Monday Harvest – 7th October 2013

Posted on October 7, 2013 by Liz

I finally got round to spending some time in the garden yesterday.  A lot of that time was spent cleaning up, and planting summer crops – the tomatoes are in – yay!  I also found time for some harvesting.  I pulled a few parsnips to have with our roast chicken dinner.

Parsnips - Hollow Crown

I also harvested my last kohlrabi;

kohl rabi

I will try growing kohl rabi again as I enjoy eating them and hopefully next time I will manage one of those beautiful globes I see on other people’s blogs.

I made a few batches of veg stock this week, full of bolting plants from around the garden.  The celery hasn’t actually bolted yet but I included a few sticks nonetheless.Celery

The parsley has bolted so I added a fair bit of that;

Parsley

as well as some cabbage, thyme, and bay leaves that I failed to photograph.  Also avoiding the camera this week were my most prolific performers; green leaves.  Aside from parsley I am currently harvesting 3 different varieties of lettuce, rocket, chervil, watercress, mint and oregano.  They make for some lovely salads.

Daphne hosts Harvest Mondays – a fab way to check out what others are growing at the moment.

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Monday Harvest – 30th Sep 2013

Posted on September 30, 2013 by Liz

I don’t think I planned my garden particularly well this year.  I have a lot of gaps in the beds, and have had for quite some time.  I’m about to have a lot more as I rip out all the lettuces, parsley and silver-beet plants that are bolting at the moment.  I guess this is good from the perspective of having lots of space to plant summer crops but I don’t think I’ve necessarily maximised the yield from my space this spring.

What I have managed to succession plant properly though year is lettuce.  I have Oak-leaf, and Cos varieties producing well at the moment.   Some plants are bolting but many are going strong.  I am hoping that my next plantings will be ready before they all go to seed though.

Spring Harvest Basket

Those of you with excellent attention to detail will have noticed that I don’t just have leaves in the above basket.  This week I harvested the first of my broad beans:

Broad beans

Just a handful, which I will eat tonight combined with olives, broccoli, peas, and chilli and served with spaghetti (the rest of the family is having spag bol but I definitely prefer broad beans to mince!).

Speaking of eating; I think it’s slugs and/or snails that have been nibbling my radishes, probably best not to dwell on that too long…..

radishes

KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA  CeleryMy other harvests this week have mainly taken the form of crudité. I made hummus 3 times this week, and each time I ate it with kohlrabi, celery and radishes.  The pic is of my first ever kohlrabi.  I have a much better form in the garden but most of the plants (like this one) have bolted before properly forming.  I reckon I will do as L suggested and try growing them in Spring in future (as opposed to over winter).

Head over to Daphne’s where you may even happen across a correctly formed kohrabi on one of the many Monday Harvest posts.

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Saturday Spotlight – Propagating Curry Leaf Tree – Murraya Koenigii

Posted on September 28, 2013 by Liz

I have posted on Curry Leaf Tree before.  In fact it is my most commented on post.  Given the level of  interest I thought it would be worth posting on it again.  It also worth checking the original post, in particular the comments, which detail a range of people’s experiences with this plant.

Curry Leaf Tree

Despite curry leaf tree being a tropical/sub-tropical plant Murraya Koenigii grows pretty well in my Melbourne (admittedly frost free) garden.  At this time of the year the plant is looking a little sad as Melbourne’s winters get a little colder than the tree would really like. It should recover pretty quickly once we have slightly longer periods of warm weather.

I grow my plant in a large (40cm diameter) pot which seems adequate.  I imagine that the plant’s growth would be quicker in the ground but it is quick enough to keep up with the rate I use the leaves.

Curry Leaf Trees propagate easily, but slowly, from seed.   The seed needs to be sown fresh – I have tried drying it before sowing but as yet I haven’t managed to germinate a dried seed.  I have germinated many fresh seeds though.  The seeds sit inside the berries.  Each berry contains one large seed.  You can see the unripe berries in the above photo.  When ripe the seed turns black (see below).  You can sow ripe berries whole or remove the fleshy part prior to sowing – I haven’t been able to discern any great difference in results between the two methods.

Curry Leaf Tree Seeds

I find that the seeds take a couple of months to germinate.  The seeds ripen in later Autumn in Melbourne so have to sown over winter.  I have tried germinating them  inside in my laundry and outside in a cold frame and they eventually germinated in both locations.  The seeds may well germinate more quickly in milder climates but in Melbourne 2 months seems to be the norm.   You can probably also propagate curry leaf trees from cuttings but I have yet to attempt it.  I would love some feedback from anyone who has tried.

Annoyingly I find that the seedlings are particularly attractive to slugs and snails.  I lost heaps of mine this year.

Recently I had a curry leaf tree question from a reader – Are there any tricks to moving a curry leaf tree?  I have never tried as I grow mine in a pot so I’m not sure how they respond to root disturbance.  If you have tried moving a curry leaf tree I would love to know how you got on.

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Top 5 – Things I don’t know about Preserving

Posted on September 25, 2013 by Liz

It struck me today that it has been a while since I wrote a Top 5 post.  Clearly the only way to remedy that situation was to write one –  And here it is – Top 5 Things I don’t know about preserving.

Preserves1. Can you reuse the rings for Fowlers jars?  I bought a Fowlers Vacola unit last summer and preserved heaps of tomatoes and peaches, which we are working our way through (actually we have just finished the peaches and there are only a few jars of tomatoes left).  After we use each jar I wash the lids and rings for later use.  But I was looking at the ring packaging the other day though and it suggests they are only suitable for single usage.  Is this really the case?  On one hand the rings are quite expensive so I would prefer to reuse but by the same token I only want to do it safe in the knowledge that they will actually work the second time round.

2. How long can you keep chutney?  I have been known to find the odd 5 year old jar of chutney in the back of the cupboard.  Generally I will happily eat the contents which sometimes taste better than in the preceding 4 years.  My most recent back of the cupboard find did get me thinking though – exactly how long does chutney last for.  Will it eventually go off or is the vinegar, sugar and salt combination so inhospitable that nothing will ever grow in it?

3. How do you know if olives might kill you?  My 3 year old son is going through a particularly particular eating phase.  He likes to know exactly what he is eating.  As a result I prepare a lot of ‘plates of food’.  ‘Plates of food’ consist of a plate with a number of separate things on it – ie carrot sticks, cherry tomatoes, cubes of cheese etc.  Today his luncheon plate also included olives.  The olives I am using at the moment were given to me by a friend of mine who has a tree.  Her neighbours come and harvest all the olives on her tree each year and then use them to produce oil.  They also preserve a few jars full for her.  Anyway as I was ladling out his olives today I did pause to wonder how I would know if they had been preserved properly.

4. Can you use oil to preserve wet ingredients?  I get very confused about using oil to preserve things.  My understanding is that if you pour oil over wet ingredients to preserve them the ingredients can still go off underneath the oil.  Is this the case?  Because I also read suggestions to ‘seal’ jars of pesto etc by pouring on a slick of oil.  Which is right?  Does oil stop food from spoiling?

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

5. How do you get the bits arranged nicely in jar of marmalade?  As I mentioned yesterday in my Monday Harvest post I went to the Royal Melbourne Agricultural Show on Monday.  In the Arts and Craft pavilion they had the most beautiful looking preserves.  To me the most beautiful was a jar of marmalade which looked to have fine strands of peel set in a marmalade jelly.  The intriguing thing was the strands of peel where evenly distributed throughout the jar.  How did the maker manage it?  Mine always seems to bunch together either on the top or the bottom of the jar.

Those are my Top 5 things I don’t know about preserving, I am really looking forward to your thoughts on any or all of the above issues.

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Monday Harvest – 23rd Sep 2013

Posted on September 23, 2013 by Liz

I went to the Melbourne show today.  The show is organised by the Royal Agricultural Society of Victoria.  I’ve been going to the show for years, ever since I was a kid, so I have seen how it has changed over the years.  When I was really young the show very much emphasised animals, produce and farm machinery – it played up its agricultural origins.  Over the years it has gradually commercialised with rides and showbags becoming more prominent.  This year though I was really pleased with the amount of vegetable gardens they had throughout the venue.  They may not have had as many chooks, sheep, turkeys or tractors as I would have liked but at least they had lots of veggies.

RadishesSadly my garden beds are less prolific that the portable ones they had at the show.  I am still waiting for my broad beans and kohlrabi to develop, but at least the radishes have matured.  I love easter egg radishes.  These I ate with a sprinkling of Mount Zero pink lake salt.  I am experimenting with salts at the moment.  I’d be interested to know if people think that one salt is very much like any other or whether there is a discernible difference between them.

Speaking of salt – I’m thinking I might try cooking these potatoes in salt like they do in the Canary Islands.  They are Kipfler and I grew them in big pots over winter.  The harvest was meagre but better than nothing I guess…..

kipfler potatoes

The other new crop I harvested this week was beetroot.  Sadly all my photos of them were really badly over exposed (tedious camera issues).

Otherwise it was more of the same this week, and that means lots and lots of green leaves:

Basket of green leaves
I am harvesting large amounts of parsley, watercress, lettuce (particularly the oak leaf varieties), and wild rocket as well as the occasional bit of coriander and oregano.

At least I can eat lots of leaves whilst I plant out my tomatoes and dream of the kind of harvests they are getting in the Northern Hemisphere.  To check them out head over to Daphne’s Dandelions.

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