Blueberries

Posted on October 21, 2012 by Liz

About 6 months ago I wrote a post about the best crops to grow in pots and both Mark & L recommended blueberries, so how could I not get some?

I bought 3 plants, but sadly have managed to lose (I suspect removed by a small boy) the tags for them, so beyond knowing one was a Nellie Kelly I don’t know what varieties they are.  The Nellie Kelly and one of the others are evergreen, the 3rd is deciduous.

I potted them up, soon after buying them, into 30cm diameter pots.  Blueberries like acidic soil so I used Ericaceous (Azalea) potting mix.  I will pot them up again this Autumn if it looks like they are running out of room.

Since I bought them both the evergreen ones have put on new growth and in late winter they started flowering.

Many of the flowers had dropped off by mid to late September.  For a while it looked like nothing was happening but by the start of October they had begun swelling.  This is what they looked like yesterday:

 Exciting isn’t it?

The deciduous one is only now reaching the flowering stage.  Strangely it hasn’t regrown its leaves yet.  Not having much experience of blueberries I can only presume this is normal.  This is what it looks like at the moment.

I’m really enjoying watching the blueberries develop.  They might not be quite as impressive as L’s fabulous bananas – check out her post if you haven’t seen banana flowers before – really fascinating.  But if your space and climate aren’t suited to immense herbs like that then blueberries might just be the thing.  They are very, very good for you after all.

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Posted in Fruits | Tagged | 27 Comments

Cauliflower Soup

Posted on October 18, 2012 by Liz

I am a big fan of soups, and particularly their ability to use a large amount of delicious home grown produce in a nutritious way.  I try and grow as many soup friendly ingredients as I can which is why I have been persevering with leeks.  Since my last batch of leeks took over 6 months to mature to a diameter of approximately 1 cm I am going to give up on them for a while but they did taste good in this soup.

The hero (don’t you hate that expression used in relation to food?) of this dish though is the cauliflower.  Cauliflower soup is a great way to use home grown cauliflower that, like much of mine, doesn’t necessarily look exactly pristine.  You’re going to puree it anyway so the occasional gap between florets doesn’t really matter.  Before I launch into how to make it I should tell you it borrows from a recipe from a friend of mine.  So thank you to Tracey for the basis of this, I hope I overheard it correctly.  (Tracey was explaining how to make cauliflower soup to a mutual friend who is learning to cook and I thought I’d road test her recipe – or what I remember of it.  The results were great.)

Cauliflower Soup

  • 1 stalk celery – finely chopped
  • 1 clove garlic (or a couple of stalks of green garlic which is what I used on the weekend) – finely chopped
  • 2 medium sized leeks – finely chopped
  • 1 onion – finely chopped
  • 1 cauliflower – broken into florets
  • 1 large potato – diced
  • 1 litre stock (vegetable or chicken ideally)
  • 2 – 3 tblspns olive oil
  • Salt & pepper

Coat the bottom of a large saucepan with the olive oil (and a knob of butter if you are feeling decadent).  Saute the onion, leek and celery in oil until they soften, add the garlic and cook for a few minutes.  Add stock, potato and cauliflower.  Bring to the boil, turn down the heat and simmer until the potato & cauliflower are soft.  Taste and season with salt and pepper.  Puree and serve.

I’m sharing this recipe on Thursday’s Kitchen Cupboard.  Head over and see how else people are using their produce this week.

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Top 5 – Ways in which Kitchen Gardening is a political act

Posted on October 16, 2012 by Liz

I am a big fan of talk radio, I have been since my early 20s.  Not sure why so I’ll blame my parents.  They are equally addicted, so I grew up with the radio emitting mainly voices rather than music.  During the week I tend to listen to ABC radio (774) but on Sundays this simply isn’t possible as they allow Macca onto the air.  Now I truly believe that radio should dedicate more time to rural issues but in my view this should take the form of Country hour taking some of Richard Stubbs afternoon slot rather than the interminable Ian McNamara being allowed anywhere near the airwaves.  Happily 3RRR have a wonderfully talky Sunday line up, highlights include Dirty Deeds (gardening), Einstein A Go-Go (science), Radio Marinara (Sealife) and Eat It which is what I found myself listening to last Sunday.  Eat It featured an interview with the writer of Whole Larder Love blog who has recently been published in book form.  Anyway during the course of the interview one of the hosts mentioned that he felt that processed food had become so widespread that it had almost gotten to the point that cooking a meal from scratch was a political act.  Now I have to admit liking this concept very much.  So much so that it forms the basis of this week’s Top 5.  (Apologies for the long winded intro for all those non-Melbourites who will be unfamiliar with the Sunday line up on 3RRR or indeed those non-Australians who mercifully escape having Ian McNamara thrust upon them on Sunday mornings).

I have to admit a slight tendency towards fairly inane quasi political gestures.  From burning pages from the Joy of Sex with accompanying rants about men’s subjugation of women as a teenager (my father was not pleased and rightly gave me the ‘no burning of books in this house’ lecture), to on again and off again boycotts of all manner fast food retailers, supermarkets and multi-national conglomerates, I do like a bit of middle class protest.  So imagine my excitement to be able to think of kitchen gardening in those terms.  Admittedly I’ve only been thinking in those terms since Sunday so much of this may be ill thought out and perhaps a little silly, so with that proviso I bring you: Top 5 ways in which kitchen gardening is a political act.

1. I will borrow from Eat it and make the point I think the presenter was making.  There are a lot of companies making money out of effectively deskilling (cookery being the skill in question) people through the provision of processed and fast food.  Kitchen Gardeners generally cook their own food,  thus retaining the skill of cookery.  They also deprive the food manufacturers who want to convince you that you are incapable of roasting your own chicken or indeed flavouring it without purchasing a roasting ‘bag’ made of goodness knows what and filled with a few dried out herbs and a bucketful of salt, some of their potential revenue.

2. Every vegetable you grow yourself is one you’re not buying from somewhere else, and if that somewhere is one of the supermarkets better still.

3. Kitchen gardeners control the means of production (of produce anyway) which from a leftist perspective can only be a good thing.

4. Every dollar lost to conventional farming methods is another reason for farmers to switch to organics.   Whether you grow your own or buy organic, falling revenue for conventional farming makes organics more attractive which has the added benefit of potentially depriving the agrochemicals industry revenue.

5. Kitchen gardeners often grow heirloom varieties and/or save seed.  The wider range of varieties grown and the number of people actively saving and swapping seed helps work against multi-nationals which aim to gain control of the world-wide seed market.  Information on seed sovereignty and the campaign against seed patenting can be found here and here.

Happy World Food Day to all and for a complete change of paceThe New Goodlife has her Top 5: Autobiographies and Biographies this week.

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Monday Harvest – Oct 15th 2012

Posted on October 15, 2012 by Liz

Unlike last week, I have loads of photos of harvests today.  The first of these is my entire leek harvest.  Now maybe I harvested too early but frankly I don’t think you should have to wait more than 6 months for a vegetable (garlic excluded) and I’m pretty sure I planted these out about 8 months ago.  In a nutshell they were disappointing, very few had diameters bigger than my fingers.  I’ve used them already in cauliflower soup.

along with some green garlic and celery:

I did quite a bit of clearing space in the garden this week.  The leeks went to make way for cucumbers, and these carrots were in a pot I want to put a chilli in.

There was still a broccoli plant in my eggplant bed.  That came out as well.  I still have one plant left, so hopefully this wont be the last of the broccoli but it may well prove to be.

I didn’t just harvest old crops, I also harvested quite a bit of new growth.  My thyme is looking particularly lush at the moment, this lot was cooked with some lentils for a salad.

Also on the herb front I made tabouleh a few times this week, so needed quite a bit of mint and parsley.

I think the most productive things in the garden at the moment are the salad leaves.  As well as parsley and mint, this week I’ve been harvesting, lettuce, coriander, watercress, rocket, and tarragon.

 

I harvested my second tub of winter grown potatoes.  They were Dutch Cream and the yield was OK but not what I get from Spring grown ones.

It wasn’t just vegetables this week, the first bit of fruit is starting to trickle in, although not particularly impressively.  I had a few Cape Gooseberries (also known as Physalis and Ground Cherries) this week with more to come.  I really like them but I know they are not for everyone.  The one pictured isn’t quite ripe – they go much yellower when ripe, but those didn’t make it in front of the camera.

For more harvests that were captured on film (or should that be digitally?) head over to Daphne’s Dandelions and check them out.

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Citrus Update

Posted on October 13, 2012 by Liz

I have a number of citrus trees, which are all coming into new growth at the moment.  There’s a lemon tree in the front garden and 7 potted citrus out the back.  The potted citrus are all dwarf except for my finger lime and my kumquat, which strangely is the least active growth-wise at the moment. They are also the only two which are not currently in flower.  Finger Limes are native to Australia but I’ve never tried one so I am extremely keen for my plant to do something in that respect.  But alas so far nothing but prickly foliage.

My front garden lemon tree is a Eureka lemon and this is its 4th year.  I got a couple of fruit from it last year but this is really the first year that I expect anything from it.  It is setting fruit at the moment  so things are looking nice and promising.  Hopefully this year I will get a couple of dozen of these:

I bought my dwarf citrus either 2 or 3 years old depending on the plant.  Last year I got a couple of fruit from my Navel Orange, my Tahitian Lime and my Meyer Lemon but none from the mandarin.  This year however it is looking very promising:

 My Tahitian Lime and Washington Navel Orange are both growing steadily and both have a few flowers on them.

My Meyer Lemon was most affected by the citrus gall wasps and although it is growing very slowly at the moment it does have a lot of flowers on it.

My final citrus tree is a Kaffir Lime which has never fruited but as I grow it primarily for the leaves this is not really a problem.  I would like the occasional fruit though as the zest is lovely.  Maybe this year, it has a couple of little buds on it, it also seems to be putting on a fair bit of growth at the moment.

Now I just need some pretty pots to put them in.

Do you grow citrus?   What does well for you?

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Posted in Citrus, Fruits | Tagged , | 7 Comments