Refreshing the garden pathways with broken apricot pips

With most of the recent improvements to the interior of the house complete, the focus has shifted to the garden. We have a planned sequence of work that needs completion along with when we hope to achieve each task. When I received an email message informing me that it was my turn to receive broken apricot pips, our plans had to change a bit. I had been on a waiting list for broken apricot pips since August last year.

The plan was to refresh all the garden pathways and parking area with the broken apricot pips for the spring garden. However, due to the pips having been sold out, we went onto a waiting list. I arranged for the five cubic meters of pips to be delivered. The delivery of the pips brought with it the excitement of renewal.

The fresh pips have a soft brown colour that lightens the pathways and surfaces where we use them. They bring with them the experience of crunchy walkways with a feint fragrance of apricot kernels. The bits of broken apricot kernels, which are stuck to the pips, are a feast for the doves. Walking around a corner often results in a flight of laughing- and turtle doves flying off into the trees where they wait till it is safe to return to the feast on offer in the pathways.

It is quite something to see these flocks of doves walking up the pathways in the garden. Like tourists enjoying a package tour of sightseeing and eating as much as you can. I am sure the doves know how much they may safely eat of the arsenic tainted kernels, because I have not seen any related fatalities in the garden.

The irregular availability of the broken pips means that from now on, we will have to plan the refreshing of the pathways well in advance. In June 2022, we discovered that we might have to find an alternative supplier of broken pips to the one that we are using in Montagu, in the near future.

On 9 June 2022, Tiger Brands gave notice of their intention to close the canning factory in Ashton. The closing of the largest canning factory in South Africa, will impact our country’s standing as one of the top seven fruit canning countries in the world. But closer to home, it will impact negatively on more than 4500 seasonal jobs, 2250 permanent farm worker jobs, and approximately 300 farmers.

The loss of jobs will have a devasting effect on the Ashton community and the valley as a whole. Farmers will face the prospect of having to remove orchards and investing in other crops. The wider impact will be felt by ink suppliers and printers for packaging and labels, can manufacturers and the manufacturers of broken pips to mention but a few of the downstream implications.

We can only hope for the best possible solution for all the affected stakeholders in the Agro-processing sector. For now, we can enjoy the fresh and clean feel of the pathways while the elements will soon turn them into their seasoned greyish brown colour. 

It is always amazing to see the effect on the garden when one uses organic material. We could possibly have used broken stone and gravel for the pathways and parking area. That would last longer, but the benefits to the ecosystem in the garden would have been far less.

The pips will deteriorate over time and need constant refreshing but the benefit to the garden and the diversity of the ecosystem far outweighs the effort of keeping up the practice of using broken apricot pips as a surface cover. As much as the doves enjoy feeding in the pathways, I enjoy watching them in the morning where I sit at the breakfast table. We are all starting our day with a healthy meal at Towerwater, thanks to the providence of the garden, pathways included.

Herbal cordials

I could not say goodbye to the herbs without first harvesting the fresh purple flower of the lavender and the fresh soft tips of the rosemary. I needed to use as much of the reliable herb bushes before I took the roots and tough stems to the local refuse and recycling plant where they will be turned into compost.

I decided to make herbal cordials for healthy and refreshing drinks in summer. Historically, cordials originated in Europe where the art of distilling was refined during the 15^th and 16^th centuries. Most recipes for cordials contain alcohol but the nonalcoholic, syrupy drinks are also known as cordials, though mostly in the United Kingdom and associated countries.

Most of these were believed to be beneficial to one’s health, especially for the heart (cor in Latin, hence cor-dial).

I made a lavender cordial as well as a rosemary cordial. Perhaps the properties of lavender will infuse the syrup to stimulate circulation, clear one’s thinking and reduce worries. Sounds like the perfect drink on a sunny day, safely in one’s garden away from the Covid madness.

Rosemary can infuse the syrup with its properties of improving memory performance and quality, as well as boosting alertness, intelligence, and focus. Then I shall remember to forget about the pandemic and focus on planting the new vegetables and herbs for summer.

Removing the old herb bushes forced me to revisit the uses of these herbs in the garden. I undertook to use as much as possible and lose little. Reading of all the health benefits of the different herbs in the Towerwater garden, made me realise that I needed to make better use of the healthy abundance on our doorstep.

Cleaning the herb garden forced me to rethink the way I use the herbs. It helped me plan the new layout of the gardens with far greater insight into the uses and benefits of these life-sustaining gems of nature.

Fragrant faggots for food and fires

The herb bed dedicated to lavender, rosemary, and scented geraniums, had become overgrown. I decided to clear the bed and make it available for the planting of a new selection of herbs and salad greens. The replanting of the herb beds will also incorporate the new rosemary, lavender and lemon verbena plants which have been produced from cuttings taken earlier on in the season.

A herb faggot (bouquet garni)

The decision to take out the herb bushes was not an easy one. The large bushes were reliable suppliers of lavender flowers, rosemary sprigs and lemon verbena leaves. Before I had the bushes removed, I did a quick research on uses for lavender, rosemary, and lemon verbena twigs.

The overgrown herb garden

Historically, nothing in and around a house was ever wasted. All small branches and twigs were bundled and tied together to form faggots.

Herb faggots for making fire

Interestingly enough, when I researched the binding of faggots, I came across the website of the MOT, a DIY museum of old hand-tools and techniques which are powered by man, wind, or water. The DIY Museum is located near Brussels. It has a complete section dedicated to the binding of faggots. The sentence, “If you want to use a wood fired baker’s oven, or you know somebody who wants to do so, carefully keep the branches when clipping, pruning or clearing the garden”, immediately caught my attention. I needed to know everything about the use of faggots.

From the information on the website, it was clear that binding faggots was an important part of recycling twigs into faggots for their use as fuel in wood fired ovens. Thinking of all the prunings that we generate each year, made me realise how valuable these faggots could be for future use.

The website has measurements and practical guidance for making the faggots. “You make bunches with a circumference of about 90 cm and a length of about 80 cm that you press together well. Make sure to tighten well, the branches will shrink during drying and the binding will come loose.”

Side view of the Woodman's Grip and an example of a Faggot Press

There are also dedicated tools for binding faggots. There is a woodman’s grip to tighten branches as well as a faggot press and binding jig. There is even a plan for a binding jig that you can build yourself.

I am excited by this newfound information. I decided to cut up the large herb bushes and with the help of Fungai, we bound them into fragrant faggots to use as an aromatic fuel for fires.

I have discovered that the historical way of doing things was more eco-friendly than we are today.

In “Mrs Beeton’s Dictionary of Everyday Cookery”, published in 1865, she writes the following about the use of faggots, “Brick ovens are generally considered the best adapted for baking bread: these should be heated with wood faggots, and then swept and mopped out, to cleanse them for the reception of the bread.”

Clearly, binding faggots was an integral part of farm work. Making faggots produced a constant source of fuel for bread ovens.

In my further research, I came across the reference for herb faggots by Mrs Beeton. I fetched my own copy of “Mrs Beeton’s book of Household management” in the Towerwater library. I was hoping to find more detail of what goes into a faggot of herbs. From the 23 references to faggots in her book, the reference is either a faggot of herbs, a faggot of savoury herbs and a faggot of sweet herbs, depending on the dish. Clearly Mrs Beeton trusted that her audience knew their herbs.

In her Bechamel sauce, she calls for 1 small bunch of parsley, ½ a bay-leaf and one small faggot of savoury herbs. I will have to do some more research on Mrs Beeton’s cooking because when I make a bouquet garni (faggot of herbs), I normally include parsley and bay leaves.  

The cleaned herb garden ready for fresh planting 

Cleaning the herb beds after winter has taught me so much more about the functions of a herb garden and the optimal use of fresh herbs and pruned bushes. From a faggot of herbs for making lamb shanks to faggots of herbs for cooking fires, the herb bushes might be gone but they will not be forgotten. Their fragrance will linger on in future meals and fires.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary the word faggot means:

a. “A bundle of sticks, twigs, or brushwood tied together for use as fuel.”

b. “A bundle or bunch of reeds, herbs, flowers, etc.; esp. a small bunch of herbs for seasoning a dish. More generally: a bundle of anything bound or clustered together.”

 

Sources:  

Het MOT https://www.mot.be/en/ (The drawings of the Woodmen's grip and faggot press are also from this website)

Mrs Beeton’s book of Household management, published 1861

Mrs Beeton’s Dictionary of Everyday Cookery, published 1865

The Oxford English Dictionary - https://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/67623

A year in the life of an Italian tomato seed

On 27 February 2020, I received a gift of 24 different heirloom tomato seeds from a gardening friend in Florence, Italy. They were enjoying the last days of winter in the Northern Hemisphere and we were enjoying the last days of summer in the Southern Hemisphere. The seeds were cleared by the South African customs office and on that second last day of February, I collected the brown padded envelope from my post box at the bottom of Signal Hill, Cape Town.

When I saw the Firenze postal stamp, I had an idea of the contents of the envelope. Somehow, it is still exciting to receive post from overseas. Opening the envelope, I was greeted by two dozen individually labeled little plastic bags of tomato seeds. Reading the foreign sounding names of these little seeds inspired a new level of excitement.

I could not wait to see what the tomatoes would look like and researched them immediately. I recorded the different names matched with photos on a spreadsheet for reference purposes. I decided to dedicate two vegetable beds to tomatoes in the summer vegetable garden of 2020/21 at Towerwater.

Because our homemade compost tends to contain a lot of tomato seeds, I decided not to risk sowing them directly in the beds as I usually prefer. I decided to rather buy clean ‘uncontaminated’ soil in which to sow them in individual pots. I labelled each pot, carefully repeating the names on the packets of seeds. The pots containing their well-traveled seeds were nursed in Cape Town until the newly sprouted seedlings were strong enough to be planted in their designated beds at Towerwater.

The courtyard at Elmwood in Cape Town proved not to be the best place to nurse seedlings that need a lot of sun and a constant soil temperature. The germination went well and soon every seedling came up. But the progress to the vegetative stage was terribly slow. Although the seedlings were rather small, I decided to take them to Towerwater and plant them out.

I enlisted my dibber to make the holes for the planting. When I wanted to record which plant was being planted in which position in each bed, I discovered to my horror that snails had eaten all the pot labels. Keith helped me to record as many as we could decipher from the half-eaten labels. The seedlings from the pots where the labels had been destroyed, would have to be identified as much as possible using the spreadsheet that I made that included photos of the different tomatoes.

Towerwater did its name proud. Like magic the seedlings bolted more in one week than they had in four, in Cape Town. I could sigh a sigh of relief. After a slow start, and with snails destroying the labels on the pots, the seedlings which had sprouted from the seeds of Florence were going to survive.

The seedlings loved the African summer. Like seasoned travelers they were making the best of the long days and warm nights. The first sign of something completely different was the blue tinted tomatoes that appeared in the two beds.

In their orderly rows, the variety of assorted heirloom tomatoes were a pleasure to behold. One could not help but be enchanted by their various delicious colours and shapes. I am enjoying my tomato gift from Florence, almost as much as I enjoyed visiting the Uffizi Gallery there some years ago.

Like Neruda, my tomatoes make me want to write odes to the simple things in life. To sing the praises of a fruit that enchants a meal with its colour and simplicity. A slice of tomato on a slice of freshly baked bread with farm butter and a crack of salt and pepper, is a feast fit for a king.

I am rich with the generosity of a friend in Florence who gifted me more than heirloom seeds. It is a gift of the enchanted experience of flavours, textures and colours. The lifecycle of a simple seed that spans four seasons and two continents, where two gardens meet in a shared passion for the earth and her heirloom vegetables.

On losing lemons and celebrating citrus

After weeks of trying to rescue a favourite lemon tree, I had to accept that it was not going to recover. We decided to remove the tree. It appears that there might have been a problem with the soil. This could have been caused by seepage from the canal, resulting in a swamping of the surrounding soil. We decided to remove the soil around the ailing lemon tree. We then disinfected the sides and bottom of the resulting hole and the bordering earth.  The removed soil I then used to repair some soil erosion damage at the municipal dump. Much to the delight of the resident manager.

Homemade Limoncello

We decided that life is too short to plant small trees. This meant collecting a well-grown replacement specimen from a nursery near the town of Tulbagh. Tulbagh is located about 130 km from Bonnievale, in a mountain basin known as “Het Land van Waveren”. The trip to the nursery provided for quite an adventure. Slowly, the landscape changed from green vineyards and orchards to freshly harvested wheat fields. The nursery itself too, held for a pleasant discovery. I was amazed by its size and the generous selection of garden plants. I had known it primarily as a tree nursery and had not expected such variety.

Tulbagh Nursery - garden plant section

I was briefly distracted by the selection of hydrangeas. I was contemplating where I could plant some in the Towerwater garden when a nursery employee asked if he could assist us. I was reminded why we were there and decided to focus on the task at hand.

A tempting hydrangea 

Their selection of citrus trees is quite extensive. Their larger trees under the shade netting was not quite the size for which I was hoping. After explaining my preference, the nurseryman’s face lit up. He explained that what we were looking for, was to be found in another section of the garden around the corner. We followed him, but after walking briskly for 15 minutes along a gravel road, I was starting to wonder if I should not have brought my bottle of water along.

Tulbagh Nursery - citrus selection

It was a hot day. Although most of the walk was in the shade, we could feel the 36° C in the still air.  Suddenly, we walked into a clearing. There before us was a forest of citrus and other trees. The sight of the trees made me wish that we had more space to plant more of them.

The baby lemon

I chose a Eureka lemon tree of 2.2 metres tall. The nurseryman looked impressed with my choice. He pointed to a tiny lemon fruit on the tree saying I would not regret my choice. At that point I was hoping that I didn’t get charged extra for a tree already ‘in fruit’.

Tulbagh Nursery - rose section

As we walked back to the office, the nurseryman conducted an animated discussion on Eureka and Lisbon lemons. I was enlightened on their rootstocks, pip and juice quantity and the size of their thorns.  We were happy with our choice of the Eureka lemon.

He used a tractor and trailer to fetch our lemon and brushed aside my concerns that the tree will not fit into our bakkie (pick-up). Apparently, I had just to leave everything to him, something I gladly did. I joined Keith in the rose section of the nursery where he was selecting roses to introduce into the rosarium. In the rosarium, two yellow roses particularly, were not performing and were up for replacement. The newly selected rose bushes were strong and healthy. Keith selected “Amber Queen” for the Floribunda and “Casanova” for the Hybrid Tea positions in the rosarium.

Our future lemons

With the lemon tree and two roses in the back of the bakkie, we decided to return home via an antique store in the neighbouring town of Ceres, located 21kms from Tulbagh. In no time, we had identified three pieces of furniture that could work in the Victorian cottage in Cape Town. The lemon tree- filled bakkie prevented the purchase and we decided to make another antique-buying trip later in the year, or early next year.

Back home at Towerwater, we immediately planted the roses and lemon tree. Suddenly it seemed as if we had never lost a lemon tree. The single lemon and a couple of blossoms on the new tree held good omens for marmalade making next year. 

After a hot day and vigorous gardening escapade, we could relax on the lawn at sunset with a Limoncello Martini. A special feature of the martini was that it was mixed with our own Limoncello. Limoncello that had been made with some of the last lemons provided by our sadly departed favourite lemon tree. We could celebrate the memory of the old lemon tree and the promises of the new, now freshly planted, for the Towerwater garden.