Planting Seeds + Wheelbarrow Rides

Hello there and brightest of blessings for the new week ahead my friends.

I do hope your weekend was relaxing and enjoyed by you and yours? What did you get up to?

Saturday was pretty glum and miserable with much needed rain. Soccer was cancelled due to this so we didn't need to venture out at all and since all the shopping (miraculously) was done on Friday I didn't have to worry about going out at all, the whole weekend or for the rest of this coming week either in fact. I have weeks were I just cant get all the shopping done for the week ahead in one day, so then I catch up with the rest on the Saturday. (or send Rob with a list to do it for me 😉 ).

Sunday, although still pretty icy, cleared and by mid morning we were able to venture outside again. In fact it even warmed for the rest of it. So much so that we got so involved with outside it almost felt that it was time for a new season of gardening. I found Rob and the younger two outside clearing what was left in the vegetable beds and prepping them for just that. I love when we get to this time of the year. It can still get pretty cold and we're usually hit with a freakish cold front that brings on in snow as close as dammit to our mountain ranges before we can even consider being in the clear for real Spring weather. But, in saying this, there are other ways we can start getting prepared. Like clearing and prepping the beds. AND then dreaming about what will be planted in them.

We have also added gardening to our homeschooling curriculum. Rob and I feel it is so very important that the kids take part in the growing of our food and of course in doing so learn to appreciate what ends up on our plates at the end of it all.

A few months back our grocery store was adding a couple of these sweet little pots with every purchase made at their store. The incentive was (of course) that depending on the amount spent that would determine how many little pots you were given. Clever 😉 right? But, for us, as gardeners it was completely the wrong time of the year for them to be planted. So we kept them to one side for just the right time. We planted all the veggies pot this weekend and have left the edible flowers for another time. Each little pot comes with instructions and it will be up to Garren to keep them going.

He really is so excited about his project. He knows that once the plants are established he will be given his own space in one of the beds to nurture them until harvest time.

Finally we ended off our day in the garden with the inevitable wheelbarrow rides.

This was Danika's first time and in true Danika style she summoned her brothers to be there alongside her through it all.

There is so much to plan for our garden for the months ahead.

i certainly cant wait.

How are your gardens coming along?

Love Angela ❤

take a walk with Danika.

 

I have been noticing subtle changes outside of late. Mornings chores that were once done in brilliant bright sunlight have become a darker and if it weren't for the chirping of the birds one might think that it may be midnight out there. The heat is still here and will probably be here for a good time to come. But there is a change - there is this slightest wisp of coolness in the very early mornings. Yes, the seasons are changing, the wheel of the year is still turning. And, turn it will, regardless of what we're doing with our lives.

So, with these thoughts in mind I thought it best to update a little on how our wildlings are doing out there before it all passes by ever so fast and we're back into the throws of our African Winters. 

Our kitchen garden has fared well this year with the move from the bamboo thicket to closer and within the fence line. But, there has been a humidity this year. So much of it that the wildlings haven't fared as they should have. Rob, mentioned that our patty pan leaves (as well as the strawberry leaves) keep showing signs of a type of rust on them to the guy at the nursery down the road. This guy confirmed, as we suspected, that it was due to the high humidity this year. I have also noticed sporadic growth spurts. This hasn't been of the norm. Some weeks our greens flourish and we cannot keep up with them and other weeks they stand ever so still barely to reach for the skies in any shape or form. 

Our oranges have been green for months, as are our bananas! They are the first bunch ever to sprout on our land. We have been carefully guarding them from monkey invasions. And, aren't oranges supposed to be a Winter fruit? Interesting that the tree is in fruit on the last bit before Autumn swings on in. This week Rob fried up our first Aubergine. A little late in the season but they're about to fruit by the basket full (I hope!) I have ideas of pickling these little treasures for later eating in the year.

The girls in the coop are also a little bipolar at the moment. Some weeks we have all 4 sweet hearts laying and then nothing. I am still on the search for little red hens and pretty white fluffy ones too. Nothing has come up close to home on my web searches but I will keep at it.

It has been the strangest of seasons, to say the very least. I wonder what the rest of it will bring?

How are your wildlings and backyard faring this season?

ps.. Ive added a little meander around our backyard below - the sound for some unknown reason just wouldn't load with the video. I suppose old dated technology does that? of course I have no inkling of updating any of it in the near future - so we compromised and added Rob's favourite band to accompany it.

Hope you enjoy - Love Angela xox

https://youtu.be/r9nj-AqiNEg

Hibiscus Woes.

Rob moved my Hibiscus.

And the day it was moved we had one whopper of a storm. Although we saw the nicer side of said storm, it did take it's toll on my fragile wilding. Please keep my Hibiscus in your thoughts as we try our utmost to keep it living. My heart would just break into a million pieces if by chance it did not make it. Just the thought of no bright red petals gracing the branches of this wildlings is so overwhelmingly sad.

I am collecting Rose Hips as the Seasons change. This is the first year we have had a harvest. They're wonderful when brewed but one needs at least 6-8 hips for one cup of fresh Rose Hip tea. I will just keep collecting and keep them to dry out as I go along, these cups will be few and far between and probably only had on special occasions. We are planning to add a few more Rose bushes once the set up of our Kitchen Garden is complete. Just the thought of homemade Rose Water and extra Rose Hips for tea is exhilarating to say the very least. Standard sized, well established Rose bushes are a fortune.. I will have to work towards saving a little every month. Our green kitchen garden bed has been so giving too. We have harvested non stop with the extra going to our girls in the coop. Rob added two small Chilli tress to our new bed too. I love a thinly sliced up Chilli in my salsa and or salad. While pregnant with Danika I added them to everything!

We have been watching the movement of our Sun's rays and with just one small branch adjustment we have add a whole lot more sunlight to our kitchen garden. Those little seeds are going to sprout for all the world to see.

Goodness Part 2.

We have been talking and talking and talking about setting up a new bed for the kitchen garden, and sweet humans - it is finally in! Rob went early on Saturday morning to collect the most wonderful poop ever from our dear friends at Bits and Pieces Farm. Sally and Neil are the same friends who gifted us our small flock of Zulu Chickens all those years back.

I was paging through my chicken photographs this morning. Most of them blurry but there are quite a few that show the majesticness of our Cock, Nugget. I will miss him - he has moved on to a new home this past week. For those who have followed from the beginning of our adventure into backyard urban farming you will remember the love hate relationship I have had with this jerk of a Roo. I loved him and hated him all at once. He was beautiful and oh so very cruel. Over the last few months his cruelness had become lethal. The boys could not enter the coop for fear of his full fledged talon attack and Rob would not allow Danika and I to collect eggs from the girls. How could we not collect eggs - all we could do was watch from the fence while Rob battled it out with rake in one hand and food for the girls in the other while feathers and talons flew through the air. He was pomp ass and magnificent and utterly devilish. I already miss his crow in the mornings. The girls, on the other hand, look less disheveled and have thanked us with a full house of eggs.

So poop.. it makes this heart of mine smile. It must be a Mama thing. If the children are all pooping we're happy and when there is good organic poop for the kitchen garden we are grinning from ear to ear. Am I right? Over the years we have had one failure after another. Well, not really failure, maybe more of a few learning curves. Learning to grow with shade from the abundance of trees. Learning to grow with the constant attack of the monkey troupe that terrorise our neighbourhood. Learning to just grow. But after all of this I feel we may have got it right this time. And we are now ready to expand and grow with the sprouts. (watch this space there will be at least two more beds to come in the future.)

We have planted new heirloom seeds of Finger Carrots, Runner Lazy Housewife Beans (dont ask - do you think Rob maybe trying to tell me something?), Black Beauty Egg fruit, Capsicum (Green Pepper California) and for my edible and medicinal flowers we have added Echinacea, Nasturtium, Chamomile and Sunflowers - for the love of flowers for the vase. We also added a Pansy variety (from seedling trays) - which is an absolute delicious and beautiful add to our salads! I have a thing for all things bright and pretty. I think being blessed with the dearest of baby girls has bought all that back for me.

Oh, and those sweet young faces you see there belong to our tribe from the Big City.

Catching Up.

It has been way too long since I updated here. It wasn't as if I wasn't here all along. Although this thread has been so sorely neglected, the one that I have been painstakingly updating hasn't. I had promised that my shop would go live once all the my products had been uploaded. But, who would have thought that getting the finer details on my shop would prove to be so difficult. If you have less than 10 products to sell Ecwid is the way to go my friends. It is so super convenient and easy. But, in saying this once I got the hang of my eCommerce application it went a little smoother. If you would like to have a peek at what is on sale or what I may be selling, my Little Acorn Shop is live and thriving - already - thank you! So what have we been up to? This has been a crazy busy month and we still have not seen the end of it. I should have posted about the 5km Women's Challenge that Danika and I took part in, but pushing a pram through our streets with hundreds of other women and mothers alike made picture taking slightly difficult. There is more about that on facebook if you so choose to catch a few glimpses of our morning. We will be celebrating Tristan's 21st trip around our glorious sun in a few days, so a good amount of time has been spent there too. The Hall is hired and spit braai has been booked and the rest of the finer details will be shared after the day. There have also been bouts of various ailments too that come with the changing of the seasons. I do hope we have seen the end of most of them.

Our little side kitchen garden experiment is doing so very well. We have harvested from it at least twice every week this past month. I am pleased - no more monkey invasions! Its not for lack of me wanting to share with them, cause hell - sharing is caring - it's that they flatten everything in their path as they go along and that does not please me as much. So, smaller scale urban farming is more conducive to our little homestead. There are plans to add on another bed in the next month or so. How are your kitchen gardens faring this changing season?

I have been reading "my first 100 farm words" with Danika almost daily now. Of course all the animal sounds have to be made with each animal (how boring would that be without the sound affects!?) Yesterday morning one of the Zulu Kings' (from up over the mountain side) Nguni cows meandered over and passed our home. Of course you can just imagine our delight (well mostly mine) when Danika was able to put a real presence to the words and noises we have been making daily!

All together now... A cow says MOOOO!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53oKvM3BS98]

Let It Be.

Hello there, Greetings, Sawubona, Merry Meet & Welcome.

I am so very excited to share here with you all. As you can see I am sporting a new look (again - but this time, to stay for a while J ) and a new url name.

I am officially angelaallan.com sweet beautiful beings!!

I am over joyed, excited and most certainly overly thrilled that I could shriek out with utter glee. Of course we are all still Where Wildlings Grow on the blog - I am still in awe of this name so it may stick around for a while longer. BUT the rest of it is me and my shenanigan-ly business-ness.

I was asked a wee while back why I wouldn’t use our blog name for my new self-hosted name for my very own site. And it’s really quite simple. After much thought and consideration, I knew that it would be a name that would need to stick and stay with me for a long while, something that I just couldn’t change with the New Moon or when some thought ticked over in my scrambled egg brain. Then it came like a light bulb moment.. Gosh darn, I’ve like had it in my life for about 38ish years – right? (Well except for a small few of them a decade and a half or so ago) Yes, it’s a name that might just surpass them all. (I shall insert a small chuckle here now). Blog names come and go, as you may all have seen with me. They are like the changing phases of our dear Luna, like our moods and that of the loved ones around us. angelaallan.com is one that will forge forward like its owner through all its phases.

Again to you all who stick around to see all the silly senseless sometimes mundane shares I post. I thank you from the deepest darkest parts of my heart. You all are so super special to me and my tribe and we so love having you connect with us.

Please bear with me as I carry on with the setting up process of my website. For me it’s always the fun part. It shouldn’t interfere too much with the post shares at all. In meantime my About page is up, our Shop is ready for me to add our goodies to and I’ve added the link to my Ravelry account for you to see what’s wip on the needles. Below are links to my Facebook page and the follow button to my Instagram account. You can also sign up to get each of our updates right in your Inbox, should you choose. The future holds spots for Sponsors to advertise here too. There occasionally will be links to pretty things I may be affiliated with – this sweet blog, here, cant fund itself you know. I do promise to share affiliate links that I feel are lovely and helpful to you and your tribe if your feel that this may appeal to you, you can Email me. I would love to hear from you, link up with you, build friendships with you! Oh goodness me – again… Thank you!

Now, I think that I have covered all the bits and pieces that come with an introduction? Did I leave anything out?

Oh yes, when pulling through the blog most of the comments that you had all made on the old blog did not filter through – the joys of not owning your own site I suppose. I do apologise and I hope you understand. I loved reading each and every one that was made by you all. I am deeply saddened that they didn’t filter through but I know in my heart that they were there to begin with. Thank you!

I leave you with a little something from the weekend (a pre-post - to come - so to speak.)

https://youtu.be/UqHEhbAlQZQ

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqHEhbAlQZQ]

Protecting the Sprouts.

Rob and I had no idea that our little wildlings in the new veggie bed would sprout just as they have. We threw blessed seeds in with intense hopes and dreams and those blessed hopes have turned into little greenlings doing their thing against all the odds of the winter coldness that has finally arrived here to our space.

So, ever so thankful for the sprouts, we got the boys to help gather fallen pine needles to help keep them safe against the frost that will arrive and the winds that will make themselves known as the sweep from the Drakensburg snow-capped mountains.

https://youtu.be/-ltRtQqVSm