Planning for Summer
For once I feel like I'm getting ahead of the curve. My usual Summer planting: a haphazard sowing of tried-and-trusted favourites, interspersed with a motley assortment of new varieties I just couldn't resist. Result: Not enough beds, seed-trays of plants unused, packets of seed growing old, unopened, in the seed cupboard.
Not this year! Took advantage of some crappy weather yesterday (and back muscles complaining about the previous day's exertions) to draw up plant-lists... all the things I'd like to grow in the coming Summer season. A primary goal is to identify "gaps" -- the things I always see halfway through the growing season, and say, "I wish I had planted..."
I'm also having to triage my New Variety Lust pretty ruthlessly...
Missing Links
I'll write up my planting-list soon, for anyone who is interested. I would really like some advice on good varieties. Bear in mind that, come Spring and Summer, I'm dealing with a warm, humid climate, and a heavy clay-loam soil. Water supply can be a problem, depending on our luck with the weather. Meanwhile, here's what I am looking for:
Tomatoes: I have about 8 or 10 varieties planned, but could well do with another couple of smaller and medium-sized varieties -- salad, paste and drying tomatoes. (I'm planning to build a solar dehydrator, since our climate really puts a crimp in sun-drying.)
Beans and Peas: I have a couple of good varieties of field-beans for drying, but would like to add Pinto beans. I am looking for one or two (or three) kinds of Snap or Snow Peas, preferably in interesting colours, should I get into supplying gourmet salad stuff (which is a possibility I'm contemplating.) Chickpeas I'll probably source from the Health Food section of the supermarket. I'm also looking for some sort of Pea suited to drying and making Pea Flour (Channa Flour.)
Squash/Pumpkin: Looking for an "edible seed" variety so we can harvest Pumpkin seed for breads and snacks. In general Squashes and Pumpkin are difficult subjects, here, since they get nailed by Pumpkin Fly, so all Squashie crops have to be netted, and the netting is damn expensive, limiting how many of these plants I can realistically grow.
Carrots: I would just love more varieties. We have so few Carrot varieties available locally, all orange, and I'd really love to get some of the more colourful ones.
Peppers, Sweet and Hot: I already plant too many Chilli varieties. (Nonsense! There's no such thing as too many Chillis!) I still need a hot, thin-walled variety suitable for drying and crushing. Flavour is, of course, the key. I can easily get seed for Long Red Cayenne, but the flavour is so boring that they're not worth the bother. I'd also like to get New Mex "Big Jim" back again! Then, too, I want to make an effort to branch out into Sweet Peppers a bit this year; something I've never much bothered with before. I did have a very lovely tasting variety called Sweet Banana -- beautiful colour changes, too -- but managed to lose them in The Great Crossing of 2002. I'd love to get them again. I'm not much interested in the ordinary California Wonder type of blocky Peppers you get in the supermarkets, mass-grown in tunnels and sold in Red-Yellow-Green packs -- they don't taste like much at all.
Watermelon: Smaller ones. I've not grown watermelon before, but only because I've not had a way to keep them from the insect pests before now.
Onions: Locally available Onion varieties are very limited and boring, being completely oriented to the large commercial growers. I am particularly looking for a large/sweet/mild variety good for salads.
Whew!
There's loads more I want, but I'm not going to get. As it is, I'm already preparing new beds, and clearing new ground for field-scale crops, and we still have most of Winter to get through.
Please help with advice and suggestions! Open-pollinated only, please. Heirlooms greatly preferred.
If, for any reason, comments are not working properly, or you just prefer to let me know privately what you think, please drop me a line at mikro2nd [at] gmail [dot] com.
08 July 2007
05 July 2007
The Self-Sufficient Dog
Guinea Fowl are endemic to this area, or perhaps I should say pandemic,since they additionally get housed, fed and pampered by a neighbour. The result? A Guinea Fowl population rocketing out of control. Many of their natural predators have been chased away by us humans so there are several flocks in the neighbourhood, each numbering fifty to a hundred birds.They can be a Great Bloody Nuisance when they attack my Lettuces and Swiss Chard, and for a while I've been keen on shooting a few for the pot, or at least for supplementing the dogs' diet. I've made a few half-arsed attempts to cull the flocks, but the dogs generally alert the Guineas before I can get close enough and have great fun chasing the entire flock into the air.
This morning for the first time, OB must have lucked into one. Or perhaps Myah helped her.Happiness is a Warm Breakfast... Lucky doggie! She won't be wanting supper tonight, that's for sure.
When I first found OB gnawing on a wing, she looked very warily at me... she knows full well that she is not allowed to go after the Chickens, and this is obviously very close to the same thing to her, too. Even after I made it clear to her that I thought she was a clever dog, and then leaving her to get on with Dinner, she was quite unsure. In the end Hunter Genes win, though.
I would really like it if she could continue to catch a Guinea Fowl once in a while -- good for her, good for the local ecosystem to have them culled, good for the Guineas, since the weak, slow and stupid will get caught first. (Though its an awesome thing to contemplate: Something even more stupid that a Guinea Fowl!) On the other hand I don't want her to start wandering off into the forest to hunt, so we'll have to keep a close eye on how this all unfolds.
02 July 2007
The Clock of the World
Keeping Track
Tactics is extension in space. Strategy is extension in time.
Gardening teaches both Tactics and Strategy to the attentive student, though the emphasis tend to be on Strategy.
Tactics: Laying out garden beds. Which hoe to use for a given weed-challenge. The pointy shovel or the straight-edged shovel for lifting that particular pile of manure? Spade or fork for digging that bed?
Strategy: Right now, in the middle of Winter, I have no more than another month before all considerations of next Summer's crops will be before me. Already I weigh up whether I have enough seed of the varieties I would like to grow, and seed orders take form. Time to buy the crop netting I will need to keep Pumpkin Fly from the Cucurbits, come mid-January. Compost heaps are a-cooking in anticipation of the Spring Rush. It's already late to be digging new beds to increase the area under cultivation.
I usually end-up getting it wrong somewhere along the line. Don't we all?
I guess that everyone has their own strange and unique ways to keep track of what-to-do-when. Of course you have to remember to actually look at the damn wall-chart/spreadsheet/book/diary.
Hedgewizard describes, in a hilarious post, the soggy and disastrous end to one such system.
Detour
I have quite a few friends who subscribe to Rudolf Steiner's ideas on cultivation, summed up, codified and dogmatised as Biodynamic Growing. Most are not Deeply Committed Members Of The Movement, merely dabblers who apply an eclectic handful of biodynamic potions and techniques -- a pinch of some or other weird concoction kept in a cow's horn added to the compost heap while dancing clockwise at full moon; Yarrow stored in a deer-bladder pouch. A bit challenging, that last one, since the Red Deer fail utterly to be found in South Africa.
No! I sound like I'm dissing the biodynamic ideas, and really, I'm not! I just have trouble believing that these homoeopathic treatments of seed, soil, water and compost can have any significant effect on the growth of plants when its simply a case of not getting enough water, nitrogen or calcium, or when the soil pH is way out of whack. In other words, the effects of macro-nutrient deficiency or imbalance vastly overshadows whether the moon was in Scorpio or Leo when you planted the seed. Personally I don't believe I am that good a gardener that I have those large-effect inputs well enough under control for the subtle effects of biodynamic preparations to manifest.
One of the key ideas of biodynamic gardening is Sowing By The Moon. In broad outline, we should sow leaf crops in the First Quarter of the moon -- that period from New Moon to Half Moon during the waxing phase -- fruit crops (Tomatoes, Chillis, Squashes and so on) from the Waxing Half to just before Full Moon, and root crops from Full Moon until the Waning Half. The last quarter of the moon is no good for planting anything, and should be kept for digging beds, weeding and mulching. Of course this is only the very crude outline; there is much, much more subtle detail; attention to astrological effects and their interaction with the nature of various plant varieties.
Whether you buy into this stuff or not (and I make no comment or commitment either way, myself) there is one very useful idea.
The Moon
The Moon gives us the perfect clock we need. Every Moonth, sometime in the First Quarter, I know I need to plant Lettuce. Every Half Moon its time to sow Radishes.
No need for fancy systems. Just going outside of an evening to take a look at the sky.
The Sky
Number One Son bought an imposing reflector telescope, so we've been having lots of fun learning to use it. Our triumph was getting good views of Jupiter, Saturn (it's awsome!) and Venus (blindingly bright) all on one evening's perfect viewing a couple of weeks ago. Consequently we're learning a whole lot about the constellations -- the patterns of the heavens. The Clock Of The Year.
Then, too, I would dearly love to learn more about how to read Nature's clocks. Bits of folklore like, "Plant your Potatoes when the Apple trees blossom." Anybody have some pointer to that sort of knowledge? I imagine that huge swathes of that sort of lore has already been lost; how do we relearn it? Reinvent it?
Yet more ways to reconnect ourselves with the Universe. Actually, we've never really been disconnected; only in the tiny space inside our own heads have we thought so.
Tactics is extension in space. Strategy is extension in time.
Gardening teaches both Tactics and Strategy to the attentive student, though the emphasis tend to be on Strategy.
Tactics: Laying out garden beds. Which hoe to use for a given weed-challenge. The pointy shovel or the straight-edged shovel for lifting that particular pile of manure? Spade or fork for digging that bed?
Strategy: Right now, in the middle of Winter, I have no more than another month before all considerations of next Summer's crops will be before me. Already I weigh up whether I have enough seed of the varieties I would like to grow, and seed orders take form. Time to buy the crop netting I will need to keep Pumpkin Fly from the Cucurbits, come mid-January. Compost heaps are a-cooking in anticipation of the Spring Rush. It's already late to be digging new beds to increase the area under cultivation.
I usually end-up getting it wrong somewhere along the line. Don't we all?
I guess that everyone has their own strange and unique ways to keep track of what-to-do-when. Of course you have to remember to actually look at the damn wall-chart/spreadsheet/book/diary.
Hedgewizard describes, in a hilarious post, the soggy and disastrous end to one such system.
Detour
I have quite a few friends who subscribe to Rudolf Steiner's ideas on cultivation, summed up, codified and dogmatised as Biodynamic Growing. Most are not Deeply Committed Members Of The Movement, merely dabblers who apply an eclectic handful of biodynamic potions and techniques -- a pinch of some or other weird concoction kept in a cow's horn added to the compost heap while dancing clockwise at full moon; Yarrow stored in a deer-bladder pouch. A bit challenging, that last one, since the Red Deer fail utterly to be found in South Africa.
No! I sound like I'm dissing the biodynamic ideas, and really, I'm not! I just have trouble believing that these homoeopathic treatments of seed, soil, water and compost can have any significant effect on the growth of plants when its simply a case of not getting enough water, nitrogen or calcium, or when the soil pH is way out of whack. In other words, the effects of macro-nutrient deficiency or imbalance vastly overshadows whether the moon was in Scorpio or Leo when you planted the seed. Personally I don't believe I am that good a gardener that I have those large-effect inputs well enough under control for the subtle effects of biodynamic preparations to manifest.
One of the key ideas of biodynamic gardening is Sowing By The Moon. In broad outline, we should sow leaf crops in the First Quarter of the moon -- that period from New Moon to Half Moon during the waxing phase -- fruit crops (Tomatoes, Chillis, Squashes and so on) from the Waxing Half to just before Full Moon, and root crops from Full Moon until the Waning Half. The last quarter of the moon is no good for planting anything, and should be kept for digging beds, weeding and mulching. Of course this is only the very crude outline; there is much, much more subtle detail; attention to astrological effects and their interaction with the nature of various plant varieties.
Whether you buy into this stuff or not (and I make no comment or commitment either way, myself) there is one very useful idea.
The Moon
The Moon gives us the perfect clock we need. Every Moonth, sometime in the First Quarter, I know I need to plant Lettuce. Every Half Moon its time to sow Radishes.
No need for fancy systems. Just going outside of an evening to take a look at the sky.
The Sky
Number One Son bought an imposing reflector telescope, so we've been having lots of fun learning to use it. Our triumph was getting good views of Jupiter, Saturn (it's awsome!) and Venus (blindingly bright) all on one evening's perfect viewing a couple of weeks ago. Consequently we're learning a whole lot about the constellations -- the patterns of the heavens. The Clock Of The Year.
Then, too, I would dearly love to learn more about how to read Nature's clocks. Bits of folklore like, "Plant your Potatoes when the Apple trees blossom." Anybody have some pointer to that sort of knowledge? I imagine that huge swathes of that sort of lore has already been lost; how do we relearn it? Reinvent it?
Yet more ways to reconnect ourselves with the Universe. Actually, we've never really been disconnected; only in the tiny space inside our own heads have we thought so.
27 June 2007
Heavy Weather
Monday night saw us weathering a blazing gale-force storm. Sadly no rain came with the wind! Happily we had a few drops (8mm) last night and this morning; our storage had reached about 26% draw-down: one tank was almost empty after six weeks of almost no rain (2mm in that time!)
The house rocks like a Spanish Galleon in these howling winds, and it kept us anxiously awake deep into the wee hours. The Chicken House blew right over! Luckily there was just enough light for the boys and I to right it in time for the Chooks to get to bed and prop it up with a motley assortment of poles and ropes. I guess we're in for a spot of repairs and rebuilding, now; opportunity to implement the design changes I've been thinking about for a looong time, now.
We lost power around 5:30 on Monday evening, and it was finally restored around 2 this afternoon -- about 45 hours. I was getting just a bit anxious about the freezer full of Summer Tomatoes.
At least four trees came down around the place -- we're still counting. At least we won't want for firewood anytime soon. Thankfully Dale is home for university vac., and very good with helping out on these chores. I'll post some pics as soon as I get some, but things have been happening so fast, and the camera is definitely not one of the things foremost in my mind.
I confess that being without power for a couple of days has given us cause to rethink some of our priorities around getting more self-sufficient. A new fireplace (ours is rusting to shreds!) is less important than a wood-stove. A manual/wind/solar pump to move water from the storage tanks to the header tank. Rebuilding the Pizza Oven. Canning/drying/pickling as a way of preserving food instead of freezing. Building a high-efficiency freezer and/or fridge. We are getting quite a few of things right, and I feel quite please and proud of that. But still have a lot of gaps to fill!
The house rocks like a Spanish Galleon in these howling winds, and it kept us anxiously awake deep into the wee hours. The Chicken House blew right over! Luckily there was just enough light for the boys and I to right it in time for the Chooks to get to bed and prop it up with a motley assortment of poles and ropes. I guess we're in for a spot of repairs and rebuilding, now; opportunity to implement the design changes I've been thinking about for a looong time, now.
We lost power around 5:30 on Monday evening, and it was finally restored around 2 this afternoon -- about 45 hours. I was getting just a bit anxious about the freezer full of Summer Tomatoes.
At least four trees came down around the place -- we're still counting. At least we won't want for firewood anytime soon. Thankfully Dale is home for university vac., and very good with helping out on these chores. I'll post some pics as soon as I get some, but things have been happening so fast, and the camera is definitely not one of the things foremost in my mind.
I confess that being without power for a couple of days has given us cause to rethink some of our priorities around getting more self-sufficient. A new fireplace (ours is rusting to shreds!) is less important than a wood-stove. A manual/wind/solar pump to move water from the storage tanks to the header tank. Rebuilding the Pizza Oven. Canning/drying/pickling as a way of preserving food instead of freezing. Building a high-efficiency freezer and/or fridge. We are getting quite a few of things right, and I feel quite please and proud of that. But still have a lot of gaps to fill!
23 June 2007
Self-sufficiency and Stress
The week past has been a journey back in time, back in psyche and spirit, back into a world I no longer inhabit. It's been a worthwhile journey, sharpening my understanding of just how far outside the circle I have managed to wander. A week performing a "code audit" of a large-ish software system.
Basically this means analysing the software using a variety of techniques and tools, knowing where to look for likely problem areas, and then writing a report on what you think of the whole mess. Too many hours sitting chained to a PC so that the job gets completed "on time" -- whatever that means. Too little time being physically active in the garden; too little time doing the myriad of small things that need doing around the farm; too time spent solving real challenges. But it will bring in a little bit of money, so...
A new blog I just tripped across -- After Peak Oil: Awakening:
But really, I think we Braamekraalies suffer far less from stress than ever before in our lives, and the reason is really very simple:
We evolved out on The African Plains, wary for the multitude of predators that think we make a tasty midday snack, keeping a sharp eye out for our own lunch. We are intensely social monkeys who constantly touch, taste, see, hear, smell, constantly challenged, constantly problem-solving. We are not well suited, physically, emotionally, psychologically or spiritually, to the low-input environment, the repetetive tasks provided by office jobs and suburban life in front of the desk, TV and steering-wheel. Subjected to that sort of existence, we begin to break down. To suffer stress.
Simply put, a self-sufficient lifestyle (at whatever level) keeps us challenged, interested, awake and alive. The sheer variety of tasks that we face is the important thing, here. Our brains and bodies are well adapted to variety. Need it, in fact.
Basically this means analysing the software using a variety of techniques and tools, knowing where to look for likely problem areas, and then writing a report on what you think of the whole mess. Too many hours sitting chained to a PC so that the job gets completed "on time" -- whatever that means. Too little time being physically active in the garden; too little time doing the myriad of small things that need doing around the farm; too time spent solving real challenges. But it will bring in a little bit of money, so...
A new blog I just tripped across -- After Peak Oil: Awakening:
we had thought about "the good life" some years previously, but shelved our ideas since it felt like we would be giving ourselves additional stress and complications in return for some fanciful daydream about keeping chickens and the like.The additional stress and complication? Well, complication, yes. But stress? Looking back on the last decade of my life, I guess I have to acknowledge that there was stress involved in moving from a 9-to-5-pension-medical-annual-holiday existence to our somewhat-self-sufficient life. Most of that stress was money stress. Initially the stress of "where's the money going to come from", through the stresses of letting go of "normal" expectations around the "normal" flow of money in-and-out every month, every year, to my present state where, while I think its fun to have and use money, and its useful stuff for a limited number of purposes, I don't really feel it touches me any more. Not in the way that most of humanity is hooked into the Conventional Money System. Trapped in it, really.
But really, I think we Braamekraalies suffer far less from stress than ever before in our lives, and the reason is really very simple:
Human Beings are not built for single-tasking.
We evolved out on The African Plains, wary for the multitude of predators that think we make a tasty midday snack, keeping a sharp eye out for our own lunch. We are intensely social monkeys who constantly touch, taste, see, hear, smell, constantly challenged, constantly problem-solving. We are not well suited, physically, emotionally, psychologically or spiritually, to the low-input environment, the repetetive tasks provided by office jobs and suburban life in front of the desk, TV and steering-wheel. Subjected to that sort of existence, we begin to break down. To suffer stress.
Simply put, a self-sufficient lifestyle (at whatever level) keeps us challenged, interested, awake and alive. The sheer variety of tasks that we face is the important thing, here. Our brains and bodies are well adapted to variety. Need it, in fact.
21 June 2007
Ring Out Those Solstice Bells
Merry Mid-Orbit.
Not sure if its today or tomorrow, since both days share exactly the same sunrise and sunset times. But at least tonight is the longest night of the year. Hooray! Where's the bugger we have to off to ensure the sun rises again?
Ach! well, at least the days get longer from (about) now.
Temperature was 21C today(!), so I can only assume that Real Winter is still on its way... Still time to put some Kale into the ground to keep the Chooks through the Hungry Gap. As you can tell, my thoughts have already turned to The Spring Madness and Summer Planting. I feel that I have things quite in-hand this year, since I'm already clearing and preparing beds for next Spring. I really feel that we've kicked our Self Sufficiency Efforts up a notch.
A Very Small Notch. But a Notch nevertheless!
Not sure if its today or tomorrow, since both days share exactly the same sunrise and sunset times. But at least tonight is the longest night of the year. Hooray! Where's the bugger we have to off to ensure the sun rises again?
Ach! well, at least the days get longer from (about) now.
Temperature was 21C today(!), so I can only assume that Real Winter is still on its way... Still time to put some Kale into the ground to keep the Chooks through the Hungry Gap. As you can tell, my thoughts have already turned to The Spring Madness and Summer Planting. I feel that I have things quite in-hand this year, since I'm already clearing and preparing beds for next Spring. I really feel that we've kicked our Self Sufficiency Efforts up a notch.
A Very Small Notch. But a Notch nevertheless!
17 June 2007
Horrible Weather
Hot, dry, adiabatic wind from the North-West battering at the trees. Too hot for serious work, too dry for transplanting. Blowing so hard I can't even offload the horse-shit I collected on Friday into a compost bin; it would all just get blown right back into my face.
No rain in sight.
I seem to have lost the seed I had for a very nice-looking Golden Wax Bush Bean. The couple of plants that have made it will have to do for seed saving. The one bean I tasted was spectacular, and I really need a couple of good bush varieties to use as interplants. As I recall, the seed was one of those packets from Baker Creek that was less-than-satisfactory. Along with the Golden Beet I was so looking forward to, what I got was dismal germination rates, and very low plant vigor.
Moan, moan, moan.
No rain in sight.
I seem to have lost the seed I had for a very nice-looking Golden Wax Bush Bean. The couple of plants that have made it will have to do for seed saving. The one bean I tasted was spectacular, and I really need a couple of good bush varieties to use as interplants. As I recall, the seed was one of those packets from Baker Creek that was less-than-satisfactory. Along with the Golden Beet I was so looking forward to, what I got was dismal germination rates, and very low plant vigor.
Moan, moan, moan.
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