Friday 19 April 2013

Moringa seeds sprou ting

or as I like to say 2 of my babies have hatched and a couple more seems to almost peak out the ground.
I'm growing them indoors in sort of self-watering contraptions made out of coke bottles, but I'll leave my master construction technic for another day.

Rewinding just for a bit, by first go at germinating didn't go that well. I got mould on some of my seeds and in the end only 2/6 hatched.

I sprinkled some cinnamon on the moulded seeds, but that didn't really help much.. 

I think they were not in the ideal worm area of our house either.
Then I did a much smaller container which I sterilized with boiling water, insulated with foil and kept it in a tin on top of my laptop power supply which kept it nice an snug. 4/4 white roots sprang forth this time \o/.


Carefully planting them in a mix of potting soil and river sand.

Behold one of the older boys first days, you can make out little green fingers already.



The twins are doing quite nicely so far and the quadruplets are just starting to peak out. 


I just hope they survive this weekend as we are going away for a couple of night. Mmm I should have left keys with somebody to come fill their bottles while I'm gone. Gonna miss them.




h4hjozi first fully wifi-internetted meetup in the cave

I arrived early and managed to get the wireless internet working! Dhcp forwarding made it very easy, except I don't know what the router's IP is anymore :(

Marcel and I were still standing around when Schalk and Guy flew in and had the place re-arranged to our customary layout in no time.

Wednesday 3 April 2013

Got my Moringa seeds today!

I finally got my Moringa seeds that I ordered from here.


I first heard of it on Lets Talk Possibility.
You may ask what is this good for, in short from the site where I bought my seeds from: It is
  • One of the few plants on earth whose leaves contain all the Essential Amino Acids required for Human Protein Synthesis. Essential for Vegans and Vegetarians


  • One of Nature's Richest sources of Vitamins, Minerals and anti-oxidants


  • A Rich source of bio chelated Vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, C and E


  • A Rich source of bio chelated Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium, Sulphur, Copper and Iron
etc. etc.




The minimum amount of seeds you can order from there is 120, so if you live close to me I'll be happy to sell smaller quantities of my stock, say R10 for 6.


I started soaking 6 in water immediately, so I can get some leaf ASAP :).


Then I'll stick them in a plastic container to germinate and then plant them in self watering 2 litre coke bottles indoors (because we are a bit too close to winter). When they are a bit bigger I'll plant them out outside or into bigger containers. I'll sell some plants in coke bottles too if you prefer that, say about R10 each.

Apparently the leaves are a bit bitter, so in the end I might end up mostly making powder and tea, but I'll try it fresh and in stir fry and even boil some green leafy branches like spinage etc. I have no idea how it tastes - that is why I ordered the seeds to be able to try it out - will let you know as soon as I do and I'll give some samples as soon as I have some.