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. :-)