Putting The Veggies To Bed.

Frosty Morning On The Plaas

With the arrival of winter, comes the arrival of frost and this winter has been the worst we've experienced in our 6 years here. I make it sound like an awful phenomenon but in actual fact, it is beautiful and I love it, besides, within the first hour of direct sunlight, it is all gone! So, if you oversleep because bed is just too cozy on these cold mornings... you will miss it!

Putting The Veggies To Bed

Every night, I put my veggies to bed, so to speak  This entails covering my beds with shade cloth, a practice that I have started to do because during the night, we have hungry visitors like rabbit and porcupine.

Baby Cabbage, lettuce And Peas

This works really well as it also gives you a chance to keep an eye on any nightly pest invasions, i.e. snails and worms.

Cauliflower, Coriander and Peas

In the morning, when I remove their covers, I do a quick pest check, maybe a spot of weeding while the day time is still warm enough. It also protects your lettuce from frost. So while the farmer next door is trying to deal with his nocturnal visitors by setting traps, or setting his alarm clock hoping to catch the night time marauders in the sights of his 22... you are fast asleep. You could also fence your veggie garden in, although my neighbor said that fences don"t work as they just burrow their way underneath. This led me to trying the shade clothe, as I had some lying around and so far so good! No traps or guns on our farm!

African Bliss Fathers Day promotion.

 With Father day approaching, we decided this would be a perfect opportunity to run a little promotion on our Men's Soap and our soap beds and let Dads experience our soap.

 Since adding this soap to our range, we have found that the soap actually appeals to an equal amount of men and woman, with its warm and spicy smell.

The first client to take us up on our promotion was the local "Domini" (minister of the NG Kerk of Joubertina) who is by no means a new client but has been a faithful supporter (and friend) of our soap range since our arrival in the Langkloof. He put in a handsome order of 100 soaps on soap beds and suppled us with a little verse which we tied on with string. Apparently the children are going to hand these out to all the Dad's in the congregation after the service on Father's Day. We, at African Bliss, thought this to be a brilliant idea and climbed in with getting the order ready, with much enthusiasm and love!.

Our soap beds are recycled from off-cuts of  Meranti and Oak and then are soaked in olive all for a week (this preserves them). It's has four little legs and drainage furrows to make your handmade soap last longer and was designed by Dino.... clever Dad that he is!!

Happy Father's Day to all the Dad's out there!