20 years bursts with colour.

To give you perspective, Johannesburg is the largest man-made forest in the world, with at least 6 million trees counted by the City of Johannesburg municipality and thousands of these trees are jacarandas, resulting in a layer of purple lining street after street.

The photo below is of a street in my Johannesburg suburb, not too far from where I still have a house. I love going for long walks during this period. Somehow this profusion of colour always sings to me.

Photo by Jean Collen, mother of a close friend in a post about the suburb

This picture is also for Hilary Melton-Butcher, who is also taking part in the AtoZ Challenge. Here is another piece of my South Africa/Johannesburg for you.

I is for Ice Plant (Also Called Sour Fig & Hottentot Fig)

When I first started researching articles for the AtoZ Challenge, I came across an Ice Plant (popularly known as sour fig), a perennial fruit native to South Africa.

For a while I was confused, thinking it might be a fruit we called turksvy (Afrikaans name for prickly pear), especially as both plants are cacti and bear fruit.

Turksvy

We used to pick turksvy in the wild when I was growing up. It was delicious, but not my favourite because you had to navigate a big, thorn-laden tree to pick the fruit and to peel it carefully and thoroughly before eating it. There are easier ways to find food:)

As it turned out, they were two completely different plants. The ice plant is a creeping, mat-forming plant that brings out yellow, light pink or deep magenta flowers and is used by many as ground cover. Its leaves are edible and you can cook them like spinach.

source: wikimedia

Opinion is divided as to whether the fruit can pass the taste test, with some people saying it has a strong, astringent, salty, sour taste (This woman initially disliked it, adding slimy to the epitephs) but she changed her mind. I also found people who eat it dry or as a jam.

Source

Soil preparation: I doubt I would eat it, but I like it as potential ground cover around the yard, on three sides between my fence and the roads.

The problem with that space is weed grows so fast I can't keep up, affecting our  curb appeal. The municipality sends people, but the weeds grow back faster than they can make another round, so I end up investing resources to tidy it up.

The ice plant is an attractive option as ground cover because it's easy to grow, tolerates poor soil, heavy drought and salt in the soil (for those near the sea). It's also heat and fire resistant and apparently, deer don't like it, though its flowers attract butterflies. So I can propagate and then ignore it.

The planting process: Press the seeds into the soil at six inch intervals, then water the bed. They will germinate between 21-28 days.

Plant care: Once the seeds have germinated, you don't really have to do anything except make sure it only creeps in the allocated space.

Harvesting: After you pick the fruit, peel it first before eating it. Some people recommend that you dry it, while others say it's delicious if the dried fruit is soaked in water overnight before eating or making jam with it.

dried fruit available from teddy's

Serving suggestions: Here's a recipe for ice plant/sour fig jam.  If you ever eat ice plant, please come back and tell us about it, thank you.

H is for Herbs

April is a good time to plant horseradish, but I don't have it in my garden and have no plan to grow it  any time soon. So I decided to do a more general post on the herbs I do grow.

Basil growing in the garden

The problem with me when it comes to  things I love - IT gadgets (am a former IT business journalist), books and plants - is that I tend to be very passionate and sometimes have very little common sense.

Like a toddler, when I'm in a store full of things I love, I want it now.. I want more of it. 

Not that I can afford to just buy whatever I want when I want, considering my budgetary constraints as a writer working almost part-time most days.

So when I go shopping, I make a list..  and restrict myself to buying just what's on my list.

I also make shopping for these three things into a sprinting exercise.

usually I look at options online until I'm sure what I want and how much it will cost, and if I go to a brick and mortar store, zoom in on what I  came for and sprint out again. No lingering in the aisles to see what else they have!

That's very rough when I see a lot of things in the store that I want but common sense tells me I can't have. For the record? Clothes, shoes, handbags, make-up etc do not have that effect on me.

sage in the courtyard outside my kitchen

So this morning I had my own version of hell when I went to one of the local nurseries to buy herbs I've been meaning to start growing.

rosemary outside kitchen

And I was good. Really. I only got strawberry and globe artichoke seedlings in addition to the lavender, lemon verbena, catnip and tarragon I went in for. Hehehe!



I love herbs and use them for culinary and medicinal purposes. Some I grow just outside my kitchen and use them almost daily, while others I grow in the main gardens, to be picked in large quantities to frozen dried, make pesto, infuse oils and to be used as ground cover in the yard.

Sometimes the same herb, like thyme and mint fulfill the same function, in which case, I'd have it all over the yard as ground cover. I also grow herbs for their fragrance.

They make a home smell so good, whether you're walking past a bush and bumped against it, or you're chopping it to use.

Herbs in my garden

Currently I grow mint, thyme, basil, rosemary, sage, parsley, dill, fennel, catnip, lemon verbena, pepermint, lavender, borage, chives, coriander (cilantro), garlic, garlic chives, oregano and tarragon.


I still have many more herbs that I want to grow. I'm working my way though this list, planting the herbs as I learn about them and find them.

G is for Garlic

Source: The Garden of Eden

This  was a harder post to write as it's my first year growing garlic in our garden and I'm still finding my feet.

My family loves garlic and it's hard for me to imagine a day where we didn't use garlic in some dish or other.

So growing it successfully, in enough quantities to provide fresh cloves until the next crop is  ready, is essential.

Most of the time garlic is a hidden ingredient in our meals. We know it's there in a dish and it provides the nutrients we need, but it's not one of the central flavours.

Then there are times when having garlic is one of the main way to enhance the flavours.

Unfortunately I struggled  quite a bit to get started on growing garlic. Local nurseries did not seem to stock seedlings and I could not use cloves from store-bought garlic, as I read  that the majority of  garlic sold in South African supermarkets is imported from China and it's irradiated before it's transported to our shores, killing all growing activity in the clove.

It took me a while to find someone who has non-irradiated seedlings, but I finally located them this month.  Just in time before the garlic planting seasons in the region ends.

Preparing the soil: I'm still using the well-composted clay soil in my garden with nothing else added. Most of the garlic is being planted in existing beds which already have vegetables and herbs growing in them.

Planting process: Online research tells me that garlic is good at repelling pests when planted under fruit trees, peppers and tomatoes. It's also good with repelling caterpillars in broccoli, spinach and cabbage so I'm planting it directly as companion to these vegetables.

I'm also planting garlic directly on borders of the garden beds, so that most of them are surrounded by garlic. We've been doing this with onions for many seasons now and the two plants can share the border spaces.

When planting garlic, break the garlic head up into separate cloves, then use a stick or trowel handle to create 2 cm deep holes that are spaced 10 to 15 cm apart. Gently plant the individual cloves on their 'backs' so that the pointy tips face upwards. Put a layer of mulch on top to help the area keep its moisture.

Caring for the garlic seedlings: Make sure that the bed is weed free and watered regularly. As with any bulb, garlic doesn't like to be left dry. Also make sure you don't overwater the bed, as the bulbs will rot if left standing in water.

Harvesting:  I can't wait to start digging for garlic in my own garden, but I'm told it's going to be a very long time, as  garlic matures in 8-9 months after planting. For me, harvest time will be in around December/January. I'll apparently know it's time when the leaves start to go brown and dry.

by digging the plant up as you gently pull up on the stalk.  If you don’t dig as you pull, you run the risk of breaking the entire stalk off the garlic head, exposing the raw garlic and getting dirt into it - See more at: http://thebaldgourmet.com/gardening-how-to-plant-and-grow-garlic/#sthash.z0Jl8InX.dpuf

Once harvested, I'm then going to put the garlic in the sun for a couple of days, and then store it in a cool and well-ventilated area.

Serving suggestions:  I'm not sure whether the recipe I'm about to share is as good as I think it is, or if I love it because my friend Christelle made it for me once after a long, hard day when I needed comfort food.

Anyhoo, she fried bacon and thinly sliced medium onion, then added three spring onions, four cloves of crushed garlic and a couple of basil leaves, also thinly sliced, a bit of salt and pepper.

Then cut a soft round loaf into thick slices, opening the top side with the crusty bottom serving as a seat. Insert portions of the garlic-laden bacon into the bread. With Christelle there's always cheese in a meal and the more, the better.

That one time she stuffed in grated cheddar and mozzarela, pulled the loaf back together as much as possible, wrapped it tightly closed with foil and put in a oven 150 degree Celcius (300 degrees Fahrenheit for  up to 20 minutes).

Ja. That was some comfort food! And we had very generous portions for lunch the following day too:)

BTW, if you're seriously considering growing garlic and want the experiences of someone who's done it several times to back up newbie me, check out this guy's post. I'm also planning to write regular updates on my plants' progress, so you can also track my plants' developments and learn with me throughout the year.

F Is For Fruit Trees & Flowers

When I was young, my grandfather, who was born in 1889 or so, grew our food in this very space that I garden. It was different then. The yards in my village were intended to provide a place for families to live and grow food except grains, which were grown on bigger patches of land outside the village (allotments, we'd call them today). There was a big vegetable patch and a huge orchard ( my cousins and I counted 18 orange, maybe nine peach and 5 clementine/naartjie tress, as well as one tree of apple, grape and apricot.

Then there was the lone fig tree, hidden right at the back of the orchard. Sometimes we forgot about the figs, too busy enjoying the citrus fruit in winter and the rest of the fruit in summer. The trees were old by the time I came along and the other gardeners before me were more interested in growing annuals.

I'm going to plant as many fruit trees as possible over the coming years (have already started) and in my orchard, there will be more fig trees so that in summer our kids can enjoy the sweet, juicy stickiness of a fig picked off a tree after playing outside for hours on end. But that's not going to happen this April (figs are planted in Spring, not Autumn, from what I understand).

Meanwhile, I'm going to chat about flowers, with special focus on marigolds and nasturtiums, as I grow a lot of them almost year-round (sorry post is loooong)

This pretty can share space with anything!

How to grow marigolds

Preparing the soil: Marigolds can very easily grow in sandy, loamy or clay soil, as long as they get full sun. You can make sure that the soil is moderately fertile and well-drained, though I've had seeds grow is some pretty inhospitable places.

The planting process: You can sow the seeds directly into the soil in Spring once the soil is warm, or you can start seeds indoors about a month to 6 weeks before the last spring-frost date. In warmer areas, you can grow them almost year-round. Last winter I had a beautiful showing of flowers that lasted through mid-winter.

My sowing differs based on specific gardening needs: I broadcast seeds all over my food garden. These flowers are for pest control, as marigolds are supposed to repel animals and insects. I also plant them as starts to be transplanted to strategic places in the garden.

Caring for the plant: Marigolds transplant exceptionally well. Ideally you can transplant them after six weeks, though I've moved much older plants, some of them even close to starting their buds.

tiny avocado tree sapling peeking through marigolds

Different varieties of marigold have different sizes, so you need to check your seed packet to make sure what amount of space you need between your plants.

Also do your best to control how many plant you grow in each bed, as they can very easily take over either in quantity or size, and you don't want that unless your intention was to focus on marigolds as your crop.

Harvesting and uses: When you pick marigolds for flower arrangements, strip off any leaves that might be under water in the vase; this will discourage the overly pungent smell.

You can also munch on them as a quick snack, throw them in salads or make a body cream with them (Rhonda's recipe makes very nice and smooth cream. Not sure if marigold and calendula are the same plant though, as calendula is said to be a daisy family plant, so not guaranteeing medical benefits.)

Growing nasturtiums

If you think growing marigolds was easy, then you haven't grown nasturtiums:). These flowers prefer poor quality soil. How cool is that? So you can grow them in all those awkward and unsightly places you've been wondering what to do with.

See it grow in the far ngelected end of the yard too far for me to do anything

They self-seed quite well too, so once you've planted then in an area, you can be sure that they'll keep coming back. Unless you live in a warm climate region like mine, in which case they'll be perennials. Pretty way to tidy up your yard, no?

Planting: I usually just soften then soil in these awkward places and then take a walk, sticking the seeds in the depth almost up the first bend of my finger. I then water the area regularly (4-5 times during the height of summer, twice a week in winter) until they break through.

Caring for the plants: Eeh.. I'd be lying if I said I did anything to care for the poor things. In rainy season, they're on their own once they've broken soil. In summer, I may water them twice a week. Or they accidentally get watered while I care for something that's planted near them.

Serving suggestions: I usually pick the flowers while I'm gardening, just as a quick snack because I like the taste. I also like throwing them into my green salad salads, especially when I have different types of greens in there. Tasty, and looks pretty too.

I've also heard that a couple of leaves a day can help clear up acne and that the tea, where you allow a cup of the flowers to simmer in boiling water for 15 minutes and then cool it, can be used as a toner(I'm not vouching for that!).

A very big cautionary: I have many other edible flowers in my garden - borage, basil, chives, fennel etc- and you probably do too, if you have a garden. However, we all need to be cautious when we eat flowers, especially if  we use fertilisers or insecticides etc. Here is a guide  about edible flowers that I found online.


And for gardening inspiration, here are some photos from my garden taken this April (most of them yesterday)