Monthly Archives: December 2016

I have experimented with growing my own calabashes over the past three years and find it quite a helpful plant in the garden and at home, once harvested.  However, the yield of the plant and the way ones body reacts to so called ”NEW FOODS”, made me consider picking up a few and decorating them.  I actually painted my first one, which I found in a carpenter slash pastors workshop space in Strand, under bits of antique wood off-cuts, covered in spider web residue and dust.    He said I can recycle it, so I painted an awesome black and white floral design on it, and sold it for R600.  The seeds from some of these calabashes were saved and planted by me in the past 3 years in a few places in Johannesburg and even as far as Mpumalanga lol.  How this seed travels, and can be dormant and stored for hundreds of years is also quite fascinating.

In order to appreciate this form of artwork more, it is good to have an understanding of this plant too.  This particular calabash is a vine grown for its fruit, which can either be harvested young and used as a vegetable, or harvested mature, dried, and used as a bottle, utensil, or pipe. The fresh fruit has a light-green smooth skin and a white flesh. Rounder varieties are called calabash gourds. They grow in a variety of shapes: they can be huge and rounded, small and bottle shaped, or slim and serpentine, more than a meter long. Because bottle gourds are also called “calabashes”, they are sometimes confused with the hard, hollow fruits of the unrelated calabash tree, its latin name is Crescentia cujette, whose fruits are also used to make utensils, containers, and musical instruments.

Here are some pictures of gourds that I painted and still have for sale from 2013 and 2014.  I have a few on 4TH Avenue in Linden outside the wool and fabric shop, and these are in my cottage in Linden.  They make excellent incense holders and interesting deco, something that will definitely get your guests talking about art I hope :-)  My number is 072 146 9017 and email nntreasure@gmail.com

Please note that if I do not respond promptly I am in my garden at the Pirates Sports Club literally ;-)

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For some reason people still keep contacting me about Bamboo Leaf tea, which I sold at markets about 2 years ago, and I have put them in contact with the supplier up until today.  I responded asking what they would take it for, and the answer was Hair growth.  I ended that with, well I will go investigate in the garden in the morning and make a suggestion or two, and if she likes it I will harvest it fresh.  That is so much better than dried stuff without dates on them.  I think it’s better the garden function as a factory, and storeroom than separating them into a system that tries to control nature itself too.

In my research I found that Rosemary, Peppermint, Stinging Nettle, Aloe, Gingko Biloba, Ginseng, Saw Palmetto, Horsetail, Burdock and Lavender oils can be mixed with olive oil and massaged into the scalp to stimulate hair growth.  There are in fact, a lot more than that to list.

I also researched whether drinking tea make from these herbs or various combinations of them will be as effective as massaging herbal oil into ones hair.  Aloe Vera can be added to shampoo.  Stinging Nettle and Aloe Vera are quite reputable as solutions.  The good news about making Teas from these herbs is also that the tea can be used as a conditioner and it can be enjoyed with some tasty snacks.

Here is how to do it:

  1. Heat a cup of water in a pan and add tea leaves or herbs in this case to it
  2. Boil for 5 minutes
  3. Strain the liquid and let it cool down.
  4. Mix this liquid with some mint water
  5. Use this to rinse your hair or enjoy it as an iced tisane ;-)

If you would like me to get into the garden and pick you a few cups of tea give me a call 072 146 9017 or order via email nntreasure@gmail.com

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After 7 years of running to stand still, and making my way back into society and toward my own blood family, I have finally rented a beautiful little cottage in Linden.   Over the past year and a half I have been in and out of Jhb, walking from Linden to Greenside to do my garden and found that in 4th Avenue I get greeted the most, in fact, by virtually everyone walking past me – even when they look pissed off.  It has made me smile, it has restored alot of faith in humanity that I lost along the way.

I got kilograms of coffee grains, which were used on the farm and at Pirates from Gravity, really nice owners who truly do want to make a difference by example of growing some things on their steps and generously saving the waste for me to utilize.   This is their facebook page GRAVITY ;-)  BIG LOVE AND THANK YOU

There is what I consider to be a homely, relaxed and awesome new place called the Choo-Choo Junction on 4th Avenue that is very worthy of a visit.  They serve food that gives one a rather worldly experience, definitely not anything you will find anywhere else and to top it off, the music is always good and the service excellent.  This restaurant is growing alot of the food they use in the cooking, making it even more nutritious for all who are served.   I have gifted them with a few plants and seeds, and they have kindly given me some space to grow one or two tea plants.  This is their facebook page CHOO-CHOO JUNCTION ;-) BIG LOVE AND THANK YOU

Patrick is a wirework artist who has been setting up various struggling artists work, along with his work, outside the wool shop in 4th Avenue.  I am one of those artists.  We would like to network a bit more, in order to assist more people who really are going the extra mile to create beautiful things that are cost effective.  Please contact me or go take a walk in 4th avenue any day to show some support  072 146 9017  My email is nntreasure@gmail.com.  We thank you in advance.  Here we are below, with some images of what can be purchased on 4th Avenue’s sidewalk ;-)  thankyou Patrick for all your effort in assisting struggling artists all over Johannesburg.

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In the mean time I have got to get back into my garden throughout December, and package teas to sell in two days time.  It has all been a wonderful journey throughout my year and I look forward to meeting more of the residents in 4th Avenue in general.

Merry Christmas Linden <3

This past 5 month experience of trips from Johannesburg to the Fountain Farm in Mpumalanga, and back every two weeks, have taught me many things about farming, people, myself and of course plants ;-)  I have even developed a code of conduct in business – fair trade, honesty and good communication are key elements for sure.

I have a lot to write about, at some point, especially all the people and experiences out there. For now I feel it necessary to explain a small part of the decision I have made to resign from working as I have been with these employers and employees of the farm.  The way we work and do not work must change or end completely.  They have been teachers in many ways, for which I am eternally grateful.  I came along and got a lot going and done, and restored some things in them, at least I think so and I am hopeful that this farm will continue to grow and sustain itself.  How it grows and how it continues to grow is not my decision to make.  My decision to leave the way we work and the work we do, has not been an easy one.  I have really had to look within deeply and clear away a lot of my own anger and judgment in order to find and ground myself.

I have learnt that some people, in some kind of effort to be independent or self less or whatever it is, see people as objects or pawns in a game of chess.  It is all about networking, putting people into positions where things are more beneficial for the person paying for all the networking.  I can understand the logic in numbers, but people seem to forget that people are human.  People feel, some people actually look within and find their core, outer influences like the system we all feel we are lifted up by because of numbers in accounts instead of the system we all feel is really going to shit… our earth, our integrity…damaged.  I believe we have so much crime and hate and hurt because people do this, they suppress themselves in the process too because they look in the mirrors and judge all the time instead of looking within.  If people were working in jobs they could just live from their core in, then, perhaps, we would have less crime and more good judgment ;-)

It seems rather manipulative.  I have felt this way about many who have come to my garden at Pirates and paid me to go give advice and do the same for them in various places.   My journey got way more interesting and exciting when opportunities like this arose; it grounded me in many ways.

I am always made to believe that there is some kind of business opportunity to do with my teas, once I have done what I am paid for.  I am always questioned on permaculture methods I keep saying I have not got time to look into.  I always make it clear I want to sell and grow tea ;-) I always end up showing people how to do what I do for more people, and in the end I am more drawn to the ideas I have cultivated for over 2 years around the garden at the Pirates Sports Club in Johannesburg.  I know that at the end of the day I will still be selling, making and growing medicinal tea and infusions ;-)  I know that I will come and go for a while still – where to is yet to be determined.  I know that I have to work for money and whatever other system of trading exists, and create a balanced, kind of balanced income – I guess we all need that.  I have learnt money buys anything that exists whereas all these other alternatives still need to catch up and change the value systems they function in… and this is why money is most widely accepted in trades.

I am at most fortunate in the garden to have the best assistance ever from Nature, and can be taken away to consult, teach, learn with anyone and advice can be given from afar if communication is utilized with pictures, videos and words.  If I ever meet people serious about farming my teas I may very well be able to become the next Tea Merchant, for now I must sit down and listen again… I must be where I am grounded.  I feel this is in my garden, and that working toward farming around it for local restaurants and home owners, while I make my teas is 100% healing and restorative.

I find that the stress and bullshit surrounding joining the way people function in the so called system or city life in general that is just considered the way success looks???  Anyway, I find the stress and pseudoscience of it all really just takes me away from my core, who I am.  I do not want to monoculture anything or turn away my neighbor, while I send what they need away for money, imagine if the neighbors did the same.  I remember starting to cry on one of these trips, in a heated discussion on how to do the garden there … and I said, “It’s a bit insane to me I have always asked the earth and seed for its blessings and thanked it when they come, and in farming or planning a business of farming to sustain families, done must tell the earth and seed what to give, it is sad that we do not trust it.”

I am learning to be humble, to accept that I need to work with people alot – despite my virtually life-long introverted, hermit lifestyle.  I am learning that it is not worth it to give up sustaining and maintaining my own efforts in my own garden.  I am learning that everyone is reasonable, except they have their own reasons and that, in fact, gardening is an art form.  This garden, just like artwork, done in public, results in people thanking me, questioning me, taking me to go do it there because mine is fine, and I can teach and do it there and then and then and then…. (those who have done me wrong, misplaced me or whatever that was about will know some of the true impact that all of this has had on all of us)

My dream was to eat healthy food with energy still in it, to get up off my feet, stronger and purify myself on all levels before I die.  My dream included a community of people learning, trading and sharing with me… and man alive, it does become a nightmare when I drift too far from where it is all grounded in my garden.  It really is a different experience doing it for money for and with someone else, somewhere else.  For all of these reasons, and more, I am only willing to consult and manage anyone else’s garden anywhere in this world and not willing to become their middleman or breadwinner.  Here are, in fact, hundreds of people without jobs too.  I started doing this in public mainly because I wanted a community here.  Some, like Joseph, worked with me to learn without being paid money, but food instead.  Mandla came to me today again to work for food alone.

I feel like I really have had to do this and to speak up, and I walk away with a great sadness and hope that you all find your way.

I will see you in the garden, I look forward to whatever journey it leads me on.

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