Footprint 16: Signs of progress

Just a short blog today, and a debut of note at the end :)

Not two, not three, but FOUR ginger plants:

Ginger planted six weeks ago, grown from three roots

Pea and Bean Progress:

One of two beans planted three weeks ago

A pea, and another bean planted three weeks ago

 And the promised debut, someone who is completely camera shy:

Bolle

Footprint 15: Getting into the swing of things

One of the very best things about growing one's own veggies is that one knows exactly when they were picked and exactly how old they are.  I have enough radishes now to pick more than I can eat, without living on a subsistence diet of only radishes.  Radishes are interesting.  They outgrow the ground.  At some point the round red root bit pushes its way out of the soil, and only the thin little white tail remains embedded in the ground.  This means that it needs to be picked, otherwise the radish itself will spoil.  So what I have learnt to do is pick them, and then put them into a jar of water, instead of putting them into the fridge.  They stand on the counter for a day or two, and the leaves remain fresh:

Radishes in a jar

 As can be seen, I am losing the war against the caterpillars.  Some of these leaves are going to have to be composted.  On the caterpillar issue, I understand that as long as there is the tiniest bit of green available to the radish it will carry on growing.  So I have decided to leave the caterpillars to munch away on the green part of the radish.  They seem to leave the radish itself alone.  As I watch the butterflies chasing each other around the garden, I figure it is worth it to have munched leaves.  One just has to pick the caterpillars off before washing them and preparing them for the kitchen.

Here are the remains of the alfalfa and beet sprouts:

Alfalfa and Beet Sprouts

Despite the fact that beet sprouts take ten days to look like this, they are pretty enough to persevere.  And if one has other sprouts going at the same time, it is just one more bottle to worry about.  These sprouts have contributed to two meals so far.  I figure that that is a fairly good return on the investment of two tablespoons of sprouts.

Here are this week's sprouts:

Fenugreek, sunflower, lentil and aduki beans

Fenugreek is going to become a standard for me.  They are very tasty, as are alfalfa sprouts.  I didn't have enough room to repeat alfalfa, as I want to experiment with others as well, and have decided that four concurrent bottles is more than enough.  I purchased the hulled sunflower seed and aduki beans from our local health store.  The lentils are black lentils from Imbo, purchased at a local grocery store - the same lentils that I cooked up for a lovely supper this evening.

And here is a new method of sprouting:

Rocket, sunflower and pumpkin

The two methods are different.  The bottle method focuses almost entirely on the root of the sprout.  This method is what is known as micro leaves, where the plant grows until the first leaves have developed.  What it basically entails is a large recycled plastic container filled with water.  Into this goes a smaller recycled plastic container with drainage holes pierced into the bottom.  One then places a growing medium, which could be compost, vermiculite, perlite, river sand, or any combination of those.  I chose vermiculite only, as this means not having to wash soil off the sprouts once they are ready to eat.  Also, the vermiculite can be re-used with very little effort.  These take longer, as one waits for the leaves to develop.  I will take a piccie when they are further along in their development, and record the time that they take.  There is one other major difference between bottled sprouts and these sprouts.  The bottled sprout process takes place predominantly in the dark.  These sprouts need light.  At the moment they are on my window sill.  I plan to take them out into the sun when I think about it.

One last little note.  If one looks up Tansy as a deterrent for flies on the internet, the jury seems to be out on whether it works or not.  I now know it works.  I had a major fruit fly infestation hovering permanently around my worm farm and on two occasions had to pick maggots out of it.  I purchased a Tansy plant, and put it, still in its black growing bag, onto a plant saucer on top of the bin.  By that evening, the bin was pretty much fly free.  Although this plant is classified in the United States as a noxious weed, it was once so revered in the UK that it was considered a 'must' in every herb garden, for human consumption.  I am not sure that it is going to become a gourmet delicacy for me.  It is going to be a 'must' in my garden for its impact on flies.

Although a lot is happening in the garden,  news on that needs to wait for a future post. 

Footprint 14: More on Sprouts

Sprouting is very rewarding:

                                              On the left are alfalfa sprouts.  On the right are beet sprouts.

There are quick turn-around sprouts, like fenugreek [picture in an earlier post], and alfalfa, both of which take about three days to sprout.  Then there are the slower sprouts, like beet, which takes about ten days.  From the picture above, hopefully you will agree that the ten days are worth it.

So next time you invite someone round for supper, depending on the advance notice that you have, start a bottle of sprouts.  They are an enhancement to any salad, and indeed, any meal.

Footprint 13: A quantum leap

Last night, for the first time, I honoured Earth Hour.  It was a lonely hour.  All my toys, my mental distractions, being my books, my board games and my dabblings in writing were not available to me.  All my toys operate in the false light of electricity in the night.  I wandered around the small new beginnings in my back garden, with my faithful friend, Skattebol, and savoured my new life which is just starting.  It was an hour of reflection... a time to gather my thoughts on the new direction that my life is taking.

Interesting then, that this morning, I should randomly pick up one of my treasures, Gaia's Garden,  and randomly look up Gaia's Garden on Google, and stumble upon one of the most illuminating texts that I have read in a long time: Finding a Sense of Surplus.

In this moment, on this day, I understand the meaning of the proverb.... 'The darkest hour is before dawn'.

That a seeming 'disaster', in the name of retrenchment should bring me to such a dawning realisation is one of the gifts that life has given me.  As I write this blog, a mail has just this moment come through, the lead-line of which reads 'God can't hand you anything new until you let go of what you're holding'.

May I treasure this gift for the rest of my life.  In the moments of doubt that surely lie ahead, I will return to this blog and I will return to the text above to reassure myself that although I stand alone, I am not alone on this planet.

I have renamed this blog in honour of this moment, so that every time I write on this blog, I will think of this day.
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This is an addendum to this post.  I received a third confirmation that the path ahead is the path for me.  How kind He is that He should take time to guide me on my way.

Footprint 12: A lovely healthy supper

I am eating early, as I plan to honour Earth Hour this evening.  I will do that by switching off my lights, and yes, my pc too, and going outside into the garden that I have come to love, and celebrating that hour with my garden and my dog.  There won't even be a book!

Having spent the day with my nose very firmly planted in my treasure trove of books, I didn't really plan anything for supper, so I scrounged for leftovers.  This is what I came up with:

Some gem squash, fenugreek sprouts and dhania and a dob of butter, flavoured with mace, milled black pepper and ground salt.  Nutmeg would have been a little overpowering.  Very tasty it was too!  And made in literally minutes.  It just needed to be heated through.  I will bear this in mind as a mixture for a future fritter.  Some nice goat cheese would have made a lovely addition.

Footprint 11: First Step into Knowledge Store

My Treasure Chest arrived!  These are my first acquisitions into my new life.  I already have loads of gardening books of the common and garden variety, so to speak.  These are my first more modern 'specialist' type books.  Several of them are from the Northern Hemisphere.  That is not going to be an issue.  It is perfectly possible to convert January into July and so on.  In no particular order, let me introduce you:

I figure that that is me done for the weekend, and some days, weeks, months, years to come!  Not sure I will be blogging for a day or two, unless I simply can't resist imparting some hidden gem within these lofty tomes.

Footprint Ten: More First Steps

Yesterday evening was a series of more new steps.

I prepared a planter and planted my first spring onions.  I prepared a planter and planted some more carrots.

I planted my first garlic cloves.  Some of these are tucked in with the garlic chives, which are currently flowering:

I now have two broad beans.  Here is one of them, next to the pea:

Having learnt that Nasturtiums are very handy plants for warding off unwanted predators, I tucked some nasturtium seeds into existing decorative tubs, and prepared another planter just for nasturtiums.  Tansy has made it onto the wanted list, as this will help too. 

Although the liquid soap spray did not get rid of the caterpillars on the radish, no more eggs have been laid.  I am hoping that this is a deterrent, and will experiment further with it as time goes by.  I picked the leaves with the caterpillars off and put them in a part of the erf which has not yet been cultivated.  Hopefully they will become beautiful butterflies to pollinate plants into the future.

I have learnt that baking soda does a very good job of removing brown staining on pots.

And here, just for sommer, are some geraniums on my windowsill: