Solar Power in South Africa Part 4: Capacity, Design and Back-up Supply; Living with Solar in Gauteng, South Africa

Capacity, Design & Back-up Supply (Author: The Economist) A real life true journey of a South African family to go off-grid on sustainable energy supply and usage. Capacity: How big must my solar system be was probably the first question that we needed to answer back in 2014. Every family will have its own needs,…

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Sustainable, Productive and Economical Vegetable Gardening (Part 4): Vegetable Garden Planting Guide & Management

When you consider an ideal vegetable garden I imagine that many of you (as well as myself at one point too) had the following image in mind: Vegetables arranged in neat regimented lines or blocks containing one type of vegetable, perfectly bordered by some type of hedging and clear weed free paths between the planted…

Natural (Bio)fertilisers & Living Mulches: The Edible Legumes

I have been running several posts on using plants as biofertilisers, living mulch and even chicken feed. This post is a follow up on the living mulches that I have been experimenting with. Several plants (which include many legumes) that can be used as green manures and green chicken forage. Previously, I have used Penny…

Solar Power in South Africa Part 3: Solar & Seasonality, Living with Solar in Gauteng, South Africa

How’s your Solar in Winter? (Author: The Economist)   Winter sneaked up on our solar electricity system during July 2015. We hardly took notice of the change in the length of a day before installing solar and now it matters. We lose up to 6 hours in daylight from the longest day in summer to…

Caterpillars – Garden Pest of the Month

Caterpillars at a glance Type of Damage Chewing Plant Symptoms Holes in fruits, missing leaves, eaten leaves, ‘felled’ seedlings Favourite Plant Most food crops, especially tomatoes, fruit trees, grapes, citrus, sweet potato, Solanum family Control Biological (predators: wasps, mantids, assassin bugs & chickens), else physical removal Quick Intro Caterpillars are regarded as one of the…

Sustainable, Productive and Economical Vegetable Gardening (Part 3): Integrated Organic Gardening

My vegetable garden is entering its 8th year and it has been a long journey of trial and error, many a dead or diseased plant and lots of research into various facets of food production along the way. As I have mentioned many times, organic gardening principles are not properly integrated and do not provide…

Sunbirds & Spiderwebs – Something Special

We have a few residential sunbirds in the neighbourhood - not the very flashy ones like those in the fynbos areas of South Africa, but none the less gorgeous little birdies. The Whitebellied sunbird, Nectarinia talatala is a common sight for those living close to bushveld towards the northern parts of southern Africa. It is…