Hills and Plains Seedsavers

ATG Table of Moveable Feasts

2012-01-20T20:43:00.001+10:30

One of my favourite recipe books this summer is the ATG (Ad Terrae Gloriam – Glory to the Earth) Table of Moveable Feasts, the best recipes from 30,000 ATG picnics.

Here is a link to ATG and the cookbook Table of Moveable Feasts.

I love this book purchased from a local op shop for $2 obviously donated by a non gardener, non cook!

No proper cook would dare to part with it. It is full of lovely fresh salads to please all.

The recipes are simply prepared, transportable if necessary and include basic ingredients one has in the pantry.

My salad choice to make today from this book is Carpaccio di Zucchini.

Why ? because we have some beautiful young yellow zucchinis which yell to me just eat us RAW!

You simply slice the zucchini very thinly lengthways sprinkle it with salt, pepper, olive oil and parmesan cheese shavings. Repeat the process with another layer of the above ingredients then chill the salad for 1 to 2 hours.

Place the zucchini in curls on a plate with the marinade and extra parmesan shavings.

Serve with crusty bread, a fresh tomato and basil salad or smoked fish.

How easy is that!

At the moment we are picking cucumbers, tomatoes, zucchinis, grapes, pepinos, all our amazing herbs plus the summer favourite sweet basil.

I have so much basil I am using it as a green vegetable and just adding handfuls to Italian casseroles, Spanish rice dishes, pizzas and of course garden fresh gazpacho.

Enjoy your summer gardens and stay cool or if you live in the Northern Hemisphere stay warm.

And Happy New Year to all our Chinese neighbours and friends.

Colourful Spring Flower Salad

2011-09-10T21:42:00.001+09:30

It is Spring here on the Adelaide Plains, there are flowers everywhere and trees are bursting with beautiful blossoms.

We are still having lots of rain and it is cold at night so our Kale is still growing well and the lemon tree is bursting with large juicy lemons.

The cows, sheep and goats in the paddocks near us are enjoying munching away on lush green pastures.

Nasturtiums are making a colourful display in the garden. Eating nasturtiums helps prevent hay fever as well as making a colourful tasty salad.

Borage flowers, pineapple sage flowers, garlic chive flowers, brassica flowers and calendula petals are all edible flowers. With all these gorgeous colours I am sure they all contain wonderful healing properties.

When you let your herbs and veggies go to seed they just reappear next year and the joy of fresh seasonal produce is a pure delight.

September is a lovely month here in Adelaide, check out the Australian Open Garden Scheme if you want to visit some amazing gardens.

Happy Gardening and enjoy your greens and flowers.

Urban Leaves

2011-09-05T13:41:00.000+09:30

World Kitchen Garden Day 2011 at Glandore Community Garden

2011-09-01T10:13:00.001+09:30

Last Sunday we all gathered at the beautiful Glandore Community Garden for an enjoyable World Kitchen Garden Day afternoon.

When we arrived plot holders were busy working in their plots.

Harry was busy working on the wood fired pizza oven which will be is going to have a mosaic added soon.

Everyone chatted about what excess produce they had bought along as well as something they had cooked from their country of origin.

Produce to share included Lebanese cress, bunches of coriander, Jerusalem artichokes, lima bean seeds, plum jams, chilli jams, lemons, fennel, chillies and a lot of different potted up plants.

There were lots of seeds to share and a favourite seed we saved this year was chervil which is a lovely herb we are picking at the moment.

We had an apple amaranth cake from Argentina, Indian Spinach and onion fritters, Irish pumpkin dip, German lemon cake, Middle eastern Humus, French Cheese and Biscuits, German raspberry muffins, Spicy Orange Muffins and an Aussie multicultural creation of brightly coloured Nasturtium flowers filled with humus and topped with sweet chilli jam.

Daniel (from Gardening Australia fame) told us all about an Orchid show he had just entered in and his Mum said he was being very modest and had won 2nd prize in his Category.

Thank you everyone who came and shared their knowledge, kitchen garden food and kitchen garden produce with us.

We look forward to World Kitchen Garden Day 2011.

Spring workshops at Nirvana

2011-08-16T18:50:00.001+09:30

INTRODUCTION TO BIODYNAMIC METHODS

Sunday, September 18th 8.30am – 4.30pm $120

One day course to introduce the practical concepts of the biodynamic methods to farmers & gardeners. The biodynamic method is a modern organic approach that creates a holistic approach to building healthy soil, plants, animals & humans. Includes notes, biodynamic preparations, lunch & teas.

VEGETABLES FOR YOUR TABLE.

Sunday, October 2nd 9.00 -12.30 $50

Practical guide to establishing & maintaining a productive & healthy vegetable garden. Our climate offers many opportunities to grow food for your table all year round. Discover what plants to grow, and when. Practical tips & ideas.

COMPOSTING & MULCHING

Sunday, October 9^th 9.00 -12.30 $50

Reduce water use by learning the principles of composting & mulching, techniques & materials used & how they can be used most effectively on your garden or farm.

INTRODUCTION TO MOON PLANTING AND USING THE PLANTING CALENDAR

Sunday, October 16^th 9.00 -12.30 $50

Working with the rhythms of nature can develop your skills in fine tuning your garden and can add a new dimension to your gardening experience.

ORGANIC FRUIT, NUTS & BERRIES

Sunday, October 23^rd 9.00 -12.30 pm. $50

Practical guide to growing fruits, nuts & berries. Establishing, maintenance, ground covers, soils.

POULTRY KEEPING

Sunday October 30^th 9.00 – 12 30 $50

All you need to know about getting started with poultry. Includes breed selection, housing, feeding, breeding, pests.

WEAVING A BIT OF MAGIC

Sunday, November 6^th 9am 4pm $120

The ideal way to recycle your garden prunings .A introduction to natural fibre weaving. Includes techniques, suitable plants & other materials to make baskets, fences & trellises. Includes all materials, lunch & teas.

All courses are held at NIRVANA ORGANIC FARM

184 LONGWOOD ROAD, HEATHFIELD

UBD 157:G7. Exit from SE Freeway at Stirling, turn right at roundabout & travel 3.5 km.

The courses are practical, ‘hands on’ conducted by experienced biodynamic/organic farmers, Deb & Quentin. Their successful small holding has been run under BIO-DYNAMIC principles since 1983.

The 4.5 ha property provides the ideal classroom filled with practical examples of how goals can be achieved & gives inspiration into this GARDEN QUALITY FARMING to both gardeners & farmers alike.

FOR BOOKINGS & FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT

DEB OR QUENTIN PHONE/ (08) 8339 2519 nirvanafarm@gmail.com

Saving seeds... do we have a choice?

2011-07-24T11:26:00.001+09:30

Natabar Sarangi - The Source from the source project on Vimeo.

World Kitchen Garden Day

2011-07-15T07:37:00.001+09:30

World Kitchen Garden Day is an annual, decentralized celebration of food produced on a human-scale. It is recognized each year on the 4th Sunday of August. It is an opportunity for people around the world to gather in their gardens with friends, family, and members of their local community to celebrate the multiple pleasures and benefits of home-grown, hand-made foods.

Here is the logo.... when you organise a get together you can download it and use it to attract attention.

Activities:
How people celebrate International Kitchen Garden Day and with whom is up to them. Some choose to do so in public ways with large gatherings of friends and neighbours, whereas others opt for a more intimate celebration with close family. Here are a few ideas for some activities you might consider organizing depending on the level of involvement you would like to have:

-a walking tour of gardens in your area
-a kitchen garden or local agriculture potluck
-a kitchen garden taste-test
-a harvest or planting party
-a benefit for a local food/gardening charity
-a kitchen garden "teach in"
-a single food theme party
-an activity at a local farm
-etc

See what they are organising in India at Urban Leaves ....

where this young lad was worried about his pet snail eating his spinach leaves, at a recent celebration in the garden!

In the USA its all about freedom.... freedom to grow food where you want to.... you won't believe this video.... it makes me feel sick to think that growing vegetables can be a finable offense!!

You can watch the video and read more here

If only every Suburb had a Community Garden and a Kitchen Gardeners Swap Meet.

2011-06-05T19:07:00.003+09:30

Many people today are striving hard to fit into today's culture.
Many of us vegetable gardeners feel a little out of place at social gatherings. We would much prefer to be in our gardens, pruning, planting, weeding, picking or preserving our produce.
Our to do list is endless, sorting seeds, making sauerkraut, pickling olives, transplanting seedlings, propagating cuttings and there is always pruning to be done.
I meet very few gardeners who are not keen to talk about what they have been growing or how the weather is affecting their garden.
So we have this group of home gardeners who meet together every few months and we always have a good time.
When we meet to swap seeds, excess produce and ideas, we also share part of our lives with each other.
We may meet for just a couple of hours but friendships are formed, phone numbers exchanged and the promises are made to share produce as it ripens and matures.
Someone has chokos to share, someone else has excess chillies, another has apples and firewood, the list goes on and on.
Cuttings and prunings, excess seedlings, potted plants are brought and given away.
Cuttings of herbs, curry leaves and berries, ginger, galangal, lemongrass and cardamom plants are divided and shared.
Variety is being added to people's gardens, new plants and ideas are being introduced.
People are taking things home to grow, things they had never heard about before. New flavours are introduced and as people try new things and use them at home, their palates change and they look forward to trying new and interesting plants.

And so for a few short hours people are introduced to new things, new ideas and new challenges.
If we lived in any rural area in any other country it would be a natural thing to save seeds and share with neighbours. But in Australia the majority of people are buying their fruit and veggies from large supermarkets or fruit stores. These unknown, mass farms are often using many harmful chemical sprays and fertilizers to achieve a perfect looking product, which looks good but lacks the flavour and nutritional value of organically grown produce.
Our priorities in life should be healthy pure rain water, fresh clean air, viable seed, local, organically grown food and a healthy lifestyle.

A lifestyle which includes rest and relaxation, time to spend with others, time to share a simple meal or wander around a friend's garden.
When you live in a city you see people constantly rushing around, driving children from one paid activity to another. Children who have been in child care all day are seen throwing tantrums in shopping malls and supermarkets as their hassled parents fill supermarket trollies with chemical laden foods, coloured beverages and other sugar laden sauces, cereals, sweets and cookies.
I guess I am just getting to be a grumpy old granny, but to those of us who grew up in the forties or fifties we remember a much different world.

Most families grew their own vegetables, had chickens for eggs and chicken for a special occasion.
There was no television, people sat and chatted about their day, listened to the radio or read books, played cards or board games.
All the neighbourhood children played cricket on the road, there were fewer cars and people rode their bikes, walked or caught public transport.
Anyone remember going to work in an old steam train?
I did. I caught the train from Liverpool Station to Central station in Sydney. A group of us teenagers met in the same compartment each day and played cards or just chatted.
Now the people I see walking the streets are plugged into their iphones or ipods and don't even look at anyone.
Time is money now, so people rush everywhere, drive like maniacs and have no concern for anyone but themselves.
So it is with great pleasure that I look forward to when our garden group meets again.
Our dream would be for every suburb to have a Community Garden and every Community Garden to have such groups meeting several times a year.

Brilliantly Coloured Autumn Fruits and Leaves on the Adelaide Plains

2011-05-28T17:01:00.001+09:30

It is Autumn in Adelaide South Australia, nearly winter.

Here are some of the gorgeous coloured fruits we are enjoying at the moment.

Soft juicy beautiful flavoured persimmons we bought at the last Rare Fruit Society meeting.

Beautiful mauve and purple lilly pillys we forage from local trees. They are large and juicy and we love eating them straight from the trees.

The last of our excel figs not as sweet as they were a month ago but still yummy.

Beautiful jewel red pomegranate seeds just from our tree. Once again we just love these seeds.

Peoples citrus trees are covered with mandarins, oranges, grapefruit and lemons almost ready to eat and make delicious marmalades from.

As we take Niki and our grandson for walks it is wonderful to see brilliant trees covered with vibrant yellow, orange and golden leaves, red and purple coloured vines, rainbow coloured flowers and bushes, bright yellow and pale pink roses and bright green grass after the wonderful rain we have had.

Autumn leaves are being raked and thrown under bushes for mulch or added to compost heaps.

There are loads of birds around I guess they come down from the Adelaide Hills which are 5 minutes drive away but heaps cooler than here on the plains.

Our winter green garden is starting to produce Asian greens, rapa and all the wonderful herbs we add to our meals.

We still have capsicums and chillies ripening, lovely bunches of parsley and rocket.

No longer am I sad that tomatoes have disappeared because Autumn and winter has replaced them with exquisite flavours, new recipes to try and enjoy.

Kookaburra in our Liquid Amber Tree

2011-05-09T09:18:00.001+09:30

Yesterday there was a choir of kookaburras in a nearby tree laughing their heads off.

By the time we got our camera out they were silent and flew off except for one lone kookaburra who sat silent in our aged liquid amber tree, just pondering and enjoying the moment, on a quiet sunny autumn afternoon in Adelaide.

Sunningdale Farm Open Day Today - Australia’s Open Garden Scheme

2011-05-08T09:22:00.001+09:30

Sunningdale Farm is open today as part of South Australia's Open Garden Scheme. Mosquito Hill Rd, Mount Compass
10am-4.30pm. $6.00

It is a lovely drive to Mt Compass and a lovely organic farm to visit.

Kate visited Sunningdale Farm open day in 2007, here is what she wrote -

SUNNINGDALE FARM
Anne Duguid is a gardener after my own heart. Plants are allowed to come up and grow where they like and vegs and flowers co-exist happily together, making a carpet of intricate detail and fascination at every turn. The house is on a rise and is surrounded by a ring of garden so that every door of the house opens onto vegetables, herbs and flowers. They include such companion plants as parsley, yarrow, tansy, coreopsis, fever few, cosmos, leeks and buddleias which attract ladybirds, lacewings, hoverflies, beetles, wasps, bees etc.
Beyond the house are 190 rolling acres of organic / biodynamic vealer calves. Beyond this you can see the Murray and the lakes. Picturesque is inadequate to describe the property. The drive in is through scrub in which they have identified 45 varieties of birds. There is a trail mown through the bush for walking and, after the recent rains, everything is lush and green . Anne is a lovely person and very welcoming. Together with her husband Phil they run the property. If they have another open day I would suggest you go and soak it up.
The drive to Mt Compass via Hahndorf is beautiful after the rain and there are great venison hamburgers to be had at a cafe in Mt Compass ! A lovely mothers' day.

Chaiselongue from the blog Olives & Artichokes has a good post 'Why do we garden?'. Check it out.

Happy Autumn Gardening and Happy Mothers Day.

Maggie

Labels: Biodynamics, Food for health, Garden, Visits

Goodbye Tomatoes, see you next Summer!

2011-04-10T19:29:00.001+09:30

With only a few tomatoes left on our vines it is hard to say goodbye to fresh home grown tomatoes until next summer.

Here are a few pictures of some of our favourite tomatoes, Black Krim self seeded, Eva Purple Ball from select organic seeds, tomato Riesentraube from Eden seeds, Pomodoro Red Cherry from Franchi seeds.

We also had lots of other self sown tomatoes appear in our garden. We have 5 underground worm farms throughout our veggie patch.

All our veggie scraps and some paper scraps go on these bins and the red wrigglers happily munch away. One a year when the worm farm (which is a large bucket with holes) is getting full we extract the worm castings. Then we dig the castings into the earth just before planting. So a lot of seed is spread through out the garden as we do this. But that is another story.

Back to tomatoes, we have had delicious tasty tomatoes with each meal for months but soon it will be time to pull out the vines to make room for winter greens.

We have lots of Asian greens, rapa, mustard greens, spring onions and broccoli seedlings to plant out.

At the moment we are still having lovely sunny Autumn days and mild evenings but I guess winter is coming soon.

Here are some more meals we prepared using tomatoes and fresh basil this summer.

Bruschetta with mozzarella and olives, Spanish Chicken casserole with chillies and cherry tomatoes

The Magic of Seeds

2011-04-03T19:33:00.003+09:30

A few weeks ago I spent a lot of time processing dried seeds from their pods which we had saved from last winter and summer.

What a treat to see escaped seeds sprouting everywhere in the back yard including sprouting in the cracks on the old BBQ table and stools.

I must have saved thousands of seeds and now to see them germinating so well, MAGIC!

Avocado, Basil, Rocket and Tomato Bruschetta

2011-03-27T09:45:00.001+10:30

Summer on a plate! To make this yummy bruschetta first plant some seeds.

Watch them germinate, water and care for your plants for several weeks until finally you have beautiful tomatoes, basil and rocket.

Harvest your creations and mix them together with some cracked pepper and a drizzle of local olive oil.

Toast some Paolo’s Grain Sour Dough, rub it with fresh garlic and top with your garden creation.

More to say? No just munch away!

Seed and Produce Swap Days

2011-03-23T09:40:00.001+10:30

We have been very fortunate to have 2 great Seed Swaps at Glandore Community Garden recently.

We have had lots of new young gardeners join in as well as all the older folks who have been growing food for decades.

There is nothing like getting together with like minded folks and sharing produce, seeds and home made afternoon tea.

It is very easy to arrange seed swaps, just look for a community garden close to where you live.

Find some gardeners who want to save seed and swap produce with each other.

Make a time to do this and you will find it is lots of fun.

This is a collage of our February gathering.

Note : Bob took these photos and said Daniel and Harry were discussing tomatoes, what a great photo!.

Last weeks gathering was also an absolute delight as everyone chatted about what they had brought and were planning to grow in winter.

Bird’s Eye View

2011-03-16T20:14:00.001+10:30

This friendly family of pigeons live in the Jacaranda tree in our garden.

They forage in the garden, and wander around our lawn.

It is wonderful to have a veggie garden for all creatures to share and enjoy.

Basilico Olio

2011-03-13T09:10:00.001+10:30

Basilico Olio or basil oil is a great colourful oil to spoon over sliced tomatoes or to add to freshly boiled pasta or rice.

It is also great drizzled over freshly baked pizza, tomato and onion bruschetta or sliced cucumber salad.

It is a great way to prepare surplus basil and keeps for several days in the fridge.

It is made by plunging a couple of handfuls of fresh basil leaves into some boiling water then draining them quickly and then plunging the leaves into iced water for a few seconds. Remove the leaves and pat them dry with a clean cloth.

Place the leaves in a food processer and chop them adding a good quality olive oil , sufficient to make the mix pourable.

To make the oil more flavoursome add a pinch of salt, some sliced chilli and some freshly sliced basil just before service.

We are still having lovely warm weather here in Adelaide. We still have fresh basil although our tomatoes and cucumbers are nearly finished.

We have thoroughly enjoyed our tomato season and now look forward to yummy peppers, spring onions and small lettuce that are growing well at the moment.

We only have a small garden so we cannot grow everything we would like too but luckily we have an Organic Store called Doof Doof within walking distance and Hayden grows amazing veggies. At the moment we are enjoying his corn, eggplants, zucchini and lettuce.

I love fresh organic fruit and vegetables and we are lucky here in Adelaide to have lots of organic growers close by.

Happy gardening everyone.

Local Fish and Chips, Garden Salad and Baked Excel Figs for Dessert

2011-03-09T19:52:00.001+10:30

Dinner tonight all cooked by the gardener not the cook! Pretty delicious!

Thanks Julie for the potatoes.

Summer Tomatoes – Yum!

2011-02-23T19:31:00.002+10:30

I think home grown tomatoes are most kitchen gardeners favourite vegetable.

We have tomatoes from seeds we germinated and a lot of self seeded tomatoes which just appeared in our garden when we spread out the contents of our worm farms.

We eat the tomatoes as a snack straight from the vine, with our basil and rocket salads, add them to frittatas and just freeze them whole to be cooked with onion and thyme in autumn when the vines have wilted.

We are having warm humid weather in Adelaide at the moment and new tomato self sown seedlings are appearing in the garden.

March will be warm so I expect we shall have tomatoes and fresh basil for a while yet.

The delicious pinkish tomato is called Eva Purple Ball, it is a gorgeous looking tomato.

Crunchy Summer Green Bean Salad

2011-02-08T13:53:00.001+10:30

Summer crunch for lunch, straight from our garden. Blanched green beans, green peppers, tomatoes and crispy red onions tossed with fresh garden herbs, olive oil and cider vinegar. YUM!

Makes all the seed saving, nurturing of seedlings, preparing garden beds, planting and watering worth the time and effort.

Spicy Summer Veggie Frittata

2011-01-31T15:54:00.001+10:30

Summer here means ripening tomatoes, chillies and fresh beans. So with todays harvest we made a delicious frittata.

Sauté a little sliced red onion, add some turmeric, paprika, red chilli and garam marsala.

Add some lightly blanched, sliced green beans and freshly sliced tomatoes.

Add some seasoned beaten eggs. Add to a lightly oiled, heated pan. Sprinkle with sunflower and pumpkin seeds.

Cook over a medium heat then finish under the grill.

A great quick, delicious, healthy meal.

Our New and Improved, Shade Structure made completely from Recycled Materials

2011-01-29T20:14:00.001+10:30

We usually drape shade cloth from our trees when Adelaide temperatures heat up to 40 degrees Celsius.

So with 42 degrees forecast for tomorrow, this morning was spent erecting an efficient shade structure.

Last week a friend dropped off a 3 metre by 4 metre gazebo frame destined for the tip.

After a bit of experimenting with the pieces we eventually had the gazebo frame in place to provide support for the shade cloth over our unusually shaped veggie garden.

Well at the end of the day I can say our veggies were protected from the scorching sun. Bees still feasted on the flowering plants, there was good air circulation and tomatoes ripened in the warm shade.

Our usual system was clumsy, hard to get under and far too humid.

This new and improved version is fantastic, we just hope it does not leave the Plains here for a flight to the Hills if the famous Adelaide gully winds pick up.

Cucumber Gazpacho

2011-01-26T20:14:00.001+10:30

Summer garden produce is finally ripening in our garden.

We are starting to pick tomatoes and today picked 2 Richmond green cucumbers.

So along with some fresh basil, garlic, chives, mint, red chilli, parsley, salt, pepper and a little water we blended 6 tomatoes and our peeled cucumber into this delicious cold soup which I have called cucumber gazpacho because of the delicious fresh cucumber it had.

All the herbs and veggies were freshly picked and we enjoyed the soup sitting in the garden watching heaps of bees enjoying flowering herbs and busily pollinating the plants in our garden.

LOVE!!! Summer so far!

Middle Eastern Spicy Chickpea Salad

2011-01-21T16:47:00.001+10:30

Today we had lunch with some friends so I made this delicious salad.

I always use organic dried chick peas, soak them overnight, drain them and then simmer them in fresh water until tender then drain them.

When cooked I sprinkle the chickpeas with salt, cracked black pepper and a little paprika and olive oil.

For this recipe I heated a couple of Tablespoons of Middle Eastern spice mix in a little oil to infuse the flavours.

I added this to the chick peas with some finely sliced red onions, the juice of 2 lemons, some chopped tomatoes, chopped cucumber, a dollop of tahini, a handful each of chopped mint and parsley, more black pepper, paprika and crushed garlic.

I served it on a bed of wild rocket.

It is great to have all these lovely herbs in the garden to flavour your food.

Most folks brought summer produce from their gardens including eggplant dip, zucchini fritters, tomato and basil salad and cold rolls filled with home grown veggies and herbs.

All these dishes make delicious, healthy, summer salads or vegetarian mains.

I was going to say I love summer garden produce, but then I love winter produce just as much. Whatever season it is there is always something to make flavourful meals with when you grow lots of vegetables & herbs in your garden.

Red Capsicums, Stuffed with Tomato and Basil Rice

2011-01-11T21:13:00.001+10:30

Summer in Adelaide brings fresh tomatoes, peppers, basil, spring onions and other herbs.

So when unexpected vegetarian guests arrive, stuffed capsicums make a delicious quick meal.

I served these peppers with a creamy mushroom sauce, roast potatoes and rosemary roasted potatoes and a green garden salad with fresh snow peas and more basil, DELICIOUS!!!

Summer veggies at last, I can hardly wait for more tomatoes and cucumbers to ripen to make a summer fresh Gazpacho.

RASPBERRIES–the taste of summer direct from the Adelaide Hills.

2011-01-04T13:07:00.001+10:30

With the late start to summer and the Christmas rush over the berries are now at there best. The raspberries along with their cousins, the English gooseberries, black currants ,and red and white currants are all ripe and dripping with flavour. All the berries are grown using biodynamic methods in a cool spring fed valley. We take the same care in picking our berries as we do growing them. This ensures only the best are sold. We don’t sell seconds for a couple of reasons-(1) the way they are grown and picked and (2) we do all our own value adding.

Our berries are only available from our farm shop which means they have travelled no more than 300 metres. While we are picking, people drop in to the farm to buy berries. It is nice to stop picking for a few minutes and chat with regulars who enjoy buying directly from the producer. We receive direct feedback and the visitors take away high quality, fresh, biodynamic food.

Our farm shop is unique as it only sells our produce, fresh fruits in season and value added products made from our own fruit by Deb - 20+ varieties of jams and preserves to choose from Plus a range of Deb’s baskets hand crafted from materials growing at Nirvana and roadside weeds.

Nirvana Organic Farm is 5 kilometres from the Adelaide GPO the way the crow flies but for those who do not fly take the Stirling exit off the South Eastern Freeway , turn right at roundabout and travel 3.5 km to 184 Longwood Road HEATHFIELD. or check out your street directory UBD 157:G7 .

We are open Daily 9-5 during the berry season.

As the raspberries fade the Black Mulberry harvest begins.

DR VANDANA SHIVA - Sydney Peace Prize Winner 2010 - The Future of Food and Seed

2011-01-03T09:04:00.000+10:30

Take a tea break to listen to Dr Vandana Shiva interviewed on Lateline.

Listen to her full address after receiving this years Sydney Peace Award at Vandana Shiva's Website

There is also a free download ‘ Manifesto on the Future of Seeds’ on the Navdanya International website.

Check out her new book “SOIL not Oil”.

Dr Vandana talks about many issues in this speech including the future of food and seed for humans and the essential role we must play in caring for this precious planet.

Easy Christmas Pudding

2010-12-20T18:14:00.001+10:30

I have made this easy Christmas pudding recipe for years ever since my Auntie Win gave it to me.
So it is really called Auntie Win’s Overnight Christmas Pudding. It is a light flavourful pudding and is great eaten cold the next day.

Ingredients
1 375 gram pkt of Mixed Dried Fruit
1 cup of water
1/4 cup of sherry or rum or brandy
Mix the above ingredients together and stand all day.
Then add
1 cup of freshly made breadcrumbs
1 cup of Self Raising Flour
1 teaspoon of mixed spice
2 tablespoons of melted butter
1 small teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
1 tablespoon of honey or golden syrup
1 or 2 beaten eggs
Mix well .
Spoon into a greased pudding basin.
Cover with buttered greaseproof paper.
Cover with aluminium foil.
Tie these around the lip of the bowl with cotton string.
Leave to stand overnight.
Next day boil the pudding for 3 hours in a pan with boiling water and a lid.
Remove from the pan, allow to stand for 15 minutes, turn pudding onto a plate and serve with custard, cream and seasonal berries.
This pudding keeps for months in the refrigerator or it can be frozen.
The original recipe had 1 cup of sugar which I leave out. Dried fruit, honey and sherry add ample sugar. I usually multiply the recipe by 4 to make 4 puddings and I substitute 1 375 gram pkt currants for the mixed fruit. Dried black currants add a wonderful flavour and richness.

Mulch Making Monday

2010-12-13T19:32:00.001+10:30

We have been trying to find time to put all our winter prunings through the mulcher for weeks.

Today we finally managed in 2 hours to put this great pile of organic matter through the mulcher and spread it all over some of our garden beds as summer mulch.

I still have lots of dried grass cuttings which I shall use to put around small seedlings.

Lovely organically home grown and processed MULCH for our summer garden.

Lucky we put the mulch down today, tomorrow is going to be 35 degrees Celsius.

Adelaide has lots of rain in winter so dried grass cuttings provide ample mulch and summer prunings will be mulched and then composted.

Spinach Soup with Leeks, Garlic, Black Pepper and Pizza Thyme.

2010-12-13T11:39:00.001+10:30

Sometimes you cook something which is absolutely delicious.

After a busy day I went into the garden to find lots of spinach ready to be cooked and eaten.

I felt too tired to make spinach triangles and as it is a cool rainy evening soup seems very appealing.

So I blanched some spinach, drained it, added some cooked baby leeks, black pepper, chopped new season garlic, salt, a little cornflour blended with some milk and a handful of pizza thyme.

I cooked this gently for a few minutes then pureed the mix.

I served the soup with a dollop of sour cream and voila! an amazing delicious, nutritious soup.

All fresh from the garden and more delicious than most soups I have tasted.

From Seed to Table - a great blog to read

2010-12-06T10:44:00.001+10:30

The Blog “From Seed to Table” has a most amazing summary of what Michelle has grown, harvested and processed this past summer in California.

What makes it even more interesting is that what she is harvesting is just about the same foods that we are planting now and hopefully will be harvesting in the near future.

I am certainly going to try several of her recipes including her November 30th post recipe for

Slow Roasted or is it Quick Dried Chile Peppers.

Please check out this blog for new ideas of how to preserve and use summer produce.

Congratulations Michelle and thankyou for such a great blog.

The photos below were taken last summer in our garden.

Many South Australia gardeners are still planting up peppers, eggplants and chillies.

Others here are harvesting zucchinis, lettuce, spinach, onions, radishes, rocket, basil, artichokes and the last of the broad beans.

Tomato bushes are flowering and some folks are already picking early tomatoes. Beans, cucumbers and figs are growing nicely.

It is apricot, berry and cherry harvest time in South Australia and fresh platters of mixed berries are appearing on dinner tables.

Eating local, organic and seasonal food is exciting. There is always some favourite fruit or vegetable reappearing at the dinner table.

There is always the anticipation of different things to grow, harvest and preserve.

Glandore Community Garden

2010-12-02T18:39:00.001+10:30

Last weekend some of Adelaide's most famous Gardening Gurus from the Hills and Plains Seedsavers visited the Glandore Community

Garden for a pizza garden afternoon.

Many thanks to Lyn, Helen and Harry and others who made us feel so welcome.

It was a great afternoon, with garden tours of the plots and much discussion over the size of plants and what everyone was growing there.

There was always lots of laughter and great energy as we meet together and planned bumper crops for our own summer gardens.

In the Glandore plots there were lots of winter plants going to seed and lots of summer plants coming along nicely.

The pizza from the wood oven was delicious, thanks again Lyn for setting this all up for us.

There is always something new to learn when we wander around others gardens particularly when everyone there had many, many years of gardening experience.

Some Seedsavers had just come back from touring Italy and told us all about visiting Puglia, home of the Bari cucumbers we grow and an area where Cima di Rapa (another winter vegetable we grow) grows in abundance. We initially got some Rapa seedlings from Andrew who got seeds from an elderly Italian neighbour. We passed on many seeds & seedlings to many others in the group. The Bari cucumber seeds came to our group when an elderly Italian vegetable grower asked Kate to keep his cucumbers growing on. Several Seedsavers did & now we enjoy these unusual cucumbers.

We hope to go back soon for a seed swap and chat about our summer gardens.

Here are some photos from this delightful event.

Rosella Enjoying Salad Burnet Seeds in the Garden Today

2010-11-24T23:52:00.002+10:30

We save seeds to plant out in our next seasons garden.

We let plants go to seed so they self seed and reappear in our gardens as the seasons change.

We save seeds to give to others.

We save seeds so we have nourishing food next season.

We let things go to seed to enjoy the beauty of the flowers and seeds.

We let things go to seed so bees and birds and other insects are attracted to our gardens.

These visitors pollinate, eat bugs and keep our gardens healthy.

SEEDS, SEEDS, SEEDS!

Tell us a tale of your seed saving adventures!

A Passion for Gardening

2010-11-19T21:39:00.001+10:30

One of the segments on Gardening Australia ABC TV (6:30pm tomorrow) will be Sophie Thompson interviewing Daniel in his amazing garden.

Daniel is one of our most enthusiastic Hills and Plains Seedsavers. His knowledge, enthusiasm of gardening and willingness to share with others endears him to all who know him.

If you cannot wait till tomorrow, check out the video and article on the Gardening Australia website. Daniel's Garden

There is also a wonderful article in the December 2010 Gardening Australia magazine about Daniel.

Plant it, Grow it, Eat it --- Italian Style Spinach & Onion Triangles

2010-11-08T11:19:00.000+10:30

Many months have passed since we sowed Erbette spinach seeds in our well composted garden beds (home made compost).

We waited for them to germinate, then thinned out, divided and replanted where necessary.

More waiting for the seedlings to grow and the leaves to be large enough to harvest.

Some leaves have been used in dahls, curries, Greek spanakopita, spinach soup, veggie cakes and frittatas and some bunches given away.

But as the sun heats up and the plants start to go to seed dreams of more spinach triangles flash through my mind.

So we leave some of the healthiest plants to go to seed.

Next step harvest an enormous amount of leaves to wash and blanch.

Old leaves are saved to give to the gnomes for their chickens.

Many of the plants must go so as to make room for the summer seedlings which are almost ready to plant out.

Chillies, capsicums and aubergines will be looking for space in our small garden.

Next step is to decide what else to add to the spinach for flavour and to add more nutrition.

Companions to cooking from the garden today were some freshly picked onions, heaps of chopped parsley and oregano (last week it was chervil, but I could have used bronze fennel or Russian tarragon, dill would have been great if we had it) and some chopped chives.

Mix all together with some fresh ricotta, fresh eggs, some rice crumbs, salt and pepper and a little grated pecorino cheese and use as a filling with filo pastry to bake delicious spinach and onion triangles.

Now all this takes a lot of time and energy to produce such wonderful fresh, healthy organic veggies.

BUT nowhere on this planet could you find a more delicious tasty treat.

The spinach and onions made a sweet silky, creamy spinach pate with a hint of oregano.

The left over filling had more eggs, seasonings, some milk and cream added.

This was spooned into a grease baking dish, sprinkled with paprika, pumpkin, sesame and sunflower seeds, a little pecorino cheese and then baked at a lower oven temperature until set and golden. Yummy!

This is one of many of my own stories of PLANT IT, GROW IT, EAT IT.

Happy gardening everyone.

10/10/10 Today in Our Garden

2010-10-10T19:59:00.001+10:30

Succulent mulberries

Flowering Herbs

California Poppy

Cherry Tomatoes just about ready to plant out

We love chicory

Sage and Oregano

We have spent several enjoyable days working in our garden. The weather has been lovely and we have been able to make lots of mulch from our winter pruning's.

We have made a zucchini bed, a potato cage bed and a pumpkin patch. Our artichoke bed is looking good and we have lots of mulberries on our small trees.

The highlight of our garden is the herbs, rapa and rocket plants going to flower and forming seed.

We have planned our summer garden and we will are just hoping that we do not have heatwaves and that we can keep our garden healthy and productive. So for the moment we are dreaming of a mild Adelaide summer with tropical rain showers and cool nights. Reality will hit in January or even in November like last year.

Happy gardening to all.

Tickle Tank, South Australia Open Garden Scheme

2010-10-10T09:51:00.005+10:30

Tickle Tank is open to the public today.

Tickletank

Artist Irene Pearce's intimate and imaginative garden">

24 Hill St, Mount Barker

10am-4.30pm

$6.00

Creating a beautiful home from a concrete water storage tank!

If you are thinking of converting a concrete water tank into a home this is the place to look at.

Tickle Tank is the home of talented artist Irene Pearce .
"You will visit an intimate and adventurous multi-level garden which surrounds a house made from a converted water storage tank. The garden is filled with garden art, mosaics and sculptures made from recycled materials which add humour among the colourful array of spring bulbs, hardy natives and cottage plants. An inspiring garden, brimming with artistic ideas."
See the video at the ABC website: Tickle video (scroll down to the Tickletank video).

Adelaide Spring Garden Bee Feast

2010-10-03T11:37:00.002+10:30

Here are some pictures from our Adelaide spring garden with rocket, brassica rapa, parsley & flame tree mustard green going to seed. And an amazing array of flowering herbs including sage, borage, pineapple sage, thyme, watercress, salad burnett, society garlic & many more flowers attracting a myriad of bees other insects.

A bee enjoying our borage

Colour maze

Brassica rapa going to seed

Flowering coriander

Watercress flower

Gardening Australia & Video of Seed Saving

2010-10-03T11:35:00.001+10:30

Most Aussie gardeners have grown up watching gardening Australia each Saturday or Sunday for many years.

The programs continue to inform, entertain and delight us as the years roll on.

Did you know that wherever you live around the world you can watch the video clips of the different segment of the program online.

Just go to http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/ and then you can choose what you would like to watch.

I particularly enjoyed Jerry’s segment on Seed Saving which was aired on October 2, 2010.

Russia’s seed bank under threat

2010-09-07T13:51:00.001+09:30

ORGANIC GARDENING WORKSHOPS Adelaide Hills

2010-08-30T08:24:00.003+09:30

Nirvana Organic Farm offers gardeners a chance to share Deb’s 30+ years of experience in creating a productive landscape in a unique and beautiful living classroom.

COMPOSTING AND MULCHING

Sunday, September 5th

9.00 - 12 30 $45

Principles of composting and mulching, techniques and materials used and how they can be used most effectively on your garden or farm.

ORGANIC VEGETABLES FOR YOUR TABLE

Sunday, September 12^th

9.00—12.30 $45

Practical guide to establishing and maintaining a productive and healthy

vegetable garden.

BIO- DYNAMIC AGRICULTURE

BEYOND ORGANICS

Improve your soils water holding capacity.

A one day course to introduce the practical concepts of the biodynamic methods to farmers and gardeners.

The Bio -Dynamic method is a modern organic method that creates a holistic approach to building healthy soil, plants animals and humans.

The course covers history, concept of a living organism, soils, compost, special preparations that enhance nature and equipment required.

Sunday, Sept 19^th 2010. 8.30 am. -4.30 pm. Cost: $110

Includes: notes, lunch, Membership of Adelaide Hills Biodynamic Group

INTRODUCTION TO MOON PLANTING AND USING THE PLANTING CALENDAR

Sunday, September 26^th 9.00-12.30 $45

Working with the rhythms of nature can develop your skills in fine tuning your garden and can add a new dimension to your gardening experience

ORGANIC FRUIT, NUTS & BERRIES.

Sunday, October 10^th

9.00 -12.30 $45

Practical guide to orcharding. Includes establishment, soils, ground covers, maintenance & pruning.

POULTRY KEEPING.

Sunday October 17th

9.00 pm – 12.30 $45

All you need to know about getting started with poultry. Includes selection, housing, feeding, breeding, pests.

WEAVING A BIT OF MAGIC

Sunday October 24^th

9am – 4pm

$110

.The ideal way to recycle your garden prunings. This introduction to natural fibre weaving will show you the essential techniques, suitable plants & other materials to make baskets, fences, or trellises.

Course includes all materials, lunch, morning & afternoon tea.

To enrol click here or get further Information

phone Deb or Quentin 8339 2519

Posted by Deb at 4:21 PM 1 comments Links to this post

Labels: Biodynamics, Chooks, Compost/gardening, COURSES, Education, Fruit, herbs, Kitchen Gardens, Organic Gardening, Vegetables, workshops

World Kitchen Garden Day August 22nd 2010

2010-08-22T09:01:00.001+09:30

Welcome to World Kitchen Garden Day from Adelaide, South Australia.

It is winter here which means lots of winter rain and mild temperatures.

Our garden looks lovely with masses of Asia greens, Italian broccoli rapa, silverbeets, leeks and spring onions, parsley, fenugreek, coriander and almost every kind of herb you can think of.

We have rocket, rapa and coriander going to seed.

We have calendula's, German chamomile and speckled borage everywhere.

Today we have friends coming to see our garden and then a large afternoon tea at another kitchen gardeners home.

So I look forward to today and I hope you all enjoy your garden and what ever you have planned for today.

Greetings from Adelaide.

Maggie

TIME FOR THYME!

2010-07-30T10:18:00.002+09:30

It is winter in Adelaide, it is cold and wet and lots of folks have coughs and colds, so it is time for thyme.

Thyme is a great addition to your medicinal herb garden.

Thyme contains thymol which you will find in toothpastes and throat gargles.

Thyme, honey and lemon make a great soothing mix to sip if you have a sore or dry throat.

Infuse some thyme in green tea, add a little honey and you have a great tasting herbal tea.

Thyme has great antiseptic properties as well as aiding digestion and boosting the immune system.

And thyme tastes great!

Combine thyme with other herbs such as sage and rosemary and the uses and health benefits of using these herbs is amazing.

Thyme is used in equal quantities with sumac to make Zatar which is used in Middle eastern cookery.

Thyme is used with cumin in Cajun cookery.

Thyme, parsley, bayleaf is tied in a bundle to make a bouquet garni which is then added to most French stocks and casseroles.

Thyme is a great herb to include in your cooked vegetable dishes, meat and fish casseroles, soups, baked goods, egg and cheese quiches, veggie and tofu burgers, salads and salad dressings.

In fact thyme goes with just about every ingredient I can think of that you have in the kitchen.

The many varieties of thyme enhance you food with different flavours.

We even add thyme, parsley, sage and oregano to our dogs raw food diet.

HORSERADISH

2010-07-03T18:40:00.001+09:30

Horseradish grows well in our garden, it establishes itself very easily and will propagate like a weed if you leave any bit of root behind. It is best to leave the roots for a couple of years to get a reasonable size (medium carrot size), but if you can’t wait then by all means dig some up when the leave die back.

Processing is best done in a food processer or with a hand grater and is best done outside because of the extreme pungency of horseradish.

I have an old food processer which I use to grind chillies, horseradish, turmeric and any other pungent or stain producing food stuff.

Once grated I add a teaspoon of sugar, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and some apple cider vinegar, just enough to cover and moisten the horseradish. It is good to then spoon the mixture into to small sterilized jars, seal with a lid. Our horseradish lasted for 12 months in the refrigerator, but it started to lose some pungency after six months or so..

The horseradish prepared in this way is great to serve with meat or vegetables. You can add some to whipped cream or herb flavoured ricotta cheese to serve with smoked salmon and melba toast.

Horseradish has amazing health properties and is a great addition to any refrigerator medicine “kit”.

K is for Kale, F is for Fenugreek and C is for Coriander and Chilli.

2010-06-25T18:22:00.001+09:30

Picked straight from our Adelaide winter garden, sautéed with some garlic chives and local olive oil and then added to freshly made organic chicken broth.

A real good bowl of healthy fast food.

The GIFT of a PUMPKIN !

2010-06-15T10:49:00.003+09:30

There is a kindly bloke over at Magill who likes to grow vegetables in his backyard. He calls himself the backyard farmer. Whenever he is not busy with his other business or travelling the state with work he can be found digging and planting in his garden. His labours and a large suburban block meant that he has been able to feed a hungry family, an amazing variety of fruits, eggs, nuts and veggies for many years from his backyard. His enthusiasm and willingness to share his knowledge has meant that many people have been inspired and enthused to start their own kitchen gardens and enjoy all the health benefits and pleasures this brings.

He writes about his garden on a blog called the Adelaide Kitchen Gardeners Blog , click HERE to read more about Andrews garden and the nourishing ways he and his lovely German born wife prepare much of their produce for cellaring.

At our last Hills and Plains Seedsavers meeting Andrew gave us a butternut pumpkin which has now been made into pumpkin and nutmeg soup. Some soup devoured by us, some soup given to others. Good, wholesome healthy soup is a great winter gift for family and friends. And when we give lovely organic produce from our gardens and kitchens we give others the experience of our labour and skills. We give the experience of what organic food tastes like and the knowledge of what real nourishing food is.

We give sensual flavours and memories of real food and happy thoughts of gardens and gardeners and sharing meals together.

Saving pumpkin seed ?, well that’s another story for another day. A story about how many more gifts can be given by giving one pumpkin to another gardener. Maybe a story told by the backyard farmer himself.

Methi, coriander rice cakes

2010-06-10T18:24:00.001+09:30

Take some cooked rice add sliced spring onions, sliced fenugreek leaves, some sliced fresh coriander, some red chilli , some salt , white pepper and some farm fresh eggs.

Cook small amounts in a little oil, turn and when brown and crisp serve with Greek yoghurt flavoured with lots of crushed garlic.

We are so happy to have discovered the delicious flavour of cooked fenugreek leaves, now I can understand why fenugreek is such a popular ingredient in Indian cookery.

This has to be the smells of an Indian restaurant on a plate!

Good Weather for Ducks

2010-06-10T15:34:00.001+09:30

This morning in Adelaide a noisy group of ducks arrived on our roof to check out the scenery. The trees have all lost their Autumn leaves now and look wonderful silhouetted against the grey sky. This morning brought light rain and a cool 8 degrees Celsius. As soon as they saw me with the camera they flew off towards the Hills.

Be Nice to Nettles Week!

2010-05-30T16:27:00.001+09:30

Did you know it is Be Nice to Nettles Week. Check out the website called Be Nice to Nettles Week.

The picture above shows stinging nettle (Urtica Dioica).

Nettles play an important role in an organic garden. They are excellent added to a compost heap. They can be made into a liquid manure & used as an excellent tonic when sprayed on leaves & soil.

Nettles also have an important nutritional value as they are rich in vitamins A & C. The formic acid is destroyed by cooking so they can used in the same way as spinach. Use only the top fresh leaves. Nettles can also be made into teas, beers & wines.

Nettles are an excellent addition to cattle fodder & poultry feed as they are rich in chlorophyll, iron, nitrogen & calcium.

I hope you check out the Be Nice to Nettles website as it has some great information.

Fenugreek, Methi

2010-05-26T08:08:00.001+09:30

Every winter I plant a small patch of organic fenugreek sprouting seeds in the garden. They germinate quite quickly and you soon have a great harvest of beautiful nutritious leaves. You can use the young sprouts in salads, and the leaves (not the stems) in cooking.

Fenugreek leaves can be added to just about anything you cook. Traditionally they are used in Indian cooking. So can be found added to dhal, fried pakoras, curries, saag, Indian roti bread, sambars and sambals.

Fenugreek leaves are the herb and have a lovely earthy flavour. Once picked from the stem they can be frozen.

Fenugreek seeds are the spice and once again appear in many Indian recipes or curry powders.

Fenugreek seeds can also be spouted in the kitchen and would be a great for folks who cannot garden outside in winter.

CHILLIES - a rainbow of colour in the garden

2010-05-23T17:32:00.001+09:30

After many hot and warm days here on the Adelaide Plains our chilli patch is laden with lots of multi coloured, multi shaped chillies. A real rainbow of colour and anticipated heat for cold winter days.

Most of these chillies will be frozen for use in soups, pesto's, curries, casseroles, veggie burgers, meat koftas, spice rubs, sauces, salsa’s, salad dressings, marinades, chilli jam, pickles and chutneys. Maybe even chilli brownies or chilli chocolate cake.

Purple Tiger is a great chilli to grow. Not only are the leaves beautiful and colourful but it produces masses of purple and red chillies. One purple tiger chilli will give enough heat for a really hot curry.

I think the hotness of chillies is dependant on many factors, like soil, water applied, heat from the sun, length of time on the bush and age of the chilli. More mature chillies are definitely sweeter.

I have picked chillies from the same bush and have found the heat content can vary. The membrane of chilli is the hottest part so if the seeds and membrane are removed, the chilli will not be so hot.

Have you experienced differing heat content and flavour in the same variety of chillies you have grown?

Today’s harvest of aubergines and green chilli has already been made into a spicy pasta sauce and the red chillies are all in the freezer.

I notice most food gardening bloggers are not blogging much lately. I imagine they, like us, are busy processing the last fruits and veggies of a warm autumn and pruning, composting and planting out seedlings grown for winter vegetable gardens.

THE COWS ARE BACK!

2010-05-15T12:30:00.001+09:30

If you follow this blog you will be aware that grass in Adelaide, unless watered, turns golden and does not grow in summer because we have very little summer rain. But as soon as the rain comes in Autumn, the grass grows again.

So the neighbouring agricultural high school paddocks are green again.

It is then that the cows are put back in the paddocks to graze on the winter grasses.

The goats appeared in a neighbouring paddock a few days ago and today the cows are back!

The animals are from the local agricultural high school and are kept in back paddocks during summer but in winter they are in the front paddocks and many local people bring their children to see the animals.

So now my young grandson will be elated, because all summer I have told him as we gazed at the barren, sun dried paddocks, when the rain comes, the grass will grow and when there is green grass in the paddocks, the cows will come back.

I repeat myself many times about some things I would like him to be interested in and remember.

WOW! the cows are back or WOW! the seeds we sowed have germinated and WOW! this parsley is from the seed we saved then threw over the garden in summer, WOW! this lettuce is yummy, WOW! look at all the worms in the worm farms.

Why? well it is important for us all to be aware of nature and the seasons.

The seasons bring many changes in our gardens and lives, foods appear once a year and then they are gone until next season.

Each month brings a different fruit or vegetable to enjoy, preserve or let go to seed so it can be replanted next year at the appropriate time or just left in the soil to germinate when the conditions are right for it.

Next week when he visits and we shall enjoy watching the cows chomp on the green grass and wander the paddocks.

And why are their 5 cows this winter and there were 10 cows last winter, well that is another story for another day!

We love the cows and we love the fact that they are eating lovely green grass, and that they look so healthy and content.

Pine Mushrooms Asian Style

2010-05-08T20:02:00.001+09:30

Autumn in Adelaide brings chestnuts and pine forest mushrooms.

Today we spent quiet afternoon wandering a friends property gathering mushrooms for dinner.

We arrived home to walk the dogs then head for the kitchen to prepare these delicious mushrooms.

We cleaned and sliced them and then fried them in a little olive oil with lots of fresh garlic, chilli and grated ginger.

We cooked some Hakubaku soba noodles and added a little with sesame oil.

We returned all the mushrooms to the pan and added freshly sliced Asian greens, fenugreek and coriander leaves and some tamari and already cooked chestnuts. We bought the chestnuts last weekend from Nirvana Organic Farm they are fantastic.

We served the mushrooms with the noodles. They were absolutely delicious, I reckon we might head to the forest again soon.

And I think we shall also prepare this delicious, best in town 3 minute noodle dish.

BORAGE the Herb of Gladness, Joy and Courage returns to the garden

2010-05-07T09:43:00.001+09:30

We love our speckled borage scattered through our winter garden so we always let some go to seed and then reappear where ever it chooses.

Those of you have grow borage before know that it will reappear everywhere. But is is easily removed to pots or the compost. Some people do not like growing borage because it would take over your whole garden if you let it.

We love borage in the garden because the neighbourhood bees love borage and appear in mass once the beautiful blue flowers appear in spring. We love the local honey it is dark and flavourful and makes delicious honey mead. We also use that honey in any thing we bake or sweeten.

Some people eat small quantities of the leaves in baked goods, we add them to the compost.

But the flowers we add to drinks, salads, fresh fruit and cordials.

Here on the Adelaide Plains it is starting to get colder at night. We have had sufficient rain for the garden and the seeds we have planted are germinating and need thinning out or moving.

We call our winter garden our green garden because with limited space available we mainly grow green leafy vegetables and lots of herbs.

So the menu here changes from zucchini fritters to spinach fritters. The soups have lots of Asian greens, chillies and chives added to them. We shall be having mustard greens, fenugreek and coriander added to curries. Spinach pies will reappear filled with all sorts of green vegetables, parsley and herbs.

As the delicious flavour of fresh tomatoes fades to a memory, citrus trees are ripening ready to be added to salads, muffins, fritters, drinks or just eaten fresh.

We are so lucky here in Adelaide to be able to grow and enjoy fresh vegetables and fruits all year.

But the herb of the week here is beautiful borage.

Dorothy Hall in her 1975 copy of The Book Of Herbs suggests a variety of uses for borage. She says borage is the “Herb of Gladness” and is a great tonic which gives courage and joy to warriors! It is used in teas, salads, salad dressings and as the ideal companion plant for strawberries.

How do you use borage?

Aubergine ( Bringal, Eggplant ) - a vegetable for cooks to enjoy!

2010-04-30T08:35:00.003+09:30

This has been a great season in Adelaide for growing aubergines most of us are still harvesting this good looking vegetable.

Aubergine has a distinctive flavour and is delicious when freshly picked, sliced, sprinkled with salt, brushed with olive oil and grilled, baked or fried.

Store bought aubergine often needs to be sprinkled with salt, weighted for 1/2 an hour and then rinsed to remove any bitterness. I have found that this is not necessary with plump, fresh, organically grown aubergines as they are not bitter at all.

Aubergine is great when added to Indian coconut curries, Mediterranean tomato pasta sauces, onion bhajis, mushroom and olive filo parcels, vegetarian burgers, lasagnes, beef or lamb casseroles, meatballs, kebabs and moussaka.

The flavour of aubergine is enhanced with the use of herbs and spices particularly garlic and oregano. But there are many ways to use these purple fruits of the summer garden.

TASTING AUSTRALIA 2010 is happening here in Adelaide this weekend. I wonder if the chefs of the world can cook as well as some of us Adelaide kitchen gardeners gardeners can?

When you have your own organically grown, freshly picked, seasonal produce you have a great pantry of flavours and colours and textures to create with. Or better still lots of our produce can be eaten straight from the garden.

Freshly picked beans and peas, heirloom tomatoes and apples, lettuce, rocket and basil, mandarins and pomegranates, watercress and radishes, lemons and fresh broccoli need no chef or cook, just hungry hands to pick them.

Have a great weekend, whether you are planting or picking or just relaxing and eating.

Autumn arrives in Adelaide and the Adelaide Hills

2010-04-20T19:55:00.001+09:30

On Sunday we went to the Stirling Autumn Festival to buy some organic seedlings from Diana and Jen. We loved the scarecrows on display as well as the music and all the other plant stalls.

We went to Winterwood Garden and enjoyed the African music, food and garden.

Then we went to visit Deb’s Nirvana Organic farm to buy some fresh Chestnuts for roasting.

Everywhere there was gorgeous orange and red autumn leaves and lush green grass after the recent rain.

So Autumn has arrived, our seedlings and planted seeds are growing and we are looking forward to eating all the Asian and Italian green vegetables we have planted or sown.

The paddocks across the road have tinges of green grass.

All summer as my grandson and I looked at the bare dry, golden paddocks I would say to him “ when the rains come the grass will grow and when the grass grows then the cows will come back to that paddock to eat the grass”.

He is only two so I was wandering if he would remember this. Today was the test. So I asked him as we gazed at the paddock and the tufts of green grass what would happen when the grass grows and the paddock is green again, what will happen?

His reply came quickly “Cows”, yes, well done little one, the grass will be green soon and your favourite cows will be back in the paddock munching away at the grass and having a feast! And when you come to visit you will be able to watch these ever so big cows lead a happy, healthy life grazing in the paddocks.

AKWAABA and the Stirling Autumn Garden Festival -Tomorrow

2010-04-17T08:07:00.001+09:30

Experience Africa in a Garden Celebration.

All proceeds to Australian Sponsorship 4 African Kids.

This garden, Winterwood, is an amazing garden with 2 acres of trees, shrubs, orchard, vineyard and flower and vegetable gardens.

There will be African food stalls, craft, cooking demonstrations, children's activities, African children's choir, African Drummers and a whole lot more.

Back in Stirling.

The Stirling Autumn Garden festival will also have gardening talks, stalls and everything you need for your garden.

Diana and Jen from Bickleigh Vale Farm will be selling a huge range of organic seedlings for your winter garden.

Stirling Autumn Garden Festival 18th April, 10am – 5pm

Major Sponsor Adelaide Hills Magazine will be launching their Souvenir Autumn 2010
edition.
Our guest speakers Sophie Thompson and Trevor Nottle will be presenting talks on
sustainable gardening, gardening in climate change and be also signing books which are for
sale on the day.
Over 50 stalls under the magnificent old oak trees in Druid Avenue will have information and
products for the garden enthusiasts including stalls by nurseries, garden designers, garden
sculpture and garden societies who will be showing their garden related products.
Singer Jennifer De Grassi will provide music to add to the ambience of the day.
Free shuttle buses will be provided to take people to the stunning Open Garden, Heritage
listed Beechwood (entry $6.00) and to the inspiring two acre garden of Winterwood on Old
Carey Gully Road Stirling for Akwaaba, an African Garden Celebration with Dorinda Hafner
providing cooking demonstrations and African Drummers and African Children’s Choir,
African food stalls and more The entry fees of $10.00 adults, $5.00 children and $25.00 per
family. All proceeds go to the Australian Sponsorship for African Children charity.
The shuttle buses will also stop at Aptos Cruz Gallery, where visitors will find an amazing
collection of treasures – art furniture and more. This is also the location of Siemers Indian
Restaurant and The Table Restaurant where enticing menus will satisfy the palate.
There will be a scarecrow competition again this year with approximately 40 scarecrows
made by local businesses and schools being displayed in the scarecrow gallery.
The Mt Lofty Districts Historical Society will be conducting one and a half hour tours ($15.00)
of Stirling, Crafers and Summit Road including expert commentary by one of their
knowledgeable guides highlighting some of the heritage gardens of Stirling plus a drive
through the magnificent Japanese Garden of Thorpe.

These tours can be pre-booked through
the Customer Service Counter in the Stirling Library

Stirling Autumn Garden Festival

2010-04-13T19:02:00.001+09:30

One of Stirling's oldest and most famous private gardens will be open to the public as part of the Stirling Autumn Garden Festival on Sunday 18 April 2010.
The festival, held under the exquisite old oak trees of Druid Avenue, will feature stalls by garden designers and nurseries and garden art. Food at local cafes and restaurants will be available. Guest speakers during the day include gardening expert Sophie Thomson and others.
As part of Australia's Open Garden Scheme throughout the day shuttle buses will transport people free of charge to the garden (entry to the garden is AUD6.00), while other gardens will feature in an historical coach tour (entry AUD15.00) offered by the Mount Lofty Living Garden History Centre.
Be sure to check out the more than 40 scarecrows - made by local schools and businesses - which will line Mount Barker Road during the week leading up to the festival.

The Bees and the Rainbow Lorikeets and the Palm Flower

2010-04-09T07:49:00.003+09:30

We made this video this week when we were walking the dogs in the early evening.

This palm tree looked like something you would see in the tropics rather than dry old Adelaide.

It was so much fun to see masses of bees and rainbow lorikeets having a supper feast we raced home to get the camera.

We hope you enjoy this video it gets a bit blurring in places but comes clear at the end.

Excel Fig

2010-04-04T14:42:00.001+09:30

The excel fig has to be the sweetest fig we have ever tasted.

It has a rich luscious flavour and is great eaten fresh or made into ice cream (whipped cream, chopped Australian pecans & fig puree which is then frozen).

We bought this fig as a cutting from Julie at the SA Rare Fruit Society, thanks Julie we love this fig tree.

Turmeric flowers and leaves

2010-03-25T21:02:00.002+10:30

One of the loveliest surprises this year in our summer garden was the beautiful flowers on the turmeric plant.

Dried and fresh turmeric root has amazing health properties so we look forward one day to harvesting some delicious turmeric root to add to our curries, soups, veggie burgers and vegetable pates.

Now if you want to read more about home harvesting of turmeric and ginger please check out Julie’s blog Towards Sustainability.

Julie lives in Newcastle New South Wales and if you check out her blog entries for Ginger harvest Saturday July 4 2009 and her entry for her Turmeric harvest Thursday July 2 2009 you will be amazed at her harvest for last year.

I reckon Julie is a garden hero!

Indian Curry Leaf Tree - Seeds, Berries and Leaves

2010-03-19T15:06:00.001+10:30

Do you know what this tree is? Well it is the Indian Curry Leaf tree (Murraya koenigii syn.).

A favourite cooking ingredient in Sri Lankan and South Indian Cuisines.

Check out Wikipedia information on the Curry Tree or Isobell Shipard's description of the Tree

I love this tree, I use the leaves in South Indian recipes.

Nothing can compare to the flavour the leaves impart to curries, Indian rice dishes and baked goods.

I freeze some curry leaf leaves in summer when they are green and flavour full and then use them in winter when the leaves turn brownish in the cold weather.

I love the way the leaves fall on the branches and the fragrance as you brush past this tree in the garden.

To grow a curry leaf tree, simply eat the outside of the berry and then plant the seed in a pot, keep it moist sheltered from extreme temperature. Do not eat the seeds, they are poisonous.

Cultured Activities

2010-03-09T16:32:00.001+10:30

In the early 80’s I always made my own yogurt. I had a dacor yogurt maker, fairly simple an esky with a 1 litre glass jar and thermometer it always made good yogurt and the next batch was started from the previous.We then met up with the folks from Paris Creek Dairy , they where just starting out so it was a good idea to support them so I sold the yogurt maker and we bought yogurt. Over the years we consumed more and more yogurt Paris Creek for on cereals, yogurt cakes,potato salad. Jalana on pancakes,as a cream subistute. One of the problems is all those plastic containers , I know they make good plant labels and my plastic container cupboards and freezer are full of them but at 2 a week they start to mount up , sure you can put them in the recycle bin but I’d rather not have them.

We are very lucky to buy our milk, unparerised direct from the only dairy left in our district. They have a honour system get the milk from the fridge and leave your money. At $4 for 2 litres its dearer than the crappy stuff at the supermarket. You Know most goes direct to the farmer the rest in bottle washing and replacements. It is sold in 2 litre glass flagons that you return when empty (no storage space or bin required ) and the taste, well how milk should taste ,rich creamy and wholesome. The seasons are reflected through the subtle changes in flavour something you’d never notice in supermarket milk.

Since we have such good milk I was thinking about making yogurt again. A visit to Maggie & Bobs confirmed this as we tasted a lemon and rose sparkling drink and milk fermented with kifir and Maggie said she was trying yogurt and had read several tips on various blogs . So I decided it was time to restart yogurt culturing after all it was so easy.

So I made a batch how I remembered , bring milk to boil then drop down to around 40oC, add some yogurt and put in a warm place. I used and esky and put stubby holder around the jars and left them overnight. They worked Ok and tasted fine but were quite runny(made good yogurt cakes) It seemed to me they needed the heat sustained longer so I dusted off the heat pad plant propagator to use but Quentin suggested putting them in with the brewing beer. The beer is brewed in an old solid wooden sewing cabinet that opens at the side and also at the top so the beer can be siphoned out the top . This means the brew bin does not have to be moved so sediment stays on the bottom and does not end up in the bottles.It is also fitted with a light globe that keeps it at 30oC

Yogurt keeping warm in their ‘crows’* stubbie holders**	Yummy yogurt
Home brew area.	Crow yogurts keeping warm by keeping close to bubbling beer.

Lingo for non South Australians

*Crows - Adelaide’s Australian Rules football team. They won the AFL premiership in 1997 & 1998.

**Stubbie Holder-. An insulated cover to keep 325 ml bottles of beer cold and keep your hands warm while holding ice cold beer.

Footballers and supporters have an affinity with beer.

The scientist in me insisted on a trial of different yogurts.I used 3 x 300ml jars .Easy to clean,reusable and useful size for us. I tried Maggies suggestion ( she read it on a blog somewhere.) That you can to freeze commercial yogurt in ice cubes and use it as a starter. I did this with some Paris Creek Swiss Style using I ice cube still frozen, I also used 1 tablespoon of Paris Creek Greek style and 1 tablespoon of Jalna Biodynamic whole milk yogurt. All jars where filled with Pine Heights milk that had been brought to the boil then cooled to 40oC. They where stirred, lids and jumpers fitted and put in the brew box and left overnight. They where left this long as it was easy and we like it tangy.Next morning they where all set nice and firm. Each tasted like their starter. I liked the Jalna best as its tangy where as Quentin liked the Paris Creek Swiss Style with a mild flavour.Now I can freeze some starters and make a range of yogurts anytime.

Fun in the Garden

2010-03-03T20:22:00.001+10:30

Today was a beautiful day here in Adelaide and some of us Seedsavers met for lunch at the beautiful Urrbrae House in the Waite University grounds to view Basketry SA’s amazing exhibition of contemporary woven works of art.

We also said goodbye to Kate who leaves for Tasmania soon.

I made a presentation bouquet of a lovely organic cabbage from Doof Doof on Duthy Street ($3) and forever thoughtful Deb had prepared a pantry starter kit.

The kit contained some sour dough bread starter, some elderberry jam, some elderflower champagne, some bean seeds and some pickled limes which delighted Kate for more than my cabbage (no not really).

We shared a basil pesto, fetta salad roll, some biodynamic raspberry muffins from Deb and some of Meg’s cous cous salad and stuffed eggs.

Deb poured some of her lovely elderflower champagne and Bob was photographer again.

We chatted about Deb’s courses which start this Sunday, about our gardens, about Tasmania and holidays we shall all be planning there now.

Once again we met, laughed a lot, shared delicious home grown produce and had a great time.

Have fun in Tassie Kate.

Weaving Magic in Adelaide Gardens Today

2010-03-01T21:45:00.002+10:30

Today, Monday the 1st day of March 2010, Adelaide welcomes thousands of people from all over the globe as it hosts a myriad of amazing events.

Some of the events in Adelaide this week include The Adelaide Festival of Arts, The Adelaide Fringe Festival, Adelaide Writers Week, Artist’s Week, Womadelaide and The Garden of Unearthly Delights.

A highlight for us as gardeners is the magic of woven garden materials created by the very talented members of Basketry SA in their Warp on the Wild Side exhibition, including Deb Cantrill from Nirvana Organic Farm.

This is a contemporary basketry exhibition which reflects a diverse range of techniques displaying intricate patterns, flowing lines, expected shapes and sculptural forms using plant fibres found in Waite Arboretum. Besides the beautiful woven items in the exhibition there are also many items for sale.

Deb’s dragon fly and gnomes house are amazing and can be seen at Urrbrae House from 11 to 4pm daily.

More excitement for us today is the appearance of the beautiful turmeric flower seen above and the yummy cheese and zucchini pie we had for dinner.

If you are in Adelaide and would like to meet up with some of us Seedsavers, Kate, Deb and I shall be at Urrbrae House, or wandering around the rose garden or walking the newly created wooden tree trunk labyrinth in the grounds from 1:30 pm Wednesday, please say hello we would love to meet you.

INDIA BANS GE EGGPLANT - MONSANTO 'FAKES' SAFETY DATA

2010-02-28T07:57:00.001+10:30

The Indian Government has banned genetically engineered (GE) eggplant after the ex-Director of Monsanto India admitted the corporation provided 'fake scientific data' to regulators. In announcing the moratorium on GE eggplant, Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, said there was not enough evidence that GE foods were safe to eat and that they didn't harm the environment.

Do we need any more proof than this that Monsanto is up to no good? Those who think GE foods will save the world should be shot. There is no such thing as a free lunch.... we cannot bypass nature in the quest for profits. Congratulations India! In many ways the Indian government is far ahead of ours. Kevin Rudd should get off his high horse and take a look outside, in the real world.

THE ANSWER TO THAT QUESTION.... HOW TO FEED THE WORLD

2010-02-27T09:07:00.001+10:30

There you have it.... and it was obvious all along but I just couldn't put my finger on the link.... I must be getting old....or something!

Monoculture means growing one thing, usually on a massive scale and killing everything that dares interfere with that one thing, with chemicals.

Then there was organic but often it came to mean growing one thing, on a massive scale and killing everything that interferes with it, with chemicals made from natural substances.

In the organic vegetable garden I always encourage people to make use of every little microclimate, interplanting tall things with short to get shade in the heat of summer; always having flowers and seedlings and mature plants in the same bed; feeding the soil and the plants will feed themselves..... but still I was not quite sure what to say when asked "How can we feed the world this way?"

But then there was "Fresh" the movie.... and I have the answer... its all about food being nutritious and the loop....

Monoculture is like a huge field of wheat; when the crop is taken, there is nothing left. The farmer must get the land ready for next year by fertilising, spraying for pest and weeds, fixing machinery and buying seed. He spends many thousands of dollars on inputs from all over the world, which are trucked and shipped and give me a headache thinking about. Lets say that after expenses, he makes $100 / acre for his wheat crop if it is a good crop and if prices are good.

Then lets look at the kind of farmer shown in "Fresh" who has several fields of mixed grasses which soon self seed every year. First he puts cows on the field. Cows eat grass and grow big. Every few days he moves the cows to the next field, then the next and so on around the property. As the cows go along they fertilise the grasses but they also attract flies which lay their eggs in the dung, and flies carry diseases which can quickly spread through the cows when they come back to this pasture. Eventually he sells the cows for meat, to a local butcher. It is organic and of excellent quality and he might get $100 / acre. His cows had calves and so his next generation is produced.

Second, 3 days after the cows are taken off he lets in the chickens to the first field. The fly and other insect eggs have hatched and the chickens are in rapturous delight and gorge themselves, laying big, healthy, nutritious eggs for the farmer to sell. From these large, organic eggs the farmer receives $100 / acre from the local organic food shop or from the farm gate. Some of the eggs are allowed to hatch and become the next generation.

Third, in come a host of meat birds that eat a different selection of grasses to the cows and the chickens. Once these birds such as geese and turkeys have been through all the fields, they are sold for meat. They are healthy and strong and organic and he might get $100 / acre, sold direct to local shops. These also reproduce themselves.

Fourth, the grass is now well fertilised by cows, chickens and other birds and grows fast. The cows are allowed back in again before the grass dries and goes to seed. Now the farmer cuts it for hay. He uses some for the bedding and winter feed for his animals and sells the rest. He might receive $100 / acre from local people direct from the farm. The grasses self-seed and come up again next spring.

Moreover, some of the fields of the sustainable farmer produce a variety of vegetables at various times and some may have fruit trees under which the chickens graze in their rotation. The system is flexible and is a closed loop, with few inputs from beyond the farm. All his produce is sold locally.

Even with this simplistic view, you can see that he is producing many times the volume of more nutritious food for human consumption than the wheat farmer, whose crop is shipped around the world where it is processed and made into white flour which ends up as items wrapped in plastic bags in supermarkets thousands of kilometres away, adding little but carbohydrate to the diet to those that eat it. And it seems, from the documentary, that the multi-cultural farmer reaps the rewards financially too.

The multi-cultural farmer needs workers to help. He creates employment for locals. Those who may otherwise be driving trucks or ships of wheat, stay home and work on this farm and themselves learn the value of nutrition, raising healthy children who take their message to school and help start a school vegetable garden..... and so the effects go on and on, rippling through every avenue of society.

In this way we not only feed the world but it is sustainable, reducing greenhouse gases, climate change, pollution, medical expenses, unemployment etc etc etc and generally making the world a happier place for everyone.

Watch a trailer, join the movement, find a screening here. It is American, and I am always sceptical of American things (sorry Pattie!) but this is genuinely good and farmer whatsit who lets his chickens be chickens and develop their chicken-ness is fabulous..... as is the big, ex-basketballer turned urban farmer.

THE TROUBLE WITH ITALIAN FOOD....

2010-02-25T07:02:00.000+10:30

"The trouble with eating Italian food is that

five or six days later you’re hungry again."

~ George Miller

There are more and more blogs in Italy and some about Italian food. This quote and photo came from Aglio, Olio & Peperoncini and some ideas for polenta that make me go straight to the cupboard to start cooking lunch, before it is even 8am!

My favourite blog in Italy is Path to Self Sufficiency.... obviously not by an Italian but here is a lovely snippet from a recent post by Heiko ( a Dutchman, who was brought up in Germany and has lived in the UK for a long time and who now lives in Italy on the border between Liguria and Tuscany):

.......To put it quite simply, I really do not understand the concept of money. I mean it, I don't. I can just about follow why they invented it in the first place. Back in the days when humans just roamed the countryside, life maybe wasn't exactly easy, but it was simple. All you needed to sort out was who went foraging for berries and roots and who did the hunting. In the evening they all met up again and shared their spoils.

When they invented culture you could still manage quite easily. You hunted an extra wild boar or deer, picked a few more berries and invited the guy with the interesting metal contraption from the other valley to bring along some pina colada and the other chap who manages to extract those strange sounds out of an old goat skin to join your feast and hey, you had a party!
But once people started settling down people started to specialise. There was the cabbage farmer, the goat herder, the medicine man, the carpenter and the plumber. Once the cabbage farmer got himself yet another acre of land he needed a bit of help. But soon his workmen got bored being paid in cabbages, there's only so much you can do with them. So they needed to come up with some sort of currency, some sort of token with a value they all agreed on..... read on...

It gets better and better and is a great little story!

HUGH'S PATCH.... YOU WON'T BELIEVE IT NOW!

2010-02-24T06:48:00.000+10:30

If you have been following the story of my son Hugh's garden, you will know that he started with a yard FULL to the brim with concrete about 18 months ago. I got the phone call to please come and help start a garden one morning and was told to bring wheelbarrow,tools and compost! Of course I was keen to see him start to grow vegetables so of course I obliged and by the end of the day he had a little area about the size of 2 dining room tables to plant into. For some months I received frequent phone calls from an excited Hugh telling me his first tomato was ripe or his lettuce was being eaten by goblins at night or asking was it the right time of the year to plant beetroot or bananas! Every evening after work he would sit out beside his patch while having a beer and gaze in wonder, like a father with a baby. It was not a big enough area for two people to sit next to easily, and one day I had another phone call. When I arrived, this first photo shows what we had to tackle to make a second bed. This is the story of the evolution of this bed....

April 2009.... oh hell !! It was a rough delivery for the second baby but sand is, at least, easy to dig!

Leaves flourished and Hugh was proud...

February 2010...a new plan hatches one fine summer's morning... construct an edible water garden, with style...

This very morning we finished it and I must say it is a wonder to behold and a delight to sit beside and music to my ears to hear the tinkle of water trickling off the rocks into a pond planted with watercress I originally received from Deb and water chestnuts originally from Cath.

The edges will be filled with lettuces and herbs and you can see a few young amaranth on the left which will give shade in the late afternoon when they grow. There are some tubers of cardamon behind the rocks, and although they don't flower here, the leaves can be used to wrap fish or vegetables, for a fragrance like lemony cinnamon.

The water is still murky as we had only just retrieved one of the large rocks that toppled into the pond while we were adjusting the water pipe!

It certainly goes to show that gardening is all about observation, inspiration and determination!

AN INDIAN INVITATION

2010-02-23T06:17:00.001+10:30

Oh how wonderful it would be to be able to go to this. If there are any readers who are nearby, please go, and take some photos to show us. Sunita is a board member of Kitchen Gardeners International. Click on the poster to read.

Dear friends,

The Malnad Mela is back in Bangalore for the third year running!
Come and join us in this celebration of produce and local art from the Western Ghats. Explore the importance of seed biodiversity and supporting conservation oriented livelihoods that seek to preserve and enhance age-old practices. Take home traditional seed varieties and enjoy fresh vegetables from your very own home garden.

Date:     February 27-28, 2010 (Saturday & Sunday)
Time:    10 am to 6 pm
Venue: 4, Ashley Road, Off Brunton Rd (behind Hotel Ajantha on M.G. Rd),
             Bangalore: 560025

Some of the produce and products from the forest home gardens this year include

indigenous seeds
wild forest foods
traditional snacks and preserves
spices
honey
dairy and poultry products
kokam butter balm
mud paintings
vegetable hair dyes
hand-sewn patchwork pieces
yoga mats
soap-nut scrub
natural incense
areca leaf plates
seed jewellery
herbal oils
seed murals
natural insect repellents ……and more.

We will also have products from the Concerned for Working Children (CWC), Kundapur and Himjoli, Himalayas.
This last year has been ecologically eventful with wayward weather (blame it all on climate change we are told!), failing crops, rising food prices, insane development plans, and the threat of having Bt Brinjal seeds on the market (fortunately thwarted for the moment thanks to people’s pressure). The hope is that our modest effort will help with seeking saner alternatives and pro-active responses to the current dismal state of affairs.
Thank you all for your encouragement and support. Please do pass this mail on to others you know or e-groups. Print out the attached poster if you can, to put up in your neighbourhood store, office, school, college or other place.
We look forward to seeing you again over the last weekend of February!
Regards,
Sunita Rao
94802 99200
Founder Trustee - Vanastree
www.vanastree.org

Markets & Other Gardening Related Events in Adelaide

2010-02-19T14:37:00.001+10:30

We as Adelaide Hills and Plains Seedsavers get many of requests for information on gardening, seed saving, seedlings and plants.
So it is great to pass on any event I think you may be interested in.

Here are a few events which all sound fantastic.

Food Connect was officially launched on Saturday, 13 February 2010, at the Plains to Plate convergence.
Soon you will be able to fill in your subscription form on Food Connect's website to get your box of predominantly local and predominantly organic fruit and vegetables. Produce direct from the farmers. The first box delivery is not far away! Get excited! Become part of the Food Connect community. Food Connect will also have a stall at the Uraidla Sustainability Fair & Show this Saturday the 20 February 2010. Do pop in and say hello. The friendly team will be able to answer any of your questions. (Or so we hope.)

Markets and Garden related events. Please check the details for your self.

This Sunday there is an Aboriginal Food & Plant Trail guided tour at the Adelaide Botanic Gardens. This is a free and very interesting tour.Meet at the Schomburgk Pavilion at 11 am. Check there website and events calender for more details.

Sunday the 28th February there is a Family Fun Day at the Adelaide Botanic Gardens from 2pm to 4pm. It is called "drawing on nature" and mentions you can do a watercolor painting and drawing to take home.
Meet at the Schomburgk Pavilion. Check there website and events calender for more details

Fullarton Park Community Centre Market is held on the 4th Saturday of each month, Heather Welsh sells lots of unusual herbs, there is great citrus available from Dave and Joy Schulz as well as many other plant and produce stalls.

Diana and Jen will be selling organic seedlings at Stirling Market which is the 4th Sunday of the month.

Urrbrae High Barn Market is always the first Saturday Morning of the Month.

I have heard there is a great Car Boot Sale twice a month at Brighton High front oval.

The Mount Barker and Adelaide Farmers Markets are very popular and have a huge variety of fresh organic produce.Check out there websites for the details of the growers who will be attending each week.

There is a Music? Art? Exotic Market, Summer of love 2010, Free Festival tomorrow at Macclesfield, Davenport Square from 2 to 8pm as part of the Fringe Festival.

Warp on the Wild Side, a contemporary basketry exhibition in historic Urrbrae House.This exhibition reflects a diverse range of techniques displaying intricate patterns, flowing lines & sculptural forms using plant fibres found in Waite Arboretum. Guided walks in the Arboretum on Sundays.

Urrbrae House - University Of Adelaide, Waite Campus, Fullarton Road, Urrbrae. 27-28Feb, 1-8Mar, 11am - 4pm.

There are heaps of wonderful exhibitions for the Fringe Festival which opens with the Fringe Parade tonight near Rundle Street.

Keep Cool!
And please check the details of any event event as I only get my info from leaflets prepared many months before
Maggie

HUGH'S LITTLE PATCH OF THE MEDITERRANEAN

2010-02-17T08:25:00.001+10:30

By now our summer vegetables are all established and should be producing well but with another heatwave looming down on us, it is hard to stay positive about gardening in summer, in South Australia. I think a covering of the white 50% shade cloth is the answer to keeping leaves and other soft vegetables going well. To a human the white does not seem to provide a sense of shade but to the plants it is the perfect solution as they need to keep photosynthesising to survive and only the white shade cloth allows the full range of sunlight through, but cuts the intensity by 50%. In my little shade house made of this fabric, lettuce and other leaves flourish and nothing is as uplifting as walking in and seeing such happy plants, even though temperatures may be in the 40's. Have a look at Scarecrow's garden for ideas on how to erect the white shade cloth.

At Hugh's he has developed a different approach, as we have had the time to toss ideas about together and time for him to learn little by little by direct experience. Living in a rented house with a yard completely covered in concrete has made him learn to be creative and to adapt to what is cheap, easy and possible. For example, he has lettuce and other leaves growing under the tall amaranthus, making a perfect microclimate. After the accidental success of the bok choy planted around the bird bath, Hugh has put a large pot of water amongst the amaranthus to raise the humidity and on hot days this certainly seems to work, as amaranthus in other places tend to get burnt edges on the leaves. It is amazing how fast this water evaporates in our searingly dry heat.

The floor of the tomato bed is covered in herbs such as the Laksa herb, garlic chives, various basils and tarragon. The capsicums are planted so as to be shaded in the late afternoon only; galangal, beetroot and beans receive afternoon shade from the neighbour's gum tree while sweet potatoes and purslane creep between the eggplants. There is no shade cloth,other than the little shade house only careful planning and, despite the abominable mass of concrete, the garden is flourishing like an oasis.

Of course there have been casualties! The biggest problem that is very hard to alleviate is the wind which rips through everything, bouncing off fences and rattling even the seemingly most protected areas of the yard. Luckily tomatoes love wind and it keeps away diseases but a week of dead calm has seen the arrival of some mites..... now we are hoping again for the wind to return! Whether it was the wind or something in the soil we don't know but the corn was a disaster, after starting strong and magnificent and everything planted in that bed has failed to thrive..... cucumbers, beans, even zucchinis. But the idea was good.... the tall corn was to protect the cucumbers and the beans were to climb up the corn and everything was supposed to be one big happy family!

Before Hugh became interested in growing fruit and vegetables, a lovely old apricot tree died of neglect. Hugh has sown his tallest beans around the dead tree and this is fast becoming a bean tree. Underneath are also marigolds and echinacea and there is a single comfrey plant establishing itself and hopefully soon it will form a clump from which Hugh can harvest the nutrients said to be inside those magical leaves.

There is a dreadful little walled section of garden just wide enough to cook the soil in summer so into it we planted native sand dune plants from this area as well as some okra which loves extreme heat and dry soil. At one end some established spring oniony things are doing fabulously too.

The water from the rain water tank is used to water those things that suffer most from our salty mains water..... tubs of fruit trees and the salad garden, purposely planted right next to the tank because neither of us believe we should be using pumps... that is something I have written about before and no doubt will again. In the '50's when this house was built, people did sensible things like putting the tank up on a stand to give some head or pressure; today this seems to be all forgotten and people use pumps and make pollution in order to save water !!! To make most use of the vertical space and to keep the tank water cool, Hugh has just planted 3 different passionfruit in tubs, after covering the tank in chicken wire for them to climb up..... what terrible English this is but I am running out of time and need to get ready to go to Wednesday gardening at Sally's!!

Everything is thought through here and lessons learned, as best we can, for next year. It is amazing what you can do, no matter what your constraints. All you need is observation, imagination and ..... oh, please find the word that eludes me to go here..... it means effort/to bother/.....oh yes... determination! These 3, as my old school passage from the bible goes, but the greatest of these is observation !

Zucchini & Basil Fritters

2010-02-15T08:59:00.001+10:30

There seems to be a bit of a blogger’s contest here in Australia to show off our culinary uses of the humble courgette or zucchini.

I reckon the best way to cook zucchinis is to grate them, salt them for 1/2 an hour, squeeze out the juice, add a little besan or other flour, some freshly chopped basil, parsley, chilli and onion, add 3 beaten eggs and fry the fritters in a small amount of oil.

Here is a picture of our lunch today, usually we serve them with yoghurt to which we add chopped garlic and mint.

What is your favourite way to prepare zucchinis?

A Beautiful Summer Evening in Adelaide

2010-02-12T21:29:00.001+10:30

Niki and I have been sitting out in the veggie garden listening to the myriad of birds in the neighbourhood trees settle down for the night.

We have enjoying the cool breeze rustling through the trees.

We have had a hot week in Adelaide, so it is wonderful to have a cool day, to walk the dogs, do a bit of gardening, play with water outside with my grandson and then go for a walk and practice bird calls, we can do crows really well.

We are still practicing kookaburras, although we can hop like kangaroos really well.

The tomatoes and capsicums are ripening slowly.

We are picking cucumbers, chillies and basil each day.

It is hot and dry in South Australia, hard to grow some veggies in summer but we put up shade cloth on hot days and we are able to grow most summer veggies.

I have even managed to make a variety of pickles, chutneys and relishes!

Comfrey and watercress and a cancer theory

2010-02-12T07:04:00.001+10:30

HERBS ARE SPECIAL......

There is a lovely Australian website and blog for lovers of all things herbal. It is Isabell Shipard's Herbs Are Special. It explores every herb I have ever heard of and lots more, in depth, and son Hugh sent me a link to the page about comfrey, which has from time to time been given a rough trot. Maybe, like many another theory, comfrey is about to have its name cleared and become the latest wonder herb, as it once was. Being a lover of leaves and knowing how easy it is to grow comfrey I would love to start eating it too....well, actually I put it in last night's dinner. I know chooks love it and I have fed it to mine for years. It would be interesting to know what readers think.

....Read the book, ‘World without cancer, the story of vitamin B17’ by Edward Griffin, which reveals how science has been subverted to protect entrenched commercial and political interests. The book explores the revolutionary concept that cancer is a deficiency disease, the substance missing being B17 (also called laetrile), discovered by German chemist Leibig in1830, and further researched by Dr. Ernst Krebs and others.

Another Australian, who valued the HDRA research, was Foster Savage, who I mentioned earlier. I had the opportunity to know him, personally, when he settled in Nambour to farm (and later Cooroy); and, I knew you would guess, he grew lots of comfrey! Wilted comfrey was fed to his animals in large amounts. Why did he allow it to wilt? He told me that animals could eat much more, each day, when it was wilted! He often had groups and private people visit and he would, freely, share his knowledge of comfrey and how it benefited his land, animals and his family (note, he had 13 children). When legislation placed comfrey on the poisons schedule in Australia, and newspapers highlighted the ban, he wrote a letter to the Sunshine Coast Daily, in defense of comfrey, saying:

"I was perhaps responsible for 95% of the comfrey in Australia, having introduced the plant to this country in 1954, and having used the plant in great quantities, since then; I am, perhaps, competent to speak about it and to make a few comments on the …remarks about comfrey made by the CSIRO scientist …"To say that two leaves, eaten daily - over a couple of years - will cause serious disease, is simply not true. In our house, we have eaten 70 leaves, or thereabouts, daily, for 24 years: in the form of comfrey tea, liquidised in a vitamiser as a green drink, and in salads. I also fed comfrey to my farm animals.

Knowing the power of comfrey to restore a worn out animal quickly, and make her milk again, I once bought an old cow at the Dandenong Market, when farming in Victoria. It had been discarded by some farmer, as worn out. I put her on comfrey, giving her 90 lbs of wilted comfrey (wilted to increase the cow’s intake of comfrey’s extraordinary nutrients), and 90 lbs made a pretty big heap, about 4 feet high. This poor, old, creature took to the comfrey, without hesitation … she was starving for minerals and her instincts gave her a craving for comfrey. When she began to eat, she would eat off the heap of leaves for a couple of hours, then sit down for an hour or so. Later, she would continue eating, until every leaf was gone. If Dr. Culvenor’s words were true, imagine the poison she would be taking into her body, with this quantity of comfrey daily. If comfrey attacked the liver, then this cow would have died, because she was in a worn out condition. Instead, she doubled her milk output, within a week, and in a fortnight, trebled it. The remarkable thing, was that the cream that settled overnight, was some 3/4 inch thick and the separation of cream from the milk was so perfect, that the cream could be lifted off, with none remaining. I fed comfrey to calves, as much as they could eat, again with only gratifying results. I fed pigs, entirely on comfrey and grain, as much comfrey as they could eat, and the quality of those pigs was legendary, in the district.

The fame of comfrey spread far and wide, for my farm was visited by 6,000 farmers from around Australia and from overseas. Finally, I well remember the enthusiastic remarks of the butcher who regularly killed our comfrey-fed calves. He told us that he had never before, seen such healthy livers … that, mind you, after being reared on a herb that was supposed to cause liver diseases!"

Watercress is one of my favourite salad additions and the information on this website about its properties makes me glad it is also very easy to grow in a tub of water. You can give it a haircut daily and it seems to grow back overnight in summer!

You can buy herbs, vegetables and fruit trees and seeds from them too....http://herbs-to-use.com/herbs-for-sale/trees-fruits-vegetables-legumes-rare-edibles.html. I will put their link in the side bar, under seed companies.

You can visit the Shipard's Herb Farm, which is in Queensland:

139 Windsor Rd., Nambour.
(on right, past Sunshine Coast Institute of TAFE)

Open hours -
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday - from 10:00am till 2:00pm.

If you would like to come at any other time, please phone during open hours a day or more in advance to confirm a time when you would like to visit.

Phone No. -
(07) 5441 1101

Fax No. -
(07) 5471 6430

email -
info@herbs-to-use.com

There are no blog entries after 2008..... shame... but you can subscribe to email updates from Isabell.

ORGANICS AND BIODIVERSITY IN AUTRALIAN FARMING

2010-02-11T08:33:00.001+10:30

Patrick of Bifurcated Carrots often writes of the lack of meaning for the word organic in Europe these days, as regulations are loose and agribusiness continues to rely on monoculture. Here in Australia things are, thankfully, quite a bit different and I think we can be reasonably confident that biodiversity is an integral part of organic certification. Here is an excerpt of the latest edition of the Biological Farmers of Australia free online newsletter:

Biodiversity and biological farming; a natural partnership

.............Major independent studies have confirmed organic farming actively contributes to better levels of biodiversity at every level of the food chain than non-organic systems. Organic agriculture is proving that we not only must, but can, have our environmental cake and eat it too.

A major pillar of organic production, and the vanguard of biodiversity protection, is maintaining a rich diversity of plant and animal life as the basis for the health of crops, farmed animals, the environment and the community, which are all inextricably linked.

Under the Organic Standard, management decisions must take into account impact on native flora and fauna and hydrological considerations, embracing protection of shelter belts, corridors, wetlands and remnant vegetation protection.

All forms of environmental pollution – chemical, genetic and physical – must be minimised and non-renewable resources must be conserved.

Rob Bauer, a fourth - generation farmer on his Queensland property in the Lockyer Valley, inherited land that the original European settlers had been obliged to clear – and keep clear of regrowth – by government dictates.

Rob converted the property to organic farmland thirty years ago and since then he has seen a marked change in the diversity and populations of native animals and vegetation on his land.

Repair of much of the existing environmental damage was assisted by an ongoing co-operative venture between Rob and Landcare which began in 1985. On a demonstration block in a previously degraded area more than two hundred rare, endangered and “interesting” native trees were planted. Rob carried the concept through the whole farm, which now has, interspersed with the cultivated fields, flourishing native bushland which is home to innumerable native animals, birds and insects, as well as providing shade, shelter and fodder for farmed animals.....

I also thought this comparison was interesting:

Australian organic avoids elitist attitude

A slow in the growth of organic sales in the UK has prompted prominent organic certifier and charity organisation, the Soil Association, to voice concerns consumers now see organic as a high-brow and expensive alternative.

.........However, an organic choice for many Australian organic consumers is not only about money - it’s about understanding and appreciating inherent value. Organic food represents environmentally-friendly food production, without synthetic chemicals or genetically modified ingredients, a focus on animal welfare, etc and those are values more people are taking an interest in and willing to support, regardless of their socio-economic status..........

Read more of these articles by subscribing to the monthly Organic Advantage E-zine.

AMARANTHUS FOR DINNER

2010-02-10T20:36:00.001+10:30

A couple of months ago I suggested you sow amaranthus..... so.... did you?

If not then you won't be looking daily in awe at this beautiful, tall, elegant, hardy, colourful, nutritious, tasty, versatile plant now beginning to wave wonderful, vibrant flower heads in the breeze! And, unless you buy it from the Asian stalls in the Central Market, you probably won't get a chance to have it for dinner until next year.... or if you are in the northern hemisphere, you'd better get some seeds and start sowing.

I am addicted to leaves; I have written about it before several times. Raw or cooked leaves are almost always a part of my meals. In summer this means lots of variety in my salads.... every kind and colour of lettuce, peppery watercress, fiery or mild rocket, nasturtium flowers and leaves, sweet potato leaves, herbs like basil and various mints, young beetroot leaves, baby spinch, Asian greens of dozens of sorts and new leaves of amaranthus, etc etc. For cooking I use the older leaves of all these plants, plus kales, brassica leaves and rainbow chard. I even adore lettuce soup which is so much nicer than it sounds!

Tonight I made a quick meal with onions, zuccini slices, tomatoes,celery, fennel seeds ( another passion of mine), olives, tinned chick peas, basil, watercress and some left over liquid from a small jar of artichokes I ate for lunch.

Most of these ingredients were eaten within half an hour of being picked....I call food gardens health insurance.


How could you NOT want these in your garden?	Just chop some of the leaves and add to anything... the flavour is mild	And don't forget to have a tub of watercress to pick from too.

Oh... did I mention that I felt so great after that dinner that I made myself an incy wincy little fluffy, banana pancake for dessert and topped it with lashings of maple syrup, a dusting of coconut and a good squeeze of lemon? I cooked it and ate it before I remembered to take a photo... so I thought I'd let this little dude show you how its done!

Life is good.... enjoy it while you can!

To every season there is a meaning!

2010-02-09T21:28:00.001+10:30

Today I was spending time with my beautiful grandson who is just learning to talk.

He started to dance and say turn, turn, turn and I immediately thought of the song written by Pete Seeger.

We goggled Pete singing his song and then telling why he wrote this song and danced and had a party.

This song brought back many memories for me. Google why he wrote this song.

I hope you enjoy this song and that the seasons you are experiencing in your lives and gardens are fun and alive and turning and turning!

Have fun, Maggie

WHY SHOULD WE SAVE SEEDS?

2010-02-05T07:49:00.001+10:30

As we all know, different parts of the world have different plants, animals, weather, soil and water conditions. For millions of years creatures of the earth developed characteristics that best adapted them to these conditions. Those that did not have the genes to adapt to the slow but constant heating and cooling of the planet died out; those that could survive the changes went on to flourish. Humans began to collect the seeds of those flourishing plants and sowed them closer to home, allowing them to stay in one place and so gradually the nomadic lifestyle died out in many parts of the world, starting about 10,000 years ago. They also herded animals together, built barriers to keep them in and so began rudimentary farming.

Every season the peoples of the mountains and valleys and plains of the Middle East, Africa and Asia sowed their seeds, grew their food and saved some of the resulting seeds for next year. Travellers in ships, on camels and on foot started to swap their seeds and produce and so to introduce new vegetables and fruits to each other. The people in the new lands would try to grow the new crops and sometimes succeeded, sometimes not but always they saved their own seeds from year to year and in this way the new crops adapted to the new lands and so, over the centuries, different varieties became suited to very different conditions. This is called conserving the processes of evolution and adaptation.

These days seeds are sold in packets in supermarkets, garden centres, hardware shops and nurseries. Mostly we have no idea where they come from. In South Australia, for example, there are no seed companies growing seeds suitable for our climate. Every year lots of people buy the same seed, and do not save the seed from their previous crops. As the climate changes, our seeds are therefore not adapting because they come from somewhere else. Soon we begin to find that fewer and fewer seeds are working for us in our gardens because they simply are not suited to our climate. People try adapting to the seeds by covering everything with shadecloth or using more water or adding things to the soil or spraying for pests which like to eat the sick plants. We have stopped conserving the processes of evolution and adaptation.

People who save seeds are saving the genes of adaptation and allowing evolution to continue so that no matter what happens to our climate, our seeds will have adapted year by year to those changes. There is a lot of fear about climate change and food security but all we need to do is allow our seeds to adapt season by season; always saving the seed from the best plants to sow next year. Buying seed from seed companies far from your home will not work, as our climate changes faster, and artificially genetically modifying the seeds is a pointless task and only seeks to make money for seed companies, destroying the processes of evolution and adaptation forever, leading ultimately to the destruction of our food chain.

So that is why we must save seeds. If you don't feel competent to do it alone, join a local seedsavers group where others can help you get started. You can find one here in Australia, but there are people saving seeds in every corner of the world. In our Hills and Plains Seedsavers group, we swap seeds between ourselves and give them away to friends. This way you don't have to save all your own seeds, just a few to share and soon you will find you have lots of different seeds to try and that these seeds will be adapted to your growing conditions.

Please read more about agricultural ecosystems here.

MY NEW HOME

2010-02-04T08:12:00.001+10:30

On the 18th of January, I arrived in Hobart, Tasmania to stay with my friend Erica and her family for a couple of weeks, looking after their house and dogs and one lovely daughter for one of the weeks while the rest were away on holidays. Well,they have now returned and I am into the 3rd week, hanging around like a bad smell perhaps.... but I have been so enjoying Hobart and surrounds that I have gone and bought a house here!

When you buy a house you need to have a few things in your mind that are so important to you that if just one of them is not right, then you must not go ahead. To me these were:

The main rooms must be filled with light all year round
At least 1 acre of land (4,000 m2), already cultivated to some extent, and private
Quiet..... no road or other noise
Fertile soil
Mains water inside and plenty of water for the garden
Large kitchen
Energy efficient heating /cooling, including a slow combustion heater
House in sound condition
Broadband internet available
Not too far from a city (less than 1 hour's drive)
Walking track suitable for taking a dog off the lead
A nice setting and outlook.... water or hills views
Flattish land

After these, there are some things that are preferable:

Mains sewer, not septic
Insulation
A house with character and history
Established fruit trees
No tall trees on the northern side of the house or garden
A verandah like Deb's... now I cannot find the photo to show you why!
Solar panels / solar hot water heating
Down to earth community
Doesn't have things I don't want, that make it expensive for all the wrong reasons, like extra bathrooms, fancy kitchen
Large building suitable for future Bed and Breakfast maybe

And here are some dreams:

A creek
A spring
An established organic veg garden
Cheap
Within walking distance to some shops and a cafe
By the sea

Built in or before 1910. Weatherboard.	A little dam fed by a winter creek. 1 acre	Excellent condition
Big, light kitchen; big, gas stove.	Location, location, location! But cheap!	Quirky with creek
Sheltered veg garden and fruit trees	Walk to shops and community garden	Sunny verandah

This gorgeous little house in Cygnet, Tasmania, has all of the "must have" requirements and most of the rest as well. There are a couple of extras that I am so excited about..... no water meters and mains water from the Huon River area which comes from the rain forests of wild south west Tasmania.... read that word.... RAIN forests! It has a creek and associated easement running diagonally through it which makes it impossible to sub-divide in the future which means it is much cheaper than other, similar properties. The local GP has a permaculture property rather than a fancy city house. There are blueberry and other berry and fruit farms, and even some organic ones. It is 5 minutes walk to the sea and it has never ever been 40 C .....!! And every few years it snows.... oh is this paradise or what?

Like Pattie, I thought I would have a competition "Who will be the first blog-reader to come and visit me?"

Here is a photo of the future B and B..... but, as you can see, its not ready to use yet so you can sleep inside the house..... or in the quirky, old ship's wheelhouse in the garden !

There are more photos here.

Is anyone else having trouble with photos on Live writer?

GET GARDENING

2010-02-04T08:03:00.000+10:30

SINK AND WALL GARDENS

2010-02-03T06:58:00.000+10:30

A lot of vegetable gardening authorities, whatever that means, suggest planting vegetables on raised beds but in South Australia and a lot of other Mediterranean zones, this, to me is madness. In places where summer water is oh so precious, we do not need to provide drainage, we need to be preserving every drop of water for the plants. If you look at raised garden beds, you often find the paths, which are lower than the beds, grow lush crops of weeds and grasses!

Jude Fanton has found these beautiful gardens in the arid zone of western Rajasthan, India, which show what can be achieved when we look at our own environments and not those of people on gardening shows in other climates, even in the same country as ourselves.

I don't know if you remember my terracotta pots idea, but it comes from looking at my own situation and works wonderfully well in doing several things to help plants get through our extreme summer heat.

First, unsealed, unglazed terracotta is simply fired clay and is porous so the water moves very slowly out through the pot into the soil, keeping plants such as lettuce and bush beans turgid and fresh even in the full sun on days over 40C.

Secondly and probably equally as important, the water in the clay pot, covered with a tile, keeps the surrounding soil temperature from rising too high. It is high soil temperatures which damages the roots of plants and causes them to burn off, in extreme heat, and stop the roots sucking up water even if it is available.

For more on this experiment see these updates:

http://hillsandplainsseedsavers.blogspot.com/2008/02/do-you-know-what-didnt-droop-today.html

Kate and the Beanstalk

Using tank water without a pump

Olives and Artichokes

Recently I experimented with another similar idea, where I put an open, plastic bowl full of water in the middle of a large, shallow tyre-pot and surrounded it with tiny, caterpillar-eaten bok choy seedlings. I could not believe the speed of their growth compared to seedlings I planted elsewhere and they were ready to eat in 21 days! I am not sure why it worked, maybe the water heated during the day and kept the soil temperature warmer over night..... maybe it was the humidity provided by the water..... maybe both.

HOBART BOTANIC GARDENS... HOME OF PETE'S PATCH

2010-02-02T06:50:00.000+10:30

I think I watched every episode of Gardening Australia while Peter Cundall was on it and I came to really like that pom enough to almost accept his advice. What I like most about him still is his determination to stop woodchipping Tasmania's old growth forests and to stand up and be arrested, at 82, for the cause. He also single-handedly brought organics into the homes of every Australian TV gardener, making purchasers of chemicals quiver in their boots, with his outspoken criticism of chemical agriculture and horticulture.

Yesterday I visited the Royal Tasmanian Botanic Gardens, where Pete's Patch from Scratch began. Cleverly, placing this in a botanic gardens gives it credibility somehow and also ensures that it continues to inspire people long after Peter has left Gardening Australia and hopefully long after Gardening Australia has finished too. I knew I was approaching "his" vegetable garden because the use of vegetables as garden features seemed to have leaked out and spread into surrounding garden areas, as good ideas are wont to do. In this photo, left, of the conservatory garden, a narrow, stone wall raised bed is filled with silver beet (foreground) and each corner of the square is punctuated with a teepee of scarlet runner beans in their full flowering glory. Herbs and more vegetables form 90% of this entire beautiful garden, including the centrepieces of the 4 lawns filled with sweetcorn and rainbow chard (right).

The vegetable garden was of course lovely but what I loved most was the ecology of it all.... like I am always going on about.... surround your vegetables and fruit with herbs and flowers and native plants and you will gain on every level.... few pests, more variety to pick, whether food or flowers, and the sheer joy of seeing such abundance flourish so effortlessly as a result. And the earth will gain too, in too many ways to go into again here. There were bees and butterflies and birds and all things wise and wonderful in this beautiful border of herbs and perennials which formed the backdrop of the vegetable garden.

At the very back you can just see a corner of a massive, old, brick wall which provides a much needed warmer microclimate for some of the fruit trees which are thriving here in less than ordinarily ideal conditions. There are citrus and tamarillos and passionfruit to name a few.

Scarlet runner beans grow to enormous heights here, as you can see in this photo and beans in general seem to produce incredible crops right through summer.

In the glass house were some tropical herbs like lemongrass.

All in all it was a wonderful, lush, productive garden full to overflowing with fruit and vegetables, all grown without chemicals of any sort.

"I guess that's your bloomin' lot".... as Peter would say .... "but you'll be absolutely blown away by the rest of the Botanic Garden that I will write about soon."

I will upload some more photos here soon. In the meantime, you can read about this beautiful garden here.

SALAMANCA AND BEYOND

2010-02-01T07:27:00.001+10:30

Every day brings a new adventure, here in Hobart, Tasmania. On Saturday I went to the Salamanca market and I could not believe my eyes; this was probably the biggest market I have ever been to! Considering Hobart is a city of only 150,000 that is quite a feat. It is beautifully set between lawns on one side, the cafes and interesting shops of Salamanaca Place on the other and a backdrop of mountains. Erica and I arrived soon after 9am and wandered along, buying lots of excellent, local organic vegetables and breads.

The food stalls included a group of Asian growers with everything one could want for some Thai, Vietnamese or Chinese cooking. The breads were quite different from Adelaide artisan breads. In particular, the organic, sour dough rye loaf I bought has a deliciously soft and chewy crust instead of being as hard as Paolo's or The Rustica I often buy in the central market in Adelaide.

Most of the stalls are not selling food, but crafts, clothes and jewelry.

"Oh" I hear you say, "One of those tacky, glitzy, awful markets."

"No! Most definitely not!" I answer.

People here are obviously very talented in their crafts because I could have bought enough beautiful, interesting, reasonably priced things to fill a house... which I may well need to do soon! There are a lot of beautiful woods in Tasmania and people do such creative and interesting things with them. The market was very busy and I was not able to get many clear shots of the stalls but I will go earlier next Saturday and take more time wandering and photographing.

I did, however, find a new Tasmanian seed company, Southern Harvest, based right here, on 5 acres on the edge of Hobart.They offer seed for kitchen, cottage and native gardens. I talked to Claire who owns the business with her husband. They have plans to produce more and more seed themselves but still are relying on some seed from the mainland to supplement their own. I asked Claire if she knew of a local seedsavers group and she said lots of people ask her that but as yet there doesn't seem to be one, although there is mention of one on the Seedsavers Network site but no action has occurred since 2008.

Erica and I had a lovely time talking with Helen Cushing and her daughter Pippa at one of the many cafes that line Salamanca Place. Helen writes for Tasmanian Life and had just returned from a visit to rosarian and octagenerian Susan Irvine and has written about her fabulous garden and life dedicated to Alister Clark roses. Helen also told us of a new bookshop which sells only books by Tasmanian authors and I think this deserves a visit soon.

All too soon it was time to leave as Erica had to get back and pack for her family's trip to Sydney, while I stay at her house and look after things there. Erica did not see the gleam in my eye when she mentioned on the way home that the jasmine is overgrowing the scarlet runner beans and needs pruning back. You see, Jasmine and I do not get on. I am passionate about plants; I love to sow their seeds, watch them come to life and be a part of their lives but ..... I draw the line at Jasmine and its disgusting aroma which makes me cough and sneeze. Touching the leaves makes my skin itch and tingle and its invasive habit is so obnoxious I cannot understand why people grow it on purpose!

So, dressed for gardening, I stood at the gate waving goodbye to the family on Sunday, secateurs in my pocket at the ready! If I'd had my way, that Jasmine would have been cut off at the ground but I tried to be calm..... after all, this was not my garden! It tried to get the better of me by being securely attached to the beans but secateurs are a wonderful tool and those nasty strands were soon severed with glee. An hour later, after hacking and pulling and talking unkindly to it, I had it subdued..... and celebrated with a cup of coffee and a couple of the beans that had been overgrown by the jasmine.

The rest of Erica's vegetable garden has a beautiful view..... no wonder it all looks so happy!

VEGETABLE VAGABOND, REVISITED

2010-01-31T14:50:00.000+10:30

This post will stay at the top of this blog until 31/01/10 so please scroll down for new posts.

Dear readers and friends,

I am sitting here inside on this very hot summer's day in Adelaide, wishing I was somewhere else. I was thinking about my fabulous Voyage of the Vegetable Vagabond in 2008 and about my nearly 6 months in France in 2009 and I had an idea for 2010.... you know me, full of ideas and some of them are even good!

I would love to house-sit for people with vegetable gardens and pets or other animals like chickens and goats. It seems Australians are welcome almost anywhere for 3 months without a visa, so that's the length of time I would be available for, except in France where I have a longer visa which expires at the end of July, and in the UK, where I can live, and of course in Australia, which is my home. I speak some French and Japanese, a very little Italian.... and a smattering of English!

I'd just need to borrow a car, depending on where you live, and have wifi. That's about it. I want to finish writing my book..... I'd come and look after everything for you, as if it were my own. And I especially would be happy to work in your vegetable garden for you. I have joined MindMyHouse but I thought I could short cut the red tape by sending my plea out into blogland, where people more or less know me, and see what happens.

I am busy until mid-February, house-sitting for a friend in Tasmania.... then I am kind of free for a while (it is a long story which some of you kind of know about...). So, wherever you are in the world, if you have been thinking of going away but have no-one to care for your garden and animals and home, maybe this would be a good chance to make some plans. Ask your friends and email this post to people who might be interested....anywhere.

Please send an email to katevag at gmail.com

See you soon,

Kate

GIRAFFES' CLAWS AND OTHER SPICY THINGS

2010-01-31T07:24:00.000+10:30

Tim Flannery is an Australian scientist, explorer and writer. Even so, there doesn't seem to be a single website that does justice to the whole man. He was Chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Change Council and must have been very disappointed by its outcomes. I would like very much to read his account of it all.

As an author he fits more into every sentence than any other writer! That is why I am only reading the second page of his book "Throwim Way Leg" and already have discovered some extraordinary things about geography, history, culture and cloves..... yes cloves, the spice we all know so well. (In France we finally discovered the French name for it was clous de giroffles..... or giraffes' claws! When you think about it, I guess cloves could refer to cloven ie clawed, in English.... I wish we had thought of that when we were standing at the spice section of the supermarket in France!)

Anyway, back to the book..... It seems that this funny, prickly little fellow (the clove..... NOT Tim Flannery!) is the dried flower bud of a lilly pilly that only grows on islands just to the west of New Guinea. The ancient Romans flavoured their food with cloves which must have come from those remote islands.... amazing.

And did you know that they have kangaroos in New Guinea, only they live in trees! And that nine thousand years ago New Guineans living high in the mountain valleys had already developed intensive agriculture where they grew sugar cane.... amongst other things. Even today there are no roads connecting the country because it is so rugged and, because they have no pack animals, walking is often still the norm. One sixth (about 1,000) of the world's languages are from New Guinea because of the isolation of the peoples.

Tim Flannery's book "The Future Eaters" I would put up as one of the best books ever written on human civilisation and how it is eating itself into oblivion. This was written way before climate change and carbon credits and water issues were in the public mind and certainly started me thinking seriously about how I, as a human, fit into this planet. Then there was "The Weather Makers" which was a very early publication on climate change and what it means. He write so well, so clearly and fills the pages with such fascinating and inspiring images that you could never find them dry or boring. Neither does he speak down to you though, nor make silly, frivolous comments..... unlike me, I am afraid! His books are all listed and discussed here.

Now I am up to page 3....

Saving, Storing and Growing Heirloom Seeds

2010-01-28T16:03:00.001+10:30

Like everything else in life everyone has their own way of doing things.

People often ask me about saving seeds so when I found these videos I thought I would put them on the blog and see what comments we get.

Thanks to these folks who made these videos for us to enjoy.

THIS YEAR "EAT, THINK AND BE MERRY"

2010-01-28T15:39:00.001+10:30

Why you should avoid eating anything raised in a monoculture.... animal or vegetable

This link was sent to me by Jan Maes, KGI Board Member

Jamie Harvie, PE, is executive director of the Institute for a Sustainable Future, a Duluth, Minnesota,-based not-for-profit research and consulting organization. He is a nationally recognized mercury-reduction expert who provides consulting on toxics reduction both nationally and internationally. His clients included the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, City and County of San Francisco, and the Chinese Environmental Protection Agency.

......Animal feedlot operations may be considered industrialized protein production
facilities. They epitomize the extreme of our industrialized food system. These operations confine large quantities of livestock to a closed area where all food and water inputs are carefully controlled.

A wide variety of feed additives are provided, including growth hormones,antibiotics in feed and water, and arsenic. Arsenic, though banned in European livestock production, is used domestically as a growth promoter to compensate for poor growing conditions and for pigmentation.

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), approximately 70 percent of the 8.7 billion broiler chickens produced annually are fed arsenic (Wallinga 2006a). In a recent study, 55 percent of raw, supermarket chicken contained detectable arsenic, and nearly 75 percent of breasts, thighs, and livers from conventional producers carried detectable arsenic (Wallinga 2006a). Arsenic causes cancer and contributes to other diseases, including heart disease, diabetes, and decreased intellectual function. Even low exposures to this type of serious toxin are generally presumed to be risky (Wallinga, 2006b).

In many areas of the US, groundwater used for drinking water may be naturally high in arsenic. The application of arsenic-laden manure further contributes to this drinking-water concern (Christen 2006).

Since 1972, there has been a tripling of counties that have more that 55 percent of their plantings in corn and soybeans (Porter, Russelle, and Finley 2000). Corn and soybeans are two of the most overproduced crops. Twenty-five percent of all US farmland—80 million acres—now grows corn (Christensen 2002).

...Petroleum-derived nitrogen and other fertilizers must be added to soils. Poor nitrogen retention by corn and soy rotation results in contaminated surface waters that migrate to the Gulf of Mexico, where nitrogen creates massive annual algae blooms. These blooms metabolize all available oxygen, leaving a 20,000 square kilometer dead zone in the Gulf

Environmental exposures are widespread. For example, concentrations of atrazine, alachlor, and broadleaf pesticide 2,4-D in rainwater have been reported to exceed the safe drinking-water standards (Gilliom, Alley, and Gurtz 1995). A 1994 study estimated that 14.1 million Americans drank water contaminated with the pesticides atrazine, cyanazine, simazine, alachlor, and metolachlor (Wiles et al. 1994).

Extensive herbicide use in agricultural areas (accounting for about 70 percent of total national use of pesticides) has resulted in widespread contamination of herbicides in agricultural streams and shallow ground water. The chance of finding agricultural weed killers in house dust increases by 6 percent for every 10 acres of cropland found within a roughly 800-yard perimeter of a house (Raloff 2006). Farm-worker and community exposures are another concern. Use of agricultural chemicals known to cause cancer in California increased 127 percent from 1991 to 1998.

_______________________________________________________________________

All this doom and gloom though is part of an excellent article about why it is no good going on treating illnesses while their causes are ignored.

"REDEFINING HEALTHY FOOD:AN ECOLOGICAL HEALTH APPROACH TO FOOD PRODUCTION, DISTRIBUTION AND PROCUREMENT"

Jamie Harvie, PE

Paper presented by The Center for Health Design® and
Health Care Without Harm at a conference sponsored by
the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, September 2006.

Read more here....

If like me you are lucky enough to be able to go outside and pick vegetables, like these delicious beans, straight from your own garden, then thank goodness you can eat tonight without wondering if your food is related to this article!

ps Erica's dog LOVES beans and fruit straight off the plants.... he even climbs trees to pick apricots!

Australia day...what's it all about?

2010-01-26T14:57:00.001+10:30

Almost everywhere in the world has its traditional ways of celebrating national days. Certain clothes are worn, meaningful songs are sung, parades are held, dances danced and food eaten, just like their forefathers did way back, sometimes thousands of years ago. They hold their heads high, with heritage running in their veins. And so it goes on forever.

In Australia there is nothing more Australian than not really knowing what Australia Day is for! Is it to do with our white history...well, I don't think so but some people evidently do..... Is it about being multi-cultural or is it about doing Australian things, like having a BBQ and eating kangaroo or maybe lamb, since "Australia rides on the sheep's back" used to be on everyone's bumper bar! Is it about deep and meaningful stuff at all?? Should we sing "Walzing Mathilda" or something by Johnny Farham or The Cat Empire? Does anyone really care what it's about?

To me it should go back to being the long weekend nearest January 26th so everyone can go away for a long weekend of sun and sand and sea. THAT is what being Australian represents..... freedom to do what you like, space to do it in and a whole bunch of nice people to do it with. No rules, no fixed plans.... just a long weekend away before the end of the school holidays.

Get there fast and then take it slow!

You know you’re Australian when…

Your veg garden is covered in shade cloth most of the time.
You use kangaroo mince to make spaghetti bolognese.
You like tomato sauce on your stir fry.
You say "overseas" and not "abroad".
You know the difference between thongs and a G-string.
You know that “stubbies” are either short shorts or small beer bottles, a “geezer” is a random idiot, someone in trouble is in “strife” and you’re liable to burst out laughing whenever you hear of Americans “rooting” for something.
You know how to abbreviate every word, all of which usually end in -o: arvo, combo, garbo, kero, , metho, milko, muso, rego, servo, smoko, speedo, righto etc.
You know that some ppl pronounce Australia like “Strayla” and that’s ok.
You know that there is a universal place called “woop woop” located in the middle of nowhere… no matter where you actually are.
You know that while we call our friends ‘mates’, we don’t use terms like ’sheila’ and ’shrimp on the barbie’, contrary to popular belief.
You’ve seen Gallipoli, Crocodile Dundee, Young Einstein, Muriel’s Wedding, The Castle, Beneath Clouds, Strictly Ballroom, 40,000 Horsemen, and maybe even WolfCreek.
It makes you happy when someone in Hollywood is actually Australian… Mel Gibson, Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett, Baz Luhrman, Elle MacPherson, Olivia Newton-John, Midnight Oil, ACDC, INXS, Greg Norman, Cathy Freeman, Dawn Fraser, Pat Rafter, Ian Thorpe…
One word: Skippy.
You know that Sydney 2000 was one of our proudest moments in history.
You drive on the left-hand side of the road.
You always spend your holidays at the beach, always.
You know the first verse to the national anthem, but still don’t know what “girt” means. And you’re ok with that.
You say ‘no worries’ quite often, whether you realise it or not
You’ve drank your tea/coffee/milo through a Tim Tam
You firmly believe that in the end, everything will be ok and have offered advice that included the words, “she’ll be right, mate”.
You know how to slip, slop, slap like it’s nobody’s business.
You know you that roo meat tastes pretty good on the barbie.
You know Australia IS the best bloody place on earth.

What is happening in your garden this 2010 Australia Day?

2010-01-26T09:07:00.001+10:30

I thought it might be interesting to see what is happening in everyone's garden on this day the 26th of January 2010.

It is summer in Australia so we are picking some cucumbers, a few zucchini and lots of herbs and wild rocket.

Our tomatoes and passionfruit are not ripe yet.

We have some lovely chillies and a few finger eggplant but no capsicums yet.

What are you harvesting in Auss or wherever you live?

Jane from Kapunda Garden Blog said her garden looked like a Bedouin tent, this photo shows how we shade our Adelaide Plains veggie garden on really hot days.

Have a great holiday today.

Greetings from Michel and Jude – Byron Bay Seedsavers

2010-01-25T05:53:00.001+10:30

News from Michel and Jude, the people behind the 24 year old Seed Savers’ Network based in Byron Bay, Australia. We are now on a working sabbatical in Malaysia, after two months in Rajasthan, India, and some weeks on a speaking tour in Japan.

Love food gardens? See our perceptions of food plant diversity and food issues, as short pieces, pictures and film clips at www.seedsavers.net We continue to take footage for a third documentary, after the success of “Our Seeds”(have you seen the trailer on our website?). A second, “Our Roots”, was shot in Vanuatu for French CIRAD, is now in post-production and due out in March this year.

The Seed Savers Foundation is a registered charity that fosters fruit and vegetable seed exchanges in twenty countries. It manages eighty local seed networks around Australia - see Google map at www.seedsaver.net.

We would be tickled pink to receive emails from Seed Savers' friends, fans and supporters and be part of your dreams and realisations. This month you will receive news from wherever we travel, now in the equatorial forests of the Cameron Highlands Malaysia, the home of a cornucopia of fruits and, importantly, the Orang Asli, the original forest people. The highlands are the vegetable basket for Singapore and lowland Malaysia, even Japan.

All the best for 2010.

WONDERFUL, WILD TASMANIA

2010-01-21T17:38:00.001+10:30

I have sat here with my fingers hovering over the keys for several minutes, wondering where to start describing what I have seen and experienced in the first few days of my stay in Hobart, Tasmania...... This photo is of Erica and I on a walk around the lake at Mt. Field in the cold drizzle, the mist blowing in and out of the valley and down the mountain again, totally engrossed in the beauty of the mosses and lichens, the pencil pines and pandanus, and the Tasmanian mountain pepper leaf bushes in their natural habitat. Earlier we were in a deep, damp valley filled with thousands of tree ferns under a thin canopy of tall trees reaching to the sky. Platypus and trout live in the crystal clear streams while tiny wrens and other birds fill the air with song.

This is the paradise I had almost forgotten existed, where people become insignificant and humbled by the wonder of nature.... but you'd better check your feet for leeches when you take your shoes off! And the Kurrajongs greet you in the carpark!

While it is 40C in Adelaide, try and think of a good reason why you are not here too!

Another day we drove up the Huon Valley, stopping here and there to buy cherries and nectarines and apricots from roadside stalls. But life is not all fun here, as logging of old-growth forests is still going on and trucks laden with the trunks of massive trees thunder down the main street of Huonville.

We were intrigued by this sign, also in Huonville .... Follow path to the book shop.... so we did and found a magical little green garden room filled to overflowing with second hand books. It was a challenge to remove any book from a pile lest the whole lot cascade to the floor! Somehow all 4 of us came out laden and excited with what we had found. My favourite is called "A Wild Herb Soup... The life of a French countrywoman" written originally in French by Emilie Carles who lived in alpine south eastern France in the early 1900's. My version is in tiny English print.

I am so lucky to be staying with my very good friend Erica, her husband Brian and delightful daughters Kristy and Emma. Two more welcoming and friendly teenage girls you could not meet. Emma was not with us the day we found the bookshop, but below is a photo of her magnificent gingerbread house creation. The other girl in the doorway of the bookshop is Jean, a lovely friend of Kristy's.

Emma ...

This little weatherboard house on 1 acre, with a creek and fertile soil, could be my next home!

Beautiful location.... at Cygnet, south of Hobart.

Seeing the Tasmanian mountain pepper (Tasmannia lanceolata) growing in the wild was so exciting. It is one of my favourite native herbs and it takes a lot of care to grow it in Adelaide. In this wild, cold and windy environment its pungency fills the air as you brush past it.

See more photos here.

FROM PLAINS TO PLATE, 10 to 13 February 2010

2010-01-20T18:39:00.001+10:30

Program for the future of food in SA released

The program for the South Australian Food Convergence, From Plains to Plate: the Future of Food in South Australia is released today. To be held at Uni SA’s City West Campus from 10-13 February 2010, From Plains to Plate will bring together community, business and government to strengthen South Australia’s food systems in the face of intensifying environmental, social and economic challenges.

“With climate change, water scarcity and the possible peaking of world oil supplies, there are serious questions being asked about the environmental sustainability of our highly industrialised food and agriculture system,” said event coordinator Joel Catchlove.

“Questions about the sustainability of our food system are matched by questions of justice, fairness and health, as we see that more than a billion people worldwide now go hungry while in our own communities we see increasing incidence of diet-related illnesses,” said Mr. Catchlove.

“From Plains to Plate provides a crucial opportunity to explore these questions and to work together to build a just and sustainable food system,” Mr. Catchlove said.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hugh's tomatoes, mostly

2010-01-19T06:56:00.000+10:30

I guess there are a couple of good things about Hugh's garden being so incredibly windy and one of them is that no fungus could ever land here! Someone, probably me, needs to write down what does and does not like growing in windy places in our Mediterranean climate. Beans don't seem to like it at all and the poor zuccini plants are struggling to just stay put but the tomatoes are quite happy, having developed very strong trunks and limbs in order to survive their tall growth habits. Hugh is of the mind that says let them tough it out, don't pander to your plants.... and in his garden anything not able to thrive in the conditions is pulled up and thrown in the compost bin.

Well, it seems to be working because these tomatoes have each set full hands of fruit, up to 20 per length, as you can see at left, and there is also a bunch of more than 50, in various stages of ripeness, below.

The Tigerellas are doing really well too... in fact all except the roma are.... and guess where the roma is now! It has made way for more basil and capsicums! Hugh grows herbs densely between and even under the tomatoes and it is so nice to be able to go out and pick such a variety of fresh herbs for a meal. He prunes off all the lower leaves of the tomatoes to keep them away from the soil, to reduce any diseases. We are also daily picking and cooking the bigger leaves of the amaranth, adding them to soups, vegetable combo dishes and pasta.

The amaranth is now nearly head high. It is not too late to sow amaranth... please, if you are in the southern hemisphere, sow it now and enjoy eating the leaves right through late summer and autumn, and then you will be rewarded with long flowing tassels of brilliantly coloured flowers followed by seeds.

We put the amaranth in the middle of the salad garden so it would shade the soft thing, like lettuce and the new leaves of the rainbow chard, during the heat of the day and this works well as amaranth, like okra, loves the heat.

One of the sunflowers has found something to rest on when it is windy ... the end of the clothes line.

All this talk of food made me realise it was lunch time so I had a plate of left-over vegetables, plus a bit of this crocodile pate, made here in Adelaide from crocodiles farmed in the Northern Territory. It is more delicious than you can imagine and much lighter than pate made from livers.

Now I am off to the kitchen to make a banana cake with bananas from northern NSW.... but who can live without bananas? And if Hugh buys crocodile pate, it would an awful waste not to eat it!

Eat local.... mostly.

SCUPLIT..... WHAT'S THAT?

2010-01-18T06:10:00.000+10:30

The idea was to meet Hugh in the market at 10am..... so I waited and waited.... and to pass the time I started looking at things in and around Goodies and Grains, where we were to meet. I was getting hungry but I thought we were going to do our shopping and then have something to eat.... silly me! Eventually Hugh arrived...at 10.30.... after he had dined on a scrumptious breakfast at Zuma's. Never mind, I was pretty excited by then because I had found 2 packets of Franchi seeds to buy.... one was Lettuce-leaf Basil, which I had tasted once and thought was worth growing, and the other was Scuplit (Silene inflata), which I have never heard of. Today I am going to sow some..... skippity doo. So, thanks Hugh for the mix up!

Silene vulgaris

Cucubalus behen - L.
Silene cucubalus - Wibel.
Silene inflata - Sm.

Plants for a Future: Edible, medicinal and useful plants for a healthier world

Range:

Most of Europe, including Britain, to N. Africa and temperate Asia. Arable land, roadsides, grassy slopes etc, avoiding acid soils

Perennial growing to 0.6m.

Young shoots and leaves - raw or cooked. The young leaves are sweet and very agreeable in salads. The cooked young shoots, harvested when about 5cm long, have a flavour similar to green peas but with a slight bitterness. This bitterness can be reduced by blanching the shoots as they appear from the ground. When pureed it is said to rival the best spinach purees. The leaves can also be finely chopped and added to salads. The leaves should be used before the plant starts to flower. Some caution is advised, see the notes on toxicity on the linked page.

The plant is said to be emollient and is used in baths or as a fumigant. The juice of the plant is used in the treatment of ophthalmia

Silene vulgaris

This plant is popular in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region in northern Italy. It is cooked as spinach, eaten raw in salads or made into ravioli filling with ricotta and parmisan cheese. It tastes really good. In early spring you will see people looking for it on roadsides but it is also cultivated and sold in stores. It is known as scupitin or grisolon

Dr,. Emma Jack Fri Nov 11 2005

This link to Malta Wild Plants is fabulous but takes a while to load so be patient.

Nirvana Organic Farm Courses for 2010

2010-01-15T07:07:00.001+10:30

I see that Deb has posted the courses she will be running for this year.

Take a look and book in early as some fill really quickly.

Those of us that have done Deb’s courses, highly recommend them.

So if your are planning and writing in your diary for 2010 as I am , check out below what she is teaching.

NIRVANA ORGANIC FARM

National Winner of the Organic Federation of Australia Awards of Excellence as the leading Organic Educator.

COURSES 2010

IMPROVE YOUR SOILS WATERHOLDING CAPACITY USING BIODYNAMIC METHODS

Beyond Organics

Sunday, March 21^st & September 19th 8.30am – 4.30pm $110

COMPOSTING & MULCHING

Sunday, March 14^th & September 5th 9.00 -12.30 $45

Reduce water use by learning the principles of composting & mulching, techniques & materials used & how they can be used most effectively on your garden or farm.

VEGETABLES FOR YOUR TABLE.

Sunday, March 7^th & September 12th 9.00 -12.30 $45

INTRODUCTION TO MOON PLANTING AND USING THE PLANTING CALENDAR

Sunday, September 26^th 9.00 -12.30 $45

Working with the rhythms of nature can develop your skills in fine tuning your garden and can add a new dimension to your gardening experience.

ORGANIC FRUIT, NUTS & BERRIES

Sunday, October 10^th 9.00 -12.30 pm. $45

Practical guide to growing fruits, nuts & berries. Establishing, maintenance, ground covers, soils.

POULTRY KEEPING

Sunday October 17^th 9.00 – 12 30 $45

All you need to know about getting started with poultry. Includes breed selection, housing, feeding, breeding, pests.

WEAVING A BIT OF MAGIC

Sunday, October 24^th 9am 4pm $110

GUIDED FARM TOURS

Book your own tour.

An ideal opportunity to gain an insight into a successfully run biodynamic farm .This Garden Quality Farm demonstrates an integrated system incorporating orchards, poultry, native habitat & wetlands, home food production & hardy cottage gardens all rolled into a unique lifestyle.

Life in the slow lane.

Minimum charge $60 for up to 6 persons - extra’s @ $8/ head)

SCHOOLS; Secondary $6 Student with 1 adult/15 student’s Primary $5 Student with 1 adult/10 students

CLUBS & GROUPS; 15 + @ $7/ head

All courses are held at NIRVANA ORGANIC FARM

184 LONGWOOD ROAD HEATHFIELD

UBD 157:G7. Exit from SE Freeway at Stirling, turn right at roundabout & travel 3.5 km.

The courses are practical, ‘hands on’ conducted by experienced biodynamic/organic farmers, Deb & Quentin. Their successful small holding has been run under BIO-DYNAMIC principles since 1983.

The 4.5 ha property provides the ideal classroom filled with practical examples of how goals can be achieved & gives inspiration into this GARDEN QUALITY FARMING to both gardeners & farmers alike.

FOR BOOKINGS & FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT

DEBORAH CANTRILL OR QUENTIN JONES PHONE/ (08) 8339 2519 or email nirvanafarm@gmail.com

conditions apply
To enrol, send this with cheque/money order

payment to:

Nirvana Organic Farm

184 Longwood Road

Heathfield 5153

A NEW BLOGGER IN TASMANIA

2010-01-13T05:57:00.000+10:30

Often people ask me what is my favourite gardening book. This is a tricky question to answer because, as many readers of this blog would know, I am a little bit outside the square in my ideas and I wonder whether this person means a reference book, like Oriental Vegetables by Joy Larkom, something inspiring for the beginner like Backyard Self-sufficiency by Jackie French or something more meaty like Permaculture One by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren.

There is, however, a book that is all of these in one.... easy to read, inspiring, philosophical, Australian and full of wonderful ideas and information. It is Beyond Organics, by Helen Cushing. Luckily for us, Helen has just started a blog, called Gardening with Helen. Here is an excerpt from Nasturtiums are like Teenagers.......

If you have nasturtiums in your garden, you will know what I mean when I say they are a plant requiring a relationship with their gardener.

I am a great fan of the nasturtium, but let’s just say they regularly test the friendship. They are a sort of teenage plant – lots of life, energy and beauty, but unsure of their boundaries. Or perhaps more accurately, uninterested in their boundaries....

.....There is another patch by the veggie bed. As an organic gardener and nature conservationist I believe in having a ‘living mulch’, maximising the habitat, protecting the soil, growing biomass etc – I’m sure you know the reasons. But as with teenagers, so with living mulch/nasturtium. The relationship must be interactive to achieve best results. Neglect means loss of influence (otherwise known as control), blurred boundaries, the need for a firm hand at a later date. Recovering the veggie garden from the enthusiasm of nasturtiums is more an act of archaeology than gardening.

She explains in her introduction.....Hope someone likes whatever it is that evolves here – it will be a rambling garden of words, of that you can be sure! Let me know if you enjoy it, and if you have any gardening questions, try me.

Helen is new to the whole blog thing so go and say hello, and leave a comment, she is our new neighbour! I have put a link to her blog in the side bar, under Tasmania.

JAPAN

2010-01-13T04:28:00.002+10:30

I would very much like to meet Yasuko, whose blog I read often. It is simply a record of her daily food and tells a story of a way of eating so different to my own and takes me back to the 6 months I spent in Japan in 1979 when I lived entirely on Japanese food and came to love it.... at right is a photo of her New Year dishes and below is an excerpt of what she ate on 07/01/10
BREAKFAST --- rice gruel with seven wild grass | Miso soup - grated lotus root | rolled egg (grated radish) | yuba (wasabi) | natto | apple
LUNCH --- gohan | miso soup (pumpkin) | grilled salmon | tofu paste(spinach, lotus root, carrot and konjak) | strawberry and kiwi
BETWEEN-MEALS --- cake | coffee
DINNER --- one-pot dish (Potherb mustard, enoki, shiiake, shimeji, maitake, deep-fried tofu, yuba) | Sugar flavored kidney beans | sesame puding | various leavings | various pickles
pray for a perfect state of health.

From an article about a book called:
Cool Tools: Cooking Utensils from the Japanese Kitchen
by Kate Klippensteen
Photographs by Yasuo Konishi.
This oroshigani (grater) is used almost exclusively to grate wasabi, the pungent yet sweet "horseradish" that complements sushi and other dishes. It consists simply of a piece of shark skin nailed to a natural wood board.
Shark skin has been used in Japan for centuries, most notably in sword grips, and here its rough texture - similar to the coarsest sandpaper - makes for a finer grating surface than metal graters provide.
Many chefs believe that metal is too harsh for grating wasabi; others say the extra pressure needed to grate on sharkskin does a better job of releasing wasabi's volatile flavor.

Ohmicho seafood market, in Kanazawa, specialises in fish from the nearby Sea of Japan as well as local rivers. There are stalls of vegetables too and ..... in the summertime huge blocks of ice are set up in strategic locations and shoppers can cool off by rubbing their hands on them.
Read more : Tokyo Food Page

Tea is grown throughout Japan, but the areas that are most well known for their tea are Shizuoka, Kagoshima, and Uji, all of which have types of tea named after them. Many other locales also have their own distinctive local teas with their devoted enthusiasts.
From a book called:
New Tastes in Green Tea
by Mutsuko Tokunaga

I absolutely loved Japan and the Japanese people, who took me in and showed me such kindness in my travels. It was very unusual in those days for a foreigner to speak Japanese and many people I met had never even seen a non-Japanese person before, except on TV!! The beauty of and care taken with Japanese public and private gardens is immense and a part of the Japanese psyche and the Shinto religion, which worships nature, ancestors and the spirit. This respect and reverence for nature, whether in the wild or in the home garden, shone through every Japanese person I met. It gives enormous tranquility to life and drew me again and again to various shrines and gardens.
There is a beautiful series of photos at Tom Spencer's The Soul of the Garden and his Images of Japan

Adelaide today 43 degrees Celsius.

2010-01-10T07:42:00.001+10:30

I am up early to water the garden, we have dripper hoses everywhere and I water each bed for a short time.

I shall hand water the patches where we have sown seed.

It is so hot here we have our shade cloth tied up over the whole garden or we would have no garden.

We are eating fresh cucumbers, tomatoes, chillies, rocket, zucchinis, lemons, pepinos, silver beet, purslane, leeks, spring onions, basil and many herbs. We have lots of passion fruit and figs on our vines/trees and planted fenugreek and coriander under the passion fruit vine.

I see that most of the Northern Hemisphere has snow and ice everywhere, stay cool or warm wherever you live.

2010 International Year of Biodiversity

2010-01-10T07:27:00.000+10:30

Thank you to Patrick for this link.

UN Secretary General Welcome Message for the 2010 International Year of Biodiversity

We are so lucky here in Australia, in so many ways. In relation to biodiversity and things of natural wonder, much of our country is still in its pristine state and none more so than the Lake Eyre Basin of the inland , which covers 1/6 of Australia, an area about the size of France, Germany and Italy combined. The flood waters in eastern Australia last year have been making their way inland ever since, not out to sea, and have filled Lake Eyre for the first time in 50 years or more.Thousands of people go to see it; it is like a pilgrimage. It defines Australians. Watching this on TV even, makes me feel something I cannot describe....

The ABC screened a documentary on it and it is now on iView. It is worth watching on this hot, dry day in South Australia.

http://www.abc.net.au/iview/#/view/490862