28 April – Alhamdulilah for 60 days of planting

In the name of Allah most gracious most merciful, who makes day change into night and who directs the changing of the seasons and who creates life from nothingness.

Ice cream bush close up

 So many vacation days, just when one gets into the work groove it’s another day off and everyone is unavailable. Don’t get me wrong – I love these chill days. As long as my work is done I can do late breakfast with family and friends; run over to the shop to get 4 Panini for R10 at you know where and grab some soft cheeses (brie, camembert and cream cheese with a bit of blue). Pick some rocket, cos, basil some salad tomato with a dressing of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, a sprinkling of yellow sugar and thyme – and you have a winner. A perfectly sound breakfast both nutritious and tantalising.

The weather is just perfect- someone is sanding a handle of a new bow; someone’s knocking nails in an easel; someone’s sunning herself on the garden bench with a book in hand; Moroccan music in the background. It does not get more poetic than this. But of course there is always work to do in the garden.

wigwam bed

Try as we might to plant strawberry plants in new beds there is still a sea of them. Even some beds that were allocated for vegetables has become strawberry beds with garlic, lettuce and spinach in between. We have planted out in trays and packets and made sadaqah to friends and schools and still the bed remains volumous.   I started planting out the onion seedlings both red and brown ones. The rocket crop is so delectable I have put in some more seedlings. The poppy plants are standing strong, though some in clumps because I just scattered them by hand a bit too randomly. The orange tree has new growth which means it’s settled in well as are the granadilla creepers and berry bushes. Talk about granadilla – the cuttings in the clone device (propagator) has taken root.

pea blossoms

I caught some basil seeds to store and wait patiently for the tomatoes to turn sunset red. The peas and beans are doing really well, climbing up wigwams and fencing and starting to bloom. Although the fruit trees are dormant for winter, there are so many healthy buds in waiting. The curry tree has a few new plants growing from the base, I will have to wait until they are strong enough to transplant them! I must remember to tell both Abu and Basil not to water the beetroot. It should be watered every 3 or 4 days, overwatering leads to lush leaves and small beets.

 

small curry trees

It’s amazing how this garden lures good company and new friends – met a couple originally from Jo’burg who came to visit with all kinds of offerings from compost to seedlings, a grapevine and other trees and a thresher for us to grind up branches and straw. Good conversation and welcome advice. Certainly Allah listens to our duahs. I think in the 60 days of gardening it’s starting to look like plants live here and what a feeling of blessing, Alhamdulilaah.

The spinach and celery stands lush and majestic, I look forward to the Ramadhan. Soup greens are growing abundantly and I start staggering everyday greens such as coriander and lettuce of all kinds. I am still looking around for plump fresh ginger to plant and it would be so oulik to find some fresh root turmeric and plant that too. Seeing that it has so many health benefits. I remember my Mom sprinkling some on a cut I had that would not stop bleeding. Apparently it may be useful in preventing blood clots as well as being great for bad cholesterol and staving off Alzheimer's Disease. But hey go gently, small doses over a period of time is better that one big dose. So have some in curries, rice, desserts and so on.

 We planted the potato seed in two baths which we tilted ever so slightly and put some big stones at the drain. Then covered the base about 5 cm high with rich soil and compost mixed with a bit of bone meal. We covered it with newspaper and watered in. Then placed the sods about 30 cm apart and covered it with about 7cm of composted soil and watered it for good measure, can’t wait for them to peep out soon inshaAllah.

The time does go quickly as the approaching winter - before you know it there is a nip in the air, the burnt orange sky starts turning magenta and the Muathin calls. Alhamulilaah for patient children; for beautiful weather; for 60 days of planting a garden; for good camaraderie in the trenches; for generosity of friends and family; for good health (maybe a bit of sore back now and then); for the rain that Allah sends; for small birds that chirp in the early morning; for the stable manure from neighbours; for Basil who works consistency; for insects who come and pollinate and help themselves to lush leaves and for so many things that cannot be described in words.

 

Plant food and don't forget to be thankful for small mercies.

Yasmine

 

 

23 April 2014 – The importance of books and pancakes

 

 

In the name of Allah most Gracious most Merciful

23 April 2014 - 00h09

When we moved to Schaapkraal I was a bit irritated with the outages. Not the outages itself, but the extended hours without electricity affect the supplies in the fridge and having a small geyser the water would be cold. Once a week for 8 whole hours sometimes, is a bit much by any standard. Being the practical person that I would love to be, I started keeping candles close by. Out came writing paper and pencils, books stacked on my table, bought a whistling kettle for tea and so on and so forth.

Last night was unexpected - at 8 pm in the middle of a conversation with the laptop, while Abu was making tea, we were rudely plunged into darkness. Someone complained – I have not prepared my new lesson yet! Abu picked up his favourite book of the week – Maqasid Al Shariah by Jasser Auda and I groped around for my spectacles and snuggled up to read some Lin Yutang, (The Importance of Living, published in 1937)  – by the kind light of the candle. As long as I know Abu he collects Lin Yutang’s books and he is always quoting little gems. I opened the book and from the first page, I was hooked.

Listen to how this delightful book is prefaced:
This is a personal testimony, a testimony of my own experience of thought and life. It is not intended to be objective and makes no claim to establish eternal truths. In fact I rather despise claims of objectivity in philosophy; the point of view is the thing. I should have liked to call it “A Lyrical Philosophy,” using the word “lyrical” in the sense of being a highly personal and individual outlook. But that would be too beautiful a name and I must forego it, for fear of aiming too high and leading the reader to expect too much and because the main ingredient of my thought is matter-of-fact prose… (and I smiled and I knew I am going to really enjoy reading the book.)

Let me whet your appetite a bit more – second page of the Preface:

If the professors of literature knew the sources of my ideas, they would be astounded at the Philistine. But there is greater pleasure picking up a small pearl in a trash can than in looking at a large one in the jeweler’s window. I am not deep and not well read. When one is too well-read then one does not know right is right and wrong is wrong… There is an unconventional way of studying philosophy- the incorrect way. Some of my sources are Mrs Huang, an amah in my family who has all the ideas that go into the breeding of a good woman in China; a Soochoo boatwoman with her profuse use of expletives; a Shangai streetcar conductor; my cook’s wife; a lion cub in the zoo …or any writer who does not kill our sense of curiosity in life or who has not killed it in himself…

And so I snuggled down deeply, specs perched on my nose and savoured a few pages leaving the rest for tomorrow, Aah is this not happiness? Try to get copy of any of the Yutang books– the beautiful cover kind, whose pages have turned yellow and reeks of history.

3.00 am The cold April winds have started and I am wide awake. Tomorrow the garden will need checking for progress of the peas and beans climbing, the compost has to be aerated. The washing takes a bit longer to dry and it is not necessary to water the garden as much anymore, come the rains and we can save a lot of water. I noticed that the run off tank needs fixing and although I take every opportunity to reuse water in the flower beds, we have to make more effort to conserve water.

 

 This cold weather makes one conjure up warm bakes and pancakes dripping with honey, baked banana flapped over and a squizz of lemon, hmmm. It’s amazing how the original recipes that we grew up with are always a winner, like the bread puddings and pancakes and doughnuts. Later I hope to be working with a colleague, marking and assessing scripts while a hot pot of tea is brewing. We will take turns to bake some pancakes and keep it warm under a glass dome. In a separate pan I would have already lightly fried slices of banana in warm butter; cut some oranges and lemons for garnish; warmed the honey and put aside some fine cinnamon sugar. I hope to make a chilli choc source that warms the senses and keep the sniffles away and finally whip some cream – actually that’s Abubakr’s job.

Pancake ingredients:

·         2 cups self-raising flour or 2 cups cake flour with 2 heaped teaspoons of baking powder
·         ½  teaspoon of salt
·         1 Tablespoon of sugar
·         1 teaspoon of finally grated nutmeg
·         1 large egg
·         1 heaped Tablespoon of soft butter
·         1 ½ cups of milk
·         About 2 to 3 cups of cold water

Method

1.       Sieve flour and add salt, sugar and nutmeg.
2.       Rub in softened butter.
3.       Make a well in the middle of the flour and add egg and milk.
4.       Stir until it is a thick batter.
5.       Water off to a runny consistency with half a cup of water at a time.
6.       Warm a non-stick pan until fairly hot.
7.       Pour mixture from a ladle and twirl the pan with a fluid circular wrist movement to cover the inside base of the pan and bake until the edges are slightly brown.
8.       Lift and flip over and bake for a few minutes, it should be beautiful brown.
9.       Stack on top of each other and keep warm under a dome or on a plate over a basin of warm
water.

Baked banana: Slice some bananas on an angle and douse with lemon juice. Fry gently in hot butter, not too long or it becomes mushy. Set aside.
Chilli choc sauce: Warm a half cup of milk with a stick of cinnamon, some grated nutmeg and a red chilli – then strain it. Stir the milk mixture into dark chocolate melting over a hot double burner. And keep warm.

 

Lay a simple table with small plates, some knives and forks, a pot of tea and plonk down everything – allow everyone to make their own combination of sensations.

14h15. Waseemah and Safia have left and we made pancakes according to plan except for the chilli choc sauce which I will make later this week inshaAllah. Alhamdulilaah we had a wonderful morning, I made a new friend who shares many of the same passions from organic gardening to finding serenity in earth and soil. As an added bonus. Safia and her husband can certainly teach us more about many things – from planting olives and harvesting optimally to insights into growing artichokes. I loved the advice from Safia:  2 lavender sprigs boiled in a small pot of water for 5 minutes and cooled off is an excellent remedy for upset stomachs. Yay! I love lavender and what do you know, before we knew it there stood Abubakr met 5 French lavender en 5 English lavender plante. Waseemah started to giggle, the smell was quite heady. The day was done far too quickly. Our stomachs were filled with beautiful pancakes. Did I say we would be marking some scripts? I lied.

Thank you Allah for affording us all the barakah of the heavens and the soil and the goodwill and open heartedness of those who touch our lives.

Plant food and keep warm!

Yasmine

22 April 2014. Up close and personal

In the name of Allah Most gracious, Most merciful

 

22 April 2014

Whenever we start a new workshop series, a 5-month course or a yearlong certificate we spend time getting to know the participants and for them to get to know us and each other, (if they were meeting for the first time) taking our time so everyone gets comfortable. Then we negotiate rules of engagement.

The last round of introductions with a group of youth went something like this:

Please spend a few minutes chatting to your buzz partners and then introduce one another in the following way: Introduce your partner; an adjective that describes her/him; what are your partner’s goals are for this year and something about him/herself that was shared with you and can be shared in this forum.

As time was up I said Abubakr and I would go cold turkey  and introduce one another. Abubakr’s eyes said it all, round and wide and surprised but with confidence he starts out to say that I am his wife Yasmine (last time some students asked us where our respective partners were because they were worried that there was a vibe between us Abubakr Shabudien and Yasmine Jacobs – huge guffaws). That I am spritely (huh?), that my goal is to have us eat all of our vegetables solely from the garden and that I adore my grandson Mikaeel. I, in turn said that an adjective describing him would be astute or witty, his goal for this year could be or should be to get a car that we can all fit into and drive far up country and that he has sketched a hundred Madibas and sold a few in Washington. It was easier after that for the rest to start.

The fact of the matter is that when you teach something you must try to live up to it – so I interrogated myself about my goals for this year as I over-emphasise that niyyah (intention) and maqsad (objective) is what we need to put into place and realise and then the learning will be manageable and even enjoyable. So with the grace of Allah SWT, hoping they are smarter these are my gardening goals for this year:

1. to be able to get all of our food from the garden, albeit seasonal.
2.  to share this knowledge with as many people as we can
3. to be self-sufficient in terms of our own seed/seedlings and compost
4. to have success with the following crops: garlic, potatoes, granadillas and olives
5.  to learn to make cheese, pasta from scratch, croissants and phyllo pastry.

I know that all of my goals may not be realised for different reasons but hey, a girl’s got to set some goals. We should also realize that we can set goals but there is no certainty that those goals will be realized without the permission of the Almighty. The thing about goals is that it serves as reminders to ourselves of where we should be heading – to our ultimate goal.  It may different things for different people but for myself my ultimate goal is to refine my relationship and bond with my Creator and for my Lord to be pleased with me now and in the Hereafter. Having said that, every year I set out goals to make that goal and an action plan to temper myself and my nafs (ego). And to realize such a goal, one breaks it up into bite size pieces.

Over the years I have always set myself goals of new culinary dishes and desserts and ended up putting them together in a recipe book (it’s still being tested and edited). I have an overall goal to be fit, so I walk more and more briskly. I open and close the heavy gate and walk around the property many many times a day and aspire towards attending Tai Chi class again and finding a pool close by.

For me to realize the organic gardens to its full potential I have to continue to learn, to exchange, to read to discuss and to experiment. For example, to realize my goal for the potatoes, that are not planted in tyres or in bags but a crop in ditches in the soil, I developed my own seed potatoes and researched the best possible methods. I also need to remember that some goals need to be flexible or should I say smarter. We need the space for the strawberries so I will plant potatoes in the two baths instead.

So even if we are nearly in the middle of the year set yourself some goals; put it on the fridge, on the mirror, on your pc, on your phone to remind yourself. You will certainly be more focused and not sweat the small stuff.

 

But how does one know that the garden is complete or as complete as it can get for the season?

When sparrows fly low over ones head at dusk; a lizard suns itself on the warm path; seeds abundantly germinate; beans and peas reach out their tendrils to climb up the fence and the bees, bugs and butterflies flutter from flower to flower, and of course when children can have fun in the garden. It is that absolute space where nature and human endeavor meet to co-exist in order to create harmonious living whereby we can all benefit.

Stay in the mercy of Allah and plant trees. And set some goals.

Yasmine

20 April 2014. Ba is the beginning of Bismillah!

 

20 April 2014.

I have a very distinct memory of being eight years old, standing on the stoep of our home in The Dry Dock of District Six. It was my birthday and I had received 70 cents from my Uncle Boetie – a five bob and four five cent coins. A fortune considering that Star sweets were four for a cent and a packet of chips were two and half cents.

As I looked over the docks I could see a steamer being tugged in and a flotilla of boats scattered in the Bay. The tallest building was the Sanlam building which indicated the time digitally. It was an Indian summer’s day and I was considering which ice cream to buy – a two gun Charlie or an ice cream in a wafer shaped like a rocket with sprinkles on top. I was also considering buying a set of Ten jacks and a ball from the Sweeteries in Hanover Street and in my mind’s eye I could see jars and jars of candy – sugas and meetofbos and licorice ropes and sherbet and almond rock and amadia blokkies -the feeling of pure joy…

Fifty little birds came visiting on Thursday, so cute and fluttering, wearing sunhats sun protective cream! Eight and nine year olds with their teachers and parent support - enjoying the morning and left when the bell tolled 12 times.

It was exciting but so hectic, teachers of the Foundation Phase – take a bow! Zakiyyah you have the most amazing techniques of class control and it works! So we greeted, welcomed and chatted about the benefits and hadith of planting and how whenever we plant a seed with Bismillah we are performing an ibadah! I showed them the development of the lemon tree from a seedling to a “teenager” to an adult plant – I am sure that they are going home to cut open their Moms’ lemons to see whether the seeds look green enough to plant.
Zakiyyah explained too that in Australia many people plant lemon trees. When they fruit they are picked and put outside in brown paper packets inviting anyone to take them home and enjoy! I tried to imagine that in Schaapkraal, naaa let me rather not share my thoughts in public.
They lined up in neat little rows and we skipped over to the compost heap to see and understand how the manure, straw, garden and kitchen waste, wood chips and twigs all breakdown and turn into compost. Basil poked a stick right down in the middle a few times and when the steam came out we knew it was really cooking down there.

And over we traipsed to the strawberry section. Today especially for the children, butterflies flew around in all colours, browns and black and blue and speckled, alas someone caught a butterfly and broke its tender wings, accidently I am sure. So we let it flutter down to the sand where it would enrich the soil as well.

We broke off pieces of rocket, and either the children were really hungry or they dared each other - but many of them popped it into their mouths and asked for more. They were fascinated with the peas and beans climbing up the wigwams and the tomatoes hanging and then we made holes with our fingers and planted 5o spinach seeds. Ha, ha, ha lots of spinach for the Ramadhan! Planting marigolds to attract bees and butterflies to pollinate the plats really grabbed their attention. Ja, I said, the bees dip into the nectar and the pollen cling to their legs and off they fly to the next and the next thus pollinating all the flowers, without them we would have to do it by hand, so we need honey bees for both the vegetables as well as the fruit trees, but the fig trees are pollinated by fig wasps!

The also realised that almost anything can be recycled to plant in – from a tea pot with a chipped spout to old baths and catering trays.

The pupils licked their lips when I said that from all the strawberry plants we would harvest many strawberries and they promised to visit again to pick some. And then they had a snack and ran around until it was time for air kisses and goodbyes and poof, just like that they were gone.

The last week we  experienced all kinds of bugs, lady bugs, crickets, beneficial bugs and alas those bugs that has one running from room to room with buckets for sick ones. Remember to put the good bugs back to all of those who have had a bad tummy bug - the pro biotics.

Yesterday, I sat in a circle, a circle that was a halqah of Egyptian women who came with their children to spend the day relaxing running around and chatting. Although my conversational Arabic leaves a lot to be desired I could understand most of the talks and Thikr.

What a warm group of women sitting and encouraging one another to improve themselves and their relationship with Allah. I loved it, and felt blessed to be a part of this group. As we said goodbyes Um Khalid and I smiled and she said: "Yasmina, how else could it have been remember that we knew each other since the Arawaag!"

Don't forget to plant food and each one teach one!

Yasmine

 

16 April 2014 - From Dusk to dawn and from dawn to dusk

 

In the name of Allah Most gracious, Most merciful.

16 April 2014.

The best part of the day are those moments before Magrib, dusk  filled with quiet and Allah’s mercy for the slave who smiles at a day’s work and makes duah for rain and mercy. The cars somehow disappear, pigeons are scratching around for seeds in the grass and the sun starts to dip in the horizon.  That time when Mom says, “Come inside and take wudhu - it’s almost Magrib”.

Thank goodness the air is so much cooler than last week, although we did expect a deluge of rain after the heat. We scrambled to plant the new strawberry runners and put up final sections of shade cloth for wind protection. The next day the plants looked quite sad and wilted in their new surroundings but with proper watering and care they found their feet, I mean their roots.

A shawl is wound tightly, because the air is cooler and fresher, a deep breathe, some final names of plants are written on boards and stuck into the soil – climbing beans; peas in a pod; rocking rocket; and so on.

There is an excitement in the air – tomorrow will be our first junior visitors from a Primary school in Rondevlei, 8 and 9 year-olds will come and help with planting seeds and seedlings. They will learn about our relationship with Allah, with people and with the environment. They will learn about soil and watering and recycling and how to attract ladybugs, bees and butterflies. I hope they love to get their hands dirty, deep in soil like I do and plant some onions seedlings and some spinach seeds. I hope that they will hop on the stepping stones.

We brought out huge carpets and tidied spaces for tomorrow, methinks the vegetable garden will not hold 50 children at one time, well it could, but it would be a squeeze. So we thought to divide them into groups and introduce them to the various sections: the strawberry patches, the vegetable section and the section where we planted the fruit trees and of late the granadilla, blue berry and black berry bushes. And I will show them the nursery section where the potatoes are seeding and cuttings come to life.

Today a dear friend brought us a convection oven. I must confess that may or may not have moaned and groaned about not having an oven and wanting to bake biscuits and baklava and warm puddings and all kinds of breads and floor rolls and brioche. No one understands this feeling but those who love baking and enjoy cake. Many a time out of desperation whoever comes to visit I would say: “please bring some cake!” Alhamdulilaah after our visitors leave tomorrow I will spit and polish the oven and maybe make a baklava – a cashew nut one with a citrusy sauce.

Let’s share the recipe and don't worry it looks very complicated, but once you get the hang of it - child's play! I tried this one Eid and was so chaffed with results I made one for each family group.

Cashew Baklava

 

Ingredients

 For syrup
2 cups sugar
2/3  cup water
1 lemon, halved
1 orange, halved
1 ½  (3-inch) cinnamon sticks
2/3 cup honey

For baklava
250 gm butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 package phyllo dough (15 sheets of phyllo)

Filling

2 cups finely chopped cashew nuts
1 ¼ cups sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoons freshly grated nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon salt

Preparation

Make syrup:
Combine sugar and water in a medium sized saucepan. Squeeze juice from lemon and orange into sugar mixture. Add fruit halves and cinnamon sticks. Bring mixture to a boil over moderate heat, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until sugar is dissolved, then simmer 10 minutes. Stir in honey and return to a boil. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature. Pour through a sieve into a large measuring cup or bowl, pressing hard with wooden spoon, then discarding, solids. Chill uncovered, until cold, about 1 hour.

 Assemble and bake baklava:
Place oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350°F.

Stir together crushed cashew nuts, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt until combined well.

Generously brush a 13- by 9- by 2-inch baking dish with melted butter.

Fold over phyllo sheets in half and stack sheets. Keep stack covered with a dampened clean kitchen towel.

Lay 1 folded sheet of phyllo in bottom of baking dish and brush top sheet generously with butter.

Continue to layer 1 folded sheet at a time, staggering sheets in each double layer slightly to cover bottom of dish, then brushing every second sheet generously with butter, until you have used 5 folded sheets of phyllo in total.

 

After brushing top layer of phyllo with butter, spread half of nut mixture over it. Drizzle with 2 tablespoons melted butter.

 Repeat layering twice more.  Butter top and allow baklava to stand at room temperature to harden slightly (to facilitate cutting), 10 to 15 minutes.

 Using a sharp knife, cut through one layer of baklava into 16 equal rectangles, then cut each piece in half diagonally. Bake baklava until golden, 50 minutes to 1 hour.

Transfer dish to a rack to cool, then cut diamonds through to the bottom layer.

Slowly pour half the cold syrup around edges of hot baklava, in between all cuts, and over top. After about 20 minutes, pour over rest of syrup. Allow to stand at room temperature at least 8 hours. Serve with Bulgrian yoghurt and grilled fruit.

 Don’t forget to plant food and recycle.

 

 

Yasmine

13 April - Revised roti recipe, oops forgot the butter

In the name of Allah most gracious Most merciful.

13 April 2014

My cacti corner

 This morning I made the recipe for hot water roti,  and as I am mixing in the butter I realised that in the blog that I posted yesterday, A lentil, a lentil, a lentil, a stone,  I made a bit of a faux pax, I forgot to include the butter, silly me. So this is the revised version.

Hot water roti (fast tracked)

·         3 cups of cake flour

·         Level teaspoon of salt

·         1 ½ cups of boiling water.

·         70 gr soft butter

In a processor place the flour and salt and allow a dry spin of a few pulses to aerate the flour. Mix in the butter until the flour resembles mielie meal.

Then add all of the boiling water and mix until the dough starts to clump around the blade. Open and feel if it is soft, but not too sticky. Add a good sprinkling of flour.

Remove and place under plastic bag and wait for it to cool off a bit…

So I thought what the heck take some pics to go with it and I this is what transpired:

 

 

 

 

 

Don't forget to plant food that's organic and make food that's delicious!

Yasmine

 

 

 

 

13 April - Sowing the seeds of love

In the name of Allah most gracious most merciful. Verily, Allah created the heavens and the earth, He is the one who gathers the clouds and sends the rains to nourish the land such that we can enjoy the glorious bounties of it. He is the one who splits the seeds and grants it life.

 

 13 April  2014

 

 

There are many ahadith that encourages the planting of seeds:

If one is planting a seed and Qiyaamah  approaches, you should finish planting it. The one who plants a tree that animals, insects and human beings can benefit from is rewarded by Allah for as long as the tree lives.

The thing about seeds is that it is so joyous to watch their germination and development; they are our source of feeding the world and in all forms they are excellent for one’s health especially when they have just germinated into sprouts – they then contain super nutrients. It is also far cheaper to plant from seed than to buy seedlings but it does demand some patience in return. I am not even going to venture all the analogies for seeds, except one Sufi saying about rearing children that goes something like this: You can till the soil and plant the seeds with love and care but it may be that the pruning and the fruits are not for you. You can but beseech Allah to send the rain.

With modernity people across the world are fighting transnationalist companies who, for profit, appropriates a very basic human right of access to seeds by patents and developing exclusivist seed banks- to basically own the rights of God given seeds with government approval nogal (I did say for profit, ja?).

To stamp their own signature on seeds – they, Mosanto genetically modifies seeds, patents them to sell back farmers who in turn have to buy seed every year, instead of their normal practice of reseeding for themselves. I am not going to even discuss the fallout of GMS on health issues and how it has destroyed original seed crops.

Did you know that during the 80s with the crumbling of the old regime in Russia, the American Department of Agriculture sent in special teams who systematically find combed Russia, village to village, buying up different varieties of fruit, vegetables seeds and who knows what else with the intention of stealing it. Today one finds more than 30 new varieties of strawberries on the market in America known as gourmet strawberries.

I shudder to think what has happened in countries like Egypt, Afganistan,Iraq, Syria, Libya – who appropriates the seeds while the country is bleeding? When one thinks about it – just go to their local markets buy out their seed crops and rename it, stick your name on it and sell it back to them, sounds crazy right? We think that plundering and stealing only involves raw materials, food is more valuable than gold today. Return on investment on cabbages last year gave one 239% return on investment.

Let’s collect and share our own clean seed and educate and lobby support from people and farmers and claim back the ni’mahs that Allah has placed on earth for us. This is a basic human right, a right from Allah, a right that we must insist on and be proactive about for future generations.

On another note, the weather is dry and hot - a perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes – I don’t even want to talk talking about midnight mosquito manoeuvres in the dark. It is perfect weather though for making compost– Abu and Basil have stacked layers of straw, manure, dried leaves, kitchen waste, straw, manure, dried grass cuttings into a stack that looks kind of like a lasagne with no white sauce on top. This heat will speed up the breakdown of bacteria and with the grace of Allah we will be able to enrich new beds.

Personally I get a thrill out of planting seeds – coriander, fenugreek, mustard, linseed, beans, peas, turnips, onions, leeks and flowers such as black eyed Susie, lavender, forget me nots, nasturtiums, borage, Echina, cacti and poppies. Fruit seeds that I have had success with has been lemons, dates, mangos, granadilla, avocados and of late? I received a delightful few figs from a friend, the dark red variety. So I sacrificed but a quarter of it. I scraped it onto a piece of brown paper and dried it out and then sprinkled them over some rich soil. Now tiny leaves are appearing in the soil. I sommer look into my spice cupboard and grab the seeds that I have at hand. But let me be the first to admit that I have had about 80% luck, but I will continue trying to put in unusual ones. I have tried to plant ginger so many times but after a while it disappears into the soil. Now I realise that I should choose plump and robust ones with smooth. I should soak the rhizome in luke warm water until the next day and cover them with soil but to leave the surface exposed. I am so going to try again.

I intend to plant some cumin seeds as well as cardamom and to learn from this process, I do believe it’s also possible to plant nutmeg from seeds both male and female. And from time to time I sprout my own seeds for household use such as lentils, mung dahl, peanuts etc. My kids have developed a taste for it and don’t hesitate to sprinkle them on their cheese or cold meat sandwiches. This is how I sprout seeds:

 

·         I use a plastic bottle maybe the two litre variety or a big glass jar.

·         I soak the pulses (mung dahl or lentils) overnight and then rinse thoroughly the next day.

·         The plastic bottle should be cut down to half; tie a piece of muslin over the top it should be able to breathe. With the jar on the other hand I would knock holes in the lid. I turn it upside down and keep it in a cool dark place and rinse 3 times a day.

·         In hot weather a root will form at the end of day one in cold weather maybe the next day.

·         By the 3^rd day I will bring it into the sun say on the window sill to allow to green. (Remember to rinse the seeds every day.)

Then I divide them and place them into containers with a damp serviette and refrigerate. Its shelf life is very short so don’t make too much or better still make enough and share it with a friend. Try it you will be surprised how easy it is to sprout your own seeds.

Make sprouts, plant seeds and eat lots of nuts.

Till later

Yasmine