Gauteng Smallholder December 2015-January 2016 | Page 45

HERB GARDEN

How to make
money with
herbs

L

ooking to make extra
income from your plot?
Look to your herb
garden for a value-added
business.
Products can include the
ideas listed below, namely
tinctures, teas, oils and
vinegars, or can expand
beyond that, to whatever your
imagination can dream up.
If you enjoy making healthy,
simple, effective beauty and
health products, having a
smallholder business making
herbal products could be right
for you.
Depending on what you are
going to do with the herbs,
you will need certain equipment. A blender or food
processor is useful, along with
funnels, sieves or a colander.
If you need jars or bottles,
recycle what you already
have, rather than buying new
ones. Friends are usually only
too happy to collect their
bottles for you as well.
You will need to wash the
bottles and lids in very hot

From page 42

soapy water, or better still, in a
dishwasher. Then sterilise
them by pouring a little water
in each and putting them in
the microwave for five
minutes. Dry them upside
down in a warm oven. Boil
the lids.
Most herbs dry easily. You can
tie them in a bunch and hang
them in a warm, dry and dark
room. The kitchen is not the
best place because of
condensation there.
If you are drying roots, wash
them well and chop them up
while still fresh. You can dry
0
them in an oven at 100 C for
two to three hours. Leave
them in a warm, dry spot until
they are completely dry.
Flowers and leaves can also
be dried in the oven if you are
in a hurry.
Dried herbs are ideal for teas.
Remove the stems and chop
the herbs to a fine, regular
size that can be used in tea
bags or in submersible
strainers.
Continued on page 44

WATER CRISIS

reduced, making it impossible
for the soakaway to become
overloaded and blocked.
An alternative to all of this
separation of grey and black
water and construction of
sand filters and ponds, is to
install a multi-chamber minisewage treatment plant which
combines a conventional twochamber septic tank with
further settling and aeration
tanks to produce a fluid, from
both your grey and black
water, which is legally potable
by livestock and dischargeable
into a watercourse and which
is also, of course, safely used

in all forms of garden
irrigation use.
One such system, which is
available through the pages of
the Smallholder, is designed,
manufactured and installed by
Scarab Water of Bela Bela. In
addition to producing clean
water from raw sewage, a
Scarab system has further
advantages: Firstly, no
untreated (and therefore
toxic) effluent is soaked into
the soil, potentially contaminating ground water, and
secondly, you never have to
worry about pumping out
your septic tank again, or
repairing a clogged drain field.

43
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