WINTER HARVESTS, FALAFELS AND FOODIE FASHIONISTA'S

IN THE
WINTER
GARDEN

Finally, last night we had our first decent drop of rain after what seems like months. We took the girls out for a puddle hunt and didn't return until they were sufficiently soaked with muddy water. The water tanks are full again and the vegetable garden is soaking up as much as it can hold. We are 21 days into our challenge to see how much food we can grow on our suburban block in one year, and so far, we have harvested a modest 45kg of fresh fruit, veg and eggs from our garden. We have set ourselves the goal of trying to reach 1 tonne of food production before the year is out, and although it seems ambitious for a suburban block, we're quietly confident that we can at least get close.

You may be wondering what there is to harvest during winter in the mountains, but we have a bounty of lemons, oranges and grapefruit, tamarillos, and plenty of greens. Shallots, bok choi, nasturtiums, kale, and even dandelion greens have been harvested daily. After reading a great little book on edible weeds, "The Weed forager's Handbook", we have been looking at some of our weeds rather differently. Instead of pulling them out, we have been enjoying them in salads, which makes a lot more sense.

R with a double decker tamarillo!

Kale Chips? Anyone? Anyone???

Kale has been enjoying celebrity status in the vegetable isle around the world, it seems, for the past year or so, and all the most chic of herbivores have been desperate to be seen with a bunch of these designer label leafs, preferably wrapped in some rustic brown paper, being peddled in the front basket of a retro bicycle. Scientists have found that Kale keeps you looking healthy, and very, very vogue!

Not  to be left behind in the food fashion world, we decided to grow some this season, so that we too could bask in the Kale haute - couture, of this oh so "in" veg. Yesterday we made kale chips, and were very impressed with ourselves. The feeling of being cutting-edge-cool was almost palpable, until we tried to share them with the kids, who each screwed up their faces and collectively gagged at the taste....philistines!

Crispy Kale chips

Kale chips are actually worth a go. Of course, only a more seasoned pallet will appreciate them. Simply dry off the leaves using a towel after washing them, then toss them with a tiny amount of olive oil. Tear up the leaves into rustic looking bite sized bits, and pop them in a low oven at 130 degrees c for about 15 minutes until they have gone delightfully crispy.

We sat and ate our high society,all organic, home grown kale chips as we casually flicked through the paper, knowing that, even though no-one could see us, the world  somehow just knew, we were bourgeois foodie gods... and then, I saw it, an article in the paper on how seaweed is the new super fashionable green to be eaten... suddenly I felt like a K-Mart end of season sale bin!


From Failure to Falafel
Last year, we got all excited about the idea of making flour from our broad beans. We had giddy notions of making our own broad bean bread, and being oh so sustainable... but broad bean flour just doesn't work...at least, not for bread-making. Our one and only attempt at broad bean bread went from dismal failure to happy accident, when we accidentally made... the worlds best broad bean falafel mix!

                                    How to make a boastfully good broad bean Falafel

1. Grow and dry your own broad beans with pride
2. grind your dried beans in a food processor (we used a coffee grinder)
3. add water, some garlic, a chilli, and herbs of your choice to taste
4. roll the delicious mix into bite sized balls and shallow fry in a pan with olive oil.
5. serve with sweet chilli and homemade yoghurt!



The New Veggie Patch

Take a peek at our new patch. With the addition of another 14 square metres, we have loads more growing space for the challenge, and we are very much looking forward to testing it out this summer. Our perennials and fruit trees are grouped together, south of the vegetable patch, where, hopefully, apples, pears, bananas, tamarillos, strawberry and pineapple guava's, sweet potatoes, strawberries, cape-gooseberries, chillies and yacon will all happily grow in harmony.

 

We have also updated our in-ground worm-farms. We found that our first ones were too small, so we've added 5 x 20 litre buckets, cutting off the bottoms and drilling with holes. they are working wonderfully under our fruit trees, and the worm population in our patch is getting  a real wriggle on!

Our garlic has also been growing well, so far, despite a few aphids, and if all goes according to our garlicky plans, we should have mountains of garlic to store for the coming year.

 

In the seedling nursery we have 8 different varieties tomatoes, pumpkins, zucchinis, basil and shallots all awaiting transplanting over the coming weeks. Today we sowed carrots, beetroot and leek, a bounty that should help us reach our challenge target. One tonne here we come ;)!



Veggie Patch Upcycling

This year in the patch we are trying out some new ideas in the ongoing search for ways to improve our vegetable growing on the cheap, so in this post we want to share some simple methods that you can use in your patch on a low budget. we've been up-cycling, recycling and occasionally upside down cycling with things that we have found here at home to make the garden grow even better.

In ground Worm farm composters



the finished worm composter in action

prototype 1 - DIY in ground worm composter

We are rather excited about this little experiment to try and improve our soil by placing in ground worm farms made from PVC pipe throughout our patch. we made these from some left over pipe (20cm diameter) by drilling loads of holes into lengths of about 40cm, then burying them upright in the veggie beds. Add some wet paper to the bottom, a handful of red wrigglers (compost worms) and some vegetable scraps, some more paper and last of all a lid. (just make sure it is sealed off from fruit fly). Even after a couple of weeks it is surprising how quickly the scraps are being digested.

Worms are like the intestines of the soil. Compost worms tend only to inhabit the top soil layer, breaking down leaf matter and other dead vegetation. Earthworms (the big fat guys) burrow much deeper, and help to transport the nutrient rich humus of the compost worms deeper into the soil and around the root zones of our veggies. What a great team! They are jam packed with good microorganisms that enrich the soil into a bustling micro metropolis of healthy humus... at least that's the theory behind this idea, and I am busting to see if it works as planned.

Worm farm seedling tray in one.

a great way to reuse your water

I got this idea from a permaculture farm that used old bathtubs as worm farms in their nursery. their seedling trays rested on top of their worm farms. As they watered the seedlings, the water seeped through the wormy tubs and the worm juice siphoned into a storage tank which was later filtered and pumped through their irrigation system. We have adopted the same principle on a micro scale with our own worm farm. We simply removed the lid, laid down newspaper and a folded hessian mat which the seedling trays rest on. Its working a treat.


Drip irrigation with Venturi pump

This spring was very dry, which contributed to the terrible fires that we have had up here in the mountains. To conserve our water use in the garden this year we are trialling a drip irrigation system on our main vegetable patch. Its a fairly simple setup that we connect to a small secondary water tank near the patch. We purchased some cheap black irrigation pipe and punctured it with small holes every 10cm or so,  and arranging the lines to run across our grow beds.

 We have also added a simple venturi pump system that feeds into the main irrigation line which allows us to add liquid fertilisers to the water as needed. So far we have been pumping our plants with filtered weed tea,  and worm wee and the results are starting to show already. Its important to filter liquid fertilisers to make sure the lines don't get clogged up. We are using some wool insulation in a milk carton to filter the organic fertilisers.


The venturi pump works on simple suction. As the water runs through the main line, it creates suction, which draws the liquid fertiliser from the milk container into the irrigation line. The higher the water pressure, the higher the container of fertiliser needs to be, otherwise, you will get water going in the wrong direction and back into your liquid fertiliser container. A little trial and error and you'll have it down pat in no time. The pump is very easy to install to an existing irrigation set up. all you need it a t-join, a tap, and some extra hose. you can adjust the flow of fertiliser into the irrigation line by adjusting the tap.

For the areas in our garden that don't have drip irrigation installed yet, we are making use of our old milk bottles as slow release irrigation units. We are using them on our pumpkins at the moment to give them plenty of juice. Its a simple matter of filling the milk bottle with water, adding liquid fertiliser and whacking the bottle in upside down nearby the roots of the plant. Over the course of the day, the water and nutrients is slowly released into the soil. Its great for plants like pumpkins which are heavy feeders as you can pump nutrients directly to the plants root system. It also means no need for overhead watering, which reduces the likelihood of powdery mildew and weeds. by adding a tiny pin hole on the bottom of the milk bottle, it allows air into the bottle, aiding the water flow. the larger the bole, the faster the flow of water.

beer bottles for seedling holes
Being spring time, we have been planting out our new seedlings. We have found that a great way to speed up the process is to use an up turned beer bottle to make the holes for the seedling to go in. Its a perfect fit! Its also a great excuse to crack open a beer before planting out... or maybe 3 or 4, to get the job done even faster. hmmmmm...

Water the seedlings and the planting site with some worm wee or sea-sol before planting.


Chooks and weeds get the (hessian) sack

We are lucky to have a great local coffee roaster in our community, who has loads of spare coffee bags to dispose of regularly. We have been putting them to good use in the garden as covers for some of our veggie beds. They are excellent for stopping the chooks from digging up the dirt and plants, and also help to keep the soil moist and stop the weeds. Being made of natural fibres, they break down naturally as well. If you are after some sacks, look up local coffee roasters in your area. They will have loads of sacks and may even be happy to simply give them away.

 

Hessian mats a success

 

Our new and improved DIY Black-soldier-fly Composter

You may remember that last year we experimented with growing black soldier fly (BSF) as a way of composting and generating feed for our chooks. Our first prototype was successful in so far as it attracted plenty of black soldier fly, but when it came to harvesting them, many of the grubs didn't find the pipes to crawl up. this year we improved on our BSF composter by using a plastic 10 ltr watering can. Its cheaper, easier to build, more contained and hopefully works much better. With this design the grubs crawl up the spout of the watering can (there's no where else for them to go) down some hose and into a plastic bottle. We add food scraps by unscrewing the t-bar and put them down the shoot. I used some liquid nails to fix the t-bar in place. The chooks are already very happily eating black soldier fly larvae from our new system.

 

 

bsf fly in the t-bar pipe and lay their eggs. Larvae crawl up the spout and into the plastic bottle.

 

New plants in the Patch
Last summer, we planted some tamarillo seeds from some fruit given to us by our neighbour Grant. He has an amazing fruit orchard and edible garden! Our kids loved his tamarillos, so we decided to give them a go ourselves. Not only do they taste delicious, but they grow incredibly fast. We planted this one from a seed last summer (Not even a year ago) and it's setting fruit. Tamarillo's are a short lived subtropical fruit tree, but grow well in temperate climates too.



nearly one year old

ripening tamarillo's

We have also planted two feijoa trees (pineapple Guavas) on account of how fantastically delicious they taste, and also to make feijoa wine, which I hear is very easy to swill. If you haven't tasted one of these delicious fruit, do yourself a favour. Another new addition to the garden is a tropical guava tree which has taken the place of our mandarin (God rest its roots) after it was savagely mauled by a heartless and possibly drunk mob of cockatoos. We discovered (albeit too late) that they are terrified of red underpants hung on a pole. We are not sure if this is a universal rule or if it is uniquely my underpants that did the trick. If so, and you are in need of a pair, be warned, prices will be exorbitant.

Finally our apple trees have fruited this spring, with a bounty of promising small apples hanging on their branches. If they can duck and weave the possums and cockatoo's, rosellas and bush rats, maybe we might even get to eat one in the summer.

Happy gardening gang.

Worms and Wasabi

There are a number of milestones that our 15month old daughter has achieved recently, such as the ability to eat an entire apple down to it's core with only 4 teeth; say the words "happy" and "thank you", hide dads wallet in obscure locations and scream at a decibel that Joe believes has caused him permanent loss of hearing.  Apart from her ability to dump any valuable item into the toilet without making a splash sound, her other incredible skill which makes us incredibly proud revolves around the simple broad bean. I challenge you to find another 15 month old on this planet who can stealthily slip out the front door, crawl down the front stairs and into the broad bean patch, then pick, shell and devour our beloved broad beans at a disturbingly ravenous rate. We are so proud! If only she could learn to walk....

But I guess, on a more serious note, it is something that we really are proud of, that to our kids, eating from the garden is a normal thing to do. We can send our 3 year old to fetch any number of herbs, as she already knows her basil from her rosemary, and sage from parsley. Our 5 year old gets excited at the prospect of pollinating pumpkins, and understands which broad beans to leave for seed saving on account of their healthy growth and high yields. Kids learn at an incredible rate.

Speaking of children, thank goodness the school holidays are over! Joe has a theory that the wild September breezes have nothing to do with global warming and are in fact caused by the universal sigh of relief from parents all around the world, when their children finally go back to school. Despite the relentless rain during the school holidays we did manage a little fun with a backyard camping session complete with tent, camp-fire with scary storey, marshmallows and two-minute noodles. It was quote - unquote "the best time of my life" , according to our 5 year old son who stoically stayed solo in the tent until brought in by Dad at 9 pm.

A few days later, Joe and N set off on N's first real hike and camp through the Megalong Valley and camping at the Cox's river overnight. It was an initiation. As a 5 and 1/2 year old N had to carry his own backpack, water and distress beacon (which Mum insisted be collected from the local police station). Before arriving at the camp site N had to cross the suspension bridge that spanned the river, if he made it to the other side alive, he was allowed to light the camp-fire.

Casting all rational expectations of a 5 and 1/2 year old aside Dad gave him a manly slap on the back and said "I'll see you on the other side". That night after N had lit his very first camp fire, and had talked in depth about his new found fear of heights to Dad,  he exclaimed in a moment of campfire serenity, quote, unquote "this is the best time of my life"! Only at the age of 5 can you have the 'best time of your life' twice in one week.

happy camper

Egg Eaters Anonymous:

Each morning Henrietta, Billy Holiday, Thelma, Louise, Noella and Georgie (our chickens) enjoy a very balanced breakfast of porridge, silverbeet, left-overs, nasturtiums, pellets and fresh water. In addition we dig up the soil in their coup to expose the hundreds of worms (great for protein) which happily take residence in the now very rich soil. We also let them out most afternoons for an hour or so to scratch around the garden, eat grass seed, bugs and small pebbles (to help with digestion).

chooky breakfast

Despite this wonderful life style and gourmet meals, there seems to be something missing in their lives. Lately, we were shocked to realise that one (or maybe more) of our hens has taken to the shameful and disturbing vice of egg eating.

It seems, from all accounts, egg eating is a heinous disorder from which no hen in living history has ever been corrected, and the only cure for such a fowl act is...the guillotine! the prospect of chopping a chook was daunting, and after some research, we stumbled on an old and less fatal way to correct this behaviour. Step one was to blow out the yolk and white, leaving the shell intact, then refill the egg with ... wasabi. The egg would then be left for the hen to eat it and learn a very nasty lesson indeed! It seemed like a  devilishly good idea, so we put it to the test.

Slinking into the pen with our wasabi laden egg and casually placing it in the middle of the pen, we stood back and watched with giddy anticipation. This will show them, we thought, those deborturous chickens. A little fire and brimstone to set them on the clucky path of righteous non-egg eating. Beedy eyed, they flocked in a sudden frenzy and descended on the egg, tearing it to bits in an instant... then.... nothing.... absolutely nothing... anyone would have thought they liked it! I was devastated.

Later that night, jo and I discussed the options. It was agreed that one of our ladies must learn the way of the Samurai, and get the chop! If anyone has any other alternative, we would be happy to hear it, time is ticking.

'Crap' soil
On a more positive chicken note, we have been using the chickens to help out with reconditioning the soil in our front yard one square metre at a time, by swapping the soil from their chook pen for the clay in our front yard. The chooks make light work of digging around the new clay and mixing it with the rich soil in their pen. As they have been in the same spot for a couple of years, the soil is super rich and packed with worms, which also do their bit to improve the soil.

diggin up some worms for the ladies

Speaking of worms, our worm farm has been great for our spring garden. We use the worm wee as a natural fertilizer on many of our plants, and the worm castings (mixed with sand) make a rich soil for seedlings. All they need in return is some damp newspaper, vegetable scraps and the occasional heap of weeds.

Apart from our bumper crop of broad beans our two potato beds are raging and our tomatoes, crooked neck zucchinis and pumpkins are all off to a flying start. We are also enjoying the first strawberries and mulberries of the season, with a promising amount of blackberries and loganberries on the way too. We have been eating loads of silverbeet, parsley, rocket, rosemary and good ol nasturtiums in salads too.

first strawberries of the season

Our quality control team leap into action

our first crop of Romanesco Broccoli

With only 28 days to go before our first Crop & Swap we are beginning to see more realistically what we will have for the first swap; plenty of eggs, parsley, broad beans, silverbeet, mulberries, macadamia nuts, nasturtiums, chamomile and some home-baked breads. We have had more neighbours and potential crop & swappers stop for chats and email us, everyone sounds as though they are bringing along some great produce.

painting our Crop & Swap sign