A New Season For My Vegetable Garden

My first seedlings for this season were planted two weeks ago!

The previous weekend, CJ went through all my beds and gave it a finishing touch, pulling out a few weeds (Daniel helped too).   

During August we added in horse manure, left over ground coffee beans, river sand, peanut shells, some bone-meal and the ash from our fireplace.

Two of my 7 beds’ ground looked beautiful, with thousands of earthworms.  The other 5 beds’ compost still need a little more maturing, but for now they will have to do.

Daniel was very intrigued by all the worms.

Every now and then he came to show me a new one!

Isn’t he soooo sweet!  I just love that little face!

And another one...!

I planted my pumpkin plants around plastic nursery pots.  I got the idea from Jane’s Delicious Garden. 

This way I will try to correct the mistakes I made with my butternuts and squash during the previous season. 

Pumpkins are very ‘hungry’ plants and need lots of fertilizer. As the pumpkin plants grow, their roots spread down around the bottom of the pot.  When you fill the pot with water, it slowly drains out of the holes at the bottom of the pot, directly and gently watering the roots. 

I can feed the plants with my Bokashi liquid fertilizer through the pots, delivering the food directly to the roots without any wastage.  

My butternuts and squash also got mildew in the previous season.  Watering directly into the pots avoids wetting the leaves and lessens the chance of disease. 

Lastly, but certainly the biggest mistake was sowing seeds we saved from the organic butternuts and squash we received from Ethical Co-op resulting in NO harvest from the butternuts and squash we planted. You can imagine the frustration of working for months, nurturing these little plants, to result in NO harvest!

After investigating, I realized they were F1-hybrids. 

What is the problem with F1 hybrids?  The advantages of hybrids are various.   They are usually more vigorous and productive than the non-F1 parent.  They are more resistant to disease, they establish themselves quickly and evenly! Wow, what more can you ask for?

There is one BIG catch with F1 hybrids:  you can’t save seeds from them! 

F1 hybrids are a once-of deal only!  If you sow seeds saved from an F1 hybrid, they will NOT yield a harvest!  If you want to grow a particular F1 hybrid again, you have no choice but to BUY F1 seeds from the seed producer.  This way the seed producers will over time manipulate the seed market and farmers and gardeners will increasingly become more and more dependent of them, having to PAY for seeds.  

What is wrong with that?

It wasn’t God’s intention in the beginning.  We read in Gen. 1:11 “And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.”

God intend man to plant seeds and harvest food as well as seed to plant again. But as always MONEY is the motivation.  Obviously GM seed producers will decline it and motivate it with producing enough food for the “over-populated” world!  

Seed producers (like Monsanto) even sue farmers who sow open-pollinated seeds, since they interfere with their ‘patented laboratory produced seeds”.

I only buy and plant Heirloom seeds.  Why Heirloom seeds?  

The following is taken from Sean Freeman's blog, Livingseeds:

 “Heirloom plants can be simply defined as any plant that has been handed down from generation to generation..., that is firstly open pollinated, secondly has a history of private exchange and thirdly has not been subject to a plant breeders rights, claim to be worthy of heirloom status. Heirlooms are our genetic guarantee of future food supply. 

No matter what nature cares to throw at us, if you have a handful of heirloom seeds you can be assured that firstly you can plant the seed, secondly you are able to save the seed for the following year and thirdly, if environmental conditions change the plant will have the internal genetic diversity available to adapt via natural selection. Something that cannot be said for any hybrid or GM seed.”

Read more at Livingseeds by Sean Freeman. 

Little Michael in the Ergo, while I'm busy sowing and planting

This brings me to another point: ‘Organic’ seldom means a heirloom seed, it only means no pesticides were used during the growing process. I planted the seed of an organic butternut. When I first bought organic vegetables, I thought ‘organic’ also meant no genetic modification of the seeds.  Out of my ‘experiment’ (and research) it is clear, this ‘organic’ butternut was genetically modified. 

Genetic modification of seeds is even more hazardous than the pesticides sprayed during the growing of vegetables, according to Dr. Marcola, (Read more about the effect of Genetic Modified Seeds on the fertility of our next generation).

The implication of this is that I can never again take the chance of saving seeds from any vegetable I haven’t grown myself.  The vegetable we buy in the supermarket will most probably be genetically modified and sadly enough the organic vegetables too.  

For my butternuts, I sow Waltham Butternut seeds but I also discovered BeingPlants.  I ordered a  variety of seeds from them (you can even select your currency).  Their service was excellent and 5 days after I placed my order, I received my seeds.  I also received seeds from Living Seeds. 

A week ago I sowed the different varieties of corn, tomatoes, lettuce, pumpkin, watermelon and melon, which I received from BeingPlants and Living Seeds. 

I thought the night temperatures had increased enough that I didn’t need the hot boxes for germination.  Most of the time, there is germination within 3 days after sowing.  With the seed trays outside the hot box, there wasn’t one seed that germinated, so on the fourth night we moved it into the hot box en within three days the seeds started to germinate!

In the meantime the beautiful strong pea-plants I planted 3 weeks ago

were eaten by snails overnight!  

 

I had a few peas from the second batch of seeds I sowed and planted them in the open spaces were the snails had their feast.  

The snails also had a feast on my pumpkin plants.  

We immediately threw  dried egg shells, but will have to keep an eye on the little plants the next day or two.  I may need some chemical free snail pellets.

We also replanted our Rainbow Corn plants.  

Andrew didn’t feel to well the day we replanted the corn plants.

These seeds are the seeds we saved from our first harvest of rainbow corn during the previous season.  This is a first for me.  To save my own heirloom seeds, sow them and have them germinate.  Every single one of the seeds germinated. It just felt so good!!

We now also have 5 extra hanging baskets with strawberries.  These 5 new plants were propagated from our existing plants.

We now have 11 strawberry baskets and I’m feeding them liquid fertilizer to ensure a huge harvest of strawberries for my many small children!

With love

Linnie

Life and that in Abundance!

Saturday morning, was the most beautiful, champagne-clear morning in the Cape.  Starting in September and only ending early March, we have the most terrible winds, but we don’t complain to much, since the rest of South Africa need their summer rains and this is only possible when the wind blows in the Cape. Being a farm-girl from the Free State, I know how essential the rain is for the rest of our beautiful country!  The saying: “The Cape is like a baby, either windy or wet!”, is true enough.

To come back to our clear Saturday morning - there were no clouds, no wind and we decided to visit a wine farm in the Durbanville-winelands - Meerendal Wine Estate.  

It has the most beautiful green grass for children to run and play on, just what my little ones needed.

We don’t do family outings to often.  Christo works every other Saturday and CJ works every Saturday at Serenity, the horse riding school where he has the privilege to ride one of the owner’s horses.  On Christo’s free weekend, we’re sometimes just to exhausted after a very busy week to saddle up the children and go for an outing.  Part of the outing is to get up early enough to get breakfast done and we don’t have a simple cereal for breakfast - It’s at least eggs and toast; clean up after 10 people had their food, make 9 beds, dress 4 little boys and then to be on our way before it is time for lunch again!  

Since Friday was a holiday in South Africa, Saturday was a bonus, Christo had his free weekend and by 11h30 all the children were strapped in the  Vito.  Unfortunately, CJ still had to work and couldn’t join us!  

And what a delightful, fun two hours we had.  On the one side of the wide green grass, a huge jumping castle greeted the children and they had a ball! Here are some fun pictures:

Thank you Lord for blessing us with life and that in abundance!

Thank You!

Five years ago (Jan 2005) the Lord amazingly lead me to  take responsibility for the Above Rubies Magazine in South Africa. During that time only 70 South African families received this encouraging magazine for families from Nancy Campbell in the States, founder and author of the Above Rubies magazine.    

Above Rubies  started more than 32 years ago in New Zealand when Nancy Campbell was the young mother of 6 children.  She felt (like many mothers feel even more so today) the pressure of feminism and humanism all around her in the media and in the education system and there wasn’t any encouragement for mothers at home. Nancy Campbell felt the burden to send out a regular magazine that would encourage and affirm mothers in their high calling as a mother, which will bring strength to marriages and bless families! 

She approached a Christian printing firm with her vision to encourage marriages, mothers and families and they printed 1500 magazines. It sounded like an enormous amount back then! Within weeks after she was a quest speaker at a conference, giving out the magazine for free, she started  receiving letters and donations from people all over New Zealand.  She went to print with the 2nd issue and printed 5,000 and 20,000 for the 3rd issue.  At that stage the magazine had a huge impact on the nation in New Zealand.

Above Rubies is a free magazine - made available TOTALLY by donations to its Readers over the past 32 years!!. It isn’t a Subscribing magazine, since people only subscribe for something which they believe in!  And Yes, Above Rubies do bless thousands of Godly families who believe in Godly marriages - but Nancy’s vision is bigger than that.  She also want to bless those marriages that are falling apart, those women who don’t have a vision for home, those mothers who are still in their careers and NO vision for home and motherhood. So that is why the Above Rubies magazine is made available by donation, so people can take it out, hand it out and share it freely and trust God to provide. And now it is more than 32 years and God is still providing.

Currently about 120 000 copies are printed.  It goes all over the world to more than 100 countries.

During the past five years, the Lord  sovereignly provided financially for the Above Rubies Ministry in South Africa and it exploded!  In 2005 only 70 families received this precious magazine, but currently we send out 4,000 magazines to 600 readers in South Africa and neighboring countries.

During 2009 Above Rubies South Africa experienced a dip in financial support, but at the beginning of 2010 the Lord miraculously opened the hearts of South Africa’s Readers’ to support this ministry!  

Since Heidi-Mari and I love to make cards on our Mother-Daughter evenings once a week, I decided to start making ‘Thank you’ cards for families who invest money in this ministry.  Obviously I will not be able to make a Thank you card for every family, but I’m going to start - using this crafting passion for the Lord.

And here is the first card I made:

I chose a stamp from Heidi-Mari’s Whiff of Joy collection.

A mother reading to her child.  It  fits the vision of Above Rubies to encourage mothers to have a vision to build into the lives of their children. Mothers who know motherhood is their highest calling. Mothers who invest not only in their children’s lives for this life, but also for eternal life!  Mothers who know they have the ability to change the world, by raising Godly children! What a calling!!

What is a more precious way to build into a child’s life than taking the time to read to him!

I asked Heidi-Mari to colour the stamp with her Promarkers (I can’t even colour a picture with crayons - I leave that to the children!) 

Around the stamp I made fake stitches.  While making the stitches, putting down the pen and picking it up again, it reminded me of moments when I have a positive influence on my children, but also times when I miss some golden opportunities to build into their lives.  The life of a mother is full of ups and downs.  There will be days you want to hold on forever, full of fun and special moments, then there will be days you may feel that you are not accomplishing anything at all.  Don’t be discouraged.  Keep working hard according to the grace of God in you, not your own strength, but what He gives to you.

Next to the images I made a soft pink bow and put a pearl in the middle to give it extra elegance. So often the world looks down on a stay at home mother, who ‘wastes’ her talents and gifts by not going out into the corporate world.  

A mother who value herself enough to stay at home and use her talents and gifts to create a safe haven for her husband and put all her time (24 hours a day) and energy into her children to make them everything they can ever be, is like a precious pearl hidden deep in the bottom of the ocean.

I gave the card a vintage, shabby look, by tearing the paper and using thick distressing, since being an Above Rubies mother, is going back to ancient times (the name of my blog), raising children and taking care of the home, loving and submitting to your husband like the Lord intended for women to do since the beginning of time, and in the process strengthening their families!

Motherhood is a very special season in a mother’s live.  Nancy Campbell, time and time again encourage mothers to not only love their children, but love Motherhood!  Yes, there is a difference.  All mothers love their children, but often mothers hope a certain fase of their child will pass so they can enter the next, hopefully better, easier stage. Dear mother enjoy every stage of your children, don’t just ‘endure’ each day, but seek to make it special.  You will never have these days with your children again. Enjoy your current season of Motherhood.  It will pass so quickly, then you will have more than enough time to do all the projects you want to and didn’t have time for in your mothering season! 

To emphasize the idea of Motherhood being a short, quick passing season, I used fall colours. Although in South Africa it is now spring, the rest of the world is entering fall.

I put the sentiment: “Thank You for Investing in Motherhood” on a tag and slide it behind the image. The idea is for the mother who receive the card, to use the tag as a bookmark and always be reminded to invest her time, energy, gifts, talents, love - her total self in Motherhood!  A mother who grows in her calling of motherhood and not only loves her children but motherhood too, will shine in the world, like the golden beads at the end of the rope I’ve threaded through two eyelids in the tag!

I put a little rosebud on the tag too.  The rosebud reminds me of the precious children whom we raise in our homes.  They are like delicate rosebuds in our hands and we make them or break them, by the way we handle them.  They trust us with their lives, God entrusted them to us!  Will we take care of them, with lovingkindness, tenderness, patience, passion, joy and enthusiasm and allow them to grow into mature, wise adults who live their passion and calling in live!

I’ve put small red flowers in three of the corners and left the fourth corner open, to give it an unbalanced look - being an ‘old-fashion’ stay at home mother who knows her calling by taking care of her husband, children and home, is off-balance with the World!  You will always be questioned, often revered to be weird, many times belittled, seldom be encouraged and never be part of the main steam! 

I also took part in a few challenges with this card, for motherhood is always a challenge.

And though mothers don’t always receive acknowledgement for their hours of labour, day and night, in this world, be encouraged, God is always watchful and a rewarder of those who serve Him by serving their husbands and children!

The challenges I took part in:

Whiff of Joy Challenge - Special Thank You

Crafty Catz Weekly Challenge - Stitching

Stampin' Sisters in Christ - Use Fall Colours

Alphabet Challenge Blog - V for Vintage

ABC Challenge - D is for Distressing

Stampavie and More - Bookmark

Creative Card Crew Challenge - Autumn or Fall

Everybody Art Challenge - Autumn

Paper Playtime - Autumn

Stampin for the Weekend - Tag it!

Craftalicious Challenge - Thanks
A Spoon Full of Sugar - Anything Goes

To every Above Rubies Mother, may this card: 

Be a reminder of your highest calling;

An encouragement to go into your home and change the world through the children and husband, entrusted to you by God; 

Be a thank you for your service as a mother and faithful wife!

With love

Linnie

How Do You Cope?

On Friday night it was the girls’ ballet concert.  While helping the girls get dressed, Michael was in the ergo, close to me. 

Sometime during the evening a mother approached me with a Frequently Asked Question:  “How do you cope with 8 children?”  

For a second I couldn’t answer the question.  

Michael was teething again and I’ve only slept a few half hours during the night.  Useless to say it wasn’t a good day. I was physically and emotionally exhausted, Michael was irritated and grumpy, there were 7 more children in line for love, attention and unavoidable discipline, while preparing my girls for their biggest event in two years - their ballet concert! 

I wasn’t coping at all!! How was I suppose to answer the question?  For the love of me, I couldn’t put on a happy face and say it is all about priorities, children only come one-by-one or they are such a blessing - my regular (true) answer to the question!

Friday night Michael slept even worse than Thursday night. By Saturday morning, while feeling totally emotionless and knowing what a busy day was laying ahead, I remembered the question again.

The Bible says in 1 Pet 3:15: “...be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear”

What should I answer, Lord? How do I answer for the hope, when I’m feeling overwhelmed?  I would like to know for myself.

And then I clearly heard the Lord’s soft whisper: “ It is not about you my Daughter.  It is all about Me, My glory and your holiness.  For now it is all about making you holy, growing in patience and faith, no matter what the circumstances.”

Oh! How my spirit lifted with this encouragement from my Heavenly Father.  The only One who really know how exhausted I am, but who is planning everything for my good!

This is what the verse in 1 Tim 1:15 is all about!  "...Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.” 

It has nothing to do with me - how I cope, how happy I am or how streamlined my life was! 

I once read: “God is more interested in your holiness and character, than your happiness.”

I know my heavenly Father has my best interests at heart, I just need to lean more on Him in my weakness and trust Him with my whole life, seeking His will for my live and be obedient to go out and do as He instruct me in His Word, no matter what the cost!

And it is all about God and His Glory - Eight (trusting for more) godly men and women will one day leave our home to go change the world for Jesus Christ! Not because Christo and I did such a good job as parents raising these children, but because of God’s grace and hand of protection and instruction were on our lives to raise them.

Sunday was a better day, already!  On Saturday night, Michael slept much better and since Christo, CJ and Josua went to watch the girl’s concert, I went to bed with my boys by eight and got a few extra hours of sleep!  

On these days I rejoice in the good work the Lord has started in me and on the less good days, I rejoice too. Then I know He will keep His promise in Phil 1 verse 6: “Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.”

Dear heavenly Father, please mold me and shape me as You think best for me to become Your spotless bride on the day of Your return!

With love

Linnie