My Garden

It's a long time since I last wrote. I have been very busy reconditioning & selling Christmas cards for charity but this is the last year that I will be organising the project. Two reasons why.One, because not a single person wants to take it over from me and secondly the cards are not selling very well because most greetings are sent by e mail.

The heading of this post is 'My Garden'. For the last nearly 3 years I have kept compost worms in boxes in my garage & still looked after by Gale & Christina.The worms must be very happy as they have been breeding profusely, suppling me with ample worm T now called leachate and wonderful black gold, their castings.I add it to my gardens & watch the plants flourish especially a small rhubarb plant that was given to me and which is now becoming a delicious monster.It's leaves are enormous and the edible sticks are quite long & thick that Gale pulls & cooks for puddings with ice cream.We love the taste.

Adding worm leachate & castings does not enhance the soil immediately, it may take a year. It can be combined with home made compost made with the help of Fitzgerald my part time gardener.I use the left over vegetble peelings that the compost worms don't like,weeds & lawn mowings & store it in a compost bin. When full I add horse manure with straw that is mixed in & then placed in milk crates to mature for a few months.Being in a retirement complex we are not allowed to construct compost heaps as such.Putting the stuff into crates keeps it tidy & out of sight behind a hedge.

It's all very well having a healthy garden but with the Cape summers that have very little or no rain, watering is a constant worry especially when I go away.The complex has a sprinkler system that should spray every 3 days except for the week ends but as it only runs for twenty minutes it's not really sufficient.I just hope I can revive plants that have wilted when I return.

Watching a TV series by Justin Benello,a chef & most of all a person who loves to know where the food we eat comes from, visits farms that have turned to organic farming on a big scale after they dicsovered that their soils had become hard & their produce less because of chemical fertilizers that were introduced to the market after world war two.

I would like to know how the farmers make enough compost to spread onto their lands other than saving what would possibly have been ploughed in or discarded.Manures of all types are a must and added to all waste material, mixed with soil and formed into 'windrows', (long rows of continuous compost) kept well watered which in turn heat up destroying harmful bugs and when cool can be added to the land.It must take a long time for the first windrow to be ready to use and for the soil to return to it's natural self.

This makes my heart feel good.Reminds me of my days of farm work when 'muck spreading' and a little agricultural lime was the only fertilizer added to the soil.
I know that vegetables do not taste as nice as the pre-war vegs did or even during the war when my father kept an allotment using the droppings as fertilizers from the rabbits & chickens we kept.

That's all for now. I'll try to keep up more often with other news especially after returning from a holiday in the Kalahari Gemsbok Reserve at the end of this month.

Comment Again

On my previous blog I mentioned that you might have to have a Google Account to be able to write a comment after a blog. Well, you don't have to but in the "Select profile" text box you still have to click the tick and select Google Account on the drop down menu.

Comments

It seems that my friends who want to comment about my blogs are not able to.Lyn my Friend & I have found a way that will show the comments if you follow the instructions I am going to type but I think you might have to have a Google Account yourself which is free.Here goes.

When you're on the blog.
At the end of the blog you'll find
? Comments.
Click Comments.

Under "Post a Comment"
Type your comment in the text box.

Then:

"Comment as" &(in a text box called)"Select profile".Click the "tick"
Drop down the menu & click on "Google Account"

Click on "Post Comment"

"Add profile picture" (heading don't be confused by this.Just keep going)
"Word Verification" code

Copy the code into the text box provided
Click "Post Comment" again

If you did all this it should eventually go to the end of the blog chosen. Good luck!

Giant butternut

When I made my compost in 4 milk crates some vegs grew, a pumpkin that turned out to be a butternut but rather an unusual one, and tomatoes. The tomatoes kept us supplied for a few months but as the months passed the butternuts, three of them, grew into monsters. We picked one and used it but I dont think it is as tasty as the usual type but will be a good thickener for soups with other vegs. Here is a photo also showing the compost bins.

Christines Agapanthas

Christine and I love gardening. I only have a small patch and haven't the means to take photos although I might be able to find one of sparaxis taken a few years ago. I do usually have a wonderful bed of very large Arum Lilies but no photo. There's one thing I managed to produce this summer were three very large butternuts of an unusual shape. No photo's yet but hope to be able to show soon. Because I live in a retirement complex there is no space to make compost but I did in a small way and that was by making it in four milk crates hidden behind a hedge!When it is ready to be used on the garden I will mix it with the compost from my worm farms and hopefully grow a better garden. The photos shown are Christine agapanthas that have been a wonderful sight this year. Both agapanthas and sparaxis are indigenous to South Africa. Sorry can't find my pic of sparaxis.

A Big Catch

18th April 2010

Recently Phil,Andrew & Warren went out to sea beyond Cape Point to fish on Phil's ski boat. It seems that all three of them hooked a fish at the same time causing mayhem on the boat as they were not able to help each other land their large catches. They had each hooked a large yellow fin tunny! What a catch! These photos show them. Andrew and Richard hold one each in one of the pics although Richard was not on the boat with them. I'm not sure which one Richard (on his own) the tough guy, is holding but it could be the largest.

Wild Birds

Since Charles, my son, has become very interested in wild birds I have become more interested too.At least I have someone to discuss identification and calls of various wild birds around my own home. I have planted various shrubs & plants to attract the sun birds that are so beautiful. Best of all I was given a nectar bottle to hang in my wild plum tree opposite my office window that acts as a perfect hide. It is incredible how quickly the birds are attracted to the coloured red sweet water in the bottle. Daily birds such as White Eyes (many) House & Cape Sparrows (many) Lesser Collard Sun Birds, Weavers & Cape Bulbuls. They drink about two cups of the liquid every four to five days.

Other birds in the garden are Guinea Fowls, Cape Francolin (they now have a new name) Olive Thrushes, European Starlings, Red Wing Starlings and Prynias.

The previous blog I did about Glory Hill Farm has quite a few spelling errors. I forgot to check it!

Glory Hill Farm

Glory Hill Farm was bought by my father from author Clifton Reynolds about 1945. My father was a buisness man and apart from knowing how to grow vegetables and fruit tress knew nothing about farming at all. He was a good gardener. Had been taught as a young refugee from Belguim on a market garden that is now part of Heathrow Airport.

Clifton Reynolds was also a business man and at the age of fifty decided he would like to own a farm. With his knowledge of being an efficiency expert,specializing in the organization of engineering and other branches of industry knew that he could enter farming to prove that any educated person provided with textbooks and the necessary equipment can make farming pay.I think he lasted for 3 years on the farm. Unfortunately I only have three of his four books so am not able to write of his reasons for selling.

Glory Hill Farm is in the Chiltern country near Beaconsfield and High Wycome. The farm buildings include a beautiful Georgian house, barns,a cowshed,stables, pigsties and other buildings.

There is a walled garden divided into small plots by an ancient box hedge. A cherry and walnut orchard. A small dell deep and sheltered surrounded by filbert bushes (hazel nuts) next to the garden where one could sit in solitude in the sun if it shone where others would find it difficult to locate you!

The view from the south facing house on a clear day was wonderful, across valleys with sight of the Surry hills half way to the coast.

When I left school I decided to be a nurse and took a job at the local nursing home. I was only 16 years old, was put on night duty but my parents thinking I was far to young put an end to that. I then started work on a farm friend of my father's, bought myself a horse with my first wages and was allowed to keep her on the farm.

Unbeknown to me and probably my mother my father bought Glory Hill Farm I think with the idea that his daughter would run the farming side and he the business side. Well, it didn't quite work out like that! Okay I had my horse there but father bought pigs and employed a labourer to do the heavy work. One day the labourer did no come to work and because of that the pig swill was not cooked. My father was furious. I was expected to organise the cooking and carry buckets of the swill to the pig sties. Don't forget I was only 16! All hell was let loose. I decided enough was enough and took a job on a nearby farm where a milk maid was required to help milk the cows,bottle the milk, deliver with a horse and cart to the nearby villagers who were registered with the farmer because milk was rationed in those days.

During 1947 my brother aged 18 was in his matric year at Merchant Tailors School. He travelled every schoolday with my father to catch trains to get to school. Towards the end of that year my mother suggested that I take up nursing again because of fathers unreasonable outbursts of anger.A military hospital was donated to the British government by the Canadian government at the end of world war two .This became the first nationalised hospital in Britain and was situated on Lady Astors estate, Cliveden. The hospital was named the Canadian Red Cross Memorial Hospital.

I took up my mothers suggestion and started nursing again. My brother by then had achieved his matric and became part of my fathers business. But sadley at the age of 19 was diagnosed with cancer and passed away just before his 20th birthday. This became the begining of the end of Glory Hill. No son and no daughter at home and with continous tantrams from my father, my mother and my grandmother who was living with us at the time, left to stay with a friend in Marlow.

The farm was eventually sold, the contents auctioned. A sad day for what could have been a wonderful life on magnificient farm. My horse was found a new home. The dog went with my mother. Thank goodness in my nursing days accommodation was provided. I had no home to go to until my mum and gran bought a small house in Marlow. As soon as I took my final exams I married a South African and came to live in Benoni South Africa in a home of our own!

Some of this may have been repeated in other blogs but this was mainly to relate to the events of Glory Hill Farm.

Big Effort

At last I have completed the motives on this canvas. Everyone is different.I used stranded cottons on a beige mono 14 size canvas. It took me about 10 months to complete them as I had to stop for a while because of a severely painful neck caused by the effects of polio mentioned in my earlier blogs.

Each motive is about 6cms square with a gap of about 1cm between each motive. Every one of them was designed by me. A lot of the designs I have used to make pin cushions in the past. I would say that I have only completed about 1/3 of the finished article as every space and outer edge has to be filled, probably using braid that will be couched on.

I will be showing the article at the next meeting of the Cape Embroiders Guild to hopefully get a lot of advice from the more experienced members. The original idea of this project was to be made into a cushion but since making it I have decided it will be framed as it really is a sampler of various types of canvas stitchers and not to be sat on!

When it has been completed I will show it again in all it's glory!