Footprint 51: More rainy days

I really am grateful that I painted the boxes on Thursday.  Ever since then, it has been raining either intermittently or non-stop.  Yesterday was an absolute downpour.  This may sound unpleasant.  It is not, actually.  In Cape Town, by March, unless one lives in Newlands, everything looks a little brown and very dry, particularly if there has been little rain, which happened this year.

Now, everything has greened up very nicely - including the weeds.  Sigh.

It has also put a damper, so to speak, on gardening for the time being.  It doesn't really impact progress, as the boxes are into a 7 day drying period again.  This is the second coat of pure bitumen.  There should be a third.  I have decided not to do the third.  The bitumen is very, very thick now, probably from repeatedly opening the tin.  The last coat that went on was quite hard to brush smoothly, and was very, very thick.  For this reason, I am going to leave it for the full 7 days, and then start with the coat of white.

I could have kicked myself.  On Sunday, and on Monday, when travelling back from the gym, False Bay had the most spectacular rainbows over the bay.  And I did not have my camera with me!  I have made a note to always carry my camera, as one never knows when those beautiful moments are going to happen that deserve a place in one's memory.

Footstep 50: Rainy days and Mondays

Yesterday rained, quite a lot, actually.  I am pleased that I took the time on Sunday to do the first full bitumen coat of the inside of the boxes.  This will give some protection to the wood until the rain stops and I can do the next coat.

So I drove through to Bergvliet and met a friend.  She introduced me to a lovely new bakery which serves elegant and adequate portions of really nice food, and of course, the interminable cups of coffee.  On the way home, I sorted out admin things like changing my cell phone arrangement from contract to pre-paid, and going to the bank to do what one does at banks [I didn't hold it up, which is the South African way :)].

The rest of the day was spent doing household chores and catching up on various items of admin that were outstanding.

Is that lovely, yellow, golden sun that I see peeking through my window?  Yes, it is.  I am off to inspect my garden for new growth and to see if any damage was done by the wind and the rain yesterday.

Footstep 49: Painting the Square Foot Gardens: Primer 201

Yay!  In the Turning post, I described putting on the primer under coat, being half bitumen, half water.  I have now added the first coat of proper primer, being pure bitumen.  This coat would normally dry overnight.  I understand that we are in for some rain, so the second coat will go on once the boxes have dried after this bout of rain.  No piccies, as the boxes look pretty much the same as they did in the final photo of the Turning post, except that they are a bit darker, and the coat is a bit smoother.  I still had to fill in some of the holes where the shutterply has splintered a bit from the drilling, but those are in the base, not around the corner posts.

Footstep 48: Anniversay day

On Thursday 19th May, it was anniversary day.  I started my vegetable garden on 19th February, and my blog on 19th March.  This means that the veggie garden is now three months old, and the blog two months old.  So on Thursday I treated myself to a shopping spree.

Woolworths now kindly offer two for the price of one vegetable packs.  I realise I am growing my own, but it is early days yet, and I do not have the variety, nor yet the volume to be self-sustaining.  In fact, as time passes and as I learn, I am realising that to be self-sustaining, I am going to have to grow a lot more vegetables simultaneously.  What I have growing at the moment will be little more than supplementary.

Anyway, back to Wooworths.  I have discovered baby gem squash.  These are simply the nicest veggies to have.  I will explain shortly how I cook them.  I also bought some garlic, carrots and some zucchini and some baby spinach, the latter of which I mentioned in my previous post.  I already had other vegetables at home.

Yesterday, I cut up the following:

6 baby gem squash not peeled but halved;

8 carrots sliced lengthwise;

6 zucchini sliced lengthwise;

2 medium sized red onions;

3 smallish sweet potatoes, large chunks;

4 smallish tomatoes, quartered;

2 egg fruit, large chunks;

6 fat cloves of garlic, quartered;

1/2 sweet yellow pepper;

12 french beans, topped and tailed.

I greased a baking tray with cooking oil, and piled the veggies on top, being careful to put everything skin down, and keeping the baby gem squash on the side.  I then dribbled over some cooking oil and a wonderful invention by Royco called Vegetable Bake, which is a spice which one scatters, rather liberally, over the veggies.  I then put them into the oven on grill at 230 degrees.  Turning them about twice, I left them in the oven for about 40 minutes.  The veggies, by the time they were finished, were soft, but still firm, although the sweet potato pieces were melt-in-the-mouth soft.  Each veggie piece was still distinguishable in its own right, but they all blended together into the most divine mix.  This should keep me going for most of the week, with small additions of meat and possibly baked potato.

The thing about the gem squash halves:  they become little sacks of sweet, succulent squish, encased in an edible skin.  They are absolutely divine!  These will definitely be an on-going inclusion in my meals, and I will hopefully be able to grow them in the summer.

The really nice thing about roast vegetables is that one can literally add anything.  This is particularly handy as one can use vegetables that are in season and therefore inexpensive or home grown, and one can add small amounts of the more expensive things like garlic to give it a bit of pizzaz.  One can also add roast vegetables to literally anything.  They can be used as pizza topping, added to garlic, served with rice.  As my goal is to reduce the volume of meat I consume, and increase the use of vegetables in preparing meals, this will become something that I do, in volume, at least once a week, and retain to serve with most meals during the forthcoming week.

With all this yummy stuff happening in the oven, I cooked up a pot of thai green curry chicken on top of the stove.  I purchased this from Woolworths, adding my own onion, fresh ginger and garlic.  I will make my own in future.  I now have the lemon grass, ginger, garlic and coriander growing in my garden, so should only need to get some green curry paste and some coconut milk in order to make it from scratch.

Footstep 47: Lessons through harvesting: Baby spinach

I got quite a shock this past week.  I harvested some of the baby spinach [forgetting to take a piccie].  There was not enough for a full pot, so I added some purchased baby spinach.  Together they made up a really nice big, full pot of baby spinach

I had already heated 1 cm of water at the bottom of the pot which is a waterless cooking pot, and got it to boiling point in order to steam the spinach.

Once the spinach was on, I put the lid on for literally two minutes before opening the lid to find that there was a tiny little pile of spinach at the bottom of the pot!  This was a rather large lesson learnt.  I will make sure that I plant several patches of spinach simultaneously so that there is enough to make a few meals between harvests.

Footstep 46: Painting the square foot gardens: Turning

It is not yet seven days since the last bitumen coat on the outside of the boxes.  I decided to buy little feet for them to stand on, which means that I can flip the boxes earlier, and the underside can continue to dry whilst I start on the insides:

The feet waiting for the box

I purchased tiny pavers at R1.75 each for the feet.  They work extremely well.  I wouldn't use them for normal garden pots, as they are a little large.  For this purpose they are perfect.

Box on its feet

This is how the box will finally look.  It is also probably in its final resting place.  I may shuffle it around a bit so that the side closest to the road is more accessible without standing in the little garden which is running along the fence.  I'll worry about this before filling the box as once filled, it will be way too heavy for one person to lift.

First Coat of Primer

These are the two boxes, flipped, and with the first coat of Primer one.  Remember that this is the coat that is half bitumen-half water, the point being that it soaks into the wood.  This coat dries quite quickly - within two to three hours.  I will probably do the first coat of only bitumen later today.  I may as well get it done as my hands are already splotchy brown, and besides, if I wait a day, it is only one more day past before I can plant.

This coat was actually more complicated.  It is very important to get the bitumen into all the nooks and crannies, and there were lots of knots in the wood that needed me to dig the brush in, so it looks a bit messy.  This won't matter, as I have three more coats to go to make it look better, and then there are the white coats thereafter.

It is probably worth noting, for anyone who may be tempted to follow this process, that the various coats of paint are put on over each other with brush strokes going in the opposite direction.  In other words, if the first coat has the brush strokes going from front of house to fence, then the next coat goes from neighbours fence to neighbours fence at right angles to the first coat.  This helps to create a solid seal with no weak spots.

Footstep 45: Voting day

Voting day is always quite exciting, for me, anyway.  Oh, dear, this is probably a comment on my very interesting life.  No seriously, I go early to get it over and done with, and hate queueing, so go early enough not to queue.  One meets the most interesting people with the most interesting points of view.  Being me, I usually manage to engage someone nearby and we chat away until it is our turn, and then go our separate ways.

I started with a photograph of the potato bush in my back garden:

Potato Bush

This is one of the reasons why I so love this time of year.  We get these gentle balmy days with no wind and little rain.  The sun shines, but does not beat down as it does in February.  The soil remains moist and the plants green up and swell out.  And some, like the Potato Bush, come into flower, oh, so, prolifically!

I used the day wisely.  The boxes have received their final coat of bitumen on the outside.  They will now stand for a week to let the bitumen finally set.  Then I will turn them over and start with the bitumen on the inside.

I also planted out the last of the shallots.  I have a group planting in a pot in the back garden.  I have planted up two boxes in the front garden, and some with the garlic chives and some in a pretty pot, also in the front garden.  There are two in the 'big' garden - in other words, not in a pot.  I want to see how well they do in the different environments, so that I know how best to plant them next year.  These have been a major success.  The first ones that I planted have swelled out and are looking very fat and happy.

I also note that now that the mustard has gone, the bugs have migrated to my peas and beans!  Horror!  I sprayed them with a soap spray and will check them tomorrow.  I also put in some marigold seed.  Apparently these are major insect deterrents, and also disinfect the soil.  It is a bit late to stop the current bug infestation, as the first calendula flowers from these seeds are at least two months away.  Again, it is a learning curve.  This time next year, I will be so much better equipped in terms of experience.  Also, the boxes will be ready, which will give me 32 mini-plots [32 square feet over the two boxes], to grow more volume and more variety.  I have already planned out what will go where, but more of that later, when we get there.

At last, I planted up the vertical garden.  I have put baby spinach in, as they have, I hope, a short rooting system.  The soil took ages to prepare, as I used some of the existing soil which is impermeable, so had to doctor it to absorb water before putting the plants in.

I have not taken pictures of the new plantings, as from experience, this is very boring.  I mean, who wants to look at pictures of sand?  Once the plants start to emerge, I will photograph them.

Footstep 44: The Brazilian Pepper Haircut

I finally relented.  My beloved brazilian pepper tree is too invasive.  I tried to remove as little as possible last time.  The neighbours wanted more removed.  So I engaged a professional tree feller.  Here are the stages of the hair cut:

A step to the left

When you're on top, you're on top!

Off to the dump

After seeing the sheer volume removed, I am really pleased that I brought in a professional.  All of that needs to be lugged to the dump.  For someone equipped, it is two bakkie loads.  For my little corsa, it would have been months of lugging!

And here is the new look pepper tree:

Finally

I have been in my cottage for 17 years.  The tree was here before me.  I realise that it is just a common or garden pepper tree.  I just happen to like it very much.  It is a complex tree, which makes it attractive to look at.  I understand that it will grow back quite quickly.  Hopefully that is true.

Footprint 43: New plantings

Today was a beautiful, warm, cloudless, wind free, Cape Town autumn day.  It was one of those rare days when us Capetonians know exactly why we choose to live in this beautiful city.

Back to building the garden then.  I had several plants collecting which seriously need to be planted.  Here they are:

Pineapple sage, lemon grass, perennial basil, comfrey

At the back is the compost heap with some new addition.  Propped up against the fence are two 1.5 Lipton Red Tea bottles.  I cut the bottoms off of these bottles and plunged the top into the soil, then put the bottoms back upside down.  The point of these is to fill them with water and let the water slowly seep into the roots during the day.  This is in preparation for next summer when water becomes a material consideration again.  Around each plant is some rooibos mulch.  This has become very popular for several reasons:

a)  The mulch is very spiny, which helps with keeping snails at bay;

b)  The mulch does what mulch does by keeping the soil moist below;

c)  As the mulch disintegrates, it will help to improve the texture of the soil;

d)  It will add further nutrient to both the plants and the soil.

Hopefully over time, the comfrey will grow large enough to hide the bottles, and the perennial basil will provide some cover for the compost heap.  The reason for planting the comfrey next to the compost heap is two-fold:

a)  Comfrey needs lots of nutrient, and grows a tap root which sucks nutrient up from deep down in the soil.  The compost heap will leach nutrient which will then be available to the comfrey;

b)  Comfrey is a great compost activator.  As leaves deteriorate on the comfrey plant, I can remove them and pop them into the compost without forgetting to do it, or being too lazy to do it.

Then next to the vertical garden, which still awaits planting as I am allowing the soil to settle, are the following:

Yellow black eyed susan, granadilla

The Black Eyed Susan was an on the spur of the moment purchase some time ago.  The granadilla was also a spur of the moment purchase today when I went to go and replace my hose which had perished.  Again, they are surrounded by rooibos mulch.  And weeds - sigh.

I also planted some more shallots:

Shallots, planted with an existing garlic bulb and some pretties

One cannot yet see the shallots.  I am attempting to mix and match things in the garden, so that pots are not just pretty or just functional.  I figure I will learn as I go.

I ended the day by lugging two large buckets of garden waste up to the dump.  This takes care of the syringa leaves which are dropping in multitudes at the moment, as syringas are deciduous.

And now for a well earned rest.  My old lady knees are complaining about all the bending today.

Footstep 42: Painting the Square Foot Gardens: Primer 102

At last!  The second coat of primer is on!  Yay!  Actually, once one starts, it actually goes quite quickly.  It is the idea of starting that makes it slow.  This time round I had to open a new tin of 5 litres of the bitumen.  This took forever.  Pharmacies need to get lessons from hardware stores on the concept of childproof lids.  This one had a plastic circle all round the lid with the lid tucked firmly below the plastic circle.  It sounds simple, but it took my biggest weeder and ages of twisting to get it open.  

This coat needs to dry, then one further coat needs to go on the base.  The then final coat needs to dry for seven days before I flip the boxes over and start inside.  Flip sounds so flippant.  Those boxes are jolly heavy.  I am hoping that I am going to manage on my own.  Otherwise, I'll have to weep behind my fence until some kind person stops and asks if they can help :).  No picture today, as they look exactly the same as they did last time.

I continue to traipse buckets of sand and garden waste to the dump.  Today it was the scurvy weed, well rotted, but after two months hidden in a sealed black bucket, there was still evidence of green, which means that wherever it lands, it has the ability to start growing again.  Initially, it was targeted for the compost heap.  When I saw the green, I decided against it.  The last thing I need is a more widespread distribution of the pretty but pesky plant.  The municipal dump has so much garden waste, and when it is turned so much steam rises off it, that I have absolutely no doubt that the scurvy weed will not survive the process.  This means that the buckets are now free for accumulating more kelp.

I had two buckets of kelp.  The one went into the compost heap when I first built it.  The second has been rotting down in a sealed black bucket.  I opened it this morning to find a rather smelly liquid, which I simply know is going to be lapped up very happily by my plants.

Unfortunately, the return trip of the dump is quite hazardous.  It includes my favourite bakery which has a shop with lovely specials on muffins.  This morning it was strawberry muffins.  Yum!  Just further on from my favourite bakery is my favourite nursery.  I always pop in to see if there is something interesting.  I saw the most beautiful lacy pansies - really the prettiest I have ever seen.  I managed somehow not to buy them, but a very pretty punnet of very pretty ground cover snuck into my hand and stuck there, so I had to pay for it and bring it home.  It will make a lovely addition to my baskets and pots of pretties.

I also learnt that Thursday / Friday is veggie punnet delivery day.  I am going to do my very best to grow from seed.  It is just that all of those luscious punnets of greens look spectacular when they first arrive, and one does find some very tempting plants to buy, like the Giant red mustard that I bought when I was last there.  It is not possible to get these plants in seed packets.  So the only way to get them is to buy the punnets.  And actually, it is cheaper these days to buy a punnet of say, lettuce, and pop it in the ground and let it grow and pick leaves off it over time, than to buy pre-washed lettuce in the veggie section of a supermarket.  I see loads of people are now doing that.  They also buy their mint that way, although, mint is so easy to grow that it doesn't really make sense to keep buying it and using it from the punnet, which many people seem to do.

Footprint 41: Second step into knowledge

My second, and last for a while, batch of purchases arrived today.  Here they are:

The Rodale's Illustrated Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening was a lovely surprise!  It is enormous, comprehensive and well illustrated, giving history, practical tips, extensive soil advice and wonderful ideas for planting.  It is a Canadian book.  I used to think that one had to buy local.  That is definitely true of indigenous and water-wise gardening guides.  It is most certainly not true of vegetables, herbs, annuals and perennials most of which are international.  In today's world, if they are not internationally indigenous, you can probably find them at your local nursery anyway.

This is the book that has given me so much practical advice about the Square Foot Gardens that I have built and am now busy planting in preparation for filling with appropriately prepared soil and planting up with vegetables, herbs and some pretties.  I had read up about it, managed to borrow the book from a friend, and have now sourced my own copy.  For those of you who are working in small spaces and looking for a book loaded with valuable information, whether you are planning to build raised square foot gardens or not, the advice in this book is priceless.

Footprint 40: Gardening progress

It has truly been wonderful.  Today was another perfect Cape Town autumn day.  These days are so hard to describe.  The air is balmy with no wind.  In fact, there is almost a breathlessness.  Because of our Cape Doctor, being the South Easter, Cape Town, on the whole, has less pollution than most cities.  As a consequence, the air is clean.  And there is enough sun to feel it baking on your shoulders, yet not enough to dry out the air, the soil and the plants.

Ok, so maybe I am avoiding painting the boxes again.  I did, however, finish up the rest of the plants that were queueing to be planted:

Lemon Verbena

I put the lemon verbena outside my lounge window.  I am hoping that in the summer, when the window is open, it will waft its beautiful lemon scent into the lounge.

Tea Tree

This I have put in the front of my garden next to my driveway.  They are reputedly wind resistant and can be used as a windbreak.  I am hoping that this is the case.  Because it has tiny wide-spaced leaves, which are tiny, it should not impact the plans that I have for my square foot gardens on what is now the front lawn between the Tea Tree and the house.

Tansy

The tansy that served me so well through the past few months by warding off flies in my worm bin now has a permanent home.  It is a vigorous grower, and had become quite pot-bound in its plant bag.  It also already has several tiny babies.  So next summer, when I need tansy again for my worm bin, I will dig up one of the babies and put it in a pot to stand on top of my worm bin.

Giant red mustard

 And then I cheated a bit.  When I went to the nursery again today to change the hose fitting that I bought yesterday, I spied a six-pack of these and bought them.  They taste delicious.  I have put these into the tub where the lettuces were.  The lettuces are still there, looking somewhat 'verlep'.  I am hoping that they will seed themselves.

Violas with chocolate mint

And these.  I simply could not resist them.  They are so pretty.  So along with my Giant red mustard, I bought a six-pack of violas.

We are very fortunate is South Africa.  We have so many pretty winter flowers.  Violas are one example.  

Below are some indigenous wild violets in flower:

They are so pretty and so delicate.  it is a tragedy that their flowering season is so short.  Whilst they are flowering, they are prolific, and therefore a pleasure to brighten up an autumn garden.

I was really quite pleased this afternoon.  A friend dropped by and commented on how wonderful my garden is starting to look.  And yes it is looking so much better than it did a mere three months ago.  Yet, there are still so many plans.  I am grateful to have the opportunity to explore the wonderful gifts that nature has for us through our gardens.

Tomorrow, given another balmy autumn day will definitely be box painting day.  The only plants that are left to plant now are the lemon balm and a chamomile that snuck into my purchases at the nursery today. 

Footprint 39: More preserving

I am finally getting this preserving thing sorted.  This time, I did not hopelessly over-purchase.  I bought six guavas for the princely sum of R5.11, and three quinces for the princely sum of R2.88:

Guavas and quinces

The preparation was so easy.  I peeled and sliced the guavas and put them into honey jars.  Then I added about two teaspoons of honey to each.  I then turned the bottles about five times, giving the accumulating honey and syrup time to sink to the bottom of the jar each time.  The honey acts as a preservative and it pulls some of the juice out of the guava slices.  The guavas acquire the texture of tinned guavas, but the fruit and honey is preservative free and has not been cooked.  

 The quinces I peeled, cored and chopped.  Then I put them into a pot with about 1cm of water and set them to boil.  Once boiled, I turned the stove off and put them in a honey jar which was still hot from having been soaked in hot water to sterilise.  I then added about two teaspoons of honey.  These I also turned to let the honey soak through.  All three bottles will need to go into the fridge, but will last about a month, unless, of course, they get eaten in the interim.

These are lovely preserves to have.  They are quick and easy to make, very, very inexpensive, and can be used as additives to breakfast, or served with custard or cream for pudding, or just nibbled to satisfy a sweet craving.  In terms of the quince, raisins and/or cinnamon can be added for alternative interest.  The quince can also be served with chicken and pork.

Footstep 38: The ultimate pea

Of all the little miracles in my garden, the pea has stolen my heart.  The intricacy of the leaves fascinate me.  The tendril of the pea plant found its stake all by itself:

Pea tendril

And then a small flower developed, and out of the middle of the flower popped the first pea pod:

First pea pod

I am grateful for the opportunity to watch these little miracles unfold in my own garden.

Footprint 37: Progress in the garden

One of the really nice things about not blogging for a while is that the progress between posts is so much more apparent.  With the lovely drenching rains and cool weather that we have had, the veggies have grown from strength to strength:

Shallots

The previous time that I posted the shallots was when they first sprouted.  My, how they have shot up in the interim. 

Carrots, looking like, well REAL carrots

Coriander

Dill

Bean in flower

 And a real pride and joy.... my first ever bean flower.  Because all of this is so new to me, each new event unfolds before me as a little natural miracle.

Footprint 36: It's been a while

It has been a while since I last blogged.  The weather has not been conducive to painting boxes outside.  There has been quite a lot of obligatory sorting out to do, which unfortunately took place on hot days.  Yet life went on.  On cooler days, I took time out to do things inside.

Here is rather an amusing picture of Pigaloo:

Pigaloo sleeping in an empty plant pot

She is a strange little cat, finding the oddest places and positions to sleep.

And here is one of the thieves pretending to be an ornament:

Pigeon on Pelmet