The Garden of Eaden: September 2012

WHAT IS CHOCOLATE?

CLICK HERE FOR THE NEW 'GARDEN OF EADEN’ WEBSITE AND SEED SHOP

Without any doubt in my mind at all, chocolate has become one one of the worlds most most popular food. And while we are all familiar with chocolate in its yummy block of tasty goodness, what on earth is it? To find the answer, you need to look to the rainforests of South America.

It turns out that chocolate is produced from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree. A tree that has been cultivated for at least three millennia in Mexico, Central and South America.

The seeds of the cacao tree have an intense bitter taste, and must be fermented to develop the flavour. Its earliest documented use is around 1100 BC. During this time, the majority of the early native American people used chocolate to make chocolate beverages, including the Aztec's. In particular, the Aztecs used the chocolate nut to make a drink known as xocolātl [ʃo'kolaːt͡ɬ], a Nahuatl word meaning bitter water'.

Cocoa mass was also used in the early South American civilizations as an ingredient in foods. In fact, chocolate played a special role in both Maya and Aztec royal and religious events. Priests presented cacao seeds as offerings to the deities and served chocolate drinks during sacred ceremonies. All of the areas that were conquered by the Aztecs that grew cacao beans were ordered to pay them as a tax, or as the Aztecs called it, a 'tribute'.

However, while cocoa is originally from South America, Western Africa now produces almost two-thirds of the world's cocoa, with the Ivory Coast growing almost half of it!

As mentioned earlier, the seeds of the cacao tree must be fermented to develop their chocolaty flavour. After fermentation, the beans are dried, cleaned, and then roasted, after which the shell is removed to produce cacao nibs.

The nibs are then ground to cocoa mass - this is pure chocolate in its roughest form. Because this cocoa mass usually is liquefied then molded with or without other ingredients, it is called chocolate liquor. The liquor also may be processed into two components: cocoa solids and cocoa butter. Unsweetened baking chocolate (bitter chocolate) contains primarily cocoa solids and cocoa butter in varying proportions.

Much of the chocolate consumed today is in the form of sweet chocolate, combining cocoa solids, cocoa butter or other fat, and sugar. Milk chocolate is sweet chocolate that additionally contains milk powder or condensed milk. White chocolate contains cocoa butter, sugar, and milk but no cocoa solids.

For related articles click onto:
Araucaria
Bamboo
Chocolate Cookies
How to Compost
How to Grow Peanuts
How to Grow the Sago Palm from Seed
How to Plant Bamboo
How to Propagate Bamboo?
How to Take Cuttings from Bamboo
How do you find Truffles?
Is a Peanut a Nut?
Peanut Butter Cookies
Recipe for Chocolate Cookies
Saffron
The Peanut
TRUFFLES: What are truffles?
Walnut Trees
What are Mycorrhizal Fungi?
What are Plant Macronutrients and Micronutrients?
What are Plant Nutrients?
What Causes Blue Hydrangeas to Turn Pink?
What Causes Moss in Lawns
What is Chlorosis?
What is Frankincense?
What is John Innes Base?
What is John Innes Compost?
What is a Leaf Mould Compost?
What is Cork Made of?
What is a Peanut?
What is a Truffle?
Walnuts
What is a Walnut?
What is a Wormery?
What is an Epiphyte?
What is an F1 Hybrid?
What is an Orchid?
What is Over-watering and How to Recognise it?
What is Pricking out?
What is Rhubarb Poisoning?
What is Seed Dormancy?
What is the Difference between a Fruit and a Vegetable?
What is the Difference between a Frog and a Toad?
What is the Difference between Currants, Raisins and Sultanas?
What is the Biggest Flower in the World?
What is Composting?
What is E.Coli?
What is Saffron?
What is the Most Poisonous Spider?
When should you Re-pot an Orchid?
Where do Peanuts come from?
Where does the Wind come from?
Why do Onions make you Cry?
Why do Leaves Change their Colour in the Autumn Fall
Why do Trees drop their Leaves in Autumn Fall
Why is the Sea Salty?
Why is the Sky Blue?

Images care of http://whydowelovechocolate.wordpress.com/category/plantation-cocoa-tree/ and http://blogs.ubc.ca/106fb2011wl1c/author/rachellm/ and http://www.familles.com/v4/forums/forums-familiaux-metiers-d-autrefois-liste-des-metiers-etudies-en-page-15-t887169-p79.html

GROWING TOMATOES

CLICK HERE FOR THE NEW 'GARDEN OF EADEN’ WEBSITE AND SEED SHOP.

Want to buy tomato seed? Click here to view seed shop.

Of all the edible crops bought as young plants, pot grown tomato plants are by far the most popular. And why not. They are one of the easiest to grow, one of the most flavoursome, and one of the best cropping edible plant species by far!

Of course, buying tomato plants is one thing but what you need to know is how to look after them from this point onwards. And the first thing you need to be aware of is whether you are growing on greenhouse or outdoor tomato varieties. This will be on the label (please don't buy unlabelled tomato plants) when you purchase them.

How to plant outdoor tomato varieties

Your young tomato plants can be safely planted outside once the threat of frost is over. Like most garden plants, success is all in the preparation and tomatoes love a rich, free-draining soil that has had plenty of organic compost or well-rotted farm manure added.

Positioning is all important as your growing tomato crop will require as much sunlight as possible. You may also wish to avoid areas which are sheltered or near to potato crops as this will increase the risk of late blight. Give each plant a good 2 - 3ft spacing, and make sure that adequate plant support is available as they grow - this will be a lot easier to put in place when the plants are small

When it come to planting - and as long as the young tomato plants are tall enough, try placing young tomatoes either on their side so that they are lying horizontally in a trench or up to their first set of leaves in a deep hole. With either situation, back fill the plants with soil and water in. Roots will develop all along the underground stems helping to produce bigger plants and bigger crops.

How to plant greenhouse tomato varieties

For greenhouse tomatoes first pick a recommended variety such as 'Santa', 'Matador', 'Sungold', 'Money Maker' or 'Supersteak'.

Plant the young plants when they are about 6-8 inches tall and the flowers of the first truss are just beginning to open. If you are planting into your greenhouse border make sure you have dug in plenty of organic compost during the winter.

If you have used the border before for tomatoes, it is better to change the soil or sterilise it before using it for tomatoes again. This will help avoid soil pests and root diseases becoming a problem. Just before planting, rake in a general purpose fertiliser. If you are going to use a growbag or pot just remember they will require a lot more watering and care. Plant approximately 45cm (18in) between the plants and 75cm (30in) between the rows. In a growbag, generally plant no more then two plants per bag.

Growbags or soil - which is best?

It almost doesn’t matter where in the country you live or the property you are living in because there is almost always at least one spot in the sun that can accommodate a single grow bag. In one fail swoop the ‘growbag’ revolution made it possible for the ordinary person to successfully grow fresh produce at home, irrespective of whether they had a garden or not.

Such is the culture of the grow bag that most amateur gardeners including a fair number of professional gardeners have an almost mythical belief in it’s capabilities to grow traditional greenhouse crops. With regards to growing tomatoes, if you have no ground in which to plant them in then clearly using a growbag is your best option, but if you have good quality soil available should you still use the bag or put your trust nature and plant your tomatoes in the ground?

As a native of the South American rainforests, the normal dispersal of tomato seed would begin with its consumption by wild animals or the local indigenous peoples. The digestive process helps to strip the seed of its jelly like coating which contains specialized chemicals that inhibit the seeds germination. After a few hours the seed is returned to the soil along with a dose of natural fertilizer. With the heat of this environment combined with high levels of rainfall, the tomato seeds will germinate within a couple of weeks, making full use of the nutrient rich soil that has been fermenting below them.

For growing outdoor tomato varieties horticultural practice mimics nature as it is usual to prepare the soil before hand, digging in plenty of organic matter or well rotted farm manures. This is fantastic for the crops flavour as it has abundant supply of nutrients - both macro and micro - readily available within the root environment. Without the required range of nutrients, the tomato 'fruit' will be unable to manufacture the proteins, enzymes and pigments etc that give us that rich and characteristic 'tomatoey' flavour organic gardeners strive for. Compare this to the growbag which in essence it a small bag of sedge peat which holds no real nutrients of its own.

Sedge peat differs to moss peat in that it becomes greasy and compacts easily but it doesn’t create a good open environment for root development. This is why all peat-based multipurpose and specialist composts will contain moss peat and not sedge peat. It is however very cheap and as mentioned before, like moss peat it has no nutrients of its own which is why all grow bags must be supplemented with liquid feeds on an almost daily basis throughout the growing season. The problem with this is that the only nutrients that are available to your plants are the ones supplied by you.

Is this really a problem, well it is when you consider the ‘Law of limitations’? With regards to available nutrients a plant cell can only grow to the limits of its lowest available nutrient. This means that there may well be plenty of nitrogen, potassium and phosphates within the root environment, but if there is a shortage of calcium for example – a nutrient vital for the formation of plant cell walls – the cells within the tomato fruit will only grow so big until the cell walls collapse due to calcium deficiency resulting in catastrophic cell death. This is exactly the situation that occurs when tomatoes fruit suffer from blossom end rot.

So which is better for growing tomatoes, growbags or soil? At the end of the day tomatoes will always taste better in the ground but be aware though that constant cropping in the same soil can bring serious problems such as corky root, wilt and eelworm. To avoid this you would need to consider soil steralisation, or change the soil every few years digging out the old soil and replacing it with humus rich, loamy soil from a part of the garden that has never cropped potatoes. The reason for this is that both tomatoes and potatoes are from the Solonacae family (compare their flowers) and you may inadvertently transfer blight spores with infected soil. To continue the argument, the problem with growbags is that they limit both the size and the flavour of your crop, however they are convenient.

At the end of the day the choice is yours, but perhaps the most important thing here is that you do get a choice.

WHERE DOES CHOCOLATE COME FROM?

CLICK HERE FOR THE NEW 'GARDEN OF EADEN’ WEBSITE AND SEED SHOP

Without any doubt in my mind at all, chocolate has become one one of the worlds most most popular food. And while we are all familiar with chocolate in its yummy block of tasty goodness, where on earth does chocolate come from? To find the answer, you need to look to the rainforests of South America.

As mentioned earlier, the seeds of the cacao tree must be fermented to develop their chocolaty flavour. After fermentation, the beans are dried, cleaned, and then roasted, after which the shell is removed to produce cacao nibs.

The nibs are then ground to cocoa mass - this is pure chocolate in its roughest form. Because this cocoa mass usually is liquefied then molded with or without other ingredients, it is called chocolate liquor. The liquor also may be processed into two components: cocoa solids and cocoa butter. Unsweetened baking chocolate (bitter chocolate) contains primarily cocoa solids and cocoa butter in varying proportions.

Much of the chocolate consumed today is in the form of sweet chocolate, combining cocoa solids, cocoa butter or other fat, and sugar. Milk chocolate is sweet chocolate that additionally contains milk powder or condensed milk. White chocolate contains cocoa butter, sugar, and milk but no cocoa solids.

For related articles click onto:
Araucaria
Bamboo
Chocolate Cookies
How to Compost
How to Grow Peanuts
How to Grow the Sago Palm from Seed
How to Plant Bamboo
How to Propagate Bamboo?
How to Take Cuttings from Bamboo
How do you find Truffles?
Is a Peanut a Nut?
Peanut Butter Cookies
Recipe for Chocolate Cookies
Saffron
The Dragon Lily
The Peanut
TRUFFLES: What are truffles?
Walnut Trees
What are Mycorrhizal Fungi?
What are Plant Macronutrients and Micronutrients?
What are Plant Nutrients?
What Causes Blue Hydrangeas to Turn Pink?
What Causes Moss in Lawns
What is Chlorosis?
What is Frankincense?
What is John Innes Base?
What is John Innes Compost?
What is a Leaf Mould Compost?
What is Cork Made of?
What is a Peanut?
What is a Truffle?
What is a Wormery?
What is an Epiphyte?
What is an F1 Hybrid?
What is an Orchid?
What is Over-watering and How to Recognise it?
What is Pricking out?
What is Rhubarb Poisoning?
What is Seed Dormancy?
Walnuts
What is a Walnut?
What is the Difference between a Fruit and a Vegetable?
What is the Difference between a Frog and a Toad?
What is the Difference between Currants, Raisins and Sultanas?
What is the Biggest Flower in the World?
What is Composting?
What is E.Coli?
What is Saffron?
What is the Most Poisonous Spider?
When should you Re-pot an Orchid?
Where do Peanuts come from?
Where does Chocolate come from?
Where does the Wind come from?
Why do Onions make you Cry?
Why do Leaves Change their Colour in the Autumn Fall
Why do Trees drop their Leaves in Autumn Fall
Why is the Sea Salty?
Why is the Sky Blue?

Images care of http://whydowelovechocolate.wordpress.com/category/plantation-cocoa-tree/ and http://blogs.ubc.ca/106fb2011wl1c/author/rachellm/ and http://www.familles.com/v4/forums/forums-familiaux-metiers-d-autrefois-liste-des-metiers-etudies-en-page-15-t887169-p79.html

WHAT IS A PUMPKIN?

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Want to buy pumpkin seed? Click here to view seed shop.

A pumpkin is a gourd-like squash of the genus Cucurbita. As informative as that is, when it comes to pumpkins there is always the perennial of whether the pumpkin is a fruit or a vegetable. This question is reasonable as while it looks a bit like a fruit - albeit an ugly fruit - you cook it like a vegetable and it tastes like a vegetable. However - to put the record straight - the pumpkin is a squash which makes it a fruit.

Pumpkin History

Although pumpkins are very much part of northern European 'Halloween' culture, the plant itself is believed to have originated in North America. In fact, seeds from related plants have been found in Mexico dating back to 7000 to 5500 B.C.

References to pumpkins date back many centuries, and the very name 'pumpkin' originates from the Greek word 'pepon' meaning 'large melon'.

However - over time - there was an evolution in how the final name arrived, starting with the French who called it the pompon'. The English changed the name to 'Pumpion' and finally American colonists changed that into 'pumpkin' which has so far remained unchanged.

It was the native American Indians who first used the pumpkin as a food crop but they had other uses for it too. Not only did they dry strips of pumpkin for weaving into mats, they also invented a form of 'fast food' by roasting long strips of pumpkin on open fires.

When the first white settlers arrived, they witnessed this versatile plant and it soon became part of their diets too. They used them in a wide variety of recipes from desserts to stews and soups, although the origin of pumpkin pie is thought to have come form the practice of early colonists who cooked de-seeded pumpkins filled with milk, spices and honey on the hot ashes of a dying fire.

How to grow pumpkins

Traditionally – in England anyway – pumpkins are sown during the third week in May and this is to make sure that the ground temperature is warm enough for germination. This needs to be at least 60 degrees Celsius, in fact in Lincolnshire it’s believed that pumpkin growers test the soil by pulling down their trousers and sitting on the ground!

If you live in an area where the summers are neither long or warm enough, you will need to give your seeds a head start by germinating them under controlled conditions indoors i.e. plenty of additional light and soil temperatures of between 25 and 30 degrees Celsius.

To give you seeds the best start - although it is not strictly necessary – lightly file the edges of the seed with a nail file, apart from the pointed end. Not only will this allow for a quicker and greater uptake of moisture into the seed more makes it easier for the leaves to emerge from the shell without damage.

Next the seeds can be soaked for several hours in warm water – not hot – as again this will speed up germination. For the cautious grower, once you have removed the seeds from the water, remove any excess with a paper towel and then treat the seed with a fungicidal powder. This will help to reduce the incidence of fungal infections – especially if soil temperatures start to drop or if the young seedlings get overly wet.

Sowing pumpkin seeds indoors

.Start off with 6 inch pots with the bottom inch or so filled with a good quality seed mix such as John Innes ‘Seed and Potting’ compost. Take one seed and place it either on its side, or with the pointed end down, then fill the pot to within 1 inch of the top with more of the compost mix. Water thoroughly, and then move to a warm and sunny position such as south facing windowsill - preferably by a radiator, but not on a radiator. However if you have a heated propagator or germination mat – use that.

Once the new seedlings start to emerge – anytime between 4 and 6 days - remove the basal heat, but keep them in a well lit area that receives as much direct sunlight as possible. If the seeds have not sprouted after ten days then consider that that batch has failed and you will need to make another sowing.

Your pumpkin seedlings will need to be watered every couple of days due to their high rate of growth but allow the surface to dry off before re-watering as this can tempt fungal infections. Also – after the first couple of days – you can commence feeding with a liquid fertiliser, but only at a half strength dose and only once a week.

Once the seedlings have been grown on for a couple of weeks they should be ready for transplanting outside so long as the threat of late frosts are over.

Sowing and growing pumpkins outside

The most important consideration with sowing pumpkin seeds outside is to make sure that the site receives as much direct sun as possible. Neither do you want a position that is particularly free draining soil as you pumpkins will require a lot of water in order to attain a decent size.

In addition, they will also require a large amount of soil nutrition and so it is well worth while digging in plenty of well-rotted farm manure a few weeks before planting. If you are in an area that is prone to a lot of spring rain that you may also wish to mound up the soil where you will be sowing or planting your pumpkin seedlings so that they don’t become waterlogged at this early stage.

Mound sowing

One of the best tried and tested ways of growing pumpkins outside is by using the mound sowing technique.

Create a mound of soil three feet in diameter with a shallow trench surrounding it for collecting water. Plant four to five pumpkin seeds on each hill, spaced between six to eight inches apart.

If you are intending planting more than one hill, make sure that each hill is at least 10 feet apart to give plants enough space to spread their tendrils.

Once the seeds have germinated, remove all but the strongest seedling to continue on through to fruiting.
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The legend of 'JACK O LANTERN'

The carved pumpkin used to ward off evil spirits comes from the centuries old tradition of the Halloween 'JackO'Lantern'. The practice comes from Ireland and originates from an old Irish myth about a man nicknamed 'Stingy Jack'.
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According to the story, Stingy Jack invited the Devil to have a drink with him, and true to his name Stingy Jack didn't want to pay. Somehow, he managed to convince the Devil to turn himself into a coin so that Jack could use it to buy his round. However, as soon as the Devil did so, Jack decided to keep the money for himself and put it into his pocket next to a silver crucifix. This had the effect of preventing the Devil from changing back into his original form.
....
Jack eventually freed the Devil, but he imposed several conditions beforehand. The first was that the devil would not bother Jack for one year and that - should Jack die - he would not be able to claim his soul. The Devil agreed and Jack let him go.

The following year, Jack tricked the Devil again, fooling him into climbing into a tree to pick a piece of fruit. While he was up in the tree, Jack carved a sign of the cross into the tree's bark so that the Devil was unable to make his way back down again. Once again the Devil had to remain there until he promised Jack that he would not to bother him for a further ten years.

Soon after, Jack died, and as the legend goes God refused him entry into heaven because of the unsavory tricks he played. However the Devil would not allow him in to Hell either as he had already promised not to claim his soul. The Devil sent Jack back to the living, but he was only to appear at night with a piece of burning coal to light his way. The story goes that Jack put the coal into a carved out turnip and has roamed the Earth with it ever since. The Irish referred to this ghostly figure as 'Jack of the Lantern'', but as the centuries passed it was eventually shortened to Jack O'Lantern'.

In the Celtic lands of Ireland and Scotland it became tradition for people to make their own versions of Jack’s lanterns by carving scary faces into turnips or potatoes. However, England it became common place to use large beets instead. These would be placed in windows or by their doors to frighten away Stingy Jack and other wandering evil spirits.

As immigrants from these countries settles in ares of the United States, they brought the 'Jack O’Lantern' tradition with them. Together with the popularity for eating the native pumpkin they soon found that it make the perfect Jack O’Lanterns. From that time the tradition of a carved pumpkin over the Halloween period has remained ever since.

For more information click onto:
How to Collect and Prepare Pumpkin Seeds for Germination
How to Cure and Store Pumpkins
How to Grow Pumpkins from Seed
How to Tell when Pumpkins are Ready to Harvest
The History of Thanksgiving

For more stories on the history of plants click onto:
Charles Darwin's Greatest Experiment
Dahlia 'War of the Roses'
Darwin's Theory of Evolution
Hever Castle, Viscount Astor and the Worlds Greatest Pleasure Garden
Historic Roses - Rosa Mundi
History of the Globe Artichoke
How to Collect and Prepare Pumpkin Seeds for Germination
How to Grow Pumpkins from Seed
How to Plant Pumpkins
How to Grow Saffron
Jack Lantern
Lost Tulips of the Dutch Golden Age- Semper Augustus and Viceroy
Old Dutch Tulips - Tulip Duc van Thol 'Rose'
Old English Plants - Polyanthus 'Gold Lace'
Plants and Trees of the Garden of Eden
Poinsettia History and Tradition Story
Pumpkins
RHS Wisley Gardens - A Photographic Walk Through
Saffron
Sissinghurst Gardens - a secret history
Stories, Myths, Legends and the Folklore of Hellebores
The First Thanksgiving
The History of Mistletoe Tradition
The History of the Olympic Games
The History of Rhubarb
The History of the Pineapple
The Legend of the Jack O'Lantern Tradition
The History of the Primula Auricula
The Saffron Crocus - Crocus sativus
The Story and History of Common Box
Tulip History and Popular Varieties
What is an Artichoke?
What is a Poinsettia?
What is a Pumpkin?
What is Thanksgiving?
When to Harvest Pumpkins
Where is the Location of the Garden of Eden
Who was Charles Darwin
Images care of http://sylvandellpublishing.wordpress.com/2009/11/20/teachable-moments-week-of-nov-23-celebrate-thanksgiving-with-corn/

HOW TO GROW SAFFRON

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Saffron is a highly expensive spice that is used to flavour and color food. The spice is actually the dried stigma - tiny thread-like strands - of the Crocus sativus linneaus, a member of the iris family. Each stigma is very small, and tens of thousands of individual strands go into a single ounce of the spice. Since the stigmas are hand-plucked from the individual flowers, saffron's high cost becomes more understandable. In fact saffron is the most expensive spice in the world!

Saffron originated in the middle east, but is now also associated with Greek, Indian and Spanish cuisines. The flavor is distinctive and pungent and fortunately, a very little saffron goes a long way as it can added one thread at a time. In fact you only need a thread or two to flavor and color an entire pot of rice!

If you are growing your own, harvesting saffron involves keeping an eye out for the three red stigmas that occur in each bloom. These should be harvested in the morning when the flowers have fully opened. Carefully remove them from the flower with tweezers and dry them off in a warm dark location. To avoid spoiling your crop, give your saffron plenty of time to dry out and store it in a dark, tightly capped container.

Several saffron cultivars are grown worldwide but for those who want the best quality spice only a few of them are known to be of a “premium" quality. The "Aquila" saffron is perhaps the best known, grown exclusively on eight hectares in the Navelli Valley of Italy's Abrozzo region. Another is the Kashmiri "Mongra" or "Lacha" saffron (Crocus sativa 'Cashmirianus'), unfortunately it is almost impossible to obtain such coveted and valuable plants. However you should still be interested in obtaining Saffron crocus they should be available as bulbs in your local plant retailer as soon as the autumn bulb displays arrive.

How to grow saffron

Unlike its ornamental cousins which seem to be able to grow anywhere, the Crocus sativus is a tricky plant to grow in the British climate. This is all down to its Mediterranean origins, but by keeping to a few simple rules you should be able to create a perfectly acceptable environment that will produce a successful – although extremely small – crop of saffron spice year on year.

Although its ancestors are now unknown in the wild, the domesticated plant that exists today requires a rich fertile soil that will reliably dry out and even bake during the summer. This hot dry period is vital as it creates the dormancy period required to trigger flower initiation in the autumn.

Traditionally the Saffron crocus was grown in raised containers to guarantee good drainage. This would have given the Tudor gardeners control over the root environment ensuring that the vital dormancy period occurs. In modern European commercial practices, the Saffron crocus is planted into pockets of land that slope towards the sun. That way they get almost all day exposure to the heat and light, as well as the excellent drainage privided from the sloping ground. It makes sense then to place your bulbs in a fully open and sunny site, and planted into a very well-drained soil.

Given the choice they grow best in a friable, clay-calcareous soil with a high organic content – back in the Tudor times a well rotted farm manures would have been applied before planting, but surprisingly no further applications were ever given.

Nowadays though, they are normally given a feed of potash at the end of the summer to help promote flowering. Plant them 6 inches apart, and - unlike most small bulbs - plant them comparatively deep, about 6 inches or so. This planting depth is another critical factor as this can affect the plants spice yields. The current rule of thumb is that the deeper the saffron corm is planted the better the quality of spice is produced. Unfortunately there is also down-side to this as your plants will have fewer flowers and will produce less bulblets for propagation later.

Mice and squirrels can also be a real problem when you are trying to grow crocus as they capable of destroying trays of bulbs in a single night. Dipping the bulbs in liquid paraffin can sometimes work, but covering them with a very fine-mesh wire under the soil is usually the best method.

Saffron Facts

"Donning the saffron robes" is a poetic way of saying 'becoming a Buddhist monk'. The followers of the Buddha selected the colour saffron as the official colour of his priesthood shortly after his death, and the bright golden yellow robes have been the distinctive mark of the Buddhist monk ever since.

Saffron is widely used in Ayurvedic medicine, India's traditional system of health that relies on natural products, prevention and balance. It is used in remedies for everything from arthritis and asthma to infertility and impotence.

Ancient Egyptians used saffron to treat kidney problems, and there are now research results that might suggest that one of the ingredients in saffron lowers - or assists in lowering - high cholesterol. There are even suggestions that saffron may have been used against cancer in the middle ages, although with what success is unknown.

OSTRICH FACTS

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Although native only to parts of Africa, the ostrich is still one of the world’s best known birds. This is partly due to its bizarre appearance, characterised by a round dumpy body, spindly legs and a long neck that extends upwards to a small head with a quizzical facial expression.

The ostrich holds many records. It is the world’s largest bird and it can run faster than any other two-legged animal with a maximum speed of about 70 km/h (43 mph). Furthermore, this flightless bird lays the largest eggs of any living creature.

The ostrich was once famed for its feathers, which were used as hat plumes. Now the ostrich is farmed for its meat, its skin and kept in zoos as a tourist attraction. It has also been trained to scare birds away from crops, to round up sheep, as well as to be ridden in ostrich races.

The ostrich was first introduced into Australia in the 1860’s. As in South Africa, many of those farmed managed to escape and began to breed in the wild.

Ostrich facts

1. One ostrich egg contains the equivalent in volume to 20 hens eggs

2. Seven million year old ostrich fossils have been found it southern Russia, India and China.

3. One ostrich living in London Zoo swallowed a spool of film, 3 gloves, a comb, a bicycle valve, a pencil, some rope, several coins, bits of a gold necklace, a collar stud, a handkerchief and a clock.

4. Some African tribes use ostrich eggshells as water containers.

5. It is a common misconception that the ostrich buries its head in the sand. This legend probably came about because – from a distance – the tiny head of a grazing ostrich may not be clearly visible.

6. The male defends his breeding territory by chasing away intruders and displaying aggressively. Flicking his wings or raising them together. This threat display removes the need for more violent confrontation.

7. Ostriches do not put their heads in the sand!

8. Standing over 9 feet tall and weighing as much as 400 pounds, the ostrich is the largest living bird today.

9. Its powerful legs enable it to hit a top speed of 43 mph in a short burst and it has been known to kill with one kick.

10. Ostriches originated in the Asiatic steppes about 40 to 50 million years ago. They once occupied all of Eurasia and Africa, but today can only be found on the hot arid savannas of Africa.

What do ostriches eat?

With its long strides, the ostrich is an efficient grazer of the scarce but nutritious plant, shoots, leaves and flowers and seeds on which it depends. Lowering its long neck, it accurately pecks up the food and then stores it in its gullet, before finally passing it down the gut in a large ball. This passage can be clearly seen, as it stretches the highly elastic skin of the ostrich’s neck.

Like many other birds, the ostrich also swallows grit and small stones with its food. These grind up the tough plant material which it eats, in the muscular gizzard – the ostrich’s second stomach – and so helps with its digestion.

While grazing, the ostrich regularly raises its long neck to scan the horizon for any signs of danger. It has acute vision and its eyes are the largest of any land animal in relation to the size of its head.

Ostrich breeding