Mushroom Smushroom

I have decided the mushroom kit was a waste of money :-( for the $20 it cost me compared to the amount of mushrooms it produced - it is hard to justify. Sure it was very satisfying to grow them and they tasted great, but there just wasn't enough of them!
We did everything according to the instructions and thought we had it in the right spot. The only thing that may have worked against us was it being kept in an old fridge? it was dark and humid and the first flourish were certainly huge and yummy, it just went pear shaped after that. Santa is bringing me a little garden shed for all my goodies, so I 'might' be tempted to try just one more time in a different atmosphere.

another pic

Looking towards the north - you can see the macadamia stumps and the one I attempted to dig out by hand in the foreground. What was I thinking! the excavator did it in seconds! We added cow manure, straw and lime as the back hoe / excavator worked the soil for us.

Making way for new beds

This is where the new beds have gone in. Must take another photo! now we have about 25 metres across the back yard as vege beds. It is divided into four separate beds with a metre path between each one for easy access. You can just make out the pink paint on the lawn where they went in. We left two macadamias at one end where the chook pen and compost heap is.

Nuts!

We started with 14 macadamias, but have since taken out five from the back row to make way for the new vege beds. The nut season is from September through to March. The trees had the most flowers I have ever seen this year, so it will be interesting to see if they produce more nuts. We certainly had more bees! mostly native but with domestic ones too.

Like peeling prawns, it is a a bit of work before you get to enjoy the fruits of your labour. You have to wait for the outer 'skin' to dry and peel back before you get to the nut shell and you need to wait a bit longer before the nut is loose in the shell and ready to crack. Once cracked though, the creamy white nut is worth the wait. We add them to biscuit mix (macadamia and white chocolate!) or to date loaf. Roasted they are just divine, but because of the high oil content you really have to watch them or they'll burn. I hope to share some recipes from the impending bumper crop later in the year.

Saved and Raised :-)

The learning curve continues! I have not only managed to save seeds, I have managed to get them to germinate and now have them in the seed raiser. I let a couple of cos lettuce go to seed, mainly because we had enough of the pick and come again lettuce to keep us going, and so the flowers would attract native and domestic bees to pollinate the other veges in the bed.
I really had no idea what to do, but as the flowers died, I picked them off and under the tiny fuzzy bits were the seeds, hundreds of them on each plant actually.
I stored them in a paper bag to dry out a little more, I even cut the not quite ready flower heads off and put them in the bag too.
I planted them out about a week ago, and today I have tiny little cos lettuce peeking through.

Pickled Radish

Radish are ridiculously easy to grow. We don't even really like radish! We seemed to have a never ending supply from the first planting, so I had to do something with them.
I found a recipe that is apparently quite good with a gin and tonic, I don't think I like gin and tonic either.......

I heated 250 mL each of malt and white wine vinegar in a sauce pan with 200g sugar and 1 tsp of sea salt. I also added 1 tsp of black peppercorns. Once the sugar has dissolved and liquid has boiled you add the radish and let them cool in the liquid before bottling.

They turned out pretty good and are strangely addictive. They go nice and pink in the middle and have good crunch to them like a pickled onion. I am going to tweak the recipe and add pickling spices, more salt, garlic cloves and fresh chillis next time. I might also try just white or brown vinegar.

It's Happening!!

I posted earlier that I had visions of wandering up the yard basket in hand, overflowing with home grown produce like I'd just been to a farmers market. Well it is happening!

I am so happy!!

Almost all meals have at least 2 or 3 veges picked that afternoon. We are enjoying broccoli, beans, snow peas, potatoes, carrots, bok choy, lettuce, radish and tomatoes. The first crop of zucchini will be ready by the end of the week.
I have a different variety of zucchini in the seed raiser along with yellow button squash, cucumber, iceberg lettuce, rockmelon and watermelon and sunflowers (for George!)
The corn is in the ground as are the next crop of radish and carrot. I am going to try my hand at late season potatoes, I need to get a wriggle on with that! The mushroom kit is supplying nice big mushies and the olive tree is flowering :-) Some of the bigger garlic will be ready in Sept / Oct... so very interested to see how it went.

Bok Choy and Tale of Princess #2

Well those bok choy are a little ripper!!
Long story on the gift of the bok choy seedlings, so settle down with a suitable beverage and bare with me :-)
Once upon a time the three princesses were going to Uncle Dickies farm for a week in the school holidays. Miss Princess #1 decided all her gowns were too precious and we needed to go to the Lifeline Market for suitable country attire. On arriving at the abovementioned market Princess #1 proceeded to shop with gay abandon. Princess #2 was disinterested at best. Princess #3 really didn't understand what it was all about, but selected some estate suitable outfits none the less.
At the time to hand over the gold coins (most of which was for Princess #1's purchases) Princess #2 produces several items for a newborn baby boy. ummmmmmmm hello??
They were for our neighbours newborn son Bobby D. (real name Robert David) but we have christened him Bobby D. She moves in mysterious ways our Princess #2 - bless her cotton socks.
In return for the clothes for Bobby D, his dad gave us 12 bok choy seedlings (is that like jack and beanstalk? - oh whole other fairy tale - sorry - back on track) - honestly guys we didn't want anything!! So I hope you enjoyed the tale, and can I tell you those bok choy grow quick and fast!

Today we picked the two biggest to have with dinner. I am trying to menu plan around the supply - but omg how much bok choy can a princess bare! I coated pork cutlets with 1/3 cup oyster sauce and olive oil and after they were cooked, I added the bok choy and 1/3 cup of soy sauce and 2 tbsp of honey to the pan. Add sweet chilli sauce to the plated finish to your taste :-)

Discoveries!!

Two discoveries over the weekend .....
Two of my potatoe bushes died -just up and died! The rest in that patch are still merrily growing away. I pulled them up and only found a few marble size potatoes. Bugger - how disappointing!
According to crop rotation, corn can go in where the potatoes were, so I started to prepare the soil for the impending corn planting (kernals are in the seed raiser as we speak!) and lo and behold there is my potato crop! I didn't look hard enough or dig deep enough, I ignorantly assumed there were none. The plants obviously thought their job was done, they are supposed to die down when it's time to harvest.

Second discovery was that two of my broccoli are actually cabbages! Must have put cabbage seeds in at the same time. They are a savoy variety, a nice deep green with crinkly leaves.
The broccoli all have nice little baby heads of broccoli in the centre, so fingers crossed the cabbage moth stay away, so far we are grub free! I did read to deter cabbage moths to put egg shells (white side up) in the garden beds and they will think there is already a moth population and they will move on.
Two valuable lessons learnt in the past couple of days - always look a bit harder for potatoes and lable your seed pots properly!!

Bounty

Well maybe not a 'bounty' exactly, but one I'm pretty happy with :-) There were also a couple of strawberries, but they didn't make it back up the yard... oops ;-)

Some of the carrots were a bit small to pull right now, but it is a good indication that the variety I have chosen (nantes) is going to grow well in this soil.

I was frustrated at only being able to pick a couple of tomatoes, or a handfull of lettuce leaves every now and then. I had visions of over flowing baskets of fresh veges like I'd just walked through a farmers market.... well it's getting there!

If nothing else, I am learning patience.

We've had three days of unseasonably hot weather for July, tops of 25 - 27! The beans are all covered in tiny baby beans and the snow peas are flowering. The bok choy and spinach can both start to be used this week, so I will be planning some dinners during the week to incorporate them. The strawberries have lots of flowers and tiny strawberries growing. There are a couple of mushrooms ready to add to the omlettes in the morning. I guess it really is quite a bountiful time on the Nugent plot at the moment :-)

Garlic Update

The garlic bulbs I'd planted in the styrofoam box looked to be struggling. Compared to the ones I put in the garden, the leaves were not as green and they didn't seem to be growing anymore.

I transplanted them to the end of the new garden bed. You should have seen the root system actually growing into the styrofoam!! Three of them didn't survive the move, so I pulled them up today. They are so cute! about the size of cocktail onion and a nice white and purple colour.

Apparently it's not too late to plant bulbs, you can trick them into thinking they have been through winter by putting them in the fridge for a week. They should be ready for summer.

Dilemma ....

Been thinking .....

So how does self sufficient work in the southern climate? I am spoilt with the sub tropical climate here in SE Qld and there is little we cannot grow. The book I have been gathering inspiration from is Nthn NSW based. Pretty much everything will grow quickly. I am frustrated by the slow growing of our winter plantings, so it got me thinking about the southern areas of NSW and Vic and how your vege patches fare, and how you cope with the slower growing season. Probably quite naive of me, having never grown in those areas. Is there a whole range of veges to concentrate on for cold climates? The food miles travelled is a big factor in my purchasing and if it's not sourced locally we can go without.
I did read in one of many gardening magazines how a Melbourne gardener pushes her wheelbarrow of herbs and veges around the garden to get as much sunlight as possible. I admire her dedication, but I am sure she reaps the benefits.

Input please!!

Seeds vs Seedlings

I have been growing pretty much everything from seed, even the tomatoes that came up for free were seeds from the scrap bucket. While it is quicker to buy seedlings and you are pretty much guarenteed the success, because lets face it, they are already 'up', I love the satisfaction of growing something from scratch.
We make paper pots out of newspaper and fill them with seed raising mix and propogate them in a seed raiser. Much slower this time of year, time but still with a 95% success rate. I will do a post soon (and hopefully a little video on making paper pots)

I've been reading a book that touched on what the big companies are doing to seeds, so that the plant you grow will not go to seed. Also companies like Monsanto are genically modifying seeds so that they are not viable after the first planting. It goes against everything that is sustainable. Seed saving is as old as agriculture.
We have been saving the seeds from capsicums, pumpkins, tomatoes and rockmelon so far. I am sure we have enough to feed a small town already when you consider each seed will in turn produce another crop bearing plant. My neighbour planted the corn from the bird seed that was always left - must check on his success.

I have been buying organic seeds from a company based in Maleny call Green Harvest. www.greenharvest.com.au I hope I can collect seeds from everything I am growing now, ready for the next crop. It will be a learning curve, I've hardly ever grown carrots let alone letting one go to seed and collecting them!

Free Tomatoes

We call these the 'free tomatoes' because they all came up where the chook tractor had been. At any given time we have about 24 plants at once. There are roma, grosse lisse, truss and most recently it looks like I have some cherry tomatoes come up. These tomatoes taste and smell like real tomatoes, if that makes sense. They remind me of the tomatoes when I was a kid.

After the sabotage of tomato seedlings in Bowen last week, everyone needs to buy a punnet and get them in now. You are only a week or two behind the ones they were growing in Bowen, so you can avoid paying an arm and a leg in the coming weeks. They are one of the easiest things to grow. Pinch out any little side shoots and concentrate on a nice healthy centre stem and stake it to keep it growing up (not out and all over the place) Go on - I dare you!!

New Additions :-)

I went to the homegarden expo at Nambour on Friday! OMG what a fantastic set up. It was the first time I had ever been and I was overwhelmed by the size and range of things to see and buy.
I ended up with a dwarf olive tree, granny smith apple, red cabbage and cauliflower seedlings, yellow passionfruit vine and a mushroom kit. I dreamed of a native bee hive, but at $360 I will be content with the ones that visit me for free.

I enjoyed four different talks and demonstrations and loved being with like minded people. As Jerry Coleby-Williams said he was preaching to the converted, so his talk was very informative and educational for gardeners with established plots.

All of the above mentioned plants went in the garden this morning along with chokos and more carrots. Recent additons last week were pineapple, zucchini, celery and bok choy.

No Waste

I was pretty annoyed to find the wind had barrelled down the side of the yard and snapped off one very healthy tomato plant laden with fruit :-(

To add to the disappointment the random roma tomato plant that started in the chook pen had run rampant and every fruit it grew had blossom end rot. Not to be defeted I picked all the green tomatoes and dumped the plants in the compost heap. It was time to make pickles!!

Green tomatoes, capsicum, chokos, onion and cucumber are the base for my version (actually my Mum's recipe). I cut the bad ends off the romas and added the capsicum that fell victim to the same wind. I ended up with 8 jars and even entered one in the local show on the weekend and got a second prize for my efforts.

A google search for 'sweet mustard pickles' should give you a huge variety of recipes to choose from and one to suit your ingredients. I was talking to the woman who got first prize and her pickles was based on cauliflower and beans.

Garlic Anyone??

My sister gave me a garlic growing kit for Christmas. Very similar to the mushroom growing kits that were so popular a few years back. It was basically a styrofoam box with a bag of dirt and a garlic bulb.

I popped it away in the shed and 'almost' forgot about it! don't tell my sister! Autumn as it turns out is the right time to find things in the shed and also plant garlic ;-) phew!

I read a few articles in gardening magazines and was ready to tackle the garlic venture. Into the dirt they went. I was really suprised at how quickly they shot. Growing advice seems only to be to keep them moist, not wet, and to mulch with a layer of straw. The other thing they kept mentioning was not to use the bought/imported garlic bulbs as they had been fumigated and bleached and were not viable!!?? WHAT! if I'd realised that I would not have been buying them for the past 15 years. Well me being one to never say never, I threw a bulb and a half of the non viable stuff from the crisper on top of the straw in the styrofoam. Within a week both the root and top had sprouted :-) I have poked them all in around the edges of the two little square beds and I am pleased to report they have ALL started to grow. Come September / October I should have a big fat bulb on the bottom of every one. I am thinking those imported bulbs will have become Aussie ones by then!

If you want to have a go it's not too late. Poke them in tomorrow!

Strawberry Express

I must admit that strawberries were not high on my list of things I wanted to grow. In the past I have paid ridiculous prices for a couple of strawberry plants that didn't produce much at all. One of my neighbour garden enthuiasts (more about them in another post) gave me a handful of scraggly strawberry runners. I didn't think much of them, just poked them in the end of a garden bed and pretty much ignored the poor things.

There was great excitement about two weeks ago when they started flowering. In my total lack of interest in them, they had flourished, doubled in size and sprouted big fat dark green leaves. Even better as each of the flowers dropped off, there was a tiny little strawberry in the making. This week has been a rewarding time at the strawberry end of the bed, not enough to 'make' anything as such, but most definately a sweet treat to share with which ever daughter is doing the 'boundary ride' with me that afternoon :-)

The Leek Experiment

I have often recycled shallots, when you cut the roots off and plant it in the garden a new shallot has grown in no time. I bought a leek the other day and it got me wondering if you could do the same thing as they look very similar. I put the leek in a little pot of water for a couple of days and the centre started to rise, so into the garden it went. Will wait and see what happens from here.

Speaking of leeks, I planted a heap of seeds into the seed raiser about a month or so back. Not one germinated, so I threw the whole lot into the vege garden in disgust. (maybe that should read I was too impatient and gave up on them too soon). Well it looks like they have all decided to germinate now to spite me! They are all over the place, not a bit of order about them. Instead of nice neat rows - it's more a patch of leek.

Looks like they are slow growing like onions, so I better open a can of patience and sit back for a while. :-)

Patch to Plate

I found two lovely big sweet potatoes in the garden this morning :-)

I decided to make my version of Thai Pumpkin and Sweet Potato Soup.

None of my measurements a particularly accurate - it's more a of a 'to taste' kind of recipe.

Equal amounts of sweet potato and pumpkin.

1 onion

enough beef stock to cover the above

chilli flakes (to taste)

grated fresh ginger (to taste)

coriander

can of coconut flavoured light carnation milk

* Put them all in a big saucepan and let it simmer away until the pumpkin and sweet potato is soft.

* Blend it in a food processor or with a hand held stick blender.

* I add the carnation milk at the end while it is still hot.

It's nice with a dollop of sour cream or natural yoghurt and crusty bread of course!

Composting 101

I love my compost! seriously!

It is free to make and such a boost to the garden beds. We use mainly the grass clippings from the lawn, fallen leaves, spent vege plants and shredded newspaper. Our kitchen scraps go to the chooks. Because they are in a mobile pen, every time it gets moved I rake the area into the compost heap (conveniently all located on the same stretch of yard)

This is the first really successful compost heap I have had (or maybe just the one I have had the most interest in). It is hard to believe that all that left over stuff breaks down to the rich crumbly soil I am pulling out from the bottom. Oh - and it's a good work out turning it every week or so!

I had every intention of taking a photo, but time got away this afternoon. I will try and add it tomorrow.

Back with a different twist

I have been having so much fun in the garden, I decided to re-hash my blog and turn it into one with a gardening twist. Vege gardening to be exact, and if all goes to plan I should be able to add some recipes as well.

We are on half an acre, but the whole lot is not vege garden (although the way I am going it could happen!) I have managed to get quite a variety growing... ready?

Strawberries, beans, tomatoes, cucumber, lettuce, button squash, snow peas, shallots, garlic, capsicum, tomatoes, pumpkin, sweet potato, 3 x potatoes, broccoli, cabbage, tomatoes, carrots, spinach, rocket, beetroot, brown onions, purple onions, chives, rosemary, thyme, parsley, basil, did I mention tomatoes?? oh the chooks give us four fat brown eggs every day.

While all of this is growing at the same time, a lot are still seedlings, we have been enjoying continuous beans and tomatoes, and of course the eggs. Also the sweet potato gives a nice suprise every few weeks and there is still pumpkins from the old vine (now composted).

I don't know that I will post every day but I will surely try. I hope someone will enjoy this journey with me :-)