Organic veggie gardening

Peas, red cabbage and broad beans, flourishing under shade netting.

Last summer the sun was so strong that my vegetables were burnt to a crisp in just one day. Then I was given the book "Companion planting" by Margaret Roberts, in which she states that her father predicted 30 years ago, that one day the sun will be too strong to grow vegetables successfully. There is a picture of her veggie garden under shade and she says that they love it. I decided that this is the only way forward and went out to buy white shade netting for the top and green for the sides. I want to keep the chickens out at the same time.

The white shade netting gives 12% shade. Obviously veggies need the sun in order to grow so I decided to start with that, and see how the veggies like it. I can always go up to 20% if it is still too hot. On a hot day one can immediately feel the difference under the netting - it takes the "edge" off the heat.

Red cabbage and Calendulas seem to be happy together.

The combination of red cabbage and calendulas is my own idea, and it seems to be a success. The red cabbage is forming beautiful heads and is hardly affected by insects. The Calendulas' leaves are quite chewed up, but I spotted a white eye eating insects off them, so there is quite some harmony there. I still have to make more use of companion planting, but so far everything seems very happy anyway. I am careful to rotate crops, and put beans in after brassicas to nourish the soil.

Peas looking happy.

The chickens scratched in the veggie patch through most of the winter, so I reckon the soil was nicely fertilised by the spring. I picked enormous broccoli heads which weighed more than a kilogram each. It is so nice to know that the broccoli has never been sprayed! Also there wasn't a single bug on it. Generally I don't have a bug problem at all. I think the chickens get rid of most slug and snail eggs. I hope that the garden in general is a harmonious place for all insects, so that there is no domination of one type over another. One  grub that is annoying is the cut worm, and to avoid it I place collars made out of yoghurt containers around seedlings.

You can see in the picture here that a seedling succumbed to a cut worm and is lying neatly severed. I was not expecting that to happen, so a bit belatedly have protected the others (I hope). I try to grow as many veggies from seed, but also get seedlings from a local supplier when I need a head start. It's a good idea to get tomatoes in as early as possible to avoid blight, so I started some of my seedlings in July. There are already small tomatoes on some of them. The bed pictured here is not under shade but gets afternoon shade. It is for tomatoes, basil and aubergines. Time will tell if they too need shade.

Can you spot the visitor to the compost heap?

Organic orange marmalade - the herbal way.

This marmalade has still got some way to cook. The bubbles are much too big.

In my opinion, breakfast isn't breakfast without orange marmalade on toasted home made bread.
I like to take advantage of winter fruit and make enough marmalade to last for the whole year. It's also appreciated as a gift by my family and friends. I buy organic oranges and organic sugar from Woolies. I like to use Artemisia afra (wilde als) herb to give it a more bitter flavour. If you don't have wilde als, you can use Leonotis leonurus (wild dagga) or Marrubium vulgare (white horehound), but as these are much more bitter than wilde als, use them more sparingly. Try ten leaves of either.

Ingredients

10 organic oranges
2kg organic sugar
Juice of 6 organic oranges

10 large sprigs of wilde als (optional) see pic>
2.5 l filtered water

Method

Top and tail the washed oranges, cut in halves and finely slice. Cut the slices into quarters. Boil the water and add the wilde als. Infuse for at least an hour. Strain the water and add to the sliced oranges. Heat the mixture until it starts to boil, then switch off the stove and leave over night.
Next day add the orange juice and sugar, and bring the mix up to the boil again. Simmer until it has reduced by about a third and has very small bubbles on the surface.

Test it by putting a small amount on a saucer in the fridge for a few minutes. If it wrinkles when pushed by a spoon it is ready.
Put it into warm, clean jars, and allow to cool. Once it is completely cool you can put the lids on, label and store in the cupboard for many delicious breakfasts. You can tweak this recipe by using some lemon juice or extra bitter leaves, just be brave and experiment.

Lime blossom tea

Lime blossom

This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons

Tilia cordata

Lime blossom is the flower head of the Tilia tree, a highly scented tree when it is in flower which has inspired poets and song writers.  In Europe the tree is a favourite and lines many avenues.  It is the national tree of the Czech republic and the Slovak republic. Some specimens are estimated to be up to two thousand years old. In France the flowers have been used traditionally for a tea called “Tilleul”.  A monofloral  honey from the lime tree is extremely highly valued and often used in medicine.

Lime tree flowers  contain flavonoids, mucilage, tannins, volatile oil, saponins and sugars. The tea tastes quite pleasant and is very soothing for the digestive system. The mucilaginous effect is useful for respiratory problems and the tea has been traditionally used for fevers, flu and colds.  Lime is antispasmodic, sedative and hypotensive. I t can be used for fever, headache and anxiety. It is often specifically used for high blood pressure associated with hardening of the arteries. The rich flavonoid content has a strengthening effect on blood vessels, and is generally antioxidant.

In my practice I like to make a flavonoid tea which is preventative against vascular damage and strengthening for the cardiovascular system in general. Herbs containing rutin such as rue, elder flower and buchu;  solidago which I have previously written about, and lime blossom would make up the perfect tea.

So how about a nice cuppa? In a world where everything is about "pick me up", it makes a change to have something to relax and have health benefits. Tilleul tea is available from many good tea companies.

Nasturtium pesto

Nasturtiums are very plentiful at this time of the year. They are packed with nutrients like iron, vitamins and minerals and contain chemicals called glucosinolates, (similar to what we find in broccoli and brussel sprouts), which have antibiotic and antioxidant actions. Nasturtium is excellent for people with chest problems and Madaus, a company in Germany make capsules from it, for treatment of antibiotic resistant lung and bladder infections.

One can eat both the leaves and the flowers raw in salads. The leaves are very strong when eaten alone, but on a sandwich they don't burn the mouth, but add a great flavour. They certainly are more nutritious than ordinary lettuce.
 I invented this pesto recipe to preserve as many of the rich nutrients of the leaves for as long as possible. I find it quite delicious. I am going to freeze quite a lot for use in the summer, because by then the nasturtiums in my garden are finished.

Nasturtium pesto: 200g freshly picked nasturtium leaves. (Check for aphids and brush them off. There is no need to wash the leaves if they are grown away from a road.) 250ml good quality olive oil, 100g pumpkin seeds, 50g fresh garlic, 1tspn Ina Paarman Chilli and Garlic salt. Method: Place the olive oil in a blender and add the nasturtium leaves gradually until they are all ground up. Add the rest of the ingredients and blend until smooth. If you wish you could add 50g or so of parmesan cheese which would make it even more delicious! This is very nice instead of butter on a sandwich and good on toast as a snack. Best of all it's very good for one's health!



The life and death adventures of my bantams.

The two "old girls" with the three young bantams.

Here in suburbia my bantams face all sorts of life threatening events, both from within the property and from outside, as we live opposite farm land. At present I have five bantams. Two are old girls, at least ten years of age, and very healthy and fit. Three (which were four) are newcomers, hatched out by one of the old girls a couple of months ago.

I have been keeping chickens for many years now, so long that I can't remember when I started. Over the years they have met their end by various means. One who used to sit on the wall under a creeper to lay her eggs, fell off stone dead one day. She would have needed a post mortem to find out what the cause of death was. One or two drowned in the pool. Several were swiftly finished off by my own dogs. I found one black hen in bed with my first male pointer. Naturally it was no longer alive, and my shriek of horror was enough to remind him for the rest of his days, that chickens are not for catching.

Luckily and amazingly, despite the fact that they are hunting dogs, they are intelligent enough to learn that the chickens are mine, and "not theirs!" So mostly they tip toe around the chickens,  alternately eyeing me and them. If for some reason there is an alarming flapping of wings, even the best trained dog will get excited and his instincts will take over, so vigilance is called for in this regard. Just recently I found one of the little bantams dead around the corner and another with a severely injured neck. Initially I blamed the dogs for both incidents, but later I reasoned that the dogs' powerful jaws would not injure the fragile bantam's neck without killing it, so I placed the blame on a very ugly cat that I spied prowling around. I reckon the cat had got hold of the chicken and in the ensuing racket and flapping of wings, one of the dogs joined in and killed one of the other chooks. This was punished by extreme measures! Both dogs were scrupulously ignored for 24 hours and neither got their bedtime biscuit.

The injured chook was wrapped and placed in a basket to heal. I soon realised that her injuries were not life threatening when I found the basket empty and her missing. But I soon found her and kept her isolated  and warm for a couple of nights. She spent the next couple of days huddled in the sun. She drank lots of water, sitting for hours beside my pond, dipping her beak in and tipping her head back to get the water down. Once she started eating again I knew the worst was over and now she is perfectly fine with just a few ruffled feathers around her neck.

 I learned many years ago that chickens heal very well. We had at the time, a snow white  bantam chicken. On a moonlit night it was so white it was  luminous. Naturally this meant that any cat or mongoose could zoom in on it very easily, and one night I was woken up by the most awful, blood-curdling scream and flapping of wings that sent my heart into frantic palpitations. I realised there was nothing I could do as the desperate shrieks disappeared around the corner of the house. Next morning I followed a trail of white feathers around the house fully expecting to find the chicken lying half eaten on the path. Much to my astonishment it was huddled up under a bush, rather bald in patches with a few scrapes, but otherwise fine. She made a complete recovery. Unfortunately she met her end at the hands of a mongoose some time later, and disappeared without trace.

It is a fact that when chickens are free range, they lay their eggs all over the place, and one is regularly searching for their nests. My dog is very good at finding them and to my great annoyance snaffles the eggs if I don't get there first. A few years ago one of the chickens made a nest under the nasturtium against the wall in my veggie patch, where it is nice and sunny and warm. She was extremely broody and wouldn't leave that nest for anything. I even removed all the eggs, but she remained firmly at her post! She sat there for many weeks, and one day I went to check on her. Her eyes were closed and she was as still as death. "Oh you poor little thing," I said feeling very sad, "You've died on your nest." I took a stick and prodded her just to make sure......and her eye opened. I admit I jumped from shock before I started laughing.

The juvenile bantams  are extremely adventurous, unlike the two old girls who never venture into the front garden. The three scratch about together all over the garden, even going out of the property into my neighbour's garden, where there is a resident dachshund. I'm sure it's a very funny sight  seeing me sneaking about in the neighbours shrubbery with my arms wide open, trying to coax them out of harm's way, and back to safe territory. The other day they were outside the fence in the street foraging under the trees when a man walking his dog started yelling at the top of his voice as his dog made a bee line for the chooks. There was a mad scramble of man, dog and chickens before they got back through the fence and scurried off as fast as their little legs could carry them. I'm sure the guy was very relieved!

I have some extremely heavy fencing material which I have curved around my one compost heap. Imagine my absolute horror, when coming around the corner of the house the other day, to see the fence had fallen over and squashed flat  beneath it were the familiar colours of the young bantam's feathers. I uttered a very loud, "OH NO!" and rushed forward. To my amazement the little head was poked up between the wire square and it's eyes were blinking! I lifted the piece of fence up and gathered the poor thing into my hands, thinking at the very least the legs, which had been at an awful angle, were broken. Not at all. After a few minutes of intense quivering in my hands, the little thing started to struggle and wanted to be released. Off it went in perfect form.
I meanwhile, take about half an hour to calm down after these incidents. A decent dose of Valeriana is called for. Thank goodness I'm a herbalist.

Pecking order

One of the best things I did a couple of years ago, was to put clear glass in the bathrooms instead of the frosted. This gives me a very good view of the activities in the garden as my bathroom overlooks the busiest area, namely the chicken coop.
Not too long ago my one bantam hen sat on seven fertile eggs that I got from a neighbour. Three of the eggs came out of a nest in her garden, and four came out of her fridge, having been collected a few days before. Out of this lot hatched four chicks. And amazingly they were all hens. There are photos of them in this blog, so do have a look. Sadly one of them was killed by my dog the other day, so now I'm being extra vigilant. This was a first such incident.

Anyway to get back to my story. The chicks grew up and when mother hen eventually decided that they were big enough to fend for themselves, she literally pecked them out of her life. No longer were they allowed to share the perch at night, but have been banished to sitting on top of the coop. If the chicks get in her way at feeding time, they get a vicious pecking, so I place two piles of food - one for the elders and one for the juniors. Even the juniors are subjected to the odd jab from the smallest of the three. Talk about sticking up for yourself!

 Once they have had their fill, the doves come and have a meal. The doves too have their pecking order, with the larger Cape turtle dove chasing away the laughing dove. The chickens often chase the doves away if they decide to come back for a snack. It's very funny to watch them hurl themselves at the doves, and the doves flap away to sit and watch until they can have another turn. Amusingly, sometimes the doves have a way of opening their wings to make themselves look bigger, and strut around briefly like that while they feed. This could be because the sparrows are waiting! Not long and they come and force their way in between and eat the seeds that get pushed out to the edges.

There is often a huge squabble at this stage, especially when other birds like weavers join in.


Once the birds have eaten, along comes a rat family. Mum, dad and two kids. Initially I was rather horrified, but I've got used to them now. They live in the woodpiles in my neighbour's garden and visit for a breakfast and some supper. I am not going to poison them, because they will make a nice meal for the Burchell's coucal and any owls that might visit. My neighbour recently fixed a wonderful owl box onto the house where the visiting barn owl stayed for a few days (see previous posts) and we are very hopeful that an owl will find it inviting.

It is very amusing to see how the turtle doves chase the rats away, but the funniest thing I've seen so far is when the smallest bantam torpedoed itself out of the bushes towards one that was nibbling away - and almost reached it to give it a peck. It was hilarious and left no doubt as to who rules the roost here!

My ten year old German pointer Lila is a very patient old girl and stands for ages by the chicken coop waiting for the emergence of any rat......

Herbs in food as medicine for winter.

Herbs in food as medicine for winter.

Eating seasonal foods and eating according to the seasons is a sensible idea for health reasons as well as reasons pertaining to our planet. Winter is a time when we need to keep warm, so warming, comfort-style foods are going to be the most effective in this regard. The Chinese believe we should eat according to the seasons and actually have five seasons, the extra one being Indian summer.

In nature plants differ according to the seasons in that in autumn and winter many plants “die back” storing the nutrients in their roots, before sprouting anew in the spring. Herbalists make use of this by harvesting many roots at this time when the level of nutrients and chemical constituents is at its highest.

Chefs are not usually focussing on the health properties of the dishes they prepare, but unknowingly as they add herbs for the flavour or their dishes, they are adding health giving properties. It would be good if they knew more about these!

In cookery, root vegetables are used more during winter for making stews, roast vegetable dishes and as accompaniments for heavy meat meals. Such hearty fare is warming and nurturing but can be stodgy and acid forming. The extra starches in winter food can also be mucus forming, which makes people more susceptible to catching colds and flu. Herbs in cooking can lessen the side effects of winter food by subtly helping the kidneys and liver. At the same time herbs bring unsurpassed flavour to most dishes.

I believe in cooking from scratch. This means I have most herbs and spices in my kitchen, to blend and use as the dish demands. Most of the meals I cook start with one or two chopped onions sautéed in olive oil. This is the ideal time to add herbs that are rich in aromatic oils such as torn fresh bay leaves, thyme, sage, rosemary, garlic and ginger. The heat of the olive oil, helps release the aromatic oils of the herbs. I never use a high heat, rather a low heat that sweats the onion and herbs to release the juices into the olive oil. Herbs rich in aromatic oils usually have very good antiseptic, antibacterial and antioxidant properties. They will protect against flu and colds when used regularly. They also help to keep blood vessels healthy and encourage good circulation.

The same principle applies to spices – which are anyway regarded as herbs by herbalists. Lightly frying them releases the flavours, and using them regularly can help the circulation, especially garlic, chilli and ginger, and act as antiseptics too. Turmeric is a powerful anti-inflammatory and is something one can use in many dishes, either hot or mild curries for example, for easing the pain of arthritis.

For colds and flu good old chicken soup to move mucus and to hydrate the body, is still the best. Antiseptic herbs like sage, thyme, oregano and garlic, with parsley and celery as blood cleansers, make the perfect medicine. Garlic, wasabi and horseradish break down mucus, and are great for people with chronic sinus problems.

Bay leaves, celery, parsley and lovage are diuretic and good for the kidneys. They also help for arthritis, so regular use can supplement other treatment. Rosemary, ginger and garlic are excellent for the circulatory system, and will enhance memory if there is poor blood flow to the brain. Thyme is a powerful antiseptic, good for treating coughs, even better when combined with garlic,and healthy for the liver. Bitter herbs such as chicory will also help the liver function better.

Most herbs go well in a soup or with meat dishes. Starting off a soup with onions and bay leaves gives it a wonderful flavour. Add some cloves for an interesting contrast, and don’t forget lovage which is unsurpassable as a soup herb. Herbs in food put small amounts of antiseptic into your body every day, as well as boosting elimination of waste by stimulating the liver, kidneys and circulation. This in turn keeps you looking healthy, as the skin benefits from the antioxidant and stimulating action of the chemical constituents of the herbs.

Try to vary your cooking on a daily basis by choosing a different herb or combination of herbs. Tonight for example I'm doing chicken with sage. The sage that you see in the photo above will soon be in the pan giving off its wonderful flavour before I add the chicken and garlic. And some crispy fried sage leaves as a garnish will add the final delicious and healthy touch!