Imagining Gardens

The garden at Towerwater has always provided a sanctuary and a source of joy for us. With the devastating drought in the Western Cape, it has become even more so.

The drought has impacted the City of Cape Town to a greater extent, owing to the higher water demand in the City in relation to the supply. The City is currently facing the prospect of running out of water. A Day Zero is foreseen where taps will run dry. Over 4 million people will have to collect their daily quota of 25 litres per person per day, at designated distribution points.

The Towerwater garden

In November 2016, we were asked to cut our water consumption. We heeded the call by reducing our gardens and using every bit of water for as many purposes as possible. Grey water is used for flushing toilets and tap water has become a precious drinking and cooking water source.

The Cape Town garden

When my house was renovated, the gardens had to be redesigned. I planned to have a rose garden consisting of Rosa Bracteata Macartney as added security on the street front. The back garden would have had a hedge of Portulacaria afra (Spekbos) against a large sun-facing wall to break the glaring white of the courtyard. I have reduced the garden area by increasing the paved area. The square garden located in a paved area will consist of two citrus trees set in a fragrant garden of lavenders, scented geraniums, rosemary and other edible plants.

If I think about it, I am introducing elements of the Towerwater garden into the City gardens. It is possibly because I associate happiness of being with the Towerwater garden. I would like to fill my living spaces with happiness. One problem is the lack of water. I decided therefore instead, to cover the garden spaces with plastic sheeting, as an interim measure to control weeds and dust. The plastic sheeting is weighed down with stones and tiles until we are able to garden again. The ‘garden’ is very severe at the moment, but we will do everything possible to stave off Day Zero. What is concerning, is the fact that more than 50% of the people living in Cape Town have to date reportedly, not contributed to saving water. Their disregard of the situation is further catapulting us to the inevitable Day Zero, sooner than we expected.

With austere gardens in Cape Town, the Towerwater garden has become, in stark contrast, a verdant sanctuary of pleasure and joy. We are experiencing drought in the countryside too. We have accordingly reduced our usage of potable and non-potable water. The garden depends on irrigation water from the irrigation canal. Our allocated volume of water from this source has been reduced by 50%. We have always used far less than our allocated volume. We achieved this with an irrigation system that, through various measures, maximises the impact of the water used. We have long since abandoned the traditional flood irrigation.

Brinjals starting

The last of the courgettes

We are also composting more intensely and have minimised the vegetable seasonal planting. As vegetable beds are emptied, we feed them with compost and manure and let the bed rest, instead of planting follow-up crops. It is strange not to see the vegetable beds bursting with constant produce. But the empty beds remind us there is more to life than the here and now. We need to think of the future and conserve our dwindling water sources, particularly until the drought is broken.

A big joy is the Bougainvillea hedge with its bright shades of pinks, yellow and red. From the wall of colour on the street-side, it cascades down to the orchard floor where the waterfall of pink flowers are a joy to behold from a bedroom window.

The roses are benefiting from our preparations for the drought. They seem to thrive on the thicker mulch. However, the flowers do suffer in the heat and get scorched on a regular basis. Our biggest concern is to keep the plants alive until the next rains. We normally reduce watering in March when the garden goes into autumn. By April we can switch off the irrigation until September.

To be honest, the absence of the Cape Town gardens is a bit of a relief. The vicious South-easterly winds, known locally and traditionally as “The Cape Doctor”, does not make gardening a pleasure in the City. Imagining the gardens in the City is exciting. But it is more inspiring to be able to do it, sitting under the great oak at Towerwater, where dreams and ideas are tangible in the beauty that surrounds me.  

It’s raining grenadillas

Our grenadilla vine, that has overtaken the neighbour’s tree, has gone into over-production. The area behind the cottage is covered in fallen grenadillas. We are required to pick up the fruit at least three times a day.

A walk in the garden is punctuated by the sound of dropping grenadillas. I pray that nobody gets a direct hit on the head in the process.

The host tree has become a grenadilla tree. Any former identity has long disappeared under grenadilla vines that snake their way through its branches.

A direct result is that we are enjoying grenadillas in salads, desserts and are sharing bags full with friends as far as we can. The kitchen table resembles a mountain of purple after the morning’s harvest of grenadillas, brinjals and beetroot.

True to character, the garden is colour-coding the season’s production of fruit and vegetables. The bulk of which is purple with a brush of green and yellow, compliments of the courgettes and tomatoes. The green tomatoes are a joy as always, both in looks and flavour.

The pale green courgettes, with their bright yellow flowers, remind me of trays filled with courgette flowers at the Rialto vegetable market in Venice. I still dream of the luxury of making deep-fried stuffed courgette flowers. But at the moment, the garden is producing at such a rate, that I barely have time to prepare all the vegetables in all their regular forms.

With the figs ripening and the almond skins peeling away from their nuts, it is clear that new flavours await us in the coming weeks.

At the moment, it is the sweet and sometimes tart surprise of the grenadillas that is on offer. It is also most advisable to wear a hat, regardless of the weather, when venturing into the garden. The hat may offer some protection should one get caught in a shower of grenadillas behind the cottage.

Towerwater Apricot Brandy

With a healthy harvest of apricots late last year, I decided to try my hand at making apricot brandy. During an earlier lunch date with friends, we had discussed the various ingredients for cocktails that are not as readily available. Apricot brandy was one of them.

When faced with a ‘mountain’ of apricots, I decided that it was the perfect opportunity to explore the wider uses of apricots and make some cocktail ingredients.

I liked the recipe I found. It included the apricot kernels as well. I also found a recipe for apricot kernel liqueur. How is that for ‘waste not - want not’? Now I know what to do with the apricot kernels next time I make apricot jam. The broken shells can join the others in the broken apricot-pip pathways of the garden.
 

Apricots, sugar, brandy, apricot kernels and pimento

The recipe I used was from my trusted book, “Make your own Liqueurs - Jean Dickson (1991).” Loosely translated and transcribed, it reads as follows:

Apricot Brandy

Ingredients:
14 ripe apricots
750ml brandy
5ml pimento
375ml sugar

Method:
Halve the apricots (keep the pips) and chop the halves into pieces. Crack the pips, remove the kernels and peel off the kernel skins. Place all ingredients in a glass jar that can seal tightly. Seal the jar and shake well. Leave to infuse in a cool dark place for a month. Pour the mixture first through a clean strainer before squeezing through three layers of fine cheese cloth. Decant the apricot brandy into dry sterilised bottles, seal and label. Store for a month before using.

I bottled my apricot brandy made with Towerwater apricots over the weekend. I love the hint of marzipan that the fresh kernels bring to the brandy.

On the second page of cocktail recipes recorded in the Savoy cocktail book of 1930, one finds the first recipe for a cocktail containing apricot brandy.

After Dinner (Special) Cocktail

½ Apricot Brandy
½ Curaçao
Shake well and strain into cocktail glass.

The book contains more than 44 cocktail recipes calling for apricot brandy. Proving the popularity of this spirit as a cocktail mix.

The last cocktail recipe in the Savoy cocktail book that calls for apricot brandy can be found on page 283.

Golden Dawn
1 Dash Grenadine
¼ Orange Juice
¼ Apricot Brandy
¼ Calvados
¼ Gin
Shake well and strain into cocktail glass.

With Towerwater apricot brandy freshly bottled, I will have to wait at least a month before trying one of these cocktails. I think it is simply splendid having so many “cocktail ingredients” growing in the Towerwater orchard.

Jane’s delicious books

In 2009, a friend gifted me a copy of the publication, ‘Jane's Delicious Garden’, as a birthday present. To receive a book about vegetable garden growing for the South African gardener was a delight and an unexpected luxury. The way in which Jane writes her books makes one feel as though you are sitting down with your best gardening-enthusiast friend.

She shares her knowledge in the pages and one is allowed to learn from her experience. After years of gardening at Towerwater, since 1991 in fact, her books have latterly provided a refreshing addition to our library. If I had never planted a vegetable in my life, this would have been the book that would have encouraged me to start.

I loved Jane's Delicious Kitchen and Jane's Delicious Herbs. The book on urban gardening I have to confess I did not buy because the South-Easter that prevails in Woodstock, Cape Town, is not very friendly towards gardeners. I have instead focused my gardening passion on our country garden.

For Christmas, I bought her latest book, Jane's Delicious A –Z Of Vegetables, as a present to myself. I look forward to growing interesting vegetables with Jane or just reading it for sheer entertainment. I was a bit disappointed that I could only find a paperback copy to add to my hardcopy collection of her books.

I am especially happy to have found books about organic vegetable and herb garden growing for South African conditions. Through my collection, I combine my love for gardening and books.
 

Jane has a style of writing that makes you want to read her books like novels. They are beautifully illustrated, adding to the pleasure of being inspired for the next season. If it is planting, harvesting or cooking my vegetables and herbs, Jane’s delicious books will always be one of the go-to sources in the Towerwater library.   

Fruitcake and a guinea fowl for Christmas

After a very eventful year of house renovations in the city and extended overseas travels, it was good to relax into the familiar Christmas routine at Towerwater. There is a sense of calm that the routine and rituals bring to one’s life.

The house smelt of Christmas spices and baked goods. My sister baked us a huge Christmas cake. It was made including my requested glazed ginger, green figs and citrus peel, all in abundance. Carol baked her Christmas mince pies and Christmas pudding to add to the festivities.

Christmas lunch was prepared with a blend of dishes of old favourites and new additions, acknowledging the heat of summer in the Southern Hemisphere. Along with the glazed gammon, roasted potatoes and fresh vegetables from the garden, we enjoyed a cold grape gazpacho with homemade bread and buns as starter. For dessert there was the flaming Christmas pudding and a chilled trifle.

Grape gazpacho

Lunch was a special celebration, with the dishes contributed by all the friends around the table. There is no better way to celebrate Christmas than around a big family table. An occasion where food and conversation mingle as a celebration of traditions and long-standing friendships.

Susan's friendship rolls and Nutcracker bread

The day started with tea and homemade mince pies and a stroll in the rosarium and garden. The rosarium has put on a display for the festive season unequalled by previous years. It seems that all our improvements to the maintenance of the roses are paying off. A thick mulch that we introduced after we saw the rose beds at Parc de Bagatelle in Paris, is keeping a more consistent moisture level in the beds. That is encouraging promising new growth.

The rosarium on Christmas day

In the orchard I discovered a guinea fowl in the pear tree. The source of this surprise visitor was clear when I looked into Keith’s face and saw the pleasure he was getting from surprising me. The twelve days of Christmas song has become a tradition at Towerwater. Keith decided to put a very local spin on it and introduced the guinea fowl to the pear tree instead of a partridge.

A guinea fowl in a pear tree

So; ‘On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me, a guinea fowl in a pear tree’. He did not follow up the next eleven days with surprises. But I am still curious as to how he would have put a very local spin on the gifts for the other days.

“Two Turtle Doves

Three French Hens

Four Calling Birds

Five Golden Rings

Six Geese a Laying

Seven Swans a Swimming

Eight Maids a Milking

Nine Ladies Dancing

Ten Lords a Leaping

Eleven Pipers Piping  

12 Drummers Drumming”

A bird in the hand

While walking in the rose garden one morning, my eye caught a movement in the canal. At first, I thought it was a large green leaf floating down the canal. The erratic movement from the ‘leaf’ on a wind-still morning made me take a second look.

What I at first thought was a leaf, turned out to be a Cape Canary. It looked like a young Brimstone canary. How he ended up in the canal and how long he had been in there, one could only guess.

I could see clearly that he was exhausted to the point of imminent death. I jumped into the canal to rescue him. Gasping for his breath and very wet, I held the heaving little body in my hand. He was too weak to struggle. He sat limply in my hand gasping, eyes closed and I thought he was not going to make it.

After some time his breathing became more regular. But, the little body was still vibrating and his heart racing. There I stood on the lawn, watching anxiously to see some promising response from the clearly tired little eyes. He just sat with them closed, nestled between the palms of my warm hands.

After what seemed a long while, he opened his eyes and attempted to struggle free. I gently manoeuvred him onto a branch perch in the old oak tree.  He was still too wet and exhausted to fly. He simply managed his balance on the branch, resting and recovering from the exhaustion.

The first sign that he was beginning to feel better was when he pooped. Nearly falling off the branch in the process. He steadied himself and cleaned his beak on the branch. He tried to straighten his feathers but they were still too wet. He was becoming a lot more alert and clearly in recovery.

He watched me watching him, and decided to find a secluded spot in the tree where he could feel safer. I watched him hop higher into the tree until he felt safe enough to wait for his feathers to dry.

I continued with tasks and when I returned later he was gone. I was a bit disappointed that he left without at least giving me a thank you tweet. However, I also know that when one helps someone in distress, one does so because it is the right thing and not because there is a reward at the end.

The reward is that one is in a position to help someone else. In this case the world did not lose a songbird and he lived to sing another day. I felt good knowing that. A bird in the hand is definitely better than a bird in the canal.