Enjoying fruits of our winter labour

OK, last post about our wonderful broccoli, I promise! Had to post this... Simon made a gorgeous dinner tonight with our freshly picked broccoli and kale. Delicious!

Here's the recipe...

Kale and Broccoli Gnocchi

Nob of butter
Splash olive oil
3 cloves garlic sliced (could also use pre-roasted cloves for enriched flavour)
Broccoli flowerettes
Kale, chopped
Basil pesto (homemade if available)
Gnocchi (homemade if available)

Boil salted water for gnocchi. Once boiling, add gnocchi and wait until gnocchi has floated to top of water, then drain and set aside. Keep warm in low oven if needed.

Melt butter and oil in heavy based pan over medium heat. Fry garlic slices until golden, fragrant and soft. Add broccoli and kale and mix through for a few minutes. Turn off heat and cover for a few minutes to steam through.

Add cooked gnocchi to pan and stir through. Add tablespoon of pesto (or more if you prefer).

Season lightly with salt and pepper and serve in warmed bowls immediately!

It's the simple things really... sigh! :o)

Happy gardening!

Broccoli success

Well, it seems we can grow broccoli in Perth! At least in the winter months. I last tried around spring last year and the white cabbage moth was everywhere. I had experimented using moth shaped white plastic decoys, but I'm not convinced they worked.


We planted some dwarf broccoli in a small bed which gets a lot of sun throughout the day and we've had success! The magpies and crows thought they were pretty nice too - so we draped a bit of bird netting over the broccoli to protect the small heads.

We didn't get too many slugs or snails either - in general, all quiet on the bug front!



I'll be monitoring the change in seasons more closely in future, to really capitalise on the relatively mild winter and the absence of the cabbage moth more so!

Happy gardening!

Capers: stems, seeds and soil!

Found this great post on Michelle Hamer's blog, From Seed to Table, on growing and propagating capers - great to have some firsthand experience of growing these amazing plants. I've been looking for some good info on propagating capers and this is the best so far.

We had our first caper berry a couple of months ago - a lovely plump specimen! The bush itself is probably some 12 months old and doing okay so far, in a pot. I'd like to try and propagate some more plants from seed, so when it comes to our new landscaping, we can plant out some caper bushes as part of a rockery.

I'd love to know of anyone (especially Perth locals) who has given capers a go, maybe as a rockery plant, with some success!

If you're new to capers like I am, you might find this site useful too.

Happy gardening!

Preserved lemons a success

preserved lemons a photo by margoc on Flickr.

We tried our preserved lemons last week on a couscous salad - delicious! Salty, tart, sour and very lemony! :o)

Preserving lemons

My sister has just moved to a new house and although it only has a small courtyard (a triplex) it has two wonderful citrus trees that are doing very well. One is a lemon (I'm guessing it's a Meyer) and the other is a kaffir lime. She reckons they get about a dozen or more dropping on the ground each day. So, ever resourceful, the kids and I grabbed a bagful!

What to do with a bagful of lemons? Preserve them of course! I've always wanted to try lemon preserving but never really had a bulk of them to try.

So, today was the day! I used Stephanie Alexander's recipe which also includes bay leaves, cloves and cinnamon (I had none so used cardamom pods).



Thirty lemons and a three litre jar full later... All looks good!


Can't wait to watch the transformation in the coming weeks and months!


- Posted by Marg on the move!

Construction, production with chooks and compost

A constructive day in the garden today. . .

Simon built a compost heap using reclaimed pallets. Good timing too as the mulberry tree is now dropping its copious amount of leaves for autumn. So we now have our chooks, worms and compost going well. A side note, my Mum is providing us with a top-up of worms, as hers are going great guns and need dividing. Good for us, as our worms took a hit over the summer months.

Simon's compost bin from reclaimed pallets.

In terms of compost production, I'm hoping we can bulk up a bit more by getting leftovers from the nearby markets. This can also help to feed the chooks, as our kitchen scraps are pretty meagre really.

I also put together a lightweight chook tractor. I used polypipe and the pipe fittings to make up the frame, plus some some bird netting from our grapevine, as there's plenty to spare. It's a bit on the flexible side (and we did have an escapee for a short while), but at least we can move it about easily and wedge it into some of the confined spaces in our backyard as needed. The girls didn't know what was going on at first, but then they didn't seem to mind as they got stuck into the long grass! They are so cute. :o)

Chook tractor made with polypipe and bird netting.

We are hoping the chook tractor idea can help us to keep the grass down a bit (it's patchy at best and we don't have enough to warrant a lawnmower), plus keep the pest population down a bit. Our seeds were systematically chomped by slugs and snails as they pushed through the soil! Come on girls, get eating! Hoping they'll keep the slaters down too, plus leave their valuable manure around.

Happy gardening!

Capers (capparis spinosa)

Picked up some more compost and manure today and found a caper bush.
Love capers but don't know much about them as a plant. I didn't realise there were native Australian varieties as well, but called a wild orange (or pomegranate).

 

Capparis spinosa
Caper. Wiki Commons

There's an organic producer based in South Australia that is doing some nice capers, plus the caper berries and also the leaves (check out their range) - yum!

Be interesting to see how capers go in the Perth humidity. At least they require little water (once established anyhow) and a bit of compost love every so often. Now to find a nice spot in the backyard for it.

Will keep you posted!

Happy gardening!

Preserving and jams

I made some plum and fig jam recently - both with beautiful fruit - figs supplied by our lovely neighbour and plums from the local markets.



And, just look at the colour!!





The plums are Santa Rosa and have red-black skin giving the jam a dark, rich colour. Normally I look out for Blood (Satsuma) Plums, but only saw them one weekend and they were quite expensive. The Santa Rosas weren't too bad, about $3/kg.

I'd like to do more preserving once our renos are done and we have some pantry and laundry space!

Happy gardening!

No garden!

Well, forget about a no-dig garden, we simply don't have a garden at the moment! Thus, it's been a loooong while since I've posted to this blog.

We have begun some renovations on our house which has, until recently, turned our productive backyard into a building site! We have built a deck that transitions out to the garden, but there's still some work to do to finish things off and re-connect to our gardening activities.

Thus, we are researching ideas and designs for our backyard, as we have an opportunity to "start from scratch".

I've been reading up on Permaculture Design (Simon gave me Bill Mollison's lovely book recently) and we are turning our thoughts to a sustainable garden that can produce things for us but also for itself to keep it self-sufficient (you know, mulches, composting, seasonal mixes, etc).


So, while we are keen to put in rainwater tanks and a grey water system, we need to also think about the layout and the slope of the property and use the best areas for the best fit to our (outdoor) activities. And of course, we need to look after our little ladies who are keeping us in a fine stock of eggs!

We also want to maintain our worm farm and also a space (or theme) in which the kids can play and explore.

Between now and then (likely about 12 months) I am gathering together plants, propagating things we like the look of, eyeing off secondhand bricks, sleepers and limestone blocks and researching ways to generally make our garden summer-proof here in Perth - and ouch, what a summer we've just had! Hot, dry and simply bears NO fruit/veg wihtout constant water and shade (two things we don't as a constant).

So, wile we will maintain a small garden bed over the coming cooler months, our focus will shift more to our bigger plans in creating a backyard garden to cherish.

Happy gardening!

Ah-choo! Spring is here

Ah-chooooo! Okay, it is most definitely spring! The bees are out in full force, flowers are everywhere, there's that familiar haze across the urban landscape that is no doubt full of pollens and other stuff small enough to tickle noses - at least my nose is telling me that!

Star flowers at Lake Monger by margoc

Our garden has been ticking away in the background over recent weeks, so not much to report, except that a jolly good mow was required last week, as Alfie, being almost one and a half, nearly disappeared in the tall grassy weeds!!

The spuds are rocketing along and the rocket has been severly cut back to allow the spuds to do so :o)
They have needed a bit more water of late - we haven't been all that consistent in their watering, but they seem to have produced in spite of the neglect!

Our artichoke has three lovely big flowerheads which can almost be cut - can't wait to make a nice, fresh stew with them!

Artichoke by margoc

The snowpeas have finally finished and we pulled them out yesterday - this year we will plant some capsicums in their place and see how they go. I'm keen to make a capsicum puree for the kids, to replace lots of the tinned toms we go through (in the bucketload!) - it will be a nice change in flavour and sweetness I think.

We have had to water again after recent rains and it always amazes me how quickly the ground becomes quite dry and the sand once again seems to take over (as much as the weeds and grasses).

By the feel of the sun, Summer is just around the corner - it won't be too long before we are complaining about the heat!

Happy gardening!

How edible is your town?

An entertaining talk by Pam Warhurst about growing vegies across our towns and cities where land is unused (even growing stuff in cemeteries!).

"There's so many people that don't really recognize a vegetable unless it's in a bit of plastic with an instruction packet on the top.” (Pam Warhurst)

Growing vegies, Pam says, builds community, builds resilience, and builds lifelong strategies for healthy communities, all through the power of small actions.

Inspiring just to "do it" :o)



Happy gardening!

Goodbye carrots and beetroot

So ends our beetroot and carrots! And a fine display they put on too and kept the kids interested and involved in garden adventures!



Great to see both Alfie and Clancy develop confidence in gardening as they explored whether the vegies were ready to pick or needed more time. And fun too just to pick and eat straight from the ground (or bush, in the case of the snow peas!) - with a quick wash of course :-)

Now we can start to think about spring crops - oh, the choices!

Happy gardening!

Winter plantings

We planted some mini cauliflower seedlings yesterday. Clancy grew them from seed in a big pot.



More potatoes are surfacing as well which is a good sign. I dug up one that was rotten so far, hopefully that's the only one, but the bed, although no-dig, is quite water logged given the amount of rain we've had in the last week. I forgot how torrential Perth rain is!



We also picked a couple of beetroot and some baby carrots over the weekend and the carrots are really sweet - they are a baby carrot variety.

We also fed our citrus trees with the worm castings from our worm farm which needed a bit of a clean out. They've grown heaps in this past month or so and always seem to respond well after a bit of a prune.

Other vegies on the move include snow peas, pak choi, Swiss chard, variety of lettuce and rocket and the herbs too! Who says winter is for hibernating?! ;-)



Happy gardening!

How does your garden grow

We did a quick whiz around the garden in between rain showers and picked some greens for dinner: beans, snow peas and parsley and thyme. The passionfruit are dropping regularly too - yum!




Potatoes are just beginning to poke through the mulch so will keep an eye on them and make sure they have enough cover. Exciting! The mixed lettuce has been a hit too - a good idea to plant over the spuds us :-)

Love this rain but could do without the 100km/hr winds thanks!

Stay safe and happy gardening!

Big Bopper is fruiting

At last! The Big Bopper passionfruit vine, after much flowering and promise, has about half a dozen fruit hanging proudly!




I wonder how big the fruit get? Anyone had much luck with this variety?

These look average size so far, so let's see if they get any bigger. They are nice and heavy which is a good sign.

Bop on Big Bopper!

Gardening companions

Clancy decided our garden needed a scarecrow. And he couldn't be happy, he had to be an angry scarecrow to scare the birds away!



The weather has been warm enough to give our seeds a cracking start too. The beetroots are already surfacing, as are the peas and beans planted at the same time. Its been barely a week!

Haven't seen the carrots yet. I have a feeling the seed was old. Will give them a week's grace.

Enjoying Autumn, happy gardening!

It's Autumn, what shall we plant?

Clancy and I are looking at the Gardening Australia Vegie Guide to see what we can plant in our garden beds, now the Summer seems to be over.

We found this article by Millie Ross which shows how to plant out a bean chubby house! Clancy thought that would be very cool :o). As our grapevine is beginning to lose its leaves, it would be good to plant beans at the end of the raised bed that is next to the vine so we can string the beans across to it to provide a tent-like cover for Clancy (and Alfie) to play under. Worth experimenting anyway.

Other things Clancy would like in the garden include beetroot, potatoes (we haven't planted them in our Perth garden yet, only back in Canberra, Clancy says), sweet potatoes and of course some purple, yellow and orange flowers!

Happy gardening!

Our first Okra!

Our first Okra! a photo by margoc on Flickr.

Aint it cute? :o)
Here's hoping for more...!

Happy gardeing!

Gardening buddies and grower extraordinaires

Since moving back from Canberra we've managed to stay in touch with some of our great buddies there.

I got an email from my mate Helen to say they'd set up a new website for their one acre farm, Wynlen House, located in Braidwood. If you are ever that way do stop in; Braidwood is a beautiful part of the world, and Helen and Bron are usually found at the local market on a weekend flogging their amazing organic produce!

Produce from Wynlen House. Photo courtesy of www.wynlenhouse.com.

I've popped their link under the Events area on my blog here.

This is what you can achieve when you have a passion for dirt :o) . . . Happy gardening!

Zucchini problem

Zucchini problem a photo by margoc on Flickr.

Our zucchini is suffering (poor thing!). Not sure why, so seeking ideas. It's watered every day but was a bit neglected as a seedling.

What could be drying out the small fruit? They get to about 1 inch long then shrivel up!

Help!