Back to basics

Everyone looses perspective sometimes. We also get overwhelmed and stressed. Sometimes we are to blame because we try to do too much, when we don't count the cost, in time or money, before committing to a new project or simply because life throws a series of curveballs at you for whatever reason.


I have come out of a very fulfilling but tiring time of 8 weeks of giving and giving and giving. The job is done and now I need to pick up the pieces of my life again and find the lovely rhythm of my days, weeks and seasons.

The only way I know how to do this is by getting back to basics.

First I prune back my life which includes our children's commitments outside of the home, I say no to more things for myself that would draw me away from my first priorities - which in my life are time sitting at the feet of my Lord Jesus, connecting with my husband, mentoring my children in their different stages of life, guiding their education needs, being busy in my home growing then preparing the right food for us and finding a place to just breathe.

This process started over the last two weeks and today has found me at home on Sunday with nothing on my to do list and the freedom to rest, sleep, read...or type a blog post! :)

Things that have slipped through my fingers this year has been making sure the basics are attended too. No soap was made, no bread made, and because I refuse to eat the toxic shop bought breads, no bread eaten either. Meal plans were not done and garden planning, sowing and planting not attended to. Cupboards and drawers were in a shambles, and the chaos and time wasting that resulted from this was frustrating.

Soap cooling slowly. I will cut it tomorrow. This gives us enough bars for 3 months.

Getting back to basics allows me to see what is important and what I value and how much a simple thing like making soap or bread, or having orderly shelves, means to my family as well.

So today I made Down To Earth's plain lovely rich soap. This will cure for 5 weeks and be ready for use. A similar soap that I buy at the Earth Fair market costs R20 per bar. I can make soap for 18 of the same size bars at R20 for all 18!

These are some we made two weeks ago and were never filled. Sam made another 3 trays on Friday.

Making sure that I have newspaper pots for seed sowing is also something I got going again this week and we have 5 beer boxes of pots ready for seeds which I will sow this week.

My mom gave us this Can-O-Worms in 2008 and it is still working well.

Our wormery also needed attention as we use the worm tea all the time for our fruit trees and strawberries. Switching around the trays and feeding the worms was also on the agenda.

Each Tuesday Superman fetches 3x25 litres of water from Newlands Spring for our drinking and cooking.

One of our water bottles that we use to collect spring water has had green algae growing on the sides and allow strong vinegar water to stand in it for a day or two will solve this.

What a joy to move quietly and smoothly through my day doing some simple tasks that reap huge rewards.

What simple tasks do you enjoy that "ground" you in your home?

Caring for perennial Vegetables

I have spent some time this week reading up on how to care for my perennial vegetables, fruit vines and berry canes. My gardening books all talk about adding 2:3:2 and 3:1:5 but as we have successfully managed, for the most part, to grow and feed our veggies organically, I needed to "read between the lines" and see what I could find from natural sources.

These are my perennials that need some TLC at the moment, photos were form last season.

Grape Vine ~ Strawberries ~ Blue Berry ~ Black Berry ~ Lemon and Orange Tree ~ Olive Tree ~ Granadilla Vine ~ Rhubarb ~ Asparagus

I started with the simplest - rhubarb. Our chickens have enjoyed eating all the winter leaves off my humble rhubarb. So yesterday we decided to uproot the 4 plants and put them into a side patch in the fenced garden so that they can yield again in summer. These just needed some compost and water and a replanting.

My asparagus is still in the trailer park and Superman and I are debating their permanent position. Yesterday we trimmed off all the dead fronds and fed them some worm juice. More on worm juice in a moment. In the next two months we need to have them planted in their permanent position.

Our grape vine is still bare, new leaves should appear in about 3 - 4 weeks time. It's time to start watering it with a slow trickle of a hose. It will also enjoy a nitrogen feed about now.



The granadilla vine needs nitrogen now too, as well as some epsom salts. A natural source of potassium like wood ash, or volcanic ash is also a good feed right now. Tomorrow Superman and son are going to make upside down L-shaped brackets so that we can train the vine to grow forwards and the fruit can hand down. At the moment it is trying to lace itself into our electric fence which cause the poor thing to get fried!



For my black berry plant, I was told to feed it a banana smoothie as the flowers start to show. Bananas are high in potassium so when you have over ripe bananas, blend them up, skin and all, and place it around the base of the plant.



Blueberries need an acidic soil and peat moss is the best source for this, unfortunely using peat does not = green gardening. Peat beds are being dug up at a rate faster than it can replesnish istself, so it is best to stear clear of using it in your garden. A great organic substitute is Rooibos mulch or going for a walk in a pine forest and collected some needles. These can just be used around the base of the plant and the acidic residue will leech through to the roots.



Yesterday we repotted our strawberry plants that we grew from the parent plants. We have another 10 or so plants now for this coming season. All fruit plants benefit from SEAGRO or LIQUI-nure. This is where the worm juice comes in. Worm juice is very high in nitrogen and other nutrients. I dilute mine 1 to 10 and feed to my hanging baskets at least once a month. But in the height of summer we don't get enough juice so I do buy liquid feed.

I am toying with the idea of making some KELP TEA as this also is full of wonderful nutrients for my garden.

My olive and citrus tree need to be replanted. They are in big wine barrels at the moment and as soon as we have done our big clear out in the last part of the garden, we will transplant them there.

In my reading I saw that BAT GUANO is brilliant for promoting flowers on fruit trees, so I am going to have to source some of it somewhere....mmmh!?!

Water, weed and feed me!

Now that the major planting work has finished it is time to maintain this garden of ours. The temperatures are climbing steadily everyday and the vegetables are needing much more water.

Because we do all we can to save water in our household, I really lavish water on my garden now. We luckily have a wellpoint so we use this most of the time to water as far as the pipe will reach.



I also have three different kinds on sprinklers as we have all these pathways and each sprinkler can water a section most efficiently with minimal amounts of water being wasted on paving or gravel. I water the gardens every second day for a long time in each spot so that if I dig down about 10 cm the soil is damp.



It is also at this time of the season when weeds are growing as much as our plants. Each weekend, one of my children's early morning chores is to produce a bucket of weeds from the gardens. These are hastily picked through by our chickens as they enjoy most of the weeds that we offer them.

Then I also focus on feeding our gardens, pots and baskets. I will add a good sprinkling of Bounce Back once a month and water it in well. But I also use our wonderful worm juice.



We drain off about 1 bucket a week which is then diluted half-half with water and this is fed to the vine and granadilla plants. I use SeaGrow or Liquifeed for my baskets and pots which is given to them every two weeks.
If I am more adventurous, one day I will try to make some manure tea!

I know this may seem extreme but I believe that the yields are better when we care properly for the growing plants. For example, we are picking about 200g of strawberries a day at the moment!

Hey! Mom...come look at this!

My children work hard in the garden and while the major push of planting and compost adding is done for the season there is alot of weeding and watering still happening.

Just becase I am not super human (we only have one of those in our family :-)) I need their help with watering the hanging baskets daily. Sometimes they grumble but generally work with happy hearts along with me.

It was a delightful voice that called to me this morning as my son was doing the watering of the baskets as he spied this amongst the vine....



He says when he is surprised by our garden like this he feels that all his hard work is worth it.



Our grape vine is 18 months old and has been through one pruning. This is the first year that it is showing a promise of fruit. We have about 20 bunches on it and it spans the fence for about 2 metres.

We water it deeply daily with a trickle hose at its roots and then weekly with a rich feed like worm juice.

Can't wait to try them in a couple of months time!

Can-O-Worms

My mom bought us a Can-O-Worms about 18 months ago. It has done well over this time. We can empty 2 litres of worm juice every 2 - 3 weeks.

There is not much work involved with it and they do take care of some organic waste as well as producing lovely compost for us.

During winter we moved it out near the coop but there was too much sun there so we have now moved it back to a shady area outside my kitchen. This also makes sense to have it here as it's closer for daily peelings.

Wanna see my rubbish?

Have you ever heard of nosey reporters going through celebrities garbage? Well I am FAAAAR from being a celeb and I am not even sure that anyone actually reads my lil' ol' blog...but if you ever wanted to see my garbage you will be sadly dissappointed!

This is due mainly to our fierce recycling habits that have now kicked in. Also our chickens eat all our veggie leaves and offcuts. We also compost everything we can. Then there is our wormery.

Our worms get everything that the chooks can't have: shredded soaked newspapers and pizza boxes, eggs shells, the fibre from our juicer etc.

We started our wormery in Feb this year and we have taken off on average 2 litres of worm juid (liquid fertilizer) ever weekend for the last 5 months. This pic below shows the top later where the new food is added.



Yesterday I took the bottom layer out, sent a few wayward worms to the top layer and this is the left over compost-humus which we are going to use for our new seeldings. It's really good stuff, odour free and steaming hot!