2 Women on 2 Acres

Planting by the moon has earned itself a certain mystique, for some, it conjures up naked bodies dancing under a moon lit sky. For others, ancient complex ceremonies of secret cults with pagan rituals and unknown symbols.

But in reality, for many centuries for travelers and, in particular, gardeners and farmers it has been a way of life. They firmly believe that vegetables should be planted, cultivated and harvested at certain times of the moon cycle and on particular dates of the lunar cycle in conjunction with the other planets.

Those who plant by the moon attest that, by following ancient traditions handed down through the generations, that the food they cultivate from the land tastes, grows, and looks better. Is there any truth in their beliefs, or is it just hocus pocus?

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Huge stems and enormous brightly coloured flowers that follow the sun are only the tip of the attraction of sunflowers.

They are usually the first seeds our children grow in school, they are depicted as characters in children’s books and are a pronounced splash of colour in many vegetable gardens.
They represent ‘a happy smiling face’ to many people and stand to attention like soldiers when they guard our vegetable plots.

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Heirloom Seeds - A Story of Life

Heirloom seeds have made a dramatic comeback in recent years. It is said that there are more than 5,000 heirloom tomato varieties alone. But heirloom seeds are much more than tomatoes, each variety has its own life story. Each seed has been sown, cultivated, harvested, saved, and passed on, often for hundreds of years, down through the generations.

Some seeds have mysterious tales. Others have been smuggled out of native countries in the hems of ladies dresses or the inside of shoes, to end up with their owners in a new land. Whatever their story, these precious seeds are now stealing the limelight from their F1 hybrid cousins.

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Preserved Lemons are common in Middle Eastern cuisine, it is also known as “country lemon” or leems.

My 1st Ever Jar of Preserved Lemons

The rind of the preserved lemon can be used in stews and sauces, and are the key ingredient to many Moroccan dishes like stews and tagines, the flavor is mildly tart but intensely lemony.

If you have never had preserved lemons, you are in for a Moroccan taste sensation, but you will have to wait a month, then you can enjoy them for about a year, in amazing recipes, for inspirational recipes, see my sister blog:

http://thecookscupboard.com

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If you are skeptical about natural pest control, I can prove it works…

After

Before

My brassicas (cabbage, radish and broccoli mainly) were being terrorized by the cabbage white butterfly, the leaves were disappearing fast , and I don’t like cabbage stalks, so it was time to fight back…
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I often get asked ‘Can you farm on 2 acres?’ and the answer I give is ‘it depends upon the lay of your land’ because I cannot ‘see’ the land in question I can’t say one way or another

We are extremely lucky, every inch of our 2 acres is ‘farmable’ in one way or another. It is our aim to only have things on the property that either feed us or our animals.

It'a Tough Going

But, it is not the same for everyone, and each individual has to ask themselves a series of questions and really examine the lifestyle they want.

It’s where to start that stumps a lot of people, so I can only go on the questions we asked ourselves and by trial and error and an enormous amount of hard work, we have finally sorted out what would make us happy and financially secure.

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Ok here’s the deal..

WOW!! That's A Lot

EVERYONE and his dog has had the MOST enormous harvest of zucchini on record this year, you can’t GIVE them away. When you go to say ‘Would you like…’ people run a mile, so what DO you do with several kg’s of zucchini?

Our harvest this year was also enormous, in more ways than one, I had booked a market stall at a local food & wine festival, and I was left in a difficult position of do I harvest now and risk loosing the small zucchini before the market or do I leave them??
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Things were getting desperate, the grass was SO long in our paddocks, even the goats lost sight of each other and had to bleat loudly to locate where they were.

Although, both the goats and the chickens LOVED the long grass, it was getting to the stage of falling over and rotting from the ground up and I was at my wits end trying to think of a way to save the grass from spoiling.

Just when I had all but given up, I press ganged our next door neighbour into cutting the grass with his tractor, once inside the paddocks, all gated were securely pad-locked, only to be unchained when he had finished!!

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The power of animals to recover from abominable treatment never ceases to amaze me. We brought three leghorn chickens not long after we moved onto the block and when we picked them up, we met the seller at a fruit & vegetable shop at a half way point between when we both lived.

It was a scorching New Zealand day, blue skies and no shade. We arrived at mid day for the pick up and when we saw ‘our girls’ stuck in a sealed cardboard box, which stank of chicken droppings, it was SO bad, the box has started to disintegrate and if that wasn’t bad enough, the box had been stuffed in the airless boot of the car for over an hours drive to say we were horrified was truly an understatement.

Worse was to come though…
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Happy New Year to all the avid readers out there, I hope 2009 is as good for you as it is going to be for us!!
I have been slaving away in the kitchen garden and I am very proud of my efforts so far, we have pea’s, zucchini’s, herbs, a variety of unusual salad greens.

It is SO exciting, to contemplate what to have for lunch and just go into the kitchen garden and come back with your arms full of goodies!!
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