Spring Has Sprung. Dis Heerlike Lente

I do not want to dedicate this post to anything particularly enlightening, other than to say... SPRING HAS SPRUNG :-) Dis heerlike lente, die winter's verby.... and with spring a multitude of flowers are in bloom. Most of the colour in my garden comes from the indigenous clivias I blogged about way back in October 2013. 

I'm not going to ramble on and on about how delightful the flowers in my garden are. No, let the photos rather speak for themselves in this case:

Orange and red clivias/Oranje en rooi clivias

Sole clivia hiding in the ferns/Clivia wat wegkruipertjie speel in die varings

Yesterday Today and Tomorrow and a Bird of Paradise/Strelitzia

Clivia lane/Laning gevestigde clivias

Bright red clivia seeking sun/Bloedrooi clivia steek kop uit

White Arum lily behind multi-coloured nasturtiums/Aaronskelk agter die kappertjie bos

Sadly I don't know which type of orchid this is... my Ma noem dit sommer 'n Armmasorgidee

Lavender flowers and yellow clivia/Laventelblomme en geel clivia in die agtergrond

Spring Harvests. Lente Oeste

With it already being the second day of summer here in South Africa, I thought it appropriate to report back on what I harvested in my backyard garden (and also in other patches scattered throughout) during spring. While some vegetables performed quite well, others were simply not suited to our Garden Route climate, or suffered because of my inexperience and a lack of sunshine. This is what I harvested:
 

End Sep 2013 - nasturtiums, strawberries and "cauliflower"/kappertjies, aarbeie en "blomkool"

The first plants to produce anything vaguely fit for "harvest" were nasturtiums I sowed late July in a container and strawberries the granny and I planted late May and late June. Nasturtiums are always rampant growers, so I didn't expect anything less of them. On the other hand; I am currently planning to replant my strawberries in the soil, because they're not producing as they should in their pots, but then again; maybe their pots are too small. Questions, questions... I won't even mention the cauliflower, as they were a total failure. Of the twelve plants I purchased and planted late May, I didn't get one decent-sized cauliflower head. The biggest one was about 2cm x 2xm! I think I planted it too late in the year, because they got some sort of fungal disease. Perhaps I should plant them earlier in autumn next time?

Start of Oct 2013 - Some of the radishes/Sommige van die radyse

Radish was the one vegetable that performed brilliantly in the garden. Such a quick perfomer as well! I sowed them mid-August and harvested these beautiful babies in the beginning of October. How chuffed was I! The one thing I learned for myself is that they perform miserably in shady areas. Radishes I planted between my broad beans, in a mostly shady area, could only be harvested two weeks later than the ones in full sun, and were stunted and small. Yes, all sources told me most vegetables don't work well in shade, but I had to see it for myself, okay. Haha

Mid-Oct 2013 - An abundance of parsley/Pietersielie vir Afrika

Parsley, parsley and more parsley! Yes, parsley was definitely the biggest star in my spring garden (and I have the dried bottles of parsley to prove it). Both the curly-leaf and Italian varieties performed well, although the latter out-shined the former to an extent. Now that it is summer I'm having problems with them going to seed, but that is to be expected I suppose.

End Oct 2013 - Meager broad bean haul/Skamele boerboon oes

Yes, I made the same mistake with the broad beans as with some of the radishes... too much shade! What started out as a beautiful bed of beans under a leafless Acer negundu tree in autumn, turned out to be the aphid-infested bane of my existence under a fully-leaved Acer in spring! Regrets, regrets! Especially because the little broad beans I could harvest tasted so heavenly in one of the mother's Cape Malay curries. Ai! Note to self - plant broad beans beginning of autumn in a sunshiny spot next year!

Start of Nov 2013 - Lots of leeks and lettuce/Pragtige preie en baie blaarslaai

In addition to the parsley, leeks and lettuce were the other two members of the trio of top performers. Lovely green and purple lettuce bought at Norgarivier Nursery and planted in the beginning of October went into beautiful green salads. The leeks went into a gorgeous Leek, Bacon and Cheese Pie. The family couldn't get enough! Basically you pre-fry the leeks in butter, add it and grated cheddar, a carton of cream, a packet of half-cooked bacon and two eggs to a pie tin, in pastry, and voila! If you don't have enough leeks (like I did), sommer add a few normal diced onions to taste. Works like a charm.

Mid-Nov 2013 - Pole and bush bean harvest/Rank-en bosboon oes

Beans always perform well in our backyard garden, so I expected nothing less this year. This year I planted white pole beans, Contender bush beans and Lazy Housewife pole beans. In the photo, the larger, flattish beans on the left are the Lazy's and the thinner ones are the others. I got the organic Lazy's at Livingseeds - a highly recommended organic seed store. The white beans and Contenders I got from another kindly neighbour. 

We have already enjoyed all of them as green beans and some of them have been blanched and frozen. Now I can't wait for the bushes to perform even better, so the granny can make a decent batch of curried beans yummy!

I planted twelve red onion seedlings during the last week of May, and about the same number of Australian Browns the first week of June. The red onions performed quite well, but the white onions produced the smallest onions imaginable. We harvested them all the very end of November.
The lesson I learned from this comparison? Do not plant onions in hard-as-nails and compacted soil!

Hope I haven't bored you all with this lengthy post, but I guess someone out there might pick up a tip or two from my successes and failures. What do they say; practice makes perfect.

Foreign Friday. Volksvreemde Vrydag

Strawberry or Cherry Guava/Aarbeikoejawel (Psidium cattleianum)

One of my most vivid childhood memories is of the Cherry Guava tree we had in the backyard. I can remember the sweetly tart strawberry-like taste, the amount the brother and I used to gobble down, and the smell of overripe guavas in the hot South African sun. Unfortunately the tree had to make room for extensions to the house, but the memory is still clear.

When I couldn't seem to find a Chilean Guava anywhere in the country, it was therefore not a giant leap for me to settle on the Cherry Guava as stand-in. I blame James Wong for publishing such a delicious-looking guava and quince Rumtopf recipe on his site, made with the fruit of an impossibly difficult plant to source! 

The folks across the water tend to call our Cherry Guava either a Strawberry Guava or a Cattley Guava, but I'll stick to my Proudly South African roots. The tree grows easily in just about any soil, although some organic material and free-draining soil is a must. It grows into an average sized shrub to small tree, depending of the area you live in and the climatic conditions there. Here, in the Garden Route, they tend to grow to between 2m and 3m tall. The tree fruits heavily, and the fruit itself is very nutritious and low in calories. It contains around 60Kcal per 100g.

As I blogged about before, I decided to plant my Cherry Guava in the front-yard garden. I was quite fortunate to get a tree which already had a few fruit on it from my preferred local nursery. Before you pop one of these little treats in your mouth, just heed my warning about fruit-fly bites. The fruit might look normal from outside, but inside it could well be infested with worms. Unfortunately flies and birds like the little deep-red guavas just as much as we do...

My very first Cherry Guava/My heel eerste Aarbeikoejaweltjie

So in went my little tree, and I couldn't be more happy with the result. It took off like a duck to water.

The granny watering newly planted Psidium cattleianum

Since I knew about, and experienced first-hand, the fly problem with the Cherry Guava, I decided to give companion planting a go. At least, I planted a trap crop of nasturtiums and hoped for the best. Dalk was die kappertjies nie die beste keuse nie? The fact that the trap crop I chose normally traps aphids didn't put me off at that stage. I just wanted some nasturtiums damn it! I will definitely add some chives and the like later to repel the pesky fruit-flies though.

Nasturtium seedling/Kappertjie plantjie

Companion planting at its best??? Aarbeikoejawel + Kappertjie???

Oh, how I can taste Cherry Guava Cordial and Guava Crumble already! The following recipe especially appealed to me when I walked across it on another local blog -

Cherry Guava Apple Crumble:

• Make Cherry Guava pulp by boiling a colander full of guavas, a cup of water and two tablespoons of sugar for 20mins, strain. The mass should be a thick pulp.
• Crumble:
• 300g plain flour
• 175g sugar
• 200g soft butter

•  Filling:
• 450g peeled, cored and sliced apples (tinned apples make a fine substitute)
• 1tb sugar
• 1tb plain flour
• pinch of cinnamon

• Method:
• Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius
• Make the crumble by adding the flour and sugar together and rubbing the butter in
• Add all the filling ingredients to a large bowl and stir well
• Grease a 24cm dish and spoon the filling in, then pour Cherry Guava pulp over
• Sprinkle the crumble on top
• Bake for 40-45mins
  

Will you be planting a Cherry Guava in your urban garden?

Botanical Name: PSIDIUM CATTLEIANUM
Common Name: Cherry Guava, Strawberry Guava, Cattley Guava
Volksnaam: Aarbeikoejawel
Native to: Brazil (tropical Amazonian regions)
Date planted/sowed: Planted late June 2013 (winter)
Ease to grow: Very easy to grow
Costs: R45.00 for a small tree
Notes: Tree fruits quickly, but need to guard against fruit-flies and birds