Food

Planting Fruit Trees 2020

December 31, 2020 by Roland Munyard Leave a Comment

This year more than any other we’ve have started plating fruit trees. I regret not beginning to plant fruit trees when we first moved to this property in 2003, as the saying goes “Today is the the next best time to plant a Tree.

We hope plant at least one perhaps two trees every fortnight so will add 26 or 52 trees a year to the garden.

Will the garden be able to sustain that many trees? Yes, I reckon so, and a lot more after that.

It’s worth noting that I have planted a number of other types tree over the last 10 year or so but nothing like I could have done, and most certainly should have done 18 years ago.

As it’s the last day of 2020 I thought we would share our progress so far.

Fruit Trees 2019 IMG 6864

Lime Tree

Fruit Tress 2019 IMG 6875

Paw Paw Trees

Fruit Trees 2019 IMG 6869

Lemon Tree

Fruit Trees 2019 IMG 6863

Avocado Tree

Fruit Trees 2019 IMG 6861

Fig Tree

So once I complete this note Lyd and I will be off to the local store to buy a few more. …. so back again after a visit to the Peachester Fruit shop where we got a a few African Flame Lillies and lovely Black Mulberry tree, and from Frouloffs we bought a coffee tree, and from the CO-OP I bought a variety of Mealies, Sweet Corn seeds and a Chillie bus, and finally from ALDI some Basin all of which I have planted today. The Fox aka Troy kindly have us some purple granadilla’s so I cut five up and planted them as well. I also planted some ginger. We still have a few more days of rain so they will get plenty of water. I will throw up a few more photos when I get a moment.

Avocado, Bannana, Blue Berries, Lime, Passion Fruit and Paw Paw,

January 1, 2017 by Roland Munyard Leave a Comment

So if I have an aspiration for 2017 it’s to plant Avocado, Bannana, Blue Berries, Lime, Passion Fruit and Paw Paw, at Havilah House.

There is a particular variety of lime that Steve Childs told me about which I would like to get.

As for the passionfruit I have started planting these in 2017, and have a few vines however it’s been awfully hot and dry for the past few months,

Bannana’s I planted in 2015 and 206 and I have 2 varieties growing

Blue Berries I had when we moved into the propertiy but due to stupidity and putting ash from the combustion stove on the blueberry shrub and caused it to die. – It bring to mind mind a comment “What a fool you are”.

Sadly I cut down the Avocardo, which looking back I should simply have pruned

Bread: Making our own products one at at time.

February 16, 2016 by Chris Leave a Comment

When I look at the ingredients list on a loaf of bread in my local superstore, I can’t believe that all of these ingredients listed on the label, are there just for my benefit.

I think that most of this incomprehensible long list is there to ease the manufacturing process, or to prolong the shelf life. I feel that this probably doesn’t do me any good.

After all, basic bread contains just four ingredients : flour, yeast, salt, water.

The compromise we are happy to make is that instead of eating a bunch of chemicals, we bake our own bread, and then either eat it warm right out of the oven, or freeze it till we need it.

This means that we only eat four or five basic ingredients, instead of somewhere between ten and twenty. My record label find so far was seventeen ingredients in one basic loaf.

This recipe is adapted from Jamie Oliver’s site.

4 cups organic white whole wheat flour
6 cups organic white flour
2 T fast acting yeast
2 T sea salt
3 T olive oil
1 Litre warm water

The Process.

Measure the dry ingredients and put into a large deep bowl, add the olive oil.

Stir with a spoon just to blend. ( we don’t bother to use a machine). Add the warm water slowly mixing it in as you go.

Illustrates the progression of how the dough changes over the five minutes of kneading.

With your hands, no machine required, start to form the dough by putting a very wet dough onto a non-floured surface, and begin Chef Bertinet’s method of “kneading” the dough. Some folk say kneading can hurt their wrists after a while and therefore they use Chef Bertinet’s method of kneading dough. But we use it because its easy and quick. Chef Bertinet has the cool French accent that somehow makes bread making sound cool. http://www.thebertinetkitchen.com.

Put dough back into deep bowl, cover with tea towel, put in a warm area and let prove for 1-2 hours.

The dough will double or more in size.

Now gently take the dough out of the bowl and shape into 3 loaves which you then put into 3 greased loaf tins.

Let prove again, doubling or more in size.

Bake in a preheated oven at 225 C or 425 F degrees for 25 minutes.

Take bread out of pans, place on a cooling rack to cool. Once cool the loaves can be put in freezer or enjoy immediately!

If you want the crust to be “crispy” put a tray of water into the oven make steam.

We enjoy it with strawberry jam – Enjoy Chris’s post about making strawberry jam.

Growing Power: Will Allen’s Urban Farm

February 2, 2016 by Chris Leave a Comment

We wanted to grow our own vegetables, but life in the US is very busy, nobody has much spare time, certainly not time enough to chat about their backyard operations or even if they have one ( very unlikely).

My local library has tons of books about gardening and veggie growing but it is really nice to actually go and see it being done, to talk to those folk who are already doing it for themselves. I picked up a book by some guy called Will Allen.

I had never heard of him, but I was interested in locally grown food and the alleviation of urban food deserts (areas without access to fresh fruit of vegetables) , so I gave it a read.

I liked the sound of him passionate about food and farming and youth education, a former basketball player, successful salesman going back to his family roots so to speak, and eventually returning to farming but this time in a a very urban environment. Turns out that his operation promotes tours of their urban farm, and it was only hour away from where I live.

Done deal. I had to check this out.

Will Allen speaking at Mother Earth News Fair 2015. Photo by Chris Kirby

Growing Power aims to make an integrated system where each thing is either an input or and output for something else. It is this synergistic linkage that gives them the efficiencies, low cost, density of planting that they are after.

The key to all growing is massive amounts of compost. They obtain the raw ingredients from companies that have plant waste products , like coffee grounds from trendy coffee shops, fruit and veg scraps from restaurants, fruit and veg past their date from supermarkets. Then they make their own compost from that.

Worm farming is also used in conjunction with composting and worm tea to provide sustenance for the plants.

Great mounds of compost. Photo by Chris Kirby

Micro-greens ( which are trays of tiny salad plants that are just a few days old that are densely nutritious for their size) which are sold to local restaurants and retailed from their own tiny onsite store. A vast quantity of salad crops which are usually a mixture of different types of lettuce are grown.

Plants growing up: Photo by Chris Kirby.

Mushroom farming in bags strung up all over the place. They mix up there own compost specially for mushrooms. Definitely something that I would like to try.

Vertical Mushrooms: Photo by Chris Kirby.

Thousands of Talapia fish are grown in hydroponic tanks which provide the nutrients for the plants to grow (in the form of waste products in the water). The water pumped up to the top level. Gravity then pulls the water through the plant trays ( feeding the plants, and the plants cleaning the water) and eventually winds its way back down to the fish tanks as clean water.

Hydroponic tank systems: Photo by Chris Kirby.

Hydroponic tank systems below: Photo by Chris Kirby

Growing Power is on a rather large scale. But it illustrates that systems are possible even in cold climates and it provided us with enthusiasm to start doing something.

See if you can find someone doing something similar near you, and get that spade out!

Read Will Allen’s Book The Good Food Revolution: Growing Healthy Food, People, and Communities from Amazon

If you are ever in Milwaukee look them up.
http://www.growingpower.org

Can you really live off 1.5 acres? The Market Gardner: Jean-Martin Fortier

January 30, 2016 by Chris Leave a Comment

We thought that this year we would make the effort and attend the Mother Earth News Fair of 2015, on the 8th & 9th of August in West Bend, Wisconsin. (we currently subscribe to the magazine Mother Earth News http://www.motherearthnews.com)

One of the people that I wanted to see was Jean-Martin Fortier. He is a chap from Quebec Canada, who makes a good living ( not to mention a good life too !!!) living off less than two acres of land. Living in Wisconsin, I was thinking …

Man …if that guy can get stuff to grow that far north, even we should be able to do better than that.

Most commercial farming requires a lot of land, and a lot of capital investment, in order to be successful. However Jean-Martin says that there is an alternative, and he and his wife set out to prove that it could be done. All the naysayers didn’t put him off trying.

Photo of Jean-Martin Fortier. Photograph by Chris Kirby.

What I like about him is that this is not just some crazy hypothesis, not just “all talk”, but rather this is something that he has actually proved workable, for several years running.

His mantra is “Grow better not bigger”.

In order to do this he deliberately farms small, and very intensively. What this means in practice is that rather than owning large expensive tractors he chooses to forgo this option, and use manual labour and a “walk behind” tractor instead.

This keeps his input costs very low.

Now the “intensive growing” part of his plan is that crops are farmed very close together ( at much higher densities) in raised beds, and with heavy use of crop succession, and poly tunnels to extend the growing season. This is similar to Eliot Coleman who gives a very good description of a Parisian market garden in his book The Winter Harvest Handbook.

So growing crops closer together means its less distance to cover with manual labour and small machines. The ground and weeds get torched with a gas flame just before planting his crops. This kills off the weeds and their seeds. It gives the seedling that he then plants, a head start.

The shade of his dense planting also crowds out the weeds, limiting their growth. Obviously one needs good soil and a very good composting system to support the high density of planting.

Jean-Martin says that he gets visitors from all over the world who come to see his farm for themselves. Most are disappointed. Is this all there is they ask? They are looking for complex, complicated systems, instead they find low input cost, simplicity, low capital investment, all producing high yields and good margin.

Look him up at www.themarketgardener.com

I was enthused by Jean-Martin’s lecture and bought his book – The Market Gardener: A Successful Grower’s Handbook for Small-scale Organic Farming – Check it out on Amazon (It’s very unusual for me to part with 25 dollars for a new book I might add !!!), it’s quite a good read, and covers all the detail. It’s now in my local library, so look there first.

Strawberry Jam: Making our own “products” one at a time.

July 5, 2015 by Chris Leave a Comment

This jam contains only three ingredients: strawberries, cane sugar and lemon juice. Done.

Safety Warning: Don’t let the mixture boil over ! It creates one hell of a mess, not to mention on an open gas flame it may catch fire … and sugar has an awful lot of energy in it. ( my Mom used to get her winter anthracite fire really going with a 1/4 cup of sugar thrown on it !!!)

That said, I do like strawberry jam, or strawberry preserve, or even just plain old strawberries which we pick from the garden (or the ones we buy from our favourite store)

What I don’t like is the fructose corn syrup or the large amounts of sugar and other junk that ends up in a lot of commercial jam.

So we make our own jam ( mostly Strawberry or Marmalade it has to be said). It’s not difficult, and kids like to help too.

Sometimes it works out well, sometimes it doesn’t set and is too runny ( because I don’t put in enough sugar or pectin or both). But I don’t care because its also delicious over ice cream! Most people add store bought pectin to thicken it up to jam consistency, Unfortunately the pectin we paid good money for also contained dextrose which made it even sweeter, so I just got over it altogether.

What happens is the water slowly evaporates off the mixture and the the strawberries and sugar reduces down by about half.

We decant it into jars and it goes into either the fridge or the freezer, mostly it goes into the stomach via toast, most of it never actually makes it into the freezer.

Steps to make it:

Cut the off the green leaves and any bruised or rotten bits off the strawberries.
I was left with about 2000g ( 2kg or 4.4 pounds) of strawberries.
To this I added 1/3 of the weight of the strawberries, in brown cane sugar. ( about 700 grams)
Added the juice of three small lemons ( for pectin, and also so its not too sweet)
Then put the whole lot on a gentle boil for one hour and a half, stirring now and again, but not too often otherwise (if you beat the strawberries they turn to mush).
Store it in the fridge for a couple of days. (or in the freezer until required).

Whatever you do with it it wont last long, before its all gone!

Grow your own flowers from seed

May 17, 2015 by Chris Leave a Comment

Lots of flowers for just a few dollars.

So we tell ourselves that growing flowers from seed must be awfully difficult, and only for serious gardeners with lots of practical experience, and definitely not grown by me. Well, no, actually, it’s the exact opposite!!! It’s counter intuitive.

If you know nothing about growing flowers, then you are already fully qualified!!! Now, if you know a bit … you may be put off from trying, so I think it’s much better better to know nothing.

I am a case in point. I had never grow flowers before. If I can do it . … you can too.

So what do we need to get going? A little enthusiasm and the desire to not give the nursery man a small fortune just for a couple of plants.

The key ingredient is you. Yes, you. So tick the most important item off the list already. At all times know that all that is required is a bit of Action, of Doing, half an hour should be enough.

As an approach … you could go either of two ways.
Buy any seeds, especially something foreign and exotic, and then battle your way through fighting nature every step of the way. This is very tiring, and demoralising, and is no fun at all, and is why some people think it’s difficult.

Or …

Look at what already grows in your neighbor’s garden, down your street, in your local neighbourhood. For me it was a plant called Black Eyed Susan. It’s everywhere, except in my garden. I had a few shrubs and that was it. No flowers.

What you want to find out is … what flower grows naturally in your own environment? In your own neck of the woods? (Not on the other side of the country or the other side of the world.)

And grow these first. (Don’t fight nature!!!)

These flowers will then grow like weeds, meaning without much effort from you.
This makes it fun, and rewarding, and you feel it’s worth your effort.
(By the way, if you have animals or young kids that chew things, don’t buy seeds that are poisonous … I am just saying.)

Five Things …

A packet of seeds … (Mine were two dollars per pack)
Light (and therefore warmth) – provided by the sun
Water – out of the closest tap, rain barrel, bucket or hosepipe
Potting Soil – buy a bag from your closest retail store. Later on you can make your own, but for the first time, just buy a bag, just to keep the enthusiasm going strong.
Seedling tray – if you want to look fancy use a seedling tray, otherwise any small container with holes made in the bottom to let the water drain out will do. Yogurt pots with a few holes in the bottom seem to work just fine. (If you are planting directly into the ground, then you won’t need the seed tray)

The main aim is … moist and warm soil makes happy germinating seeds.

Steps to follow…

Put the potting soil in the seed tray
Using your finger, or a small stick, make a small hole in the soil about a centimetre or half an inch
Drop in a seed
Use your finger again, to lightly cover the seed with the soil
When you are all done burying the seeds
Water lightly with a watering can, or a tin can with a few holes punched into the bottom, to give the soil a gentle shower

If you really want to, you can read the instructions indicated on the packet, but please don’t allow yourself to be put off from Action and Doing.

If you harvested the seeds yourself (as in free seeds from last autumn) then there aren’t any instructions to read. Just do it the same way as last year.

Place the seed tray on a windowsill where it will receive direct sunlight (which provides warmth) and where you will see it several times a day. This is how you keep an eye on them without much effort.
Wait a while , anywhere from few days to two weeks, and up come the seedlings. (If it’s too cold nothing will happen.)
Job done.

Really …. that’s it.
That’s all it takes to grow most seeds!!!

When the weather warms up, transplant the seedlings into a flower bed, and water well. Or if you planted them directly in the first place, your already done.

Water when thirsty.

So I grew ten seed trays, of seventy-two pockets per tray.
So seven hundred odd plants.
I figured some might not work out … right?
Most worked just fine.
If you have too many seedlings, give them away.
Otherwise … Plant them in your garden 🙂