Jane’s Delicious Garden Blog

I only realised after I had booked our tickets that we would be in Istanbul for Ramadan – or Ramazan, as it is called here. Since I was planning to feast on fantastic Turkish food, I was bit concerned the fast would hamper my foodie intentions. Not! There is food everywhere, all the time.

The day starts with a breakfast spread of olives, cheeses, fresh fruit, just picked tomatoes and crunchy cucumbers, fruit preserves and sesame bread rings (Simit -sold from peddlers’ carts from dawn to well after midnight) dipped in spice and herb flavoured olive oil, topped off with strong black Turkish coffee.

You would think this would last until dinner, but no, this is an intense city.
Bridging Asia and Europe and spanning millenia of history, including conquering heroes, exotic harems, inspired architects and religious fervour, Istanbul has a huge amount to see, draw, visit and explore.


After fairytale castles and covered bazaars, myriad mosques and exotic palaces, I am hungry again within a few hours. Time for a balik ekmek – crisply fried, whole fish on a piece of crusty bread with lettuce, tomatoes and onions.
This fish was swimming in the Bosphorus this morning. Another quick afternoon snack is a corn cob, sold from little carts and roasted over hot coals.

Sprinkled with salt wrapped in a piece of paper it is sweet and scrumptious.
Or you could try a “tost,” a toasted sandwich on light crunchy bread with stretchy melted cheese and a spicy tomato paste. And to wash it down, a freshly squeezed orange juice or a slice of the sweetest, crunchiest summer watermelon.

Fortified, we dive back into the maelstrom, underground into ancient water systems, up steep stone stairs to stare across to Asia, into quiet parks with windswept pines. Until I am hungry again.
Dinner choices are endless.
From quick doners wrapped in bread with vegetables to grilled patlican kebabs, (one large eggplant sliced into thick chunks and skewered with alternating balls of spiced lamb, slow grilled over hot coals).
Or the adana kebab, skewers of spicy lamb accompanied by rice and pine nut pilaf.

One of my favorites is the Iskender kebab; chunks of pide bread covered with hot slices of spiced doner lamb, covered with fresh tomato sauce and thick yoghurt.

The vegetable and salad combinations are endless; seaweed and tomato with lashings of lemon and garlic and beans in olive oil and lemon.

Even the simplest lettuce, cucumber and tomato salad is given a twist when tossed with pomegranate syrup and sprinkled with sumac, a tart local spice. Everything is freshly cooked, ripe and in season.

And then I need something sweet – a tiny taste of lokum (Turkish Delight) or baklava, from shops that have been specialising in making them for hundreds of years. Above shiny, blue and white tiled walls, sepia photographs hang, proud men with splendid moustaches staring out from the last century. Right next door is the patisserie, with thick rice puddings and nutty maceroons.
Piles of crystallised figs, mulberries and walnuts glisten in the window. I am tempted by what looks like a chocolate mousse but under its molten surface is a surprise – it is a deconstructed chocolate eclair, with puffy balls of choux pastry under layers of whipped cream and rich chocolate.

I am in foodie heaven.

Earlier this year when I was in Cape Town I met Sandy from Energize Events. We chatted about doing a workshop in Somerset West and when I mentioned the Grahamstown workshop and the impressive spread the Eastern Cape Gardeners had prepared, Sandy said “Cupcakes! Forget cupcakes, we’ll serve wine!” And so the Winelands Workshop was born . . .
Here is a link to Sandy’s blog http://www.energizeevents.co.za/blog/ where she will be posting details as soon as they are finalised.

Winelands – here we come!

‘Jane’s Jungle Style’ of growing vegetables works best in rich, fertile soil.

The first step to creating a humus rich, healthy soil is no dig gardening. In many gardens it is an annual tradition to dig up all the beds, add compost or rotted manure and dig it in. This is done to break up and aerate compacted soil. The good news is – you can say goodbye to all that deep digging. In fact, digging up and turning over the earth is more harmful than beneficial to the soil. It causes dormant weed seeds to surface and germinate. Digging upsets the balance in soil life and causes a loss of nutrients by exposing them to air. All those billions of organisms which live in the soil hate being disturbed. Earthworms for example, only breed when undisturbed. If you dig up the soil every year it is as if you have destroyed their house and they have to start all over again. And finally, digging leads to moisture loss.

The only time I dig deep into my garden is to remove an unwanted perennial or to harvest roots of a plant or when preparing a new bed.

Many of you at this point will be saying; “But I need to dig – if I don’t turn over the soil it will become compacted. That’s why I dig!” The main cause of compacted soil is our own weight pressing down on it. So, the main rule for no dig gardening is to never stand on the soil. To achieve this, make your garden beds just wide enough for you to reach the middle comfortably from the path. If your beds are already bigger than this, place stepping-stones where necessary.

The first time you prepare your beds, it is worth enriching them with manure and compost – and this does mean digging! I know I promised no digging – but after you have prepared them for the first time you will never need to dig again. To avoid mixing up the layers of earth too much, use the following method:

Working in small sections, remove the topsoil layer and dig a trench about half a metre deep. Loosen the subsoil layer – don’t turn it over, just loosen it by sticking a fork in and wiggling it back and fore. Add a thick layer of well-rotted manure and compost. Fill in the trench, adding the topsoil last. After adding the topsoil, the surface will be higher than the surrounding path. It is a good idea to create pathways between the beds and to edge the beds with stones, logs or some form of edging to keep the enriched soil inside the beds. After you have prepared your beds, you don’t need to dig again.

Next week I will talk about how to maintain the soil fertility in your newly created beds.

Although it is cold and wintery, it is time to sow seeds in seed trays ready for your spring garden. I have about four trays already sitting in front of a sunny northern window. I’ve planted a selection of tomatoes, eggplant, basil, capers (first time I’m trying them!) Chinese cabbage, savoy cabbage and various summer squash. I still, after all these years of sowing seeds and watching them germinate, get such a thrill when those little green leaves spring up out of the soil.
Don’t forget to spray your seedlings with chamomile spray to prevent fungal diseases. I find the easiest way is to mix up a strong solution of chamomile and keep it in a bottle in the fridge. Each time I fill my mister spray bottle, I add a dollop of chamomile from the jar.

I am trying a new thing with my tomatoes this year. Earlier this year I scavenged eight large wooden boxes from a local nursery that was tossing them. I had no idea what I would use them for – they just looked useful. Sitting planning my spring planting, I thought about how much space my toms take up and decided to put the boxes to good use for them. I have positioned them on warm paving, which is in a full sun and retains that warmth much later into the night than my veggie garden. I have created a cascade of boxes and lined them with black plastic. I will fill them with a compost and topsoil mix from Jacklin Organic I am going to erect a selection of tripods, which will hopefully create a wonderful tomato tower! Will post pics as soon as I take them.

Over the years I have developed what I call ‘Jane’s Jungle Style’ of growing vegetables. This method of intensive gardening works best in rich, fertile soil.

The first step to creating a humus rich, healthy soil is no dig gardening.

In many gardens it is an annual tradition to dig up all the beds, add compost or rotted manure and dig it in. This is done to break up and aerate compacted soil. The good news is – you can say goodbye to all that deep digging. In fact, digging up and turning over the earth is more harmful than beneficial to the soil. It causes dormant weed seeds to surface and germinate. Digging upsets the balance in soil life and causes a loss of nutrients by exposing them to air. All those billions of organisms which live in the soil hate being disturbed. Earthworms for example, only breed when undisturbed. If you dig up the soil every year it is as if you have destroyed their house and they have to start all over again. And finally, digging leads to moisture loss.

The only time I dig deep into my garden is to remove an unwanted perennial or to harvest roots of a plant or when preparing a new bed. Many of you at this point will be saying; “But I need to dig – if I don’t turn over the soil it will become compacted. That’s why I dig!” The main cause of compacted soil is our own weight pressing down on it. So, the main rule for no dig gardening is to never stand on the soil. To achieve this, make your garden beds just wide enough for you to reach the middle comfortably from the path. If your beds are already bigger than this, place stepping-stones where necessary.

The first time you prepare your beds, it is worth enriching them with manure and compost – and this does mean digging! I know I promised no digging – but after you have prepared them for the first time you will never need to dig again. To avoid mixing up the layers of earth too much, use the following method:

Working in small sections, remove the topsoil layer and dig a trench about half a metre deep. Loosen the subsoil layer – don’t turn it over, just loosen it by sticking a fork in and wiggling it back and fore. Add a thick layer of well-rotted manure and compost. Fill in the trench, adding the topsoil last. After adding the topsoil, the surface will be higher than the surrounding path. It is a good idea to create pathways between the beds and to edge the beds with stones, logs or some form of edging to keep the enriched soil inside the beds.

After you have prepared your beds, you don’t need to dig again.

Next time I will talk about how to maintain the soil fertility in your newly created beds.

People often ask me what does organic actually mean? Organic gardening is nothing new – in fact it is a very old way of gardening. It is the way all farming and gardening was before the advent of chemical fertilisers and pesticides. You might think that gardening organically just means replacing synthetic pesticides or chemical fertilisers with organic ones. However, there is much more to it than that. Organic gardening is a natural, holistic and commonsense approach to gardening. It is more of a philosophy of gardening than a style. Organic gardeners see gardens as part of a natural cycle, starting with the soil and including the water supply, people, wildlife and insects. Our aim is to work in harmony with natural systems and to minimise and replenish the resources that our gardens consume.

By going the organic route, we are going the route of nature and, if we observe nature, we see that it is not tidy with precise edges and neatly swept surfaces. In a forest when leaves and dead branches fall from trees, they stay there, forming layers of slowly decomposing organic matter.
I have hiked in the rain forests of central Africa and there is no solid surface underfoot. As you take a step you sink calf deep into a crunchy, mushy mass. And with each step a cloud of bugs flies up. You can feel the heat and the energy of nature at work. I am not saying we want to create this environment in our home gardens, but we do we want to invite nature to do what she does best.

Organic gardening all starts with the soil: healthy, nutrient-rich soil = healthy, strong plants = more resistance to disease and bugs. Just as a healthy body is more resistant to infections, so a healthy soil builds up the plants’ resistance to attacks. Think of your plants as a mirror of the soil in which they’re growing. The first step to controlling diseases and insects is to cultivate healthy soil.

So what is healthy soil and how do we achieve it? ‘Healthy soil’ means a soil full of humus. Humus, which is broken down organic matter, is the ‘life-force’ of the soil. It provides a home for billions of organisms, such as fungi, bacteria, algae, insects and worms. In one teaspoon of healthy soil there are more than six billion microscopic organisms. Without these, plants cannot grow.

Earthworms for example, leave the earth 8 times richer after being digested through their intestines.
Organic vegetable gardens need as much humus in the soil as possible for a number of other reasons:
· Humus acts as a sponge with extremely high absorption abilities
· It retains moisture
· Chemically, humus has numerous active surfaces, which bind to ions of nutrients. This makes many more nutrients available to plants.
· It improves the physical structure of soil making it moist, crumbly and aerated, providing the ideal home for beneficial bacteria and other organisms such as earthworms.

Last week I received a magical surprise – an advance copy of JDK arrived! It looks FANTASTIC!!! And my publisher Ceri (who seldom uses the F word!) agrees. It is a digital copy which is about 98% of what the actual printed copies will look like. The printers do this digital copy as a final check for colour, pics etc before it starts being printed. So it will still only be Oct before the copies are in book stores. But to whet appetites – here are a few sneak preview pics . . . .

It is finished! Jane’s Delicious Kitchen went to print on the same day the World Cup began. So there were millions celebrating along with me!! I can’t quite believe that another book is on its way. It seems like just yesterday that I was waiting to see the first copy of Delicious Garden – which is now nearing 9,000 copies sold!

I have spent the last six months cooking the recipes from the book, which we then photographed and ate. For me the joy of cooking comes when I don’t follow a recipe, but use it a springboard. I couldn’t do that with these – I had to follow the recipe exactly. Even though they were all my recipes, it has been very limiting for me. So I have really enjoyed the last few weeks of letting loose in the kitchen again – sans recipes!

I have been “spring” cleaning, although it is the winter solstice. The dining room had been turned into studio, with piles of plates, cloths, mats etc. So it was great to clear it all out and have our lovely north facing dining room back – with the hammock for lazy sunny winter afternoons.
Which of course the animals love too . . .

The last week has seen the coldest weather in Jhb in June since records began. All my frost sensitive plants are blackened and limp – the moon flowers, poinsettia, hen and chickens etc. But, they will all pop back up come spring. Don’t be tempted to cut off all the blackened bits – leave them on the plant to protect the rest of the plant from further frosts and only cut them back after the last frost is over. The broccoli loves this weather and is busy forming fat buds.

My office is north facing with a window seat and at this time of the year I migrate there so I can bask in the sun while I work. In my veggie garden, I have a Bay tree on the northern border. If left to grow it reaches well over five metres, blocking precious winter sun from my veggies. So in early autumn, this tree is trimmed right back and is one of the few “lollipop” shapes in my otherwise wild landscape. I use the trimmed branches throughout the year as support for all the plants that need it. I also have an elder on the northern border, but it loses its leaves so is not such a sun blocker.

Talking leaves – this time of year is fantastic for collecting masses of leaves for both the compost pile and to create leaf mould. My leaf mould bin is overflowing. I use these leaves for mulching all my beds. In addition to all the other benefits mulching has, it also deters Tosca’s interest in digging up newly transplanted seedlings. Luckily she likes to dig up lawn which, if she is compelled to dig, I prefer too. Tosca is almost the same size as Tilu – here they are in their baskets: Tosca in front.

And on the lawn – note the overturned chair behind her, covering up a bit of dug up section . . .

Exciting plans are being discussed for the launch of Jane’s Delicious Kitchen – revolving around the Johannesburg Good Food & Wine Show in September, so watch this space . . .

I arrived back from the Good Food & Wine Show and went straight up to Dullstroom where I presented Jane’s Delicious Kitchen to the Jonathan Ball sales conference. Ceri had made mugs with pics from JDK on them – including a pic of me. Of course I’m calling it my mug shot . . . .

We stayed at Walkersons Country Manor and after I had made my presentation I had the afternoon free.
After all the busyness it was so relaxing to spend the afternoon walking amongst the lakes.

After dinner that night we sat around a blazing fire playing 30 seconds. The best clue of the evening was “Monkeys in bad lighting” for Gorillas in the Mist! I also discovered a delicious winter warming drink – hot chocolate with whiskey. I can feel the whiskey purists grimacing, but try it before knocking it.

One of my favourite TV shows is Grand Designs and the first ever Grand Designs Live show was held at the Dome at the end of May. I gave two talks there. It was a very cleverly laid out show. I find exhibitions at The Dome can be very confusing. Because of the circular shape, you can never quite walk it in a grid pattern, so you land up walking past the same stall five times and missing others completely. Grand Designs had an impressive pink tented entrance way, which provided a central focus point (sort of like CT’s mountain – you always know where you are . .) The circle was then divided into wedges, with each wedge containing grouped stalls under food, house, garden, etc.

Despite it being the first week of June, I am still harvesting beans, squash and a few tomatoes! I have never harvested these crops this late before.
Picking last night’s dinner!

The Cape winter welcomed me with sideways stinging rain. I arrived at night at the new airport which is very swish but everything has moved and was completely unfamiliar. To get to the car hire you now have to push your trolley down a steep ramp, under the road and then up a steep ramp the other side. I hope they are planning to install an escalator there soon, as it would a mission with a luggage laden trolley.

I was in Cape Town for the Good Food and Wine Show. I hosted the Get Fresh Interactive Theatre, featuring BBC Lifestyle chefs. It was a fantastic experience. I met some inspirational chefs, each with their individual style and character, from Gordon Ramsay to Willie Harcourt Cooze, Reza Mahammad to Giorgio Locatelli. Each celebrity chef cooked on a stage at a central cooking station, with 6 workstations on either side so 12 lucky people cooked along with the chefs. The funniest had to be Reza, who created chaos and laughs with his flamboyant and over the top style. Willie Harcourt Cooze, the chocolate king, arrived back stage looking a little pale and requested a cup of coffee before he went on. He had sampled too many South African wines the night before and had a “babbalanga” which I thought was a great new word!

The very first session was with Hideki Maeda, head chef of the One & Only Nobu. Before I went on I was trying to remember all the info about the chef, the sponsors, products and things I had to mention. Hideki speaks very basic English and speaks very softly and doesn’t speak much. So I had to pick up the ball and keep things rolling. I didn’t have a copy of what recipes he was cooking so I just watched what he did and winged it. I had heard somebody talking about tuna so after glancing at the red cut he had in front of him I started asking him questions about tuna. He wasn’t very animated in his response but it was only after my third tuna related question that he looked up at me and said “Is beef” ! The audience burst out laughing and the cook-along chefs teased me for the whole session. It certainly broke the ice.

On Sunday a friend and I ate at Spier’s fantastic new restaurant, Eight. What a sublime experience. The weather had cleared up and it was a perfect day. We were met by Lorianne Heyns, the head chef who was at Singita before heading up the Eight team. All the food served at Eight is either from Spier’s biodynamic farm or sourced locally. This was at first a challenge for Lorianne, who was used to working with what ever ingredients she wanted. But the limited palette has pushed her imagination and the meal we were served was superb. Our starters were twice baked mushroom souffle and a robust salad with goats cheese. The wild mushrooms with a light yet creamy souffle were perfect for a winter starter. The salad, garnished with pea tendrils and pumpkin seeds was colourful, fresh and delicious. For mains, I had tender chicken pie with crisp tasty pastry served with roast veg (my favourites were the tiny carrots with some of the stem still on). Sue had melt-in-the-mouth lamb shank. After all that we even managed to find room for dessert. One of my favourite flavour combos is one that Keith discovered: cut a date open and pop a block of dark chocolate inside (preferably Lindt salt). Absolutely delicious. Well, one of the desserts on Lorianne’s menu was a date and chocolate tart with a ginger biscuit crust. Served with a lavender cream it was a gorgeous combo of gooey and light and crunchy with dense rich bits. Very moreish.
If you want to find out more – here is a link . . .