One of the many reasons I love herbs is because there are always flowers. Flowers inevitably mean bees. And bees bring hope. Despite 6 years of drought the herbs that survived off our grey water were always a picture of colour and sweet scent. Echinacea. Soap wort. Rosemary. Lavender. Wild garlic. Elder. Rose geranium. Lemon verbena. And then there are the Jerusalem artichokes and their long legged daisies. I love yellow flowers. There are always sunflowers on our homestead. Despite cutting the water to most of the gardens that couldn't be sustained on grey water, those Jerusalem artichokes persistently survived and bloomed!
With two enthusiastic - and perpetually hungry - children gardening has taken on a new life for me. Their excitement about planting, nurturing and picking is contagious. My family will tell you that I do not have green fingers. Unless I've been messing around with my oil paints. Another reason I love herbs is because they are hardy. I need hardy plants because I am not a natural gardener. I also do not have the time for it with the 101 other things demanding my attention on a daily basis. Today we wandered around the gardens and were amazed by the growing patch of sweet potatoes. Here in South Africa we have 5 varieties. I of course planted all five. Sweet potatoes are a staple for us. I found heirloom seed earlier this year so decided to go big.
With the bizarre weather patterns I'm battling with germination. Some may say it's those sadly lacking green fingers, I'll stick with blaming the weather. We have friends on a homestead a couple hours away. They blessed us with dozens of veggie seedlings. By next week they'll be ready to be planted.
Most of our homestead is not arable. The mountains are beautiful but close up it's mostly shale and stone. It's very hard to grow plants. Years ago we got an excavator in to clear behind our kitchen with the intention to extend. It never materialized so I recently asked for a new garden. The kitchen garden is right at my back door and easy for me - or littler fingers - to pick salad greens.
I planted in big old milk cans. They have so much character. And now have herbs! We also used huge old grape crates, filled with good soil and compost. I planted more herbs. Farmer Buckaroo planted chillies. We had tried growing two varieties of potato. They were doing so well and we were slowly building up their soil when spider mite destroyed everything. It's the down side of self sufficiency. The new seedlings will be filling the empty spaces soon.
There are many plants and trees that we will be wintering. Our two carob trees have been seeding all over the homestead. Carob is an amazing food which we hope to harvest. It obviously likes the area so we have potted the mini trees and will find homes for them in spring. The tumeric and ginger are also under the watchful eye of my little gardener. Although I'm chomping at the bit to harvest some roots.
What has brought great excitement is the pecan tree. After 10 years it finally bore a dozen nuts this year. They are being eaten as the pod cracks open. Hopefully next year the tree will drip with pecan nuts.
We have other small trees being wintered in what we call the chicken garden. To protect our chickens, their eggs and their food from predators we've had to totally enclose a huge area for them. And they only semi free range the homestead when we are around. The baboons have been a real menace this year. Fruit trees and animals have been threatened. So this is their safe place. It is also a secure place against frost and critters for our little avo trees, kei apples, moringa plus the one lonely papaya.
Thanks to @riverflows for keeping up this special gardening challenge which @simplymike initiated way back when. It has taken extreme effort to only use 10 photo. I mean it feels like I need to make up for two years absence. But I'm looking forward to peeping in everyone else's gardens. Especially our northern neighbours who are heading for summer skies! But for now I and the flourishing bouquet of Buckaroos will be heading to the fields. It is our biggest garden and we don't want to leave it all to the goats.
Sorry for the ten photo limit - I mean, some I could excuse but I was getting exhausted scrolling and scrolling and scrolling, and sometimes through blurry photos that looked much the same haha! But these photos are so gorgeous I could have kept scrolling forEVER!
Tell me, when do you harvest turmeric? I put some in a polytunnel last year, and now I'm not sure whether to water them or not all through winter or whether to leave them dry for next year (llike storage). I dont think they're ready yet.
My chickens are assholes at the moment - I got some wyandottes and they love to jump, so I'm busy making fences to keep them in! Grr. I can't even imagine contending with baboons!!!
You had me in the first paragraph - you know how much I love my herbs. I love just walking round the garden and tasting and smelling and putting them in a rack to dry or into vinegar for oxymels. It's such a sensual, tactile thing!
Ummmm...did you skip over the part about me not having green fingers? Tumeric? I don't actually know. I have been severely challenged in growing it - and ginger - all these years. Now for the first time it is actually growing. So my theory is that one of my children has the green fingers. Apparently the plant dies back now, in winter, and doesn't need to be watered. You need to harvest the roots about a year after planting so....
I was just teasing about the 10 photos. I totally understand that some people just post gazillions of random pictures. I always battle with my photos. I have so many to choose from. My problem is filling all the spaces in between with words
I love seeing your set up! I so agree about the herbs, as well. Lovely to have the flowers and the bees, but when all else fails they give you hope that you can grow something.
I've been wanting to try sweet potatoes in our garden because I do love them so much. The challenge always does end up being the space. I think you've put your outdoor "kitchen" space to good use. I'm sure it's a wonderful learning experience for the little buckaroos to see everything growing!
I'll call @fionasfavourites over here to tell you her experience with a huge difference in germination rates planting with the moon cycles...
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Thank you @plantstoplanks! Of course you also love your herbs. You know we do follow the planting according to the moon. It makes such a difference. But it's more than that. We have really wierd weather patterns. Extreme heat and then cold. Usually our summer is one long HOT but these recent years we have really cold and overcast days. I think it confuses the plants. We've had fruit trees blooming and bearing totally out of season.
Oh good! My boyfriend plants things willy billy, so the moon cycles fascinate me since we haven't really paid attention to that yet. 😂
I think you're definitely right with the weather patterns. Really makes it a challenge trying to keep things growing. Makes me appreciate my farmers that much more knowing what a struggle it can be to plan for anything!
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I really liked seeing your post @buckaroobaby it's great to be able to see so many good works and so much love for nature in a single community, a long time ago I grew a couple of sunflowers, it is my favorite flower as well as its seeds. I also have a little home enthusiast who loves to sow and cultivate.
Having the home enthusiast is really special @katerinhernandez. I also love the sunflower seeds
I am so glad @plantstoplanks called me over! So much here resonates, but first: did you some of the rain? If so, was it the deluge that hit everyone else and how have you and the garden survived?
Firstly, ditto on the shale - we have exactly the same problem...digging holes for trees is a huge challenge and The Husband does fencing work around the village...
I don't have enough herbs - I want echinacea and I also must make a plan to get some Jerusalem artichokes. I must talk to our surviving globe...
Our climate is so similar to yours - the really, really hot February / March where everything just about expires - animal, plant and human - even with the relatively new borehole... I am planning (don't tell The Husband) a couple of tunnels - not just to manage the mouse bird problem, but also to try the ginger and turmeric. There's someone in the village who does both.
I really do need to spend more time in the garden. The Husband and former stock farmer who thought that he could only do agriculture if it ate breathed and pooped (or words to that effect) has learned that he can do things with the stuff that's green and has feet in the ground. As Katie said, he's also learning about the moon. It made a 60% difference to the germination of the broad bean seeds he'd saved.
Anyhow, enough of me rabbiting on...I really should participate in this one month.
Anyhow, hope you're all warm and dry!
Yup!! 15mm @fionasfavourites. Seems a bit wierd when everyone around us was hitting 100 mm and Riversdal 200mm. Gulp. But we are grateful for every little drop.
Tunnels are definitely the way to go. We have plenty critters to keep out. Although we haven't attempted building one yet because of the reality of baboons destroying it. I had a good chuckle about your husband being pooping agriculture! Mine is not at all like that. He is an original city slicker but loves the country life. He has learned a LOT and impresses me with what he gets done....but I think he prefers managing someone else who can do all that green stuff.
Nice chatting....neighbour ;)
We had nearly 100mm over the three days. The garden is loving it!
The Husband built some baboon-proof rubbish "shelters" in Tokai a few years ago - before we moved. I must ask what he did. It's soul-destroying having one's crops messed up and stolen. We have had two-legged intruders steal our tomatoes, chillies, spinach and garlic...
I confess I am looking forward to a sunny week!
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Let me know if there's anything simple (kind of) and cheap-ish to animal proof tunnels. We have friends in Van Wyk's Dorp that eventually threw big and deep foundations for all their tunnels and massive shaded off areas for their trees. They have to keep baboons and porcupines out. Our porcupines seem to have relocated at least
I just checked with him. The entire structure(s) were clad in diamond mesh. Not cheap, but I suppose if you do them one by one, as you can...
Wow, you really have a lot going on for not having "green fingers"! 😀
I had heard that South Africa was in the middle of a drought, it looks like your gray water has been helping a lot with that.
I can just imagine the problems that baboons could cause if they get into the garden or the chickens...
Yes well. I think I could get a lot more done if I did have green fingers! But I will encourage the kids gardening enthusiasm. Thank you for your interest in my post @amberyooper
This was so fascinating for me to read! The pictures are amazing! I'm so jealous of the variety of foods you can grow! Sweet potatos, fruit and nut trees...our climate is too harsh. We can grow apples and berries pretty well though 😏
What is harsh @alexanderfarm? I consider ours harsh too - although the winter's aren't as cold as they used to be. We get bad frost and snow on the mountain but not too far below zero (celcius) Our summer's are really hot. Over 40 C (in the shade). There's very little that grows without a lot of effort. We planted 300 pecan nut trees and there's literally half a dozen that survived. Of course the drought complicated matters. We also lost 60 young fruit trees that we planted. But I usually only write the good stuff....
Oh wow! Yep that does sound harsh! We have a short growing season here so it’s hard to grow fruits. On average our last frost is June 7th, and then our first frost return Sept 6th. Summers are short but beautiful. We usually have about two months (July and August) of rain and sunshine that can get up to 30 Celsius (sometimes a little more). Spring and fall are even shorter seasons. Winter is about 6 months long and it’ll stay below freezing with lots of snow. We usually have a few weeks in January or February where the temps reach -40C. It’s rough. Perennials and trees need to be hardy enough to survive the winters. The days also get shorter in the winter. So basically we just cram as much as we can into the very short growing season that we have. Greenhouses help too.
Remind me where you are Emily? I lived in the Georgetown MA (an hour away from Boston). The winter's were freezing and I remember those short 3 months of summer were the time to get as much done as possible
Ok! You get it! We are in central, Alberta, Canada.
A beautiful part of the world!