Type of soil and Improving Soil

I did a bit of research on this and found a few ideas. Apparently your soil can be too acidic or too alkaline and apparently this does not necessarily depend on whether your soil is clay or sandy. Also remember, in different areas of your yard, the soil condition may differ. I conducted a test by placing some soil from the garden in a bowl then adding about a cup of vinegar. If it starts fizzing, apparently this means you have alkaline soil. If there is no reaction, take some soil and put it in another bowl and add some water (distilled if possible) and a cup of baking soda. If it starts fizzing that means your soil is on the acidic side. To make acidic soil more alkaline, add woodash or ground limestone. To make alkaline soil more acidic, add pine needles or sulfur. [Learn more about how to alter the acidity or alkalinity of your soil here] Find out more on this diy test here.Note: Remember, some "fussy" plants need either acidic or alkaline soil to do well. Also check this out: Understanding Soil PH.

Preparing Veggie beds for planting

Last Saturday (?) I started filling the veggie beds with organic stuff. So, I layered grass clippings and leaves with a bit of wood ash and river sand (using sand because of clay soil - not necessary for sandy soil). Greg is mowing the lawn this weekend, so more grass to follow soon!

Worm Tea

The great thing about winter is that because the air is not so dry, my worm farm produces much more 'worm tea'. In summer, it all seems to evaporate before I can get to it. Today I harvested almost one whole bucket full of concentrated worm tea. Some call this stuff "liquid gold". It is great food for plants, including veggies. Today the garlic, chillies, spinach, tomato plant, lemon tree, basil, rosemary and oragano got a good dose of the stuff!

Veggie Beds

Because of the clay soil struggle, I decided that, for our veggie beds, we will definitely have to go with 'raised beds'. We found these two 'easy-to-erect' beds on special at Builders (half price!), so decided to go for it. Here they are assembled in the yard in a nice sunny spot. Ideally when deciding on a spot for veggie beds you should also consider having their long axis running from east to west and if situated on a slope, the beds should be facing across the slope, not down. I was so tempted to start planting, but since winter has just begun I decided not to chance it. Instead, the plan is to start filling the beds with organic material from the garden to prepare them nicely for spring planting (in Sept).

Sun in the rain

This was the second sunflower that bloomed (our first big one)! On the misty evening of our friend, Leona's housewarming party, we delivered it to her for her to enjoy in her new home. :)

Guavas

Guava trees generally do well in South Africa, or atleast in the Western Cape, anyway... It is not uncommon to have a neighbour who has a tree, if you don't have one yourself. My brother and sister-in-law have one at their new home and it has already rewarded them with bags full of fruit. Sunett, my sister-in-law gave me a bag and told me how to bottle them with syrup. So easy!...and what a treat for dessert with a bit of plain yoghurt or cream!

First, sterilise your glass jars by boiling them for a while in water on the stove. I also dip the lids in the boiling water towards the end to make sure they are clean. You then peel the ripe fruit and take out any bad fruits from the batch. [Don't be shocked if you find a little worm from time to time]... Cut your peeled fruit in half, put them in a pot, just covering the bottom and fill with water, just covering the fruit. Now add sugar, more or less the same as how much water you used (i.e. 2 cups of water = 2 cups of sugar). I tried it with brown sugar and it also worked well. Now boil and stir from time to time. It shouldn't take very long, just a few minutes before they are done. Once done, bottle them and add the syrup. Don't fill the fruit right to the top of the jar because you need a bit of room for the syrup. [Sunett says she saves the left-over syrup to use in a next batch.] Next, Sunett is going to teach me how she makes guava jam! Will let you know how that goes! :)