How to make a simple vegetable garden

Thursday's are our gardening days. So today when I woke up I decided that I wanted to make a small vegetable garden for some winter vegetables. I've been wanting to grow some things for the family over the winter and our normal garden bed hasn't been producing very well because it gets too much shade.

I thought I would walk you through the process to make a simple vegetable garden in a couple of easy steps.

1. Choose your spot. You want a place that is going to get as much sun as possible - even in the winter. This is probably the most important thing.

2. Clear it. You want to get rid of grass, weeds, other plants and things that you don't want in your veggie patch. If you have a compost heap, then most of the things that you take out could go into that. The spot that I used today was relatively clear because we used to grow herbs there last season.

3. Turn it. Grab a spade or pitch fork and start to work the soil. You also want to be adding some form of compost at this stage. Make sure that it's all mixed well. You want to mix the top 20 - 30 cm of the soil. Once the soil is well mixed you can get a rake and flatten it out into the shape of your bed. Try not to stand all over the soil as you do this, because you have just worked a whole lot of air and oxygen into it, and if you stand on it and compact it, you're going to lose some of your hard work. Plants grow better in soil that is not compact because it's easier for them to push their roots down.


4. Trim. It's vital that your crops can get sun to grow. If there are any trees or bushes nearby, then trim them away so that your veggies can get the sun they need. You can see that I took quite a bit of the tree away here, which is fine. I also added some old roof tiles that are broken. These are going to be my stepping stones so that I don't have to compact all the soil. Place them so that you use as few as possible, but that you can reach any part of your garden from them.


5. Plant! Choose what vegetables you want to grow and stick them in the ground. Because we're going into winter here I have decided to grow some cabbage, brussel sprouts, beetroot, peas, kale & cauliflower. I started all of them from seed about 3 weeks ago.

6. Water. Your plants need plenty of water. Ideally everyday, but every second day will do too. The more they get watered, the faster and bigger they will grow.
I'm not a professional gardener by any means, in fact this is the first vegetable garden that I have ever made by myself from start to finish. It doesn't take a lot to make one, but it is a ton of fun.

There are so many different kinds of gardens - I just wanted to make mine super simple. If you don't think that something like this will wuit your needs, or if you don't have the space to do this (living in a flat, etc.), then check out google for some more ideas. I hope I have inspired you to consider planting some vegetables in your own yard!

Powdery Mildew, Blight and new peas!

I know that I haven't written about my new aquaponics system here yet, but I set up a basic system at home so that I could experiment and grow some vegetables for my family.

The plants have really been doing super and the growth has far exceeded the normal soil garden and I'm very happy with most of the growth. It hasn't been without it's own problems though. I have had some problems with my plants. First, the aphids attacked my baby cabbages and almost ruined them, but I quickly learnt how to deal with that (you can either squish them or make this organic spray).

Now I am dealing with powdery mildew on my capsicum plant (bell peppers) as well as blight on my celery. I just wanted to put it here so that you can learn something new.

Powdery Mildew  - Bell Peppers

First off - powdery mildew. It's a fungal disease that effects many different kinds of plants. It's normally one of the easier problems to spot because its symptoms are distinctive. Basically you want to be looking for a white powdery looking substance on your plant. It can form anywhere, but is mostly common on the underside of the leaves. It's common in places with high humidity and medium temperatures. To treat it you can either go out and buy an organic fungicide that will treat for powdery mildew, or you can make a spray of 1 part milk, 10 parts water. According to Wikipedia, studies have shown that in some cases it's as effective as normal fungicides.

Blight in Potato Plants

Next off I found some blight on my celery leaves. So from what I have read, blight is harder to spot than powdery mildew. Blight is not a disease in itself, but is a symptom that indicates that the plant has an infection  by a pathogenic organism ('germs' for the rest of us). It can affect any part of the plant, but is most noticeable on the leaves by chlorosis (yellowing of the leaves) and then browning of those areas and eventually death of the tissue. The first step to treatment is to remove the leaves that are affected. Don't put them in the compost heap because you will spread the problem - I threw them in the garbage. I am going to see how this works out for me. If the problem comes back I'll go and look for an organic spray that I can use.

Not all my news is bad though! My pea & tomato plants have started to show some flowers so hopefully I will be seeing some fruit soon (even though it's a bit too late for tomatoes). I will post some pics of the fruits when they come out.

I hope you learnt some thing from this :)

Zach Sobiech - an inspiration.

I just wanted to share with you a video that I watched earlier today. I really thought it was amazing. I must say, I did find it very emotional and I thought that there are a lot of lessons that can be learnt from it. I thought that Zach's courage was amazing and it definitely showed me that the good things in life are the little things - things like family, memories and friends.

If you have 20 minutes of free time I really recommend that you check this out. I hope that it teaches you as much as it taught me. Rest in peace Zach.

Yoga & Meditation, the good life.

Semester is almost finished and exams are starting next week. Feeling the need to study is at it's highest, but I can't manage to find the concentration necessary which isn't normal for me. I'm normally always able to sit down and bash out some work very easily. Today hasn't been like that. I keep finding that my thoughts wander onto new projects and times in the future. Buddha would be very upset with me, well at least as upset as Buddha could be.

To try and combat this I went for a run this afternoon. My aim being to run so much that I would be too tired to think. Halfway through the run I decided that it's about time I abort that plan and just relax into the run. It was great from then on. I stopped to watch some kids playing soccer, walked a little further and then continued my run. Once I got home, I just did a couple warm down stretches and then I realised - I was busy doing some yoga. I then started to remember how when I was in India I would do a little everyday and mix in some mediation and how relaxed and empowered I felt. I haven't done it much since then. So, I have decided that I am going to start stretching and mediating in the morning and I am going to try and do it everyday this week, and then continue from then on.

I'm not going to go all intense into the yoga, but just a couple morning stretches to get the blood flowing nicely. I'm going to start with a very simple 'salute the sun' stretch that works all the major muscle groups in the body and then I am going to sit for 10 minutes minimum and do some breathing exercises and get my mind on track for the day.

I decided to list a couple of good things about what I plan to do, this way it'll help me to stay on track because I know what I am doing has benefits. The basics:

1. The breathing exercises help you to get rid of all the carbon dioxide that has accumulated while you sleep. Carbon dioxide is converted to a mild acid molecule when it isn't able to be expelled from the body. By breathing deeply you can get rid of a lot of it and it will leave you feeling rejuvenated.

2. Stretching will help you keep your flexibility. It helps to increase your full range of motion that is possible in your major muscle groups. It also helps to improve your muscle circulation.

3. Meditation will help you to relax and set the tone for the day. If you take some time in the morning to  plan the day, you will find that you are more focused and use your mental resources better during the day.

So on that note, let me go now and do my 10 minutes of meditation.

Heirloom Vegetables

While I have some free time I thought I would teach you something you might not know. If you do know about heirloom vegetables - I'm glad you do!

So what are heirloom vegetables? According to wikipedia, heirloom plants are old cultivars that are "still maintained by gardeners and farmers particularly in isolated or ethnic communities". They're basically all the different kinds of vegetables that we don't see any more in big supermarket chains.

You might be wondering what types of vegetables these are? Well have a look at some of the pictures below. This isn't GM foods - it's natures way of diversifying it's plants to protect itself and give us more beautiful things to look at.

You may have never known that carrots weren't always orange. They were first found in Iran and Afghanistan areas and were white in colour. There were also purple, red and yellow varieties.

And it's not only carrots that come in all shapes and sizes. You can find almost any kind of vegetable that is different from what you would normally see. 

I have decided that I want to grow some of these when the winter ends, so in the meantime, I get to decide on what I would like to grow. I'm thinking some tomatoes, cucumbers and eggplants would be a great start.

I'm really excited to try and grow some of the heirloom corn available, not so much to eat it - but more so because of the colours available. I will probably order the strawberry popcorn variety, named because it looks like little strawberries when it's still on the cob. I think that it would very interesting in salads too!

So I hope that I managed to show you something new that you never knew about before today. Keep an eye out here in the summer if you want to check on the progress of my vegetable garden. I will also be posting helpful tips and hints for gardening.

Milo, lumpy custard and the life of a student.

I've just arrived home from university. Not having had breakfast before I left this morning, I made a beeline for the kitchen and I've found some lumpy custard in the fridge. Mixed with milo it's a great combo. I decided to google this to see if there was a photo so I could show you what it looks like. Once again, google never ceases to amaze me - it gave me an answer. If lumpy custard and milo was a human it might look something like this:

If you just lost your appetite you are not alone. After seeing this my lumpy custard was down the drain - I definitely couldn't eat it after that even though it probably wasn't good for me in the first place.

So lectures officially end tomorrow which is great because it means that we get to sleep in late and be lazy around the house. It also signals the beginning of the exam period - so time to get those books out! I guess another great reason about winter in June/July is that it makes studying so much easier. It's always better to study when it's raining outside. If you're living in a place that doesn't have rain while you're trying to study and would like to 'make it rain' - then you could open this link in a new window. It's a site called rainymood and has this awesome sound track of stormy weather. It's really great for studying if you play some instrumental music with it.

I'm looking forward to being done with exams for this semester, as are most of the people I discuss it with. It's amazing how quickly the semester has just flown by at an astonishing rate. When you start the year you always have a list of things in your head that you would like to achieve. Well I have found that I haven't been able to achieve many of those things and it's not because of lack of time, it's because I planned it badly. I didn't actually write that list out onto paper and stick it on my board - and like the saying goes 'a goal is only a dream if it isn't written down somewhere'. So during this period of exams I am going to take the time to write out a list of goals that I would like to achieve by the end of the year and put a plan of action there for each one. So keep an eye out here for my list of things that will be coming soon.

If you haven't written any goals down for the year, then why not write a couple down. If you think you're too old to write plans down, then maybe your plan could be 'don't think like an old person'. Just kidding - but you're never to old to set goals.

Winter is coming!

I always love the change of the seasons. There is something magical about it. It's almost as if you can feel the earth shifting around and settling into the new patterns. Here in Cape Town we don't get an snow in winter - unfortunately. We get cold pounding rain that stays for days on end. It's fine if you have nothing to do, but if you have to leave the house it can get pretty miserable pretty fast. I always enjoy places that have winters without rain and summers with afternoon showers.

However, there are some good reasons for winter to roll around. We all have our own things that we love to do during winter and these are some of mine:

Fires. It's so nice to sit next to a fire in the evening with a glass of wine and relax whether you are reading a great book, chatting with your family or watching your favourite TV show . My favourites are cooking shows, which leads me onto my next good reason for winter...


Cooking. I love to cook now and then, I find it is not only a great way to relax, but it's also so much fun as it gives you a blank canvas every time to create any meal you wish. Winter is great because it means it's time to get out all the curry recipes you've been saving over the summer months and give them a try. You get to experiment with new spices and create some amazing dishes that make you go to bed with a smile on your face.


Sleeping. When you climb into bed during winter you load on piles and piles of blankets and get to disappear inside the covers. It's almost as if they get to swallow you up and you can disappear in your bed until the morning again. I also love being able to feel through the coldness and darkness of the duvet and find your partner and know that you will be able to cuddle to keep warm. If you're single at the moment you're going to have to settle for a hot water bottle, or make use of these next few weeks before the cold weather sets in and find yourself someone to cuddle for the winter.

Red Wine. YES! I love red wine, as I'm sure that most of you all do. Winter is a great time to enjoy some of those bold wines while you unwind from a busy day. There are few things better in life than a good red wine and a home cooked lamb curry.

There are tons more reasons to love winter. If you're like me and don't really enjoy winter that much, think of a list of things that you could enjoy doing during the winter and write them down. Try and do a couple of those when you're getting over winter. Who knows, maybe you'll grow to love the cold...

     

Blogging, why bother?

I have been thinking about the reasons why I decided that I would like to start a blog and it got my thoughts going. If you take the time to think about it, there are some really good reasons to start sharing your experiences through cyber space. Here are some of the reasons that I decided to start my blog:

1. It allows me freedom. I feel like having a blog is like having a personal space. It enables me to say what I want and express myself without having to defend or confirm what I say.

2. It's inspiring. I find that when I read other peoples blog's I get inspired by the things that some of them say. I hope that I can have that same effect on people through this blog. I also find that it inspires me to do better for myself because I know that there is the possibility that somewhere out there, some one might be reading this now.

3. It's fun. I enjoy being able to come and write about things that excite me or that I find interesting. It's great to get responses from others about what you write.

4. It improves your communication. This might seem weird, but one of the reasons why I wanted a blog is because I want to improve on my communication. I often dream of being a grandparent that tells all these amazing stories about my life. I think it's a great skill to be able to tell stories that captivate your audience. Compared to 50 years ago, people don't tell many stories any more. One day I'd like to write a book. I'm not sure what it'll be about, but I know that by having blogging experience it will make writing that book a whole lot more fun.

5. To keep loved ones up to date with my life. We all know what it's like getting SPAM from relatives. Having a blog enables them to be able to come to you when they want to find out more. It's a way for people see what you're up to.

6. It's a venting station. Now granted, not everything will be appropriate to put up on your blog, but many things will. If you have opinions about current affairs or just want to challenge ideas, then a blog is a great place to do it. It also saves you from annoying the people in your immediate vaccinity about having to hear the same thing over and over again.

I do accept that not everyone will find blogging attractive. Other people might enjoy painting or drawing, or even playing some amazing music. A blog lets you experience a different side of yourself. What other reasons do you feel should be on this list?

Welcome!

I have been wanting to start writing in a blog for ages and have never gotten around to it. I'm one of those people who is very particular about small details, so for many reasons I didn't start writing. Well I have chosen a name for my blog and I think it's general enough for me to write about all the facets of my life. I look forward to writing about the things that I get up to and the experiments I perform.

I am going to take a while to get this blog up and running with some posts and interesting things to read, so you won't find anything here at the moment. I am also busy writing up the preliminary report for my thesis which is due in 3 days, so I'll write here when I get the chance.

If you're also busy working towards some hand in dates at the moment and are procrastinating more than you'd like, I would recommend you check out this page. It's got some amazing classical music that I've spent hours listening to while a deadline was looming.

Check back in a couple of days for more news :)