My organic beans handed me a list of complaints. And that‘s the truth.  Nature sure guides you – but you have to be open to the signs.

Let me explain.

Last year, I had a bumper crop of climbing beans.  I picked baskets full of delicious stringless beans every two or three days.  I gave them away to family and friends and truly didn’t know what to do with them, they came up so fast.  And all this from a patch of a dozen or so magic climbing beans. It was a roaring success!

Now this year, as I didn’t want to grow my beans in the same place I prepared a new bed in another part of the garden.

What a fiasco!  My beans plants were scrawny and miserable. The leaves were reduced to lace by an invasion of some nasty leaf eating insects.  And obviously the yield was very poor. It was a total failure and my beans were complaining!

Why did this happen.  What was different?

Well, it appears that they were unhappy with their new location and they told me so in no uncertain terms.  They had quite a long list of complaints and I’ll mention a few.

Firstly, they were too close to a group of trees and they clearly did not get enough sun – whereas last year’s beans were in full sun. (Did I detect signs of jealousy?)

Also, the soil was not as rich as the soil in the first bed. (Definitely signs of jealousy)

Well, in my defence, I had run out of compost. But I learnt the hard way that beans are not to be fooled.

Anyway, lesson having been learnt I started all over again and went back to preparing the original bed in full sun where I had previously had so much success.

I carefully composted the bed till the soil was dark and friable. I put up a fence for the beans to climb on. And then I planted exactly 20 beans.  Talk about Jack and the beanstalk!  Then I sat back and waited.

Silence!  Not a single moan or complaint!

Now I don’t want to talk too soon – let’s just say that my beans shot up in record time. At present they are climbing all over the supporting fence and the leaves are big and healthy.  I am now waiting for the first flush of flowers.

(And this in a very quiet whisper as I don’t want them to hear: I’m hoping there won’t be any chewing insects on the leaves.) But I’ll report on any new developments as to the  progress of my organic beans in due course.

Craft and Create - The Creative Route to Personal Development

How did I become an organic gardener? It happened overnight.  Over supper to be exact.

I bit into a lovely red tomato and tasted a mouth full of chemicals.  No lovely tomato flavour. Just pure chemical spray.

That was more than enough for me.  Not only was the taste terrible but can you imagine how unhealthy tomatoes like that must be?

And what about all those vegetables where you don’t taste the chemicals because you have cooked them into your stew? And what about serving up meals like this to your children?

Now I know that organic gardening is supposed to be more difficult.  Just think about the steep price of organically grown vegetables at the shops.  But the taste of that chemical tomato still lingers and that makes me more determined than ever to try my hand at organic gardening.

I have always had a special feeling about nature so it hasn’t been all that difficult to get into. I use a three-pronged approach that involves improving  the soil, using compost instead of artificial fertilizers and definitely no chemical sprays.

• Soil care
• Compost
• No chemical sprays

And thereby hangs many a tale. In due course, I’ll let you know about some of my triumphs as well as my trials and tribulations!

You can read more about my adventures with organic gardening at Roses and Gardens

Craft and Create - The Creative Route to Personal Development

Here is my tried and trusted recipe for the really Scrumptious Pumpkin Fritters that I promised you in my previous post about “The Great Pumpkin Adventure“. They turn out puffed and golden.

2 cups mashed pumpkin (500gm)
½ cup flour (125gm)
2 level teaspoons baking powder,
Pinch of salt
1 beaten egg
A little milk if the consistency is too tight.

Mix well and drop with a tablespoon into hot oil. Lightly brown both sides.
Drain on absorbent paper and serve hot with cinnamon and sugar.

Tip: I never deep fry or use too much oil. 1cm of light sunflower oil covering the bottom of the pan is sufficient.   Don’t use olive oil as the flavour is too distinctive.

Pumpkin doesn’t always have the same consistency so you may have to adjust your ingredients.  Try not to use pumpkin that is too young or watery.  If you do find that your pumpkin is a bit watery, add a little more flour.  The consistency should be firm but not sloppy.

Let me know how your pumpkin fritters turn out!

Craft and Create - The Creative Route to Personal Development

The Great Pumpkin Adventure is a success story of great magnitude. Or put another way; small beginnings lead to great results.

I’m talking about pumpkins – yes, the ordinary garden variety. And this is how it happened.

I kept a few pumpkin seeds from a really good pumpkin we had bought at the supermarket.  And like Jack and the beanstalk the day arrived when I decided to plant them. Just 6 seeds at the bottom of my garden.

Now the garden is slightly sloped so they were out of sight and I forgot about them until a few weeks later when I saw some big healthy pumpkin leaves.  It didn’t take long before yellow pumpkin flowers started to develop and soon one plant in particular began to trail down the slope bearing lots of little white pumpkins.

A few good rains and some overhead watering and the pumpkins really started to take on a life of their own.  It wasn’t too long before I began to invite visitors to see our giant pumpkin plant with its huge white pumpkins.

They are still thriving at the bottom of the garden and now each pumpkin is so huge that I need help to carry it up the slope.

I’m still giving away pumpkins to friends and family and I’ll have plenty to last through the coming winter. The joys of organic gardening!  No fertilizers beyond a little compost and certainly no toxic sprays or poisons.

Next time I’ll share my excellent pumpkin fritter recipe. They’re puffy and delicious.

Craft and Create - The Creative Route to Personal Development

Here is the easy creamed spinach recipe I promised you.  It tastes even better when you use fresh spinach picked from your own garden.  And don’t forget – organic is best.

I just read about someone asking about the pro’s and cons of irradiated spinach to kill bugs and make it last longer.  Well I really wouldn’t know about that. There are many opinions about it and I think the jury is still out on that.  But whatever the outcome I personally prefer the fresh organic spinach from my garden. It should of course be washed well.

So here is my recipe:

EASY CREAMED SPINACH
3 Tablespoons butter
1 small onion minced
1 teaspoon salt
2 lbs spinach washed very well, chopped and cooked
2 cloves garlic
11/2 Tablespoons potato starch or corn flour
1/4  teaspoon pepper

Lightly fry the onion and garlic in butter till the onion is tender.  Throw away the garlic.  Add milk to the corn flour gradually.  Stir in the salt and pepper.  Slowly add milk mixture to the sauted onions and stir over low heat till thickened. (The sauce gets very thick very quickly)   Stir in the well-drained spinach and heat.  Serves 6.

I think you’ll like it

Craft and Create - The Creative Route to Personal Development

If you’ve ever grown your own vegetables you’ll appreciate what a thrill it was for me this morning to pick the first crop of my own home grown spinach. It just doesn’t come fresher than that!  The spinach plants are tall and healthy and covered with curly dark green leaves. They’re simply packed with goodness and vitamins.

Best of all, my spinach plants are organically grown so they haven’t been spoiled with chemicals or sprays.

Now I grant you, spinach is easy to grow. And you don’t need more than a dozen plants or so for the average family. But if you really want a lush crop of spinach there are certain conditions that have to be met.

Firstly your spinach plants will need plenty sunlight and a good fertile soil enriched with compost or leaf mould.

Then of course they will need sufficient water.  It’s the height of summer here in the southern hemisphere and the days can be very hot so around midday, as soon as the leaves begin to look tired – and even before they wilt – I give them an overhead sprinkling of water and they revive very quickly.

How to pick spinach

Some gardeners attack their spinach plants with kitchen knives and cut down the entire plant. As far as I  am concerned this is unnecessarily aggressive. It’s a total waste too because you lose the whole plant with one picking.

I prefer to harvest spinach by giving my plants a light “pruning.”  To do this I only remove one or two healthy adult leaves from the outside of the plant. In this way the spinach plant doesn’t even noticed that it has been pruned and it continues to  thrive and produce more leaves in abundance.

A quick and easy recipe for creamed spinach with my next post.

Craft and Create - The Creative Route to Personal Development