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.

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.

The Birth Of My Food Forest

Apricot Tree Pic Source: Whole Foods Market

The other day when I was going to town to do some shopping, I saw a couple of guys at a street corner selling plants just outside the village.

Of course I had to stop to check the merchandise. A woman can never have too many plants:-)

Among their stock, they had a couple of fruit trees.: apple, apricot, peach, red grape, white grape, pear and plum trees.

More importantly, their prices were very reasonable. So I placed an order, to be delivered at my house.