Growing Organic: Giant Cabbages and Bolting Greens

Spring is just around our corner, though winter is having a last hoorah, and the days have been remarkably cold and drear. But just the other day, as I walked out in the early morning, I heard half-forgotten noises denoting the yearly squabble between the yellow-billed kites and the Egyptian geese. The former were back on the 9 August (we in the area always take note of the date of their return) from their sojourn in Tanzania, and the Egyptian geese aren't really geese at all. However, come Spring, they bitterly contest a remarkably unkempt nest towards the top of our very tall tree, which totals about 30 metres (90 feet) in height, we reckon. And lest you dispute our account with immediate effect:

You can barely discern my son, but the house is double-storey

It's a pretty large tree, not indigenous I'm afraid, a Liquid Amber in fact, but the leaves make wonderful compost yearly and it is not invasive, so any 75 year old being in our garden (bits of the house date back to 1948 and we figure the big trees were planted then), that is doing no other harm, is more than welcome to stay. As my mother said, when she saw our house, you have a garden you can hope to inherit, but you can never grow.

But at least our vegetable garden, like Topsy, has growed. Last post I talked about our cabbage, but did not include a reference point, so I shall now furnish you with one, our kids:

A great grey-green, non greasy cabbage all set about with children

The pok choi, possibly beset by snails, or maybe deciding that life was just too darned cold, or even simply out of sheer whimsy, decided to make a bolt for it (which means they went into early flower, without so much as a 'by your leave'). I always remember my grandmother and Aunty Muriel clucking over the sheer cussedness of plants that bolted - lettuce in particular are very prone to it when they get all hot and bothered, temperamental things. Anyhow, I saw it happening - there's not much really you can do to stop it - and decided to enjoy the picture since I couldn't enjoy the harvest:

Flower face

My husband has been very busy, and the boys very bolting lettuce-like (that is, hot and bothered) this last weekend, since we insisted they carry in all the bricks to make our newest bed in our vegetable garden, complete with our own home-grown compost:

Fem has a silly expression but at least the new vegetable bed looks good

That's the thing about gardens, generally - they take time, and effort and love too, but a lot of it is just about time. Time to grow things, time to make things, time to let nature just happen all around you - well, until it comes to snails, that is.

But our aloes are blooming, and the grassland we put in (recently cut) is full of all kinds of winter-flowering flowers.

Aloe maculata in an unusual yellow

Delicate winter flowers like tracery against the dry grey grass

The rhubarb may have a fighting chance, after the depredations of the monkeys which broke off all its petioles for no apparent reason, and at least my pottery label is finally able to depict something again:

Rhubarb taking its chances outside the monkey-proof cage

And for those who complain I never take pictures of me, here is one, albeit a bit dated to chilli harvest time:

Harvesting the chillies / chilis / peppers

There is something remarkably satisfying about a harvest - when you have one. 

Until next time, happy eating -

Kathryn