Abundance

It is interesting how fruit trees seem to have a good year and then a not so good year. The olive harvest may be excellent one year and mediocre the next; other fruit can range from none to one or many! This season has been a bumper season for me. That doesn't mean that I have tons of fruit but certainly a nice supply to eat and share with family.
The birds also have their fair share. It's a pity they eat the unripe fruit! Anyway, I cover parts of the trees with netting and don't really worry too much about the birds because I appreciate the diverse bird life in my garden.
So this year I've had prunes, apples, figs and lemons galore. There were a couple of bunches of grapes, but they disappeared before they were ripe I also harvested a couple of kilograms of luscious youngberries.

The Olive trees are looking promising after years of not bearing any olives. They are Manzanilla and probably not the best variety to have. I also have one mission olive which usually produces a reasonable crop of olives.

My lemon tree has been groaning under the weight of lemons. I keep banging my head against them! 52 lemons on a smallish tree. Some of them are as big as grapefruit. This lemon tree didn't have a single lemon for many years but now it's making up for that! In a storm a few months ago, it blew over (partly due to the weight of the lemons) and my garden helper and I pulled it upright and staked it firmly. It hardly noticed that it had been uprooted.

I have another lemon tree in the bee garden that started out as a kumquat tree. Then it had fruits that didn't know whether they were lemons or oranges. Now it has settled down to plain lemons.

Soon it will be guava season.....

The apples have their fair share of blemishes and coddling moth damage. They will be used for juicing and making cider vinegar. Maybe also an apple pie. Like the lemon tree that started out as a kumquat, the apple tree started out as a crab apple tree. Obviously the original stem somehow took over and now it is a huge and beautiful apple tree producing a good number of granny smith type apples.

So all round there has been abundance and I haven't even talked about the honey. I'm wondering if the lovely fruit this year has anything to do with the many extra bees in the garden these days.

My hypothesis on helping the bees - natural antibiotics

A bee enjoying the flower of the ribbon bush - Hypoestes aristata

 

I was watching the clip about AFB disease in the Western Cape on the TV program Carte Blanche, when I had a thought that is probably not original, but may well be an idea that farmers and beekeepers could bear in mind. Many beekeepers in the world believe the answer to diseases in the hive is to strengthen the bees naturally. They have a "survival of the fittest" approach. It is quite widely believed that there are many factors that have weakened bees, for example, the use of antibiotics, insecticides, feeding bees sugar, the use of chemicals in hives, monocultures, stress etc. When the one beekeeper who was interviewed  said that the only way to get rid of American foulbrood disease is to use antibiotics, I realised that in natural, wild areas the bees get all the antibiotics they need from plants and these plants are missing in the urban and agricultural environment.
 

Because I am a phytotherapist (medical herbalist) I have a garden full of medicinal plants. Many of these plants have excellent antibacterial properties as well as antifungal and antiviral properties. I use these all the time for my patients instead of life destroying antibiotics. (Antibiotics are rarely used to save a life these days, they are more commonly used as routine panaceas to a gullible and ignorant public. If people understood the effects of antibiotics on their microflora, they wouldn't be so quick to demand them. Doctors in South Africa shouldn't be dishing them out like sweeties either.)Antibiotics, whether used on man or insects, cause genetic changes which result in resistance. In humans this resistance can last for two years or longer from one course of antibiotics. It stands to reason that people who are continually taking antibiotics will have stronger resistance genes and weakened immune systems than those who rarely take them. The same applies to insects.

 

So my theory is that by improving  biodiversity for bees on farms and at apiaries, using medicinal herbs with antibiotic properties, bees would be getting a dose of medicine quite regularly throughout the seasons. Even those that are used to pollinate orchards, when removed from the orchard they could have a spell in a medicinal herb garden area, designed to keep them healthy.

 

I am sure that some beekeepers will have already made the connection between bee health and the bees' environment. For instance are bees that feed on Eucalyptus healthier than those that feed on apple blossom? Are bees that feed on fynbos generally healthier? I can't answer these questions but I think beekeepers should be enquiring as to whether all bees irrespective of where they are, are prone to American foulbrood, or are some less affected?

 

Here in SA we have stripped the countryside of it's natural biodiversity by removing nearly all the natural flora and replacing it with monoculture crops( like canola). We don't have fields full of yarrow as one sees in Europe, or thyme in the grass and Echinacea in the parks. In fact most of our suburban parks and gardens have only shrubs, grass and trees. There are very few wild areas left so the aromatic fynbos herbs are limited, compared to how it was before agriculture ruined the land. We also don't have the same flora as in Europe, which has survived because it is native or naturalised to the region and grown everywhere, on sidewalks and fields and gardens. Imagine my surprise to see Echinacea growing in a dry looking flowerbed at a petrol station in the Czech republic! (Echinacea by the way is native to North America).

 

It is no coincidence that aromatic herbs have antimicrobial properties, due to the essential oils in the leaves and flowers. Bees also love these plants eg rosemary, sage, thyme and lavender. These plants are not native to South Africa, but should be grown a lot more to supplement medicinal benefits for the bees. In the case of rosemary and lavender, they are hardy and drought tolerant. In European botanical gardens one often sees the most stunning thyme beds literally swarming with bees. Thyme has antifungal and antimicrobial properties. Echinacea, once established is very hardy and reasonably drought tolerant. It is the mainstay of any antibiotic treatment in herbal medicine and bees love it. They wriggle their way between the spiky flower heads, (which seems to be quite a struggle), in order to get the pollen they want.

My opinion is, that we need to enhance the bees' immunity by planting flowers with antibiotic, antifungal and immune enhancing properties. Some indigenous plants might well do this, but in urban and agricultural areas there is not enough fynbos to do this. So we must embrace the herbs that we know have the phytochemicals they need for enhanced immunity. Some of these are:

Sage; Rosemary; Thyme; Echinacea; Tulbachia (wild garlic); Garlic; Lavender; Buchu; Marjoram; Thuja; Myrtle; Olive; Eucalyptus, Garlic chives, Coriander; Aniseed; Fennel; Caraway; Rue; Yarrow; Artemisia spp; Juniper; Plectranthus neochilus; Hyssop. Strongly aromatic plants and plants with resin are the types of plants to look out for. Some aloes might have antimicrobial properties, but I don't know which ones, apart from Aloe vera. Aloes are important winter flowers for bees, as well as Cotyledon orbiculata (plakkie) flowers

Plant in big clumps, not dotted all over the place. Bees prefer to forage in an area where plants are in masses. Spread the word among your friends and neighbours. It's not enough to be bee-friendly, we need to get the right plants in place for their medicinal requirements.

 

 



Bee Killer or Killer Bee?

Mention the word bee to most people and they shudder.  Not in the same way that people shudder over a spider or snake, but in a way that indicates a certain painful sting if one should be in their vicinity.  A common statement made is that they are allergic to bee stings. Funnily enough many people who say that they are allergic to bee stings don’t carry a bee sting kit or wear a Medic Alert bracelet! If you are truly allergic to bee stings, you could die without immediate treatment.

Most people who have been stung by a bee will experience pain and swelling in the area. This may last an hour or two or a few days. This is not an allergy, but merely a reaction. This can be treated with  Echinacea applied to the area that was stung, and taken internally. Vinegar is also useful to apply to the stung area. I once received 30 or more stings to my face and head and was fully recovered after two days. I have developed a sting gel which works very well indeed. I was the guinea pig, and the stung area was better in two hours (better = hardly noticeable).

It is an extremely rare event for a swarm of bees to attack an animal or human. It does happen, but usually because the swarm in its home was disturbed in some way. Sometimes they make a home in a compost heap or an old box or tree trunk, and they are stumbled upon by accident by a dog or human on a walk. They still won't attack unless seriously disturbed. If they do it is a very serious situation and apparently jumping into water doesn’t really help because the bees wait for you to come up for air. Bees might also attack someone who has strong perfume on or who smells bad to them – but this would be a few bees, generally not a whole swarm. Bees are very sensitive to smells and noises.

Making propolis

 

Bees who are happily gathering pollen on a shrub on a warm and sunny day, are not going to stop what they are doing to give you a sting! They are too busy to be bothered. Likewise bees that are swarming won’t sting you as they have their minds on finding a new home and protecting their queen. You can handle a swarm of bees which has clustered on a branch, with your bare hands. Do not be afraid of a swarm which flies over your garden or even lands in your garden. Just leave them alone and they will move away in a day or so.

And this brings me to the bee killers….. People who grab a can of insecticide the minute they see a bee. And even worse, people who kill an entire swarm that has landed in their garden or moved into a corner of their shed or into a cavity wall.

By now everyone knows that bees are endangered and that without bees 75% of the fruit, nuts and vegetables we eat will not get pollinated, so we won’t have enough food anymore. This is a world-wide problem. In some parts of China where there has been an appalling over use of agricultural chemicals, all the fruit trees have to be hand pollinated.

Bees are endangered for a combination of reasons: They have become weakened by Commercial Bee keeping practices such as repeatedly moving hundreds of hives great distances – this stresses them; feeding them sugar; using chemical agents in the hives; Agricultural practices such as monocropping, aerial spraying of poisons onto the crops; loss of habitat; Gardeners using insecticides, fungicides and other poisons (even organic poisons)in their gardens; spraying fruit trees when they are in flower; spraying flowers; Diseases spreading throughout the world – various bacterial, viral and parasitical diseases have spread across continents severely affecting bee numbers. And then there’s you – the bee killer who sprays or burns a whole innocent swarm, just looking for a home.

Create a bee garden

 

Bee killers far outnumber killer bees. Bees are peace-loving hard working insects who like to be left alone to do their thing. Love them and leave them and they’ll make you honey. Plant them a nice wild flower garden, or leave part of your garden to go “wild”. Place a shallow dish of water up high somewhere for them. They are very thirsty in the dry hot summer months. And stop buying insecticides. Leave the poisons on the shelf in the garden centre and supermarket – you’ll be sending the big companies like Bayer a strong message.

Bees deserve our respect. They do an enormous job for us, apart from making honey. Let's all help save the bees. Every little helps

Planning and harvesting.

It's that time of year when there's quite a lot of harvesting to be done. It's very frustrating when the fruit is ripening, or there's a glut of spinach waiting to be picked, but you are just too busy to get there!! I had quite a few plums on my tree, but they were eaten by birds and, believe it or not my dogs, because I was unable to harvest them. I caught Rocco on his back legs trying to reach higher into the plum tree, and realised where all the low down plums had gone to!

I have lemons ripening all the time and there's nothing more frustrating than picking them, and they get mouldy in a bowl. So now my method is to pick them, peel them and squeeze them. The peels go into alcohol for maceration for a constant supply of limoncello. The juice gets frozen in ice cube trays for drinks or other use. However if  I plan properly, I'll make hummus on the day that I've picked a couple of lemons, and use some of the juice straight away for this delectable food.

Spinach can be overwhelming in its abundance. What to do with it all? My solution is to check the leaves for dirt and insects, bung them whole into a plastic bag, and freeze them. Once they are frozen, they can be bashed into spinach crumbs, the stalks are easily removed now, they take up very little space and can be used in soups, stews and egg dishes as one needs it. I do the same with other greens like Chenopodium (goosefoot), Amaranthus (pigweed), Urtica (stinging nettle) and Portulaca (purslane).

Chenopodium

 

Another good way to use greens is by drying them. A dehydrator is nice to have, but greens dry quickly in the shade on a hot sunny day. Once dried they can be crumbled up and a whole mountain of greens will fit in a large jar. In this way you can skip the vitamin pills or those supplements with phytonutrients that cost the earth, because you have your very own concentrated chlorophyll and minerals.

Dried spinach

I have an apple tree that I love for it's foliage, but a harvest from it is not guaranteed. Mostly the fruit has codling moth or some other scabby problem, so it's not really edible. But the fruit is organically grown, and quite a bit of each apple is unblemished and perfect for juice. If I had enough I'd like to try cider making or even cider vinegar, but the number of apples hasn't got big enough yet.

I have never tried salting green beans, but many years ago an aunt and uncle of mine used to do this with their green bean harvests. They would wash the beans and dry them and cut them up as if ready to cook them. Then they would put a layer of salt (non-iodised, sea salt) into a jar, a layer of beans, a layer of salt etc until all the beans were packed into jars. They said that when it came to cooking the beans, they tasted like they had just been picked. To me this sounds better than frozen beans.

These are just a few ideas for dealing with harvests. I have more for another day. Enjoy.

My complete letter to the weekend Argus regarding the Banting diet (Tim Noakes)

Prof Tim Noakes was thinking in a unidirectional way when he wrote his book. Unfortunately the body has more than one system and to only look at the endocrine system is in my view, a mistake. Diabetes is on the increase throughout the Western world because of the shocking western diet - high in processed foods, salt, sugar and fat, and low in fibre, fruits and vegetables. Prof Noakes claims it is genetic. 

In South Africa we have many people blindly and slavishly following the Banting diet without any knowledge of their own physiology. I have patients whose cholesterol levels have soared on the diet, with an increase in LDL and a lowering of HDL, including raised triglycerides. Not a good scenario, any cardiologist would agree. 

Many people on the Banting diet will love the permission to eat more meat (usually from feedlot farms) and fat and not worry too much about vegetables. By doing so they will increase the amounts of veterinary drug residues, like deworming drugs, antibiotics, hormones etc and  other toxins that are stored in animal fat, Omega 6 which occurs in feedlot raised animals and causes increased inflammation, and nitrates from processed meat which predispose one to cancer. At the same time there is a reduction in valuable fibre from grains and root vegetables, a consequent reduction in short chain fatty acids made by gut flora(which act as anti-inflammatories);  a change in gut flora to bacteroides which can predispose one to colon cancer. High fat diets leading to increased amounts of bile acid predispose one to colon cancer, atherosclerosis, type 2 diabetes, irritable bowel disease to mention a few problems. Healthy gut flora play an important role in protecting us against disease; a diet high in fat and low in fibre could do the opposite. 

The Banting diet actually recommends that people cut out refined carbohydrates. This is a good idea. Whole grains and fibrous vegetables like beetroot (which Prof Noakes doesn’t allow) are important dietary elements.  We need plenty of fibre and the micronutrients and phytochemicals from a vast array of colourful (preferably organically grown) grains, fruits and vegetables to have a healthy microbiome which will keep us healthy.

 

 

 

 

Birds and Bees

It's been a busy time in the garden. Birds flit about non stop building nests and feeding their young with never a quiet moment as they sing their individual songs. We can learn from them - to be joyful every day no matter the weather or hardships. So often when they have gone to all the trouble of rearing a chick or two, the chick is killed by another bird or animal, and they just carry on with life.

A pied barbet hammering away at the fig tree.

Where I live we are very blessed with an abundant bird life. If there are aphids on a plant, you can bet a white eye or two will be busy having a feast. The thrushes poke about in dead leaves looking for grubs and worms, and are as effective as chickens in getting rid of unwanted creepies. A weaver bird has made hundreds of nests in a wild peach that overhangs my garden wall, and each one has been rejected. I love the sound the weavers make. I have been on holiday to some places in the UK where there is not a single bird call and where I am struck by the dead silence in the early mornings. It's a sad fact that millions of birds have died as a result of insecticide use.

Birds bring joy to the garden and are important to keep the balance of nature. If birds die out insects will take over. Some evenings I can hear owls hooting. Because of people using rat poison, owls are often poisoned. We need owls too!

From birds to bees. It's been quite an adventure! I now have a second hive and was given a swarm to put in, and the bees are very happy. They settled in immediately and I can't wait to have a peep to see how they are progressing with their comb making. I have been harvesting honey from hive no 1 and I got severely stung when the bees crawled up under my bee suit, without me realising it. However with the use of herbs, it was soon quite bearable and I healed very quickly. Lessons are to be learned every day!
It is amazing how serene one feels when just watching the bees go about their daily work. On the whole they don't bother one at all, they just go about their daily business with dedication. On occasion they might be a bit defensive but one learns not to aggravate them by digging too close to them, or cutting grass too near them. These are danger signals for bees and they can get irritated. Usually one or two will dart about threatening to sting. People are very scared of swarms, but when bees are swarming, they are not dangerous at all. They are too busy protecting the queen and looking for a new home.

If a swarm is disturbed in an aggressive way in the hive or nesting spot, that is a different story. Then they will be an aggressive swarm and can kill a dog or a person. This happens rarely, but always makes the headlines!! Recently a dog disturbed a swarm that was nesting in someone's compost heap and they attacked and killed him. This is nobody's fault, as the swarm wasn't in a hive.
I have three dogs and they very rarely get stung. They understand not to go sniffing around the hive, and even know they shouldn't go into the bee garden. It's all a matter of respect.

A frame of capped honey

 



 





Nature deserves our respect because nature is perfect. We are the ones to mess up the balance of nature. Let's give it some thought and take the time to enjoy the parks and gardens with respect!

Tips to enrich your garden's biodiversity

Biodiversity is a term to describe variety of living things within a system or environment.  As I am concentrating on gardens, it is practical to see your garden as a micro-environment, in relation to the size of our country. If all the gardens in SA had only lawn with one or two shrubs and a tree, that would severely limit the biodiversity of the environment under our control.  It would also be detrimental to the health of the country in terms of its biodiversity.

Conversely if everyone in SA who has a garden, focussed on creating ecosystems that favoured biodiversity, imagine what a positive effect that would have in general!

When I look out of my window on a summer day, the air is filled with insects hovering or flying about. I feel like I’m in an aquarium, with all those creatures flitting past me. I like to think that I’ve created a good environment for a rich biodiversity in my garden. I am lucky because I think quite a few of my neighbours have also taken this approach.

So what are we looking for when we think of having biodiversity in our gardens? We are aiming for a rich bacterial and fungal life in the soil, earthworms, a balance of insect life, some snakes, frogs, chameleons and varied bird life.  In order for all these different entities to thrive we need to have some rules:

• Don’t use poisons in your garden. A fly that has just been sprayed with poison, could be eaten by a chameleon immediately afterwards. Snail bait is dangerous for the endangered leopard toad and your pets. Bee numbers are declining worldwide due to the use of insecticide poisons. Poisons also leach into the soil killing valuable earthworms. Poisoned rats can kill owls.
• Reduce the amount of lawn in your garden. It is a dead space for chameleons, lizards, frogs as it provides no shelter from predators and no food. It also does not provide habitat for insects.
• Provide plenty of ground cover in the form of low growing plants like Plectranthus species.
• Don’t be too tidy in your garden. Logs, pieces of wood, stones and mulch – all provide shelter for small creatures and breeding spots for various insects. Mulch also keeps the ground moist for earthworms.
• Allow a corner of your garden to be “wild” with weeds and grasses that you allow to self seed. Seeds attract birds and the wild grasses and weeds are a good habitat for breeding insects, and provide food for pollinators. Prince Charles is famous for his wild garden and meadows at Highgrove
• Plant indigenous plants  to provide foods for local species of pollinators like the carpenter bee and African hummingbird moth. Hypoestes aristata which blooms in autumn is a good choice. Aloes provide good food for bees in autumn and winter.
• Provide plenty of water in bird baths and low containers, for birds and insects as well as frogs. Your children will delight in watching tadpoles and dragonflies.
• The small brown slug eater snake likes to hide under planks of wood. Provide a spot for some of these. They are not dangerous.
• Put an owl box in a tree and a bat box on your wall high up under the eaves. Bats get rid of millions of insects for us, and owls take care of rats and mice.
• Plant herbs to attract bees and butterflies. I once had a rosemary hedge that chameleons loved. Basil, lavender, yarrow, lemon balm, sage species and nasturtiums are some of the herbs that pollinators love.
• Allow as many annuals as you can to go to seed. Self seeding encourages a lush environment and birds eat many of the seeds.

Your garden can be a paradise of biodiversity, with interesting creatures and beautiful plants. I’m always amazed how much noise there is in my garden, especially bird song, but also the sound of frogs in autumn and the very loud hum of bees in some of my trees. It is such a privilege to have a garden and a patch of soil to be the guardian of. Let’s unite to create swathes of biodiverse areas where nature is in harmony.