Garden 2.0: Kickstarting My Food Garden With Containers

Hello everyone

It's been many years since I consistently blogged here. I apologise for ending things abruptly, but my excuse is that it could not be helped. I don't know if I mentioned it, but after Mma passed away, I fell sick with a lung condition that was serious enough for my family to fear for my life. By the time I got better, my freelance writing and gardening efforts were in shambles.

So I moved to Johannesburg to kickstart my working life again. But it turns out I was not fully recovered and fell ill again. That episode took more than a year for me to recover somewhat. However, I am better now - at least, well enough to make another attempt at an independent life here in Phokeng. The timing is, of course, horrific, what with COVID-19 sweeping through the world. And lucky me, I fall in with the vulnerable category!

But I am more fortunate than most, and am painfully aware of that fact. I have plenty of space to be able to effect social distancing.  Living here in Phokeng and taking care of Mma taught me how to raise a garden-full of fresh produce. I also have plenty of space to walk around and grow some of my produce. For now, I'm settling back in the house, cleaning what needs to be cleaned and unpacking what I had taken with me to Johannesburg.  It's a slow job.

The good news is that it's almost winter in the Southern Hemisphere, so it's the perfect time for me  to start planting spinach, Chinese cabbage, brassicas and many other foods that I lover. The bad news is that my garden was neglected in my absence and most of it is now overrun by weeds. So I'm starting small, with containers.

Yesterday I started sprouting a batch of chickpeas for my salads and sandwiches. I also started fermenting yoghurt, and am drying some seeds from the fresh produce I brought with me ( tomatoes, butternut and  green peppers). This morning I started potato slips to sprout roots so I can start a small potato crop.

I know that every little thing helps, and once I start reclaiming my garden, there will be plenty of volunteer crops. Hopefully, that will happen around Spring.

Anyhoo, I am grateful for this chance to  reconnect with you.

Cheers,
Damaria

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.

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.

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.

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.

E is For Eggplant (also called Aubergine /Brinjal)

Eggplant from my 2013 crop

By now you might have gathered that I really enjoy gardening and cooking what I grow. My nephew and I have a lot of fun in the kitchen experimenting with food where I try out new recipes on familiar foods or introduce new-to-us vegetables and herbs to dishes.

In addition to using him and his friends as my food tasters (brave people!),  he also loves creating recipes for marinades and sauces using our garden herbs and bakes incredible-tasting pizzas. He's also our resident grill-master:-)


The one vegetable that we're battling to like as a family is eggplant. We've grilled it, fried it, baked it, used it in stews, covered it in batter to make it interesting... and well... while I enjoy it well enough, the family just tolerates it.

So we're seriously considering stopping to grow eggplant. I still have a few bushes from previous seasons but once they are spent, that's it.. we're done. Unless you guys can offer some serving suggestions that could work for my family. So please help:-)

P.S. This post is outside my theme for the AtoZ, as I'm not planting eggplant seeds this month (even if I wanted to, Autumn is not the time to plant eggplant).

How to grow eggplant

Eggplant grow easily in climates where summers are long and warm, so our semi-arid region where temperatures usually range from warm to extreme heat are ideal for  growing this vegetable. You can still grow varieties that mature quickly or grow them in containers if your summers are shorter, if you start out your seedlings inside weeks before Spring officially begins and have a way to keep the starts heated well enough to germinate.

Preparing the soil: Eggplant grows well in fertile, well-drained soil in a sunny area. Make sure that you have not previously grown eggplant/green peppers or tomatoes on that site for at least two years though, as these types of vegetables tend to be very unhappy if you do (I'm still suffering the consequences for ignoring that rule with my tomato crop, but that's the subject for another post).

I compost my clay soil with cow manure very thoroughly weeks before I plant eggplant, though I've never measured the pH to make sure it has the recommended 5.5 -6.5 pH.

The planting process: I tend to plant my seedlings directly into the soil. That works for me because of my climate, but it's not necessarily the recommended treatment for propagating eggplant in areas where there is a proper winter, complete with frost or even snow.

If your summers are short, start your seedlings indoors  six to nine weeks before your average last frost. Soak seeds overnight to encourage them to germinate and then sow them ¼ inch deep in flats or cell-type containers and then keep them warm. The seeds will sprout in seven to ten days.

Once the temperatures have warmed up enough outside,  you can then transplant them to chosen spot. I tend to grow eggplant as a short-term perennial (last 2-3 years), so I'm very careful to put them in an area I have no plans to use the next year or so.

Make sure that there is room for them to grow too (around 2-3 feet apart) as the more space they have, the more productive they'll be. I interplant my eggplant with lettuce, green beans and marigolds (I broadcast marigols everywhere in the garden!) to fill the spaces inbetween.

Plant care: Once the seedlings are secure in their place, I just water them thoroughly and regularly and try to keep them weed-free. In the years I've grown it, I haven't had to deal with pests, but I understand flea-beetles can be a very big issue.


Harvesting eggplant:  The first time I grew eggplant, I wondered how the emerging veggies were going to hold up in the relatively small bushes, but they did. To test for ripeness, press its skin. If the skin does not springs back, then it's ready for harvesting.

Serving suggestions: So..... Please share a recipe that will wow my family:-)

D is for Dill

Add caption

This season I'm planting dill for the second time. The first time I was lucky - the dill seed came with a herb mix that was companion to some lettuce I was planting.

So I just sprinkled it on the ground and let it takes its chances. And boy, did it grow! We ate plenty of it with curries, soups, stews, salads and dips.

Preparing the soil: This year I've planted the dill to share the bed with my lettuce.

The soil is red clay mixed with  cow manure and compost.  The clay is still hard (not softened as much as I'd like), so we'll see how that works out.

Current dill seedlings growing happily

Planting: Once again, I'm just turning the soil, then inserting the dill seeds to a quarter inch deep and 18 inches apart.

Make sure that you plant in a sunny area, but that is also protected from winds, as the plants grow very big and you don't want them to keel over.

I also found out, the hard way, that it does not transplant very well, so make sure that you plant the seeds where you want them.

Also make sure that you have enough room for your plant to grow (around 12 to inches apart).

Plant care: Dill just needs me to water it on a regular basis and let it fend of itself. You may need to thin it though if you grew the seeds too closely.


Harvesting dill: You can start picking dill leaves as soon as the plant has four to five leaves. If you have a lot of plants, you can pinch off entire stalks.

You can stop harvesting when the plant starts growing flowers, but  no worries! Dill is a self-seeding herbs, so if you leave the plant there long enough, the seeds will germinate and soon you'll have fresh dill again.

Serving suggestions

One of my favourite salads is cucumber with yoghurt, feta cheese and sprinkled with dill. Basically you pick, wash and dry the dill and  cut it to remove the thin stems with delicate leaves from the thicker main stems.

Throw away the thick stems and finely chop thin stems and leaves. Slice three English cucumbers thinly, add dill to the and stir to combine. Add yogurt to the cucumber-dill mixture, stirring to coat all pieces of cucumber with yogurt. Gently fold in feta, being careful not to over-mix.

Season to taste with salt and fresh ground black pepper and serve immediately, before the cucumber starts releasing water and making your salad soggy.

If you know that you're not going to serve your salad immediately, you might want to slice your cucmber, sprinkle a little salt on it and then put it in the fridge overnight. Drain it the following day and them make your salad.

I love this salad with freshly baked bread, though it also goes down very well wrapped with a fresh lettuce leaf to make a sandwich.

We also use dill to make a yoghurt dip for fresh, crunchy vegetables.  I usually follow the basics of this recipe, though I use yoghurt I make as I don't have easy access to Greek yoghurt. If you use  regular storebought yoghurt, make sure you drain it first or your dip will be watery.

And finally, here are a few recipes I came across that use dill. I'm still learning how to make those I have easy ingredients for.

B Is For Beans

I started the day in the garden doing the day's harvest, which included a bowl of fresh, immature beans.

Beans, rape(greens), purple basil, zucchini from late crop, green chilli & pumpkin

I like to start picking beans when they are young like that because the flesh is really tasty, especially when steamed and seasoned with a bit of salt, black pepper and margarine/butter/olive oil.

I personally feel that beans get a bad rep. For some people, the concept of eating rice and beans implies being broke, poverty or a lack of choice. Unless you're vegetarian or vegan or from a country where beans are a staple, of course. Then they're just delicious food.

In our household, beans are one of our main staple foods (not a cultural thing; just what we like). We eat them with at least four main meals a week and as a quick addition to snacks.

I used to buy most of mine dry and some in cans, but last year I started planting a bigger crop so I can buy less.

Lots of bean bushes around

 I also grow them in my ornamental garden. BTW, even if you don't like eating beans, you should grow them if you have the space. Your soil loves them, as they give it nitrogen which is very nutritious for the rest of your plants. Just dig them out when they are about to flower and mix them up with your soil.

According to my planting calendar, April is a good month to plant broad beans/fava beans. This is my second batch of beans, with the first batch planted last month (see pic below)

How to grow broad beans (fava beans)

Young broad/fava beans almost ready to be staked

Where: Broad beans grow best in a sunny area but sheltered from winds. They do well in well-drained soil that holds water well. My soil is mostly red clay, generally fed  cow manure and home-made compost and they seem to do well enough with that.

The  Planting Process:  I usually prepare the soil by adding compost and watering it thoroughly a couple of days before I plant. However, once I've sowed broad beans, I don't water the soil for at least 10 days, as the seeds are very prone to rot.

As it's Autumn, I'm choosing a variety that's appropriate for planting at this time. I'm told there is another variety that's suitable for planting in windy area.

Make sure that there is a good proportion of space between the plants. Broad beans grow very big, so they need to be able to space out OK. Also remember that airflow is essential for ensuring your beans don't catch fungal disease.

In line with this, your seeds should be sown 5cm (2inches) deep and 20cm (8inches) apart. Dwarf varieties of broad beans can be sown 15cm (6in) apart. Broad beans are best sown in double rows, with the rows 20cm (8inches) apart. If a second double row is needed this should be positioned 60cm (2feet) away from the first. Sow a few extra seeds at the end of the rows to fill in any gaps produced by seeds that don’t germinate.

Caring for broad beans: I've found that broad beans sprout very easily and don't need a lot of care once the seedlings are established.  You do however need to remove the tips of the two leaves attached to the small seedling as soon as they show up, to make sure that Blackfly does not damage the plant later.

I've been lucky so far, in that, I haven't had a Blackfly problem, even when I didn't know I was supposed to punch out the bean seedlings. Now I just do it as a preventive measure. I usually steam the baby leaves I've cut out, sprinkle them with a bit of salt and a teaspoon of olive oil and voila, we have a nice additional veggie dish.

Stake the plants once the seedlings have grown a bit, to prevent the fragile stems from bending or breaking and pods being damaged. I usually just use a couple of sticks to stake mine, though I know I should look into making something stronger. The plants need plenty of water when they are in flower though.

Harvesting broad beans: I've found I can pick pods when they are 7.5cm (3in) long and cook them whole (ja, I'm back to stealing immature crops!). Around 25 weeks, you can start picking pods to shell. Make sure you pick the beans while the scar on the bean is still white or green. Once it grows black, the beans will be very tough to eat.

Serving suggestions:

My favourite recipe for broad beans is chickpea and bean dal with caraway potatoes. I got the recipe from the Food Lovers One Pot, published by Trans Atlantic Press, recipes selected by Marika Kucerova.

Of course I adapt it to suit me based on the availability of ingredients. For example, I usually use canned chickpeas rather than dry, and may exclude some of the seeds if I don't have them on hand.

Ingredients:

2 and 1/4 cups or 400g chickpeas  (same size as a 400g can)
2 and 1/4 cups broad beans
2 cloves garlic
2 onions
2 green chillies
2tbsp butter or oil or margarine
3 cups vegetable broth/stock
1tsp freshly grated ginger (sometimes I just use the powder)
1/2 tsp coriander seeds, crushed
1 and 3/4 pounds(800g) potatoes
1tsp caraway seeds
1handful spinach leaves
salt and pepper for taste

Method:

1. Soak chickpeas and broad beans in water overnight and drain.
2. Peel and finely chop the garlic and onion. Cut the chillies in half.
3. Saute the onions and garlic in hot butter /oil /margarine in a saucepan, then pour vegetable stock.
4. Add the chickpeas, broad beans, chilies, ginger and crushed coriander seeds. Cover and simmer gently for 50-60 minutes.
5. Peel the potatoes and boil them with caraway seeds for around 25 minutes.
6. Wash the spinach and add to the add to the dal at the last moment, then season with salt and pepper.
7. Drain the potatoes and serve them on plates, add dal and serve.

A is for Arugula (Also Called Rocket)

One of the  aurugula plants in my garden

My biggest challenge with growing arugula has never been how to plant or care for it... the thing grows like a weed even when unattended ... but how to keep it contained so it doesn't take over the whole garden.

I generally plant it in inhospitable areas of the yard, or where I have a weed problem and I put it there to overwhelm the weeds. That way, it can happily take over, reseed whenever, and I can pick baby leaves when I'm in the mood for the salad but largely ignore it. Not that I don't love the salad. I do. It's one of my favourite munchies while I garden. But like I said, the thing grows and grows....

So if  your gardening space is limited in some way, it would be advisable to grow your arugula in a container.

How to grow arugula

Arugula grows well in Autumn and prefers full sun or semi-shade and well-drained soil. Turn the soil over, work in compost, rake it even and water thoroughly the day before you sow. Sow the seeds 1-1.5cm deep in rows that are 30cm apart.

Water it well as it grows, preferably at the end of the day, ensuring that the soil is always slightly moist, otherwise it will go to seed too quickly.

You can start harvesting the baby leaves after a month of planting. Pick only a few leaves from each plant and remember that the older the leaves are, the stronger their flavour will be. 

Also keep in mind that the frequency with which you nip out the flower and seed buds will determine the duration of your arugula harvest.

For a continuous harvest, you may choose to sow some arugula seeds every couple of weeks. I tend to let one or two plants go to seed and let them reseed the patch.

Here's a very simple recipe that I found online and which I adapt and use quite often:450g/1lb tomatoes chopped into chunks

• 50g/2oz  arugula, stalks removed
• A dash of salt
• A dash of freshly ground black pepper
• 3-4 tbsp good quality extra virgin oil

Put the tomatoes on a salad bowl and toss with salt and pepper, add the rocket leaves and toss again, then drizzle the salad with olive oil. Serve immediately.

Sometimes I add strawberries with feta, apple chunks or avocado to the above recipe. For a warm rocket salad, I add freshly roasted pumpkin, butternut or squash with nuts into the mix, with or without the tomato.

You  can also throw in a few arugula leaves into your lettuce salad from extra flavour, or put it into a casserole or stew to use as a herb/add flavour, though I haven't tried the latter yet.

Anyhoo, try it; grow it in a small container if you're not sure you'll like the taste of it. At worst, you'll end up with a container full of pretty white flowers:-)

Another Weekend Of Planting Fruit Trees And Beans

This batch of bean plantings is doing well

The past weekend was quiet and slightly wet, which is how I like my days.

No need to water the garden because nature is doing it for me, and the quiet gives me a chance to write and schedule blog posts for the A-Z Challenge,which is taking place in April. Twenty posts down, six more to go:-)

I also did a bit of planting.

1. A guy (I didn't know) from the village brought me three saplings for banana, pawpaw and  avocado. Apparently a look at my garden told him the saplings belong there. He then helped me plant them. So I have more fruit trees adding to my small orchard.