Protecting and tinkering

thinned swedes, approx 4 in between plants

Argh the weather lately has been very ordinary, cold and drizzling rain. But there are still little jobs to be done (plus I can't help myself). Pulling weeds and thinning some seedlings. The swedes are growing very nicely, but also getting quite crowded.

Also the ol' snow peas are growing again since we put a up a bit of a fence to protect them (wire ring from some trees that I planted) – as suspected, must of been Peter Rabbit visiting.

climbing snow peas off to slow start - a few weeks ago

now with 'fence' in place they are
protected and thriving

So its basically maintenance time stuff is growing but damn slow. Flower seeds planted (good germinating weather) – which will provide great spring colour!

protected pumpkins

Talking about critters eating things, the possums cost us some pumpkins -you wake up in the morning and a few pumpkins were half gone! So we used the wire rings as mentioned above, problem cured! So in the end we got some good pumpkins. Just as well, other wise the possums were going to be a whole lot edible as well!

Until next time get out there and check out ya patch and just tinker around a bit..

Kids in the Garden

I really love having the kids around whilst gardening; they see you doing stuff like preparing the soil, planting out seedlings, and the coolest bit – picking food!

Sometimes it’s too easy to say “don’t walk on that”, “be careful you nearly stood on that plant” etc, but take a moment to put yourself in their world, you’re doing something very interesting and cool and they want in! So let them in; get them amongst the chickens, let them collect the eggs (cos it’s like a gift to them from the chickens), really who cares if they break one or two in the process.

Let them plant their own seeds and remind them to check for when they’ve sprouted or not (they might forget about it 24 hours later) and let them have their own bit of garden..

Our boys love to eat whatever they can in the garden, sometimes it’s a free-for-all on say, beans, or Raspberries(these are like a currency!)

Any small interest they show in the garden really should be encouraged and should be more of it.

Until next time.....let a kid loose in the garden!

Free Seed!

Now the Basil has dried out pretty well - time to get serious and score some seed! As well as free up some space in the garden for some other goodies.

You know the time is right when there are a good number of the dead seed heads on the bush.

Now this is the tried and tested way that I collect it, feel free to give feedback on improvements.

All I do is get a bucket (put some gloves on if you like) place your hand below the seed head and draw it up to rake the seeds off the stalk.

Then throw this handful of seed pods and stick and stuff into the bucket. Actually, this process can be applied to most plants.

Then shake the bucket around good, a bit up and down as well, roughly take out the lighter bits resting on top like leaf and stick. Do this a few more times, occasionally rubbing between palms.

Then start tipping from one bucket to the other and crouching down, blow a breath of air through the stream of seed as it falls to the bottom bucket (it is best doing this when there is a slight breeze blowing). Do this a bunch of times - the more you do it the cleaner batch of seed you will have.

When you do this think “Africans sorting out their wheat crop” you will feel the brother hood J Well it makes me feel good!

Trust me you will feel the wealth after doing this when you see all the seed you have. Now make sure you plant some straight into your garden, or give some to your neighbour!

There would have been heaps of seed fall into the garden throughout the process anyway.. Happy seed collecting!

Weed 'n Feed

The days are very nice at the moment, but a bit cool, so the growing has slowed a fair bit. When it’s like this I just try not to take my eye off the ball.

All seems to be going well, albeit slow, so I normally mix up some liquid seaweed fertilizer (liquid fish fertilizer) in water and sprinkle everything with the watering can. That way things are still getting pushed along gently and organically.

Turn your back for a minute & the weeds pop up outa nowhere!

Also since we have had a bunch of rain and wild weather there has been allot of weeds come up behind my back - so I just scratch these out so there’s no competition for everything. The beetroot, beans, broccoli, swede are all going very well. Something has given my snow peas a flogging not sure what but the tops been eaten off them as if a bird or other animal. I will get to the bottom of it!

Tips missing off climbing beans.... thinking Peter Rabbit has visited

Flowers emerging on the string beans,
baby beans not far away

Swedes, parsnip and brown onion -
should be ready for spring

In the next few days I will blog about collecting seeds from basil this is a good cheap seed replant – and I love it. Just waiting for them to dry out a bit more on the bush.

Happy farming!

Simple Yellow Chicken Curry

Actually I think that title should read - Real Fresh Yellow Chicken Curry.
Tonights dinner was so tasty in fact, we all had seconds and there are no leftovers!

The recipe comes from 'The Urban Chef' by Mark Jensen. The few pages I've read have been great - based on the philosophy of cooking and eating for a sustainable future.

The best part about this was having all the fresh ingredients on hand, straight from the garden. Lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, shallots, thai basil, garlic and ginger. Apart from the later two, all grown in our backyard! However, the garlic and ginger are from people we know, farm direct, so I reckon that counts!

As with most curry recipes, I'm always a bit cautious on how the 'heat' will go with kids so I left a few chicken drumsticks out and bbq'd them for the kids to have with their broccoli and rice.

After having meals like this, enriched with flavours that blow your mind, it really reinforces why I love to cook with fresh home-grown ingredients.

No pre-made sauce in a bag needed here thanks! J.

PS. Just sing out if you would like the full recipe instructions!

Regular Ol' Compost

My best compost method and advice after doing it for a good bunch of years is don’t get technical!

I was so inspired after wwoofing in the states over a decade ago, before we had even arrived back on Aussie soil, I had my mum start one for me! Yeap, even back then I was passionate about this stuff.

Apart from the fact throwing stuff to landfill is bad (Landfill=Enemy), compost is a cheap fertilizer and good for everything and everyone!

The best food for your compost is kitchen waste, vege peelings, apple cores, banana peels,egg shells, tea bags even pencil shavings - don’t let any of it go, it is currency! Seriously your garden will thank you for it.

a colourful array of compost currency

So we like most other people keep this waste in a separate container so that it can be carried to the compost pile. But it doesn't just end at fruit and vegetable waste, add your house-hold paper waste too -  just common sense stuff (worms and bacteria don’t break down plastic, so tear out the windows of envelopes first). Even throw in your personal documents - you know the stuff that you would normally shred or burn - tear it up and throw into the bucket as well. Having chickens of course means the scraps are often shared - plus they get the non-organic stuff like bread and dairy waste.


Every couple of days when the bucket is overflowing, one of us will venture to the heap and peel back the cover (at the moment it is old bit of carpet). Old hessian bags are also good and they all breakdown after a while. It doesn't have to be covered, but the worms in the pile don’t like the heat or sun. I give it a quick turn over with my pitch fork, then throw the scraps on top, cover back up and job done.

After a few months I change piles, to the other side a fresh one. Then the old pile breaks down more, some seeds will germinate in the pile after each turning, this is good otherwise your garden will be full of germinating everything’s (can be good). Compost will look like soil very soon, about a month of this then throw into garden as a freshen up for the soil – this is the golden moment!