The hundred petaled rose

On the 1^st of November 1659, Jan van Riebeeck recorded the picking of the first rose at the Cape in his Journal. This rose would have been the Rosa centifolia or ‘the hundred petaled rose’, also known as a ‘Provence Cabbage Rose’.

The Provence Cabbage Rose was developed by Dutch rose breeders between 1580 and 1710. Source: Quarryhill botanical garden, http://www.quarryhillbg.org/page14.html. These roses were planted for their intense fragrance.

Botanical print, source: https://www.meghanndrive.com/

What Jan van Riebeeck experienced when he picked the first rose, must have been a sense of great joy. To inhale the fragrance of a Dutch cabbage rose that was planted the year before. Grown in the hot Cape sun, the fragrance must have been familiar yet different from those grown in the more temperate climes of the Netherlands.

From the "Dagverhaal van Jan van Riebeeck, Deel III (1659-1662)" page 236, printed 1893, Utrecht 

Nearly 360 years later from the day that Jan van Riebeeck had picked the first rose at the Cape, I was standing in the Towerwater rosarium. The joy I experienced from the sheer beauty of the roses, gave me some idea of how Jan van Riebeeck might have felt. Seeing the first rose blooming in his garden.

The annual first-flush experience of the rosarium is incredible. The experience is heightened by the anticipation of which rose bush will present the first flower. After the ice is broken with the first flower, the rosarium unfolds slowly but surely, adding more and more colour with each passing week. Building up to the first flush in late October and early November.

Arriving home on a warm spring afternoon and seeing the rosarium in full flush, is simply breath-taking. The rosarium was planned and planted in celebration of the rose. With 120 different roses in the rosarium, bordering the Zanddrift Irrigation Canal makes it unique both in terms of setting and composition.

We love the fact that we can impart so much visual joy to the users of the farm road passing by. From October onwards, we find more townsfolk taking their daily walk along the farm road that circles back to the town through the vineyards.

In Spring and Summer, there are often those who stop to take photographs. If Fungai is in the rosarium, busy deadheading, he collects all the compliments for his roses. The roses have opened a new world of familiar strangers, connecting for one brief moment through the common love of rose-beauty.

This year was no exception. Towerwater has produced a floral show that takes one’s breath away. How a first-time stranger might experience it, is difficult to imagine. But, we happily share the spectacle with anyone who can appreciated it.

Scope for the imagination

We could never have imagined the place we call Towerwater when we walked through the doors of the derelict old house early in 1991. We did however recognise the elements of a very old house, hidden beneath a sixty’s façade of large steel-frame windows and a rusty corrugated iron roof.

The Karoo sun captured in a Murano glass bowl.

The reed ceilings and cow-dung floors told a story. It was a story of a different time. When the house once stood proud, as part of a complex of farm buildings, in the centre of a quitrent grant farm. On the appointed day, we met the house and a lifetime of exploring, researching, building and discovering a forgotten South African heritage, began.

We never lacked in imagination, but the adventure we embarked upon when we decided to restore the house, outbuildings and its gardens, was beyond our wildest dreams. It was as if the universe guided us on our journey, and we were open for new ideas and possibilities.

The Karoo sun captured in the flowers of Veilchenblau

It was relatively easy to put the basic ideas on paper. Like the buildings, orchard, planned vegetable and herb gardens and rosarium. The detail and layers were added over time, but not always consciously. It was as though we were doing the right things, and the old homestead would respond in the most surprising ways.

We have learnt so much over the years as we were restoring. It feels in some ways as if we were restoring ourselves. There are always new things to discover in this world, and as the saying goes, ‘one is never too old to learn’.

I did not realise at the start that I needed to know all the different things one can do with Seville oranges. A mistake from a nursery, selling me the wrong citrus tree nearly 20 years ago, has put me on a path of discovery in the use of Seville oranges.

Today, I realise it was not a mistake, but the universe foreseeing the need for a Seville orange tree in the garden. I am very happy about that serendipitous addition all those years ago. While I snack away intermittently on home-grown, homemade candied Seville orange peel, marmalade and other delights.

Our journey of restoration, is one filled with serendipitous events that enriched the experience. We have discovered that the more we do, the more we open up our lives to new experiences. Everyday there are possibilities for the new and interesting, just as long as one is open to them.

We have decided to embrace the setbacks and treat them as lessons to be learnt. We have so much to be grateful for in a place that rewards hard work and effort in the most unexpected, but pleasant, ways. Every seasonal event brings joy into our lives. From the first flush of the roses, the surprise nasturtium carpet on the orchard floor, the first sighting of vegetable seedlings for a new season, to the harvesting of pawpaw’s from the self-sown pawpaw tree in the herbaceous border.

We allow Nature to surprise us. Nature gave of her free hand in sowing pawpaw’s, nasturtiums, flowers and vegetables in unconventional places in the garden. The secret of a happy garden is to allow the unexpected and to embrace the joy of surprises. Nature loves a little madness and will happily step in where one wants to overly order things.

Towerwater is truly an enchanted place, as the Afrikaans name suggests. We cannot take credit for all of it. We are merely the curators of the magical place where the blessings of the universe abound in reward for our efforts.

As Anne of Green Gables said, “...Isn't it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive--it's such an interesting world. It wouldn't be half so interesting if we knew all about everything, would it? There'd be no scope for imagination then, would there?” ― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

My curious self is happy that life on Towerwater gives me “scope for imagination”. I will never know everything, but it will not stop me from trying.

Revelations behind a fig leaf

The history of the fig tree in South Africa goes back to the beginnings of the Dutch settlement in 1652. When, according to Jan van Riebeeck’s journal, the first fig seeds were sown in the ‘Kompanjies tuin’ (‘Company’s garden’) in Cape Town.

The fig leaf, as a flavouring agent, has as long a history as some of South Africa’s well-loved delicacies. These include the likes of moskonfyt, green fig preserve, and fig leaf liqueur.

It was the practise at the Cape, to drink wine or spirits that were sweetened with sugar or syrup after a meal, when one retires to smoke. This custom is recorded on pages 76-77 of M. le Vaillant’s ‘Travels into the interior of Africa, first published in London in 1796.

Elizabeth Jane Dijkman wrote the first Afrikaans cookbook in 1891 namely, ‘Di Suid-Afrikaanse Kook-, Koek- en Resepte Boek. On page 91, under ‘Soet sopiis’ (sweet wine or alcohol), she gives a recipe for a liqueur that is made by cooking a handful of fig leaves in water and sugar. The green syrup is then filtered through a milk cloth and added to gin or brandy.

Cooks also preferred fig leaves for flavouring whole-grape jam (korrelkonfyt). Source: Die geskiedenis van Boerekos 1652-1806 (Afrikaans) by Hester Wilhelmina Claassens, 2006.

The fig leaves give the preserves and liqueurs a distinctive green tinge of colour. It also adds a very unique flavour that may be described as being truly Cape. The recipes must have come with the Dutch settlers. I use a recipe from ‘Make Your Own Liqueurs’ by Jean Dickson (1991). It is with interest that I noted that this book was published precisely a 100 years after the one by Elizabeth Jane Dijkman.

With the fig trees covered in a splendid new batch of spring leaves, it was time to make some fig leaf liqueur. I think that I used a bit more leaves in the liqueur because of the size of my hands. I am always concerned when a recipe calls for a picking, or a handful of one or the other ingredient.

Towerwater Fig Leaf Liqueur

2 1/2 cups sugar (500g or 625ml)

750ml water

15 well-washed fig leaves

750ml good-quality gin

To make the liqueur:

Dissolve the sugar in the water over medium heat using a wooden spoon. Add the fig leaves and bring the mixture to the boil. Boil for 20 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool completely. Remove the leaves squeezing out all the fluid. Discard the leaves and add the gin to the cold syrup.

Strain the liquid into sterilized bottles. Let the liqueur age for 1 month before serving.

Note: This recipe should give you just over 1 litre of liqueur.

Farm fresh olive oil

It’s olive oil time. The olives that were harvested earlier in the year have now completed the whole cycle, from blushing fruit to a green gold olive oil.

My 5 litres of fresh cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil, was hand-delivered by our friends from the Klaasvoogds valley. This is where they grow their olives.

South Africa has become the proud producer of award winning olive oil in recent years. Several of the producers of the Gold, award-winning olive oils, are from the valley. They produce olive oils awarded Gold status in different categories, from delicate to intense.

Olive oil needs to be fresh and well-stored. Olive oil should not be kept for longer than two years. We try to use our olive oil within in a year of production.

Buying our olive oil requirements locally, brings a certain satisfaction of knowing that they come from olive orchards that we drive-by on a weekly basis. In using locally produced olive oil, we are reducing our carbon footprint as well.

Different olives, like grape varietals, have their own characteristics that they bring to the oil. According to SA Olive, many producers choose to blend different cultivars to maintain a more consistent product.

The better known cultivars used to make Extra-Virgin Olive Oil in South Africa are:

·         Leccino – which produces an oil with soft, subtle herbaceous flavours.

·         Frantoio – a typical Tuscan varietal, with strong green overtones.

·         Coratina – can produce a rather bitter oil.

·         Favolosa – produces an intensely fruity oil.

·         Mission – a table olive which can be used to produce smooth delicate fruity oils, often contributing to roundness in a blend.  (Source: https://www.saolive.co.za/)

Rich in natural antioxidants, olive oil is a very healthy addition to the kitchen culinary arsenal. It is best to eat it raw over salads and in prepared food, as the heating of the olive oil destroys some of the health benefits. The flavour of olive oil when cooked with the food, can sometimes overpower some food flavours.

We bottled our cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil and stored it in the cellar away from harsh light where it is ready for use over the coming year.

If I look at different award winning oils, I am tempted to go on an olive oil tasting course and become a connoisseur. But like wine, I tend to trust my own taste-buds. I try not to be seduced by awards. My own instinct for flavours and the pairing thereof, has served me well. I enjoy produce from the valley. Knowing where a culinary product comes from is very comforting.

With farm fresh olive oil in the cellar, the scene is set for local culinary flavours on the Towerwater table.

The lure of Leiwater

The traditional system of Leiwater, first introduced to the water-scarce regions of the Cape Colony hundreds of year ago, is rapidly disappearing from the rural Cape landscape.

In a photograph from 1937 the canal was just an earthen furrow running past the property

Leiwater or ‘channelled water’ is a system of leading water by open channels or furrows to properties in a town or village for the purposes of garden, allotment or farm irrigation. Each property with leiwater access rights has a beurt (turn) over a cycle of usually one week or a predetermined number of days. 

The canal following the hillside higher up in the valley

The primary source of leiwater in Bonnievale is channelled from the Breede River into the Zanddrift Irrigation canal system.  Every property’s turn is pre-determined, on payment of an annual fee, to ensure that everybody has their turn. Watering start and end times of the allocation is determined according to the size of a property. 

Traditionally, using the Leiwater irrigation system meant that your garden contained a network of earth furrows. The water is then guided from the canal through the furrows to the areas of the garden in which the water is required, strictly within the period of your leiwater turn.

An example of the sluices letting water into dams below the canal. The same was used to let water into the minor irrigation canals for the properties in the town. 

If one person does not stop their turn at the allocated time, it impacts negatively on another person’s turn and that has been the source of many disputes and even physical or legal conflict in times gone by. Each system is monitored by a specially appointed irrigation Sheriff.

The 1906 canal was lined with concrete in the early 1950's and gives it its current look and feel.

Because leiwater operates by gravity and contours, the water rights are allocated to properties that lie at a level lower than the canal.

Our generous garden

We were greeted by a mountain of oranges on the table in the garden office. Having exhausted recipes for citrus, we decided to turn the mountain of oranges into cordials for a refreshing drink in summer. Adding soda water with or without ice to the cordial, makes it a life-saver when working in the garden in the heat of the day. Or one can give it a more mature edge with vodka and ice for a sunset cocktail after a hard day’s outdoor work.

The property is repaying all our hard work in abundance. The lawn is looking better than ever following the winter scarifying. The well-pruned fruit trees look as though they are going to have a bumper crop too. Even the slow pear tree is covered in blossoms.

I have made new bait stations for the Mediterranean fruit flies with smaller holes to prevent any bees from accidentally ending up in them. Thus far, I have noticed very few of these fruit flies in the traps. I hope that our good management of the orchard last year has finally turned the tide on this unwelcome garden pest.

Green feast, mange tout peas and strawberries

The peas are producing at a pace. We could even pick our first bowl of early strawberries. On Sunday morning we made lemon and bitter orange cordial. Although we are very busy making optimal use of the produce from the garden, we take time to enjoy the garden as well.

We make sure to enjoy a lunch on the lawn, have refreshing walks in the garden, or just watch the promising rose flush and keep an eye on the seedlings in the vegetable garden. A walk in the garden always involves assessing the different needs of the plants. But, we still find time to enjoy the pleasures the garden offers.

The view from the bedroom into the orchard lifts the spirit. The sheer brightness of the leaves of the fruit trees and nasturtiums and bougainvillea flowers, sets the tone for the day.

The organic garden-fruit allows us to use every part of it. We are discovering the use of citrus peel for sweet and savoury delicacies. Reading through historical cookbooks and even home management guides from the 14^th century and earlier, makes me realise, there are not so many ‘new’ things we can do with food.

If one reads wide enough, you realise that cooks throughout history, used fruit and food more economically. There seems to have been a lot less waste and more innovative ways to flavour dishes with fruit and herbs. Discovering that there were cookbooks dating from 500AD or as early as the 4^th or late 5^th centuries, was very exciting. I am still studying these to see how the recipes can be translated for use in the modern kitchen.

What leftovers we cannot use of the fruit, goes into the compost bins. Eventually it returns to the garden in another form. In this way we also reduce wastage.

Our garden is a commitment and testimony to a healthier lifestyle, living closer to nature and honouring time-tested methods of growing food.