When you look at your environment, there are always resources you can use with minimum impact to that environment. A resource found in abundance on our property is rock. We have found rock walls a wonderful way to enhance the garden, stop swale walls from eroding without stopping water flow, holding dirt off a site and to build a building.
Rock is a beautiful but difficult building material, you have to have the time to spend with it. Most of that time is taken to try and find the right rock for the right space. Once the right rock is found, it is put on top of the wall (loose rock wall), or fitted onto the spot and held in place with some wooden wedges (cemented rock wall). In the case of the latter, once enough rocks are in place to warrant making a batch of cement, it is cemented into place and the wooden wedges removed. When the cement is dry, it is scraped to mold nicely around the rock.
The picture above shows a rock wall building in progress. Around the area are a number of rocks waiting to be found so they can be put into the right space...
Some wwoofers enjoyed the rock wall process so much, they returned to our property and stayed to finish a rock wall they had started before they left. It truly is a work of art and is now called: "The Great Wall of Kin Kin"...
This wall stops the erosion of the higher swale wall and stops garden beds from being washed into the swale. Water can still seep through the rock wall into the swale.
If you are interested in finding out more about rock wall building, please contact us. We have regular building courses, rock walls being one of them. Rocks are a beautiful addition to the garden, and seem to fit in beautifully with the surroundings. If you are lucky enough to have natural rock on your property, please start using it! It is a low footprint material with a beautiful feel.
Today our wwoofers did a bit of harvesting. Natalia, a Dutch wwoofer who stayed with us a few months ago, had planted some sweet potato on the lower side of one of our swales. Our English wwoofer Liz dug one up today and we were speechless by the size of it! It weighed in at over 3kg!
Of course, we had to eat some for lunch, and will have some more for dinner (yes, it is good for 2 meals for 5 - 7 people!)
Sweet potato which is said to be an excellent source of vitamin A (in the form of beta-carotene), a very good source of vitamin C and manganese, and a good source of copper, dietary fiber, vitamin B6, potassium and iron. Purple-fleshed sweet potatoes have the highest antioxidant activity among sweet potato varieties. If you are interested in the nutrient content of sweet potato, have a look here: http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=nutrientprofile&dbid=128
I also had the wonderful surprise today of walking in the door after having been out this morning and seeing all this wonderful produce laid out on the table. Strawberries, mandarins, broccoli, yakon, lots of spinach and asian greens, lots of lettuce, chokos, cherry tomatoes and other beautiful foods. It was a gorgeous look seeing it on our table, and very inviting to cook with.
For lunch we chopped up all the spinach, endive and asian greens, put it into a pot with a few handfuls of cherry tomatoes and put it onto the woodstove with a sprinkling of tamari before I put the lid on. Half of the huge sweet potato was cut into pieces and put into a pot with a small amount of water, enough to steam the potato without running out of water.
We had this served with lettuce from the garden and home made rocket pesto. It is so satisfying eating from your own garden, and to know that we have low food mileage and organic, nutrient rich produce makes you feel great!
I am looking forward to our next great vegie find!!
Liz with home sweet potato...
