My not so secret garden

The garden at Towerwater is changing on a weekly basis with fruit ripening, vegetables growing and the rose garden preparing for a second flush.

The variety of fruit ripening in the domestic orchard makes for an exciting fruit season at Towerwater. The vegetable garden will change with the onions coming out, freeing up beds for tomatoes.

The mealies are at last looking like they will reach the height I had wanted for display in the vegetable garden. The white and purple brinjals that survived the snail onslaught can be planted out.

The flower bed at the bottom-end of the vegetable garden is abuzz with bees collecting nectar and pollen. There is no secret about what they are doing in the garden. The only secret is where they come from. They can travel up to three kilometres to collect their nectar.

With the thick yellow pollen around their knees, they look as though they might be wearing bright yellow wellingtons. I wonder sometimes if they keep in mind how far they have to fly to get back to the hive with the load of pollen that they have collected.

All my lettuce and basil seedlings were completely devoured by the snails. I bought some replacement plants for the herb garden but when I arrived at the bed where I wanted to plant them, I noticed a Raucous Toad hiding silently between the clay clumps.

Blending into his surroundings, he secretly waits for his next prey. I secretly hope it is a snail or slug. I decided to play his game and pretending not to see him, started on the next bed. My activity so close to home made him decide to move to his next-best secret spot. When he was out of sight, I turned my attention to the bed where he had been hiding and planted my new basil, tomato, parsley, sage and celery plants.

I sowed some new mixed lettuce seeds and hoped that my secret Raucous Toad will protect the future seedlings against the marauding snails. I could hear the Cape lizard in his ‘secret’ spot under the green lavender bush where he was watching my every move.

The untidy mess of grass seeds and twigs on the lawn under the oak made me look up. I saw the Cape sparrow couple ‘secretly’ building their nest. They flew to the next tree when they saw me looking up into the tree and pretended to be busy with something else. I pretended not to see the mess on the neat lawn and carried on with my gardening tasks. They immediately went back to building their nest.

The resident Cape Bulbul is my constant companion in the garden. I do not know if he simply enjoys my company or if he only wants to make sure that I am not messing up his garden. His movement when I go into the area of the garden where the Bulbuls nest gives away the reason why he watches me so closely. He is only making sure that I do not discover their nest. So I pretend not to notice his nervous body language when I get near and move away as quickly as possible.

As I move away, I can imagine him wiping the sweat off his brow, giving a sigh of relief that he has managed to keep the secret location of their nest.

I spend my days in the garden pretending not to be aware of the secret activities of the creatures that call the garden home. They spend their days believing that their secret lives are still secret.

I only smile to once again enjoy the not so secret lives in the garden.

Pink is the new gin

When I saw the bottle of Musgrave Pink Gin on the shelf of a liquor store in Cape Town, I did not think twice about buying it.

The packaging was beautiful and had the feel of a bygone era. The botanical drawing of pink roses on the box reminded me of Towerwater. The beautiful bottle with its pink liquid reminds one more of some exquisite rose perfume than of an alcoholic drink for summer days.

The complete presentation speaks of vintage drinks parties under cool trees and tables dressed in white linen.

Musgrave pink gin has its origins in Hope on Hopkins, the home of Salt River gin. Musgrave gin is distilled in Salt River with 11 botanicals. The Musgrave pink gin has 12 botanicals, with rosehip as the twelfth ingredient.

Musgrave pink gin celebrates the rose. The nose of the gin is reminiscent of rose geranium and Turkish delight. The pink gin seems to have been created for Towerwater, where the rosarium and heritage buildings celebrate the elegance of a bygone era.

It may well yet become the signature gin of Towerwater.

The Karoo in a pepper grinder

On a shopping trip to Atlas Trading in the Bo-Kaap (a historic area of Cape Town) to buy spices, I decided to buy a variety of peppercorns. I normally use black peppercorns and sometimes the mixed peppercorns. The mixed peppercorns look pretty, but one hardly gets an opportunity to taste the individual character of the different peppercorns.

I decided to buy black, white and pink peppercorns separately.  They definitely do deserve to be served separately with different dishes. Each kind of peppercorn brings its own unique flavour.

Black peppercorns have a bold and robust flavour that lifts any dish to which it is added. White peppercorns have a more earthy and less pungent flavour and are good for white and cream sauces.

The pink peppercorns are not true peppercorns but are the ripe berries of the Peruvian pepper tree. When I crushed them in the pestle and mortar, I could smell the Karoo. I remembered the huge pepper trees in the Gamkaskloof in the Swartberg Mountains where my Mom grew up. The flavour was exactly the same. I could taste the Karoo. And if I closed my eyes, I was standing in the warm shade of a gnarled pepper tree in the Karoo.

Memories came flooding back of visits to the isolated valley. Of lime washed houses nestling in the shade of pepper trees and of happy reunions.

I decided to use the pink peppercorns with a slow roasted pork belly. This I served with a pink peppercorn and pomegranate reduction. The flavours complimented each other. The intense flavour of the roast was balanced by the dessert of fresh peaches in Boplaas Moscato.

The early bird gets the sweetest peach

With the yellow dessert peaches ready for harvesting in the orchard, the summer fruit season has officially started at Towerwater. And the sweet summer fruit can be enjoyed in any number of ways.

The best is walking into the orchard in the cool of the morning and picking them off the tree and enjoying the treat there and then after first rinsing their hairy cheeks. A bird peck marking is a good indication as to which of the peaches will be the tastiest.

Birds can be a problem in the orchard. But one can forgive them their good taste. I learnt from my Mom to harvest the fruit you would like to use before the birds are awake. If you wait for mid-day the sweetest peaches will have some serious damage from their sharp little beaks.

  

Fungai has been harvesting the peaches as they ripen during the week and storing them in the fridge in his office. Over the weekend we could enjoy cool un-pecked peaches to our hearts’ content.

What a luxury to enjoy fresh peaches from one’s own orchard. It was the yellow dessert peach’s debut harvest. I had contemplated picking all the young peaches to save the tree’s energy for branch development, but never did get around to doing so, and I am very glad for it.

We could enjoy the fresh peaches as is, and I could turn part of the harvest into a luxurious dessert. I bought some Boplaas Moscato earlier in the year when we visited the Klein Karoo town of Calitzdorp. I decided that the summer fruit and spice flavours of the wine, should work well with the peaches and cinnamon.

We were not disappointed. The flavours complimented each other very well. I can safely proclaim it a sure winner as a Towerwater summer dessert.

Towerwater Fresh Peaches in Boplaas Moscato

Ingredients:

10 ripe peaches, sliced and peeled

2 Tablespoons dark brown sugar

1 crushed cinnamon stick

2 cups Boplaas Moscato

Some fresh mint leaves

Directions:

Place the peaches in a large bowl and add the brown sugar and cinnamon. Pour Moscato over the peaches, making sure that all the fruit is covered. Place in the fridge for 60 minutes. Serve in dessert glasses with fresh mint leaves for garnishing.

Dried naartjie peels

I bottled the dried naartjie (tangerine) peels that have been curing on the loft. The fragrance of the peels, as I cut them into smaller pieces, was amazing. I could immediately understand why it was used in meals at a time when herbs and spices were not as readily available.

In the old Cape cookbooks, there will always be a recipe that includes dried naartjie peel. The dried peel was used in both salt and sweet dishes. From koeksisters, oblietjies (crisp wafer-like biscuits that  were cooked in a special waffle iron and rolled to form a cylinder), tameletjies (a sweet made from sugar, water, eggs, naartjie peel and pine kernels), to milk tarts. Savoury dishes featuring the versatile peel included bobotie, lamb stews, sweet potatoes and some curries.

I waited a long time to have some organic Cape naartjie peel to dry for use in the Towerwater kitchen. I now hope for more organic peels to dry next year so as to have an abundant stock for use in traditional meals.

Fruit and labour

With a new season of fruit acquiring ‘red cheeks’ in the orchard, it was time to prepare storage space in the cellar for summer preservation. Looking at the laden shelves of jams, pickles, preserves, cordials and liqueurs, it was clear that I had been busy over the past couple of seasons.

Preparing the empty jars for chutneys, jams and the like, I realised that I needed to research more recipes to keep the variety on the shelves interesting. This year, I will make special vinegars to use for pickling the olives.

With the new regime of deploying fruit fly bait stations in the fruit trees, I hope to harvest healthy crops for preserving. This may enable me to extend the seasonal fruit flavours in our meals.

With the cellar cleaned and repacked, we could relax in the knowledge that we are ready to get busy again.

Strawberry Vinegar

After a week, my strawberry vinegar was ready to be bottled. I filtered the rose coloured liquid into bottles for later use. Strawberry vinegar can be used as fruity vinaigrette over salads, drizzled over fish, or even used over ice cream.

I will forego the ice cream idea, as I decided to leave the sugar out of the recipe and concentrate on a light strawberry and pepper flavour for hot summer days and al fresco meals.