Sage, garlic and cream pasta

Today has been another cool spring day that called for something warm at lunch time. With only a few people to feed and wanting something creamy and carby for a change this happened to end up in our bowls.

Today at 12.30 - cool and drizzly

It was too good not to share with the readers of this blog.

We used small pasta shells, but I suppose you could use any pasta. I like the shells, though, as they make mini cups which hold the sauce nicely not leaving half in the bowl with the eater having a predicament of whether to stick your face in the bowl and lick it out or to let it be washed down the drain - which is a sacrilege with this sauce!

I also grow lots of sage. I use it for soap, pork meals and my daughter for the chicken liver pate that she makes and sells. It has just come into bloom again and has the most lovely rich smelling leaves and flowers at the moment.

Ingredients:

500g pasta shells
1 tablespoon butter
250ml cream
4 cloves garlic crushed
Large handful fresh sage sliced
Grated Parmesan
Salt & pepper

Cook your pasta in salted water.

Melt the butter and add the garlic and sage. Fry gently for a few minutes - do not burn the garlic.

Add the cream, a few grinds of black pepper and a good bit of salt.

When your past is cooked, drain it and add it to the sauce. Stir to coat the shells well.

Serve into bowls and top generously with Parmesan cheese.

So delicious!

Structure of a compact bed

After sharing my last post on the success of my new experiment of growing very compact beds with a huge variety of plants, I was asked to share how I planned these beds out.

If you know me you will know that I often "fly by the seat of my pants" although on the outside it looks like I am a huge planner. I am not. And even if I do plan - in the practise it never works out properly.

Peas were growing up the trellis but are now over and squash seeds planted in their place

So the success of this past season's compact gardening was me having a plan, planting it up with about 70% accuracy and then getting happier and happier and more clear on what was happening as I packed in plants, companion herbs, harvesting and adding more over the last few months.

So I have planned again for summer to use the same ideas. There are a few major differences that I need to take into account, however. But these things aside I will still plant intensively and learn as I go.

1. It's going to be way hotter.
2. We more than likely will have water restrictions this summer.
3. Pests are more prolific in summer.
4. A lot of my beds still have vegetables in so this new plan will go in bit by bit.

Some background basics first:

I use Jane's Delicious Garden Planner by Grow Veg which has been great to use over the last few years. But if you don't want to use that then pen and paper and a good veggie book (or the internet) will work well enough.

It also important to know which plants to plant in which season and more or less what grows well together. You can get this info on the planner or in a veggie book.

The important thing to remember is getting good vegetables is a about good soil, water and sunshine. Plants also need growing space at the top and bottom and this system of planting allows for that.

Knowing planting to harvest times is also important, but not critical. But as I planned out the beds I made sure I planted a row of fast growing things down the sides so they would be out of the bed in time for the larger slower growing crops to spread.

So here's how I planned it all.

I have  5 beds called "Kitchen Garden" that are south facing. These beds did extremely well as they are in full sun all year around with the exception of bed No. 1 which is in full shade in winter due to a wall shadow and bed No. 5 which is in dappled shade in summer due to a tree. But by planting lettuce and other plants that bolt in bed No. 5 in summer I can still use the space, however in winter bed No. 1 is fallow.

I have 6 larger beds on the other side of the plot called "Pond Garden". These beds are lying in an East/West aspect and the long green trellises lie on this plane too. The issue with this is the back side of each trellis when covered in foliage is very shady.

Same bed - right shows shady side and left sunny side

So STEP NUMBER 1 for you is to know your sun and aspect in your garden and plan any trellis work accordingly as far as you possible can.

What I am assuming is that you have built up some good soil in your beds. You need compost, manure, green manures if your bed is new, double dug, no dig, mulched - whatever your choice, but just make sure its rich and good. Buy worms if you need to. Our pond garden's soil was dead dead dead when we started with it in 2010.  So STEP NUMBER 2 compost your soil.

STEP NUMBER 3 build yourself some trellises. I did this in 7 ½  of the 11 beds but will be adding one more in summer. We had the wooden poles lying around and I had to buy the green plastic mesh. It was rather pricey but it doesn't rust like chicken mesh so figured it would last me a good while. These trellises work for both summer and winter gardens. You can grow your winter peas, broad beans (although these must be tied to the trellis in one bunch) and your summer squash, beans, tomatoes and cucumbers up them.

This bed has beet, coriander, lettuce and peas on both sides

Now its time STEP NUMBER 4 which is to do the planning with your paper or your Grow Veg planner. Make sure you only plan to grow veg that you and your family will eat. Every year I have grown loads of broad beans but only Superman and I like them. So meal times were not happy ones when these little gems arrived on the plates. This year I only grew 2 batches of broad beans but much more peas as everyone likes peas.

Look at your climbing or tall plants first. For this summer I have 4 trellises given over to tomatoes, 1 to squashes, 2 to cucumbers and 1 ½ to beans. I will also be growing bush beans so didn't need more than this for climbing beans.

On either side of your climbing plants you will want to do one of two things depending on the way the sun falls in your garden. If you have south facing beds like I do in the Kitchen Garden you can plant exactly the same rows on either side of the trellis. If you have beds that face like mine do in the Pond Garden which is East or West then you will want to plant shade tolerant vegetables like lettuce, beets, carrots, coriander, chard, parsley and kale. They should get some sun, especially in the early stages of planting the climbers, but can handle the dappled shade that will develop later.

You also need to alternate your rows between a leaf crop and a root crop. You cannot do potatoes in this fashion, they need a dedicated bed.

Happy broad beans

Beds I planted in winter went as follows:

Center: Peas
On either side: Carrots, chard, onions, coriander (coriander is quick growing and removed by the time the onions need the space)

Centre: Broad Beans
On either side: Cauliflower and broccoli, onions, garlic.

Centre (no trellis): Broccoli
On either side: lettuce, onion, radish

Centre: Peas
On either side: Chard, carrots, spring onions, beets (removed soon before carrots need place to grow)

You get the picture?

For my summer beds I have planned the following: 

Centre: Tomatoes (either cherry or regular)
Sides in Kitchen Garden (full sun): Basil, peppers

Centre: Tomatoes
Sunny side: Basil, radish
Shady side: Lettuce

Centre (partial shade bed): Cucumbers
Sides: Lettuces, radish, chives

Centre: Chard
Sides: Beans growing over teepee trellis granting dappled shade to chard until December heat causes to bolt.

This bed has garlic, cauliflower and broccoli and broad beans

East facing beds in pond garden:

One given to sweetcorn

Centre: Tomatoes
Sides: one to Barbara butternut, other to basil, celery.

Centre of ½ trellis bed: Cucumber
Sides: Lettuce, bush beans, celery.

Centre: Climbing squash
One side: Carrots and aubergine
Other side: Red onions and aubergine

Centre: Tomatoes
One side: Marigold and lettuce
Other side: Courgette, lettuce, celery

Centre: Beans
Side: Leeks, carrots, dill
Other side: Leeks, carrots, bush cucumbers.

Another non trellis bed given to courgette and carrots on the edges.

Other plants growing around the place in pots, irregular beds and the pavement are:

Melons, asparagus, chard, artichokes, berries, kale, cabbage, medicinal herbs, strawberries, loads of herbs and celery. We also have avocado, granadilla, apples, oranges, lemons and figs growing around the place.

Writing this out makes me realise the bounty we have here. Not all things are producing yet, like the apples and avocado trees but should be soon.

And then? Once all your planning is done...get planting.

STEP NUMBER 5 is to start planting. DO NOT plant everything at once. You will end up with gluts of things, wastage or exhaustion as you try to process everything for storage. I prefer to eat fresh over pickled or preserved and I can because of our mild climate.

So this summer season I will plant beds and spaces as they come available because there is so much still growing and producing. I will simply add some worm tea, compost or worm compost to the space and mulch over once planted.

Last season the beds were empty and I planted one bed every two weeks which kept us going (and still is) with a steady inflow of vegetables and herbs. This worked well in that we could eat for e.g. baby peas raw and then by the time we got to the last bed, full grown peas in cooked meals.

I realise this is just one season in and not tested over the long haul by trial and error, so if you are willing to take a [small] gamble, drop me a note here or on Facebook to let me know what you are planning for your garden.

You can see my Grow Veg plans for the two gardens here:

Kitchen Garden

Pond Garden

Look forward to hearing from you!

The sad story of my asparagus and a delicious recipe

Asparagus season is here. I love asparagus. I don't care that it has an after odour (nudge nudge wink wink). It is a fabulous health giving little plant.

One of the first things I planted back in 2008 were 12 asparagus seeds. I nurtured them year in and year out until they were big enough to be planted into their final place in 2010. 4 years after the seeds were sown (2012) we were able to start harvesting the spears.

Oh the sweet sweet taste of those first few we cut. The joy of seeing them sticking their tops out of the soil. The delight as each year the harvest grew...until this year.

It was my fault.

I should have told him.

I really needed to explain better.

Sam weeded the asparagus bed for me in August, but he used a fork and I believe he damaged most of the crowns.


We have had a dismal harvest of asparagus with very few spears. So sad, so sad. I will feed them, love them and see what happens next year.

But, never a girl to be kept down long...when I did my grocery shopping yesterday I saw the most magnificent spears and couldn't resist.


Today I made them into a heavenly soup...Superman said so, so we believe him :)



Here is what I did:

2 freshly picked onions
4 cloves of garlic
Zest of the last lemon on our tree

Slowly sizzled in some butter.

 

Remove the tips of two bunches of asparagus and set aside. Chop the spears into chunks and add to the onion. Add in some dry thyme and 400ml chicken stock.

Slowly simmer for 20 minutes then use a hand blender to make smooth.

Return the the heat and add 100ml cream, salt and pepper and the tips. Reheat.

I am sure it would be superb just on its own, but on Saturday I picked up some bacon from CURE and I fried up some bits until crisp and added this as a finish.

Nom Nom Nom!

DIY Cucumber frame

This post should be called the engineering design challenged mom's guide to building a cucumber frame! But will go with DIY cucumber frame for sake of simplicity.

There are climbing cucumbers and bush cucumbers - I have grown both. I do however prefer climbing ones for two simple reasons being that the bush cucumbers tend to be smaller and the fruit has a tendency to hang on the ground.

Cucumbers are on of those foods that we eat a lot of, but cannot store well. It's always a toss up with how many plants to plant and whether we will actually be able to use them all before they are spoiled by pests, hot weather or neglect.

I normally plant an early crop in a tub and choose the round lemon cucumbers and then around about now plant some into the vegetable garden. Last year I attempted to make a horrid farm for them to climb over and planted spinach under the frame hoping the cucumber growth would shade up the delicate spinach leaves, but this caused failure of two crops.

This year I thought I would try a more traditional way and have made a spiffing new frame from recycled wood and a bit of garden mesh. So here's how and engineering design challenged mom made a cucumber trellis.

You will need:

-3 1.5m long wooden poles of about 7-10cm diameter with one sharp end

-A length of plastic garden mesh

-Staple gun

-Scissors

-A well appreciated and handy Sam!

The dimensions of the poles are based on my bed which is 3.10m in length. If your bed is smaller you may only need two poles, but the middle one gives good rigidity.

Unroll the mesh and staple it firmly to one pole aligning the top of the mesh with the flat end of the pole. Halfway down the length of mesh staple your next pole and then again at the end of the mesh length.

Dig a hole for each pole in your bed and use a hammer to bang the sharp edge of the pole into the soil compacting it around the pole when filing up the hole again. I ran my climbing frame down the center of the bed. On the sunny side I will plant tomatoes in front of the cucumber and on the shady side I will plant lettuce. This allows me to grow three vegetables in one bed making use of vertical space.

I also left about a 20cm gap between the soil level and the mesh as a cucumber vine can support itself for this little bit and having the higher mesh allows it to grow higher and create more flowers.

I then planted up the bed and hopefully in a few weeks will have a positive report to give you all.

Are you growing cucumbers this year?

5 reasons why people don't grow vegetables

Having just returned from the UK on a lovely visit with my sister and her family we returned to find our garden into the full swing of spring.

One of the gardens yesterday

The tiny seedlings that were planted before I left are knee high, spinach has bolted, potatoes are ready to be dug out, tomatoes putting out their first flowers and cucumbers climbing up their trellis.

What a joy to know that from now on we will be eating daily from the garden. There is a huge amount of satisfaction in walking through the garden and seeing food for today, some for tomorrow and others for later in the month growing there.

It is pesticide and fertiliser free attested to the fact that bees and butterflies are visiting, snails and slugs hide under the lettuces and caterpillars munch away at the leaves of the brassicas.

Cucumbers in a barrel

It got me to thinking about why people wouldn't want to grow some of their own vegetables and I came up with a few thoughts based on what people have said over the years. I hope my thoughts on each of these will help you climb over your obstacles and embrace a little bit of veggie growing.

1. SPACE

While this may seem like a big problem it is actually only relative to what you want to grow. Even on our 300 m2 of arable land there are things I would love to grow but can't due to my space constraints. You simply need to grow what you can in the space that you have. Herbs can grow in containers on sunny windowsills, pots on balconies or like I do in pots on our paved area near the pool.

Making use of vertical space means that you can make a door sized bed and grow something climbing (beans, cucumbers, peas) in the centre of the bed, then grow something hip height around the outskirts of those plants like tomatoes and then right around the side of the bed you can grow herbs like basil or coriander.

Strawberry baskets dot all our walls

If you don't have a garden you can use a balcony to grow any of the plants mentioned above with some clever planning using pots and some form of climbing frame.

2. TIME

Tomatoes with their first blooms

I understand time constraints well. 4 children, homeschooling, home business, sports and cultural events, cooking from scratch, a menagerie of animals doesn't leave much time to twiddle my thumbs.

And, yes, I will admit that in the beginning it took time to establish a veggie garden and there are crunch times when you have to get plants into the ground or harvests processed but in general I do not spend more than 2 hours a week directly involved in the garden.

You need to simply decide what time you do have available and decide if you want to spend any or all of it in the garden. If you don't, then I wonder why you are reading this blog... :) :) :)

I also have Sam now to help me on a Friday which is has taken a huge load off my shoulders trying to keep up with the weeds, heavy garden work and general maintenance. We used to do this all until recently but with the current levels of work and study for my children I simply can't take up a whole day to work.

Sam has been a Godsend to us and has brought back the enjoyment of being able to do the nice things like sowing seed, planting out, tending too and harvesting.

Globe Artichoke

3. KNOW-HOW

If you are like my Superman you want to know all the ins and outs before taking the first step. If you are like me, you will jump in with both feet when the idea grabs you. Together Superman and I make a good team balancing the need for knowledge with the ability to "just do it".

There are those out there who want to know all about soil ph and what to feed to which plant when, I honestly couldn't be bothered. I do know enough about what a plant likes - for instance our Blueberries need an annual dose of pine needles or Rooibos mulch - but I have gardened simply for a long time now making sure we feed the soil lots of compost, worm tea, Bounce Back, bone meal and making sure that I plant a legume in a cycle throughout the beds in a year. I believe the plants take what they need from the soil and as we replenish with each new planting they will be fine.

There is a vast amount of information to get started on the internet and in print. These books all pretty much say the same thing so getting one good book on growing vegetables is all you need. Troubleshooting is nice to do on the web as its quick to see what the plant needs, Youtube is a stellar place to go for gardening inspiration and you are welcome to join our little FaceBook group here to ask your questions.

4. FEAR

Potatoes harvested yesterday

One of the things I needed to overcome was if after putting money into establishing raised beds we would face a crop failure and waste all the money. Well we have had lots of crop failures, but it wasn't money that I was worried about as I watched tomatoes die of blight, potato crops not come to pass, corn form weird kernels after waiting for them for 3 months...I was sad because of wasted time and then the loss of money.

Other people have told me they fear getting started and the commitment, others who worry about what people will say or not having the know how (see above). When we started we had a lot of people joke about our farm, neighbours who told us our compost heap would attract rats (we got cats to silence that) and our children would tell their friends they lived in a cottage plonked in the middle of a vegetable garden. I really do not worry about what other people have to say about our choice and we make sure our animals (read:chickens) don't bother them.

Perhaps fear of failure is something in your life, but I guarantee it manifests in other areas and is not directly related to veggie gardening, go on...give it a try...grow some tomatoes in a pot and you will soon overcome your fear.

5. LAZINESS

Well, we all struggle with this in one way or another, don't we? There are so many things that pull at us in this age that we live in, not just living life but cyberspace can gulp up loads of time. Then we have a moment to ourselves and what we choose to do with it is between you and yourself. If you don't want to grow veggies because you are lazy, then so be it.

I would challenge you though that when you put the first lettuce in a bowl, peel your first carrot or dig up your first potato, this act will become more enticing than the couch, TV or FaceBook. But like I said, its between you and yourself.

I am sure there are other reasons people don't grow vegetables, but these were the ones I thought about today while enjoying beautiful spinach, broad beans, onions and potatoes during the day's meals.

Voted the Beauty of the day

Our little patch of Earth

This time of the year is such an in between time where we have vegetables finishing off their turn in the beds and new ones starting out. There are beds that appear empty but under the soil little seeds are casting off their jackets and sending out their roots and radicles. Other beds are full of growth, rich and green. Here is a quick overview of what is growing on our little patch of Earth.

Left hand side, coriander. Front lettuce and courgette underground

Tiny corn plants under the "cat traps" to stop them digging up the seedlings.

My youngest's magical square foot garden, it is plentiful and pretty with all the different leaves

Potatoes in the foreground, broad beans behind

Gorgeous broad beans, loved by adults, hated by kids!

Spinach bed - all the bright lights!

What is growing in your "in-between" garden?

The case of the confused tomato (or is it the gardener?)

While there is something humbly satisfying and nourishing about growing winter veg I always feel a stir in my soul when it comes to sowing my seeds for summer crops. Tomatoes, sweet corn, squash, beans...tall and sprawling.

At the end of last summer I decided I would not grow more than two tomato varieties - one for salads and the other for sauces. But I am afraid to say I did not stick to agreement...who can when you read names like:

Ailsa Craig

Green zebra striped tomato

Amish salad tomato

Aunt Ginny's purple tomato

Beefsteak tomato

Roma tomato

Amish paste tomato

Black cherry

Yellow pear

How is a girl to choose?

This gardening girl has to choose as my garden is not big enough to host all these wonderful names. I have chose 5 varieties and will be staggering their planting so that they do not have flowers at the same time to prevent cross pollination.

As I also needed a system to stop me confusing all the seedlings I turned to the boxes we have collected because of buying juicing vegetables for our daily juices.

Each tomato variety is started as per usual in a newspaper pot and the filled pots are placed into a beer box.



When they have their first leaves, I transplant them into bigger pots and then place them in a labelled fruit box.

In a few weeks they will be transplanted once more, slightly deeper, into bigger pots and then labelled with a marker cut from an old milk container.

I have started two varieties already - Roma and Beefsteak - which will be the first in the ground. About 2 weeks later I will do the next batch and so on.

I am hoping that I will be able to see all 5 varieties to the table. Last year we lost most of our tomatoes to blight which was quite disheartening.

One way to avoid it again is to plant in a different area than that year. It was also seed that I had brought in from the USA which would have been acclimatised to that climate, not ours.

This year I am using South African seed and won't import again, now that I am a bit wiser.

Talking about seed varieties, I picked up my seed potatoes and other seed packs from Living Seeds and I was delighted to see their new print catalogue.  Take a look at this fantastic gardening help, so much more than a seed catalogue!

You can buy a catalogue here for R20 or you can get one for free when you place your order of a certain value with Living Seeds.

Drifting through the seasons

Today I looked back to August 2013 and 2012 on my blog to see what I was doing around this same time and it struck me how the flow of planning, buying, sowing, planting is a natural part of my life now.

When I started out I devoured every blog post, website, video and book about how to do this thing. I needed the information to get started and equipped for what turned out to be a huge amount of work and effort in converting our garden into a mini urban farm.

A lot of what I do not in the garden is internalized, as I know what has to happen when for the most part. I know that from August to September I need to get the seeds that are not sown directly into beds my ready in newspaper pots. I know that from October onwards we have the busiest time planting and staking on through December.

Summer brings another burst of work as we fight off pests and disease on the plants. Harvests start coming in as the corn ripens, the tomatoes blush and the peppers swell. I love the tallness of the corn stalks, the creeping of the squashes, the smell of tomato plants in the sun.

Then it comes to clearing out again and adding compost and autumn is upon us once more. For instance I know that it takes about 4-5 months for the compost to be ready as I have watched the heap change month by month over the last 6 years and have smelled the change in the contents until it turns into gorgeous black gold to feed our vegetables.

Having done this for so long now I no longer feel anxious or worried about the garden and the growing of food. It has a gentle flow of its own as we care for it, plan it and work in it.

I also went all out into the bread baking, stock making, canning and preserving thing that filled both days on the weekend back in the first years. I am exhausted just thinking back to the frenzied activity of those first days.

I have calmed down a lot since then, thank goodness. I am not sure who my taskmaster was in those days, why I felt so driven and what I was trying to prove to myself, but while they were certainly productive days making soap, bread, herbal remedies, jams and cakes, I don’t hanker after it at all.

Now when we have lots of strawberries, I will make some jam or we will eat them fresh. If we want bread we’ll make it. If I need stock, I will set it to cook slowly all day. 5 weeks before we run out of soap, I make some more. It’s now also just part of the flow of our home.

I love the gentle ebb and flow of the seasons now, I don’t measure them any longer by children’s growth and activities, but rather by what is growing in the garden and what food is on our plate. 

Summer corn freshly picked and steamed served with butter and salt…slow roast tomatoes in the over for pasta sauce….beautiful new potatoes with parsley and butter….and my absolute favorite – just cut asparagus quickly steamed and eaten with Hollandaise sauce.

So here I am loving the end of winter and eagerly anticipating spring.