The Restory Retreat Centre

  Food As Part Of Simple Living The Conversation Elements From The Conversation  Music Music in touch with things that take time to grow, are being prepared slowly and are enjoyed with abundance.  George & Matilda

Our walled vegetable garden at the beginning of Spring. Photo by Matilda Angus To take a spade, or spading fork on a crisp fall day and without undue haste or backbreaking effort to turn over slice after slice of sweet-smelling earth can bring rich rewards to the gardener who fully understands just what he is accomplishing.    - T.H Everett (American landscaper) Being in the Southern hemisphere, Spring has just sprung. Our young Zulu gardener, Skhumbuzo, has turned over the beds and worked in some well-rotted compost and cows manure. We've sown carrots, radishes, four types of beans, pumpkins, courgettes, coriander, basil and ox heart tomatoes. Skhumbuzo, the proud gardener. The last of the winter onions and carrots are ready to harvest and will make way for seedlings of aubergine, spinach, beetroot, peppers and a new batch of onions.  This year we plan to start laying out the orchard which will be adjacent to the vegetable garden. Half a doze...

A lush portion of our vegetable garden Our first winter in this valley is fast approaching. I watch with hawk eyes for signs of frost. My young Zulu helpers and I had gotten carried away when we started the vegetable patch and once the first little seedlings raised their heads late January, there were no end to what we tried to crowd into the beds. Never before in my life have I had such perfect conditions to realize a dream: to have a kitchen garden. Winter seemed far off. I now know that most of what grows so abundantly at the moment, had been planted or sown too late in the growing season. We will not see the pumpkins maturing and even the strawberries have trouble blushing up their fruit. I'm not even sure that they ought to be fruiting at the moment! The gooseberry and tomato trellises are covered in frost cloth. I am hoping to at the very least get most of the beautiful bunches of cocktail tomatoes to ripen on the vine before the frost claims my beloved annuals. I han...