around the garden

We have always had a veggie garden and our children have all been unhappy helpers at various stages of their growing up years. I do get it, I really do - which child wants to give up playtime to labour for their food? However I needed some one to collect cabbage moth grubs or snails; to weed seedling beds and dig out thistles; to turn soil, rake soil and spread mulch. We wanted them to know how to look after themselves, to feed themselves and to be appreciative of where their food came from. Whats the good of knowing all the algebraic formulas, for example, if you didn't know how to cook or sew or change a tyre or grow some food? Our aim in homeschooling was to teach them life skills and a life long love of learning. I'm chuffed to report that the oldest five have all had or have decent veg plots in their backyards - and with a little more maturing and a permanent abode, theres still hope for the two youngest ;) 

This one is offspring #5 - Bee - in her little patch. Not much space for a garden but she and her partner have made it as big as they could and we've all been enjoying the fruits of their labours! I think even just the thought that we have a garden and/or have the capability to grow food, makes this stay at home time a little easier. And of course the fact that we can spend as many hours of the day as we like pooltling about in it regardless of social distancing measures. I can only imagine what it would be like to live in a tiny apartment without access to anything green and outdoorsy - we really do all need a good soak in the natural world from time to time, don't you think? 

The harvest wasn't huge but there were certainly enough tomatoes for many salads, loads of delicious parsley to add to everything, cucumbers, beans and a rather productive basil crop which was processed into pesto and popped in the freezer for winter. I have shared our basil pesto recipe before but I'm going to add a vegan one which is equally delicious. 

We picked a lot of calendula flowers and dried the petals for......something! Not sure what but the last ones I dried were used to decorate raw slices and cakes. Will let you know ;)

The last few clematis flowers are still clinging to the vine. The vine needs removing as its climbing onto the espaliered plums so that will be a job later in winter.

And the last of the roses adding some colour over the fence. I love roses but oh the thorns are truly terrifying - this one in particular! 

Lastly, theres the one and only surviving sunflower! They are such a satisfying flower to grow aren't they? Not only do they have such a shiny, happy face that daily follows the sun but when the display is over, they provide lots of plump little seeds! True, its a pain to crack them all however now would be the perfect time to spend an afternoon doing just that! 

I think I'll delegate that job though haha!!! 

I'm actually missing having a garden of my own so it's lovely to potter about in my girls little plot - although it won't be long and there'll be very little garden time. Winter is on his way and then it will just be a quick visit outside for some greens and back to the warmth of the fire. 

And that has it's merits too! 

a bowl of plantain

When I was in my mid to late teens, I was a bit on the wild side. Not too much, just enough that I left school mid way through Year 11, got a job and a car and left home. All before I turned 18. Have car and money?….well, lets party!! And so it was. My three closest friends were 3 hillbilly boys and we would just hang out at a laid-back pub in Windsor (west of Sydney) till closing time and then head off back to someones house in Pete's very cool, black FJ Holden. My parents rarely drank alcohol, which meant that I'd not grown up thinking that was what happened when people got together and so I didn't drink either - but I had grown up using herbal teas and a few old fashioned remedies and that too had a bearing on my beliefs! 

The late 70's were just at the tail end of the true hippy era and I dressed accordingly - black Chinese 'happy shoes', King Gee overalls with various patches and cheesecloth Indian style shirts complete with embroidery and little mirrors! Ah, those were the days! But I digress - I just wanted to mention that my life as a 'herb witch' began right back then, when we sat around in that pub, playing pool, being cool and in my case at least, spouting what little knowledge I had about wayside weeds and garden herbs…..and gaining the fond nickname - "The Witch". 

And my love of all things natural and weedy hasn't left me to this day. I can identify many more wayside weeds, have used a whole heap of medicinal herbs with my children and still love to pootle about with oils and potions. 

My veggie garden has been much neglected over winter and I still haven't been able to bring it to some semblance of order, but yesterday as I was organising some boys to start weeding, I noticed a whole heap of fresh, lush plantain growing beside the raspberries. Perfect for a bit of magic salve making - good to use on babies bottoms, rough skin, itchy spots and many other skin irritations. 

I have the narrow leaved variety growing here Plantago lanceolata but there is also a broad leaved type which I'd love to have access to, as I've read it makes great 'kale' chips. The seed heads are interesting as they can be long or quite short, all on the same plant and the tiny cream flowers dance around on their fine stems like little creatures floating on the tides.

I started picking the youngest leaves as they are tender and succulent and I'm sure I've read that they have most of the 'good' bits in them……but then I thought, well, maybe the older leaves are more mature (and wiser, like older women ;) and may be better to use! So I just picked both and filled my bowl with fresh green goodness. I do know that when using the leaf of most herbs, the best time is in Spring when all the plants energy is being put into the leaves.

I didn't wash them since they were from my own garden and I know they are unsprayed but I did have to check each one for bits of blossom and the odd bug. I cut them into small pieces with a pair of scissors and packed then loosely into a clean glass jar, almost to the tippy top.

You can see here that the oil has already started to penetrate the leaves after only about 10 minutes. In a day or two they will all be a nice dark green and soaked through with oil.

Then a good quality olive oil to cover the greens, pop the lid on and store in a cool dark place for up to 6 weeks. And thats the part that is a bit tricky……I've made this several times before and its been hit and miss with mould growing on the surface after only a week or two. Sometimes its fine and other times I've needed to throw it out - which is why I don't use an expensive organic olive oil.
I do think though that I've found the secret to keeping it mould free - and that is to fill the jar right to the top with the oil so that theres only a small space for air and therefore less space for microbes. Thats my theory anyway and I'll let you know in the next instalment if it worked!

And if you are interested, here are a couple of links to more plantain goodness - a new to me permaculture and herbal blog.
I found another method of making salve by pureeing the herb, which looked interesting enough that I may try it too.
Of course, a discourse on plantain wouldn't be complete without some words from Susun Weed, a wise woman with a vast knowledge of herbs, weeds and women's business.

I hope you give salve or ointment making a try as its so very easy to do…. and so lovely to use ones self made remedies.

essence of poppy

Right now I am truly enjoying the show of poppies in my vegetable garden.
They are everywhere.
Self sown from last years seeds.
They seem so thankful to be growing and bring me joy every time I wander past to turn on sprinklers or rush by on a mission to bring a basket of food to the kitchen.

I can never bear to pull out any baby plants that have had the strength to sprout amongst the weeds - it seems unkind to end their short life when they've had to struggle so hard to gain a hold in paths and rocky ground - so I leave them.

Later, when the plants are fully grown and squeezing too tightly between lettuce, onions or parsley, I discover tightly furled buds and once again I leave them.

My reluctance to cull is rewarded now, with beautiful blooms and a sense of magic in my garden.
I rarely pick any to bring indoors, preferring to enjoy their jewel like beauty in situ.

And I am grateful.

chicken run

Im going to backtrack a little and post about a few things that have happened around here in recent months. I do have a lot of photos and events that I'd like to share but I promise to intersperse them with current projects too! 

One very clever little brainwave that we created was a temporary chicken tunnel. Early in spring when the weeds greens were growing prolifically in the unused garden beds but not so much in the chickens usual enclosure, we thought it would be advantageous to the chookies to let them frolic amongst the greenery and at the same time save us the chore of clearing out the beds. We have a path that runs right through the middle of the garden and as we didn't want a fence stopping us from getting to the poly tunnel, we had to do some lateral thinking. 

    

So, the chicken tunnel was conceived! A small hole cut into the two temporary fences, a few dowels from another old cot (have a peek here for other ways I've used retired cots!) some lengths of small irrigation pipe, a piece of old wire netting and hey presto, happy chickens and more importantly, a weeded garden.

There was a bonus too - it was so cute to watch them jostle through in a hurry at mealtimes or slowly meander along at their leisure through their own private walkway!

 It has been pulled down since - the chickens are free ranging out in the paddock and there is a nice crop of potatoes in that patch now - but we will certainly be using the chickens in the garden over the next winter. It saved us a lot of work!

fat hen - a nutritious weed

Do you remember in my January Slow Living post when I mentioned that we were eating a 'weed' called Fat Hen? A nutritious weed that grows well in rich, soil especially in cooler wet weather. Since we had a late start to summer with a lot of rain in October and November, we also had a mighty good crop of Fat Hen! 

Each year we purchase trailer loads of spent mushroom compost to spread around the garden but due to the rain last year, we didn't get to spread it out for quite a while. The garden beds that the compost was piled onto, became really rich and moist and I ended up with a fantastic crop of this lush 'weed'. 

The official name is Chenopodium album and it is in fact related to quinoa. The name Fat Hen was given to it because it was used to fatten poultry. Our hens may well have put on some weight because they ate loads of Fat Hen when we weeded out the garden beds earlier in the season!  I still give them a plant every now and again and they peck every little leaf and seed until there is just the skeleton of the stalk left. 

Instead of me re-writing all of the interesting info on this plant I'll just give you a couple of interesting websites that I found while looking for botanical names.

This one mentions that Fat Hen grown in nitrogen rich soil will contain nitrates and should be consumed in moderation (which we did). It also contains oxalates, so should be cooked rather than eaten raw, although I feel that the healthy enzyme content in small quantities would make up for the oxalic acid consumption!

Garden Organic, a UK site, mentions that the seed buried in undisturbed soil can still germinate after more than 20 years! Yikes! I shall be sure to pull out any remaining plants before they seed!

On this Medicinal Herbs site, there is a good lot of info on eating and using Fat Hen as well as any known hazards.

And if you want to find out more about the history of Fat Hen and some of it's relations, check out A Modern Herbal by Mrs M Grieve.

 So when there isn't yet much in the garden and the troops are hungry, why not use a little bit of what is growing?

We often have cooked quinoa for breakfast and I usually make extra so it can be the basis for lunch or dinner too. My very quick fried rice quinoa goes something like this…….

In a large frying pan heat some coconut oil, add chopped onions, carrots, zucchini, broccoli, celery and what ever else is lying about in the fridge or is in over abundance in the garden! You can also add frozen corn niblets and peas if you have them.

Saute until softened.

Add cooked quinoa/buckwheat/rice and stir through. Season with tamari and pepper.

At the last minute add a few handfuls of clean Fat Hen leaves and shoots.

And thats that!! We have ours with a salad of some sort and sometimes omelette strips on top.

And thats two recipes in as many weeks - must be all my excitement over the food we are growing!!

I'd love to hear if you use any 'weeds' in your cooking?
And how did you learn to identify them? 

Thanks for stopping by to read my thoughts and also if you've left a comment!  

garden stills

I have been meaning to post a garden update. Not that I've written much about the garden at all this season, seeing as it is running behind and only just beginning to produce the goods! I think I mentioned that we had a late start to summer so I'm using that as my excuse! But…. it is looking lush now and giving us many delicious meals so I think it's earnt a mention!

1 - Buttercrunch lettuce. I love this variety almost as much as I like the Austrian heirloom Forellenschuss. The taste is nicer in these little mignonette lettuces but it's harder to wash all the insects and dirt out of the crinkly leaves and, well…. I do like fast!!

2 - Our chickens are just ordinary Isa Browns. They do a fabulous job of laying big brown eggs and are the cheapest chickens I've found here in Tasmania. Any fancy types are just so pricey and are not sexed, which means that at least half of the chicks end up being male. Not good for egg production!

3 - Aubergines in flower. These are now small purple fruits and it won't be long until I'm making some delicious dinners with this favourite vegetable. Last year (when I was more organised and grew onions too) I made a lot of 'briam' which is a Greek dish of outstanding taste! I have a pic somewhere and will post the recipe tomorrow. 

4 - Dill (or maybe it was fennel?) flowers. The bronze fennel has self seeded everywhere, while the dill that I planted and wanted desperately to grow, has only managed to two plants! I'm hoping that if I let it self seed…….!! 

5 - Poppies. These self seeded too but the white ones (and some pink) somehow sprang up from the red ones that I planted last year. They must be reverting back to their forebears! And this just makes me think about my lax gardening habits - so many self sown plants and I can never bring myself to pull them out, which means my garden has many parts that become rather…..wild! 

6 & 7 - Potatoes in flower and producing many a fine meal. Sadly, although I managed to harvest almost 200 kilos of potatoes last year, this year there will only be the ones that have sprung up around the garden from those left in the ground. Once again, I was behind and now it's too late. But…. we are doubly enjoying the ones we have!! 

8 - And zucchini! Lots and lots of zucchini!! I love them, the family like them, they are prolific, versatile and fast growing! Costata Romanesco is this variety and it's my favourite for both the flavour and of course it's ridged good looks! I made my very first chocolate brownie with zucchini recently. I have never seen the need to use a vegetable in a cake but thought I'd try it. Verdict? It was ok but I'll be sticking to salads, steamed and buttered or savoury slice!!

I really love producing a large part of our summer food. The children roll their eyes when I excitedly list off all the things on their plate that have come from the garden, "You tell us this every year, Mum", they say with a groan. And I do. But I know that secretly they think I'm clever are resigned!!!!

How does your garden grow?


Unser Garten ist jetzt besonders voll mit Gemüse.Sommer ist immer so eine schöne zeit und wir essen vieles vom garten. Salate, Auberginen, Kartoffel, zucchini und bald auch Tomaten, basilikum und gurken. Ich koch gerne mein Eigenbau und es macht mich ganz glücklich wenn ich kann sagen, "das hab ich im garten gewachsen!"    

rain

We had rain last night. 

I went outside early this morning to enjoy the mist and raindrops. 

 

   

Gestern auf nacht hatten wir regen. 

Ich bin früh auf und hab im garten Regentropfen fotografiert.