It’s that perfect time of year again in the Zambezi Valley. April. The heat and humidity have made way for temperate, dry air; clouds are chiseled in an eggshell-blue sky; stars conjure up stories each night, so bright and so numerous are they in a clear black sky.
What isn’t so perfect is that our chickens have turned into serial escape artists.
Wild sourplums, or mungomba, as the Tonga people call them, taste like pucker maraschino cherries infused with almond. They have a flavor so unique and a color so bright, my imagination went into overdrive when my assistant, Maggie Mundia, first brought me a basketful, collected by her father and younger brother from the bush on the farm, last December.
Fresh wild sourplums.
It’s taken me longer than usual to craft this blogpost. In truth, I wasn’t sure where to begin.
Our guava season has ended, and what a season it was. For the first time ever, hardly a guava was stung by pests and we had more fruit than we knew what to do with. We’ve frozen bagfuls, and turned a terrific amount into jelly and syrup. For my guava jelly recipe click here, bearing in mind that if its syrup you’re after, cook the fruit for less time.
I realized just how insignificant I was in this world when Zimbabwean mycologist, Cathy Sharp, held a course about fungi on our farm last weekend. We learned, and witnessed, how fungi is an exquisite example of interconnectedness, and how vast and diverse and intelligent it turns out to be.
Fungi is, as described in this BBC feature, the earth’s information superhighway.
September and October for us here in the Zambezi Valley is much like it is for haute couture in Paris: it’s Fashion Week.
