Pickle Me Cucumber!

The garden has just been going bizzurk with the consistent rain and heat! Cueys (as we refer to them as) have been one of our success stories and most visitors are sent home with a few.

So when we stumbled upon a pickling recipe out of a book the other day it seemed perfect timing to give this preserving thing a go.

The recipe calls for a kilo of cucumbers (approximately 8 medium sized), 500mls of white wine vinegar, 3 bulbs of garlic, some pickling spices, sugar and an onion.

You leave the salted, sliced cucumber and onion for a couple of hours before rinsing and draining then popping into the sterilised jars. Our jars were 500ml - enough to fill two. They recommend eating within one month of bottling - hopefully that won't be too hard if they turn out!

With an Easter-break camping trip just around the corner one jar will be coming with us - can't wait to slap one or three on a burger!

Bugs Everywhere!

And they have knocked over about 1 meter of my carrot crop – I’m out for revenge.

Now that its rained and actually won’t stop the bugs are out and yep…they’re hungry! A few types of caterpillar getting about the garden so I whipped into action, firstly prepared some garlic spray – this acts as a deterrent more than anything but will knock over some grubs.. As I’ve bantered on about before, please don’t spray your veges with artificial chemicals these kills things and even humans eventually.

Garlic spray:
· About 1 bulb of garlic
· 100ml vegetable oil
· Soak overnight

Into the blender add above mixture plus:
· Squirt of liquid pure soap
· Litre of water

Strain, then spray onto bug infested plants

** Warning keep away from children!

Then I whipped up some chilli spray to get the actual grubs.

Chilli fire spray:
· Handful of fresh red chillies

· 1 litre of water

Now blend really good
· Couple squirts pure soap

Blend again just quickly

Strain then spray onto bugs!

** Warning keep away from children! Chilli spray very dangerous on eyes and sensitive skin (and caterpillars hahaha)


You can actually mix the two sprays together as an all in one I suppose, please yourself, and if you’re not sure spray a little on one plant as a test first to check that no adverse reaction or burning occurs.

This is garlicky smelly stuff, but the smell dissipates quickly once it's been sprayed around. These mixtures need to be re-sprayed frequently, such as after rain or heavy dew.

It's best to spray every few days until there's no sign of pests, then about every week to 10 days for any eggs or larvae that may have hatched out.

Roses 'n' Rain

We have suffered a few weeks of drizzling late-summer rain and getting into the garden to weed and prune has almost been impossible without gum boots, a rain jacket and a row boat! Okay, well perhaps not the later, but you get the idea!

Any attempts at pruning the roses today quickly dissipated when yet another dark cloud dropped its load overhead.

So instead of snipping, I pulled out the camera and did some snapping...

Back in late January when we scored that 21 inches in almost 21 hours everything, roses included, was fertilised with blood and bone. 5 weeks on, the results speak volumes.

Planting in the Rain

Laying out the packets, deciding what to plant.

Planting in the rain is as much fun as a kid playing under the overflowing tank – well nearly!


Yeah…it’s raining again and one month has passed since my last feverish planting effort - that crop is powering, almost waist high corn…yippee!


So yesterday I planted more corn, beans and a couple of different types of lettuce. I should plant some more carrots while the rain is here too.


Remember best time to plant small seeds is during a wet period as they need to stay moist, planting now can sometimes cut germination time in half.

Also now is kind of last chance in these parts (SE QLD) to plant potatoes, next time I get to town I’m going to get some seed spuds to plant, can’t wait.

So, c’mon get planting - don’t wait another day!

Wet, lush, green and powering - I love the rain!

Dagun Growers Market

We took the family for a drive this afternoon and checked out the Dagun Growers Market. It's only about fifteen minutes away and only held once a week at the train station. The town itself basically consists of a small local school, saw-mill, a dozen houses or so and the train station. The regular tourist train isn't running out this way anymore, so the growers market is a relatively new initiative to bring the community back together and showcase their 'home-grown' goodies. We even spotted a few unique salad greens amongst the mix which has motived us to diversify with our garden like 'endive' and 'mizuka'.

Everyone was friendly and the kids had a play on the dis-used railway tracks. We picked up some potatoes, cucumber, honey, a pineapple and pumpkin bread! The prices were really good - but the food mileage is awesome - all the stuff for sale had been grown within a really close radius of the town!
Not having any expectations, all in all, the experience was pretty good - but in reflection, it would of been great to have some fruit trees for sale (I know there is a grower only 10 min away) and dairy produce (semi-big company only 5 min away who does a whole plethora of goodies).

Some would argue the point of buying everything local - but we don't live in a commune and sometimes it is not entirely possible! We don't get too hung up on buying and eating local, but perhaps having one meal a week with local or homegrown stuff is a start. For instance tonight we had toasted pumpkin bread, topped with local bacon (Langshaw Pork), rocket and beet leaves from our garden, drizzled with local olive oil (Fat Hen Farm)! Dessert will be mango sorbet that I made a few weeks back using local mangoes!

A Spiritual Moment

Some may remember that little over two weeks ago the very first seeds where planted in our new garden. I'm wondering how many others planted back then, and if so are about to enjoy the spiritual moment we had last night…

Yes, our first harvest - albeit some small leafy greens… It was still just a moment of pure bliss to have some mouth watering tender new leaves that we grew from a tiny spec of insignificant nothingness - amazing!

Now this might not top the charts of 'first' moments in life, but it's up there! Having such a long break of growing with extreme heat and lack of rain in December, to now be rewarded.

For those who don't 'grow' I would like to quote Stephanie Alexander (Author, 'My Kitchen Garden') which sums up our thoughts pretty much about how we feel…

"Developing your own product kitchen garden is very satisfying, and nothing tastes as special as home-grown produce. You and your family can be confident that the food you are eating is not only fresh and seasonal, it is also free of any harmful chemicals, it has not been transported long distances…"

So get out there, no matter what scale and plant a seed or two!

Giving the Seedlings a Boost

Yes allot of the seeds planted a week and a half ago are well and truly up, especially the corn, beans, zucchini and cucumber. So now is the time to push these suckers out of the ground and upward!

Our rows of corn - less than 2 weeks ago just a seed...

A mild fertiliser will help them along! I reckon the best stuff to use is seaweed/fish fertiliser or good ol' thrive (not organic). If you use thrive use it at half rate to avoid risk of burning. You need to apply these weekly for the next month. Also as the beans and corn get up they only need a good fertiliser once you may have done this as a “pre=planting fertiliser” or you can do when the plant has a couple of sets of “true leaves” then apply a side dress of blood and bone or similar all round gear. Phosphorus or Potash is good too depending on the crop. Will talk fertilisers more soon as I will do my crops within a week using blood and bone.

In the meantime don’t drop the ball, push them plants out of the ground and look out for grubs on the attack!

Salad Greens