May 2012 – the Wrap Up

Posted on June 7, 2012 by Liz

I’m a bit late with my end of May post, my excuse is that I’m doing quite a bit of paid work from home at the moment and unfortunately it needs to take precedence over blogging.  A sad state of affairs indeed.  What were neither sad nor sorry were my fruit harvests in May.  Loads of tamarillos, some feijoas from footpath, my first ever orange and my first ever lime all made for a very happy month on the fruit front.

        

Then there’s the potential.  Not only are there: more oranges on the tree,  meyer lemons which are almost ripe and more limes to come:

There’s also the promise of berries. This is lovely new growth on my most recent fruity acquisitions – 3 blueberries that I am growing in pots.

May saw the end of most of my summer crops but I do still have a couple of eggplants producing – I doubt they will last much longer though.

As far as winter crops go: the garlic and broad beans are both up.  The peas have emerged and the shallots have sent their shoots up above the pea straw mulch.

The brassicas are starting to look promising: The broccoli is heading up and the raddichio is hearting nicely.

   

But its the red cabbages which I always enjoy watching grow the most.  I really like the colour of their leaves and stems – very pretty.

It will be a long while before these are ready though.  What’s growing well in your garden at the moment?

Share
Posted in Autumn Harvesting, Winter Planting | 36 Comments

Value Space Rating – Autumn Top 5

Posted on June 5, 2012 by Liz

About 3 months ago I wrote a post about the value space rating of my summer crops, you can find it here.  Value Space Rating is basically a way of determining the value of growing a given plant.  If you are interested in how I weighted the ratings then its worth having a look at my previous post.  If you just want to see what Autumn’s top 5 rated plants were then read on.

1. Herbs – Herbs won this reasonably easy, and in fact if viewed as individual plants then basil, parsley and lemongrass would have all made the Top 5.  For me herbs will always feature highly on my VSRs because I not only eat and harvest a lot of them but the convenience of having them readily available means I give them lots of additional points in that area.

2. Tamarillo – Tamarillo makes the Top 5 due, in part, to being a very heavy cropper as well as being quite expensive to buy at the supermarket (I use Woolworths online to source fruit & veg prices).  I must admit I’ve loved having a constant supply of fruit.  Great for lunchboxes and snacks and as Tamarillos don’t mind a bit of shade the space they do use is far from the most valuable in the garden.

3. Silver beet – Yay for silver beet, always ready with fresh leaves.  The rainbow ones look pretty and I find it really versatile to cook with.  The fact that it costs about $4.00 a bunch helps its VSR no end.  If you like silver beet it is probably the first vegetable I would plant in any garden.

4. Chillies – Ah the benefits of productive plants.  Most of my plants were in their second year and considerably more productive as a result.  I was so pleased with all my chilli varieties this year but from a VSR perspective the winner was probably the Scotch Bonnet as that had the heaviest fruits.

5. Figs – this is cheating a bit as its not even my tree, but the branches do come into my yard (they grow under the fence from next door) so I do get to harvest the fruit.  As it can be difficult to buy them they score well on that basis, as well as the benefit of having them fresh.

Honourable mention – Eggplant.  Eggplant came 6th on the list and if you discount the fruit they would have made the Top 5 along with beans.  If I could get my plants to fruit earlier I think it would feature higher.  I am planning on sowing my seed earlier this time to see if that helps.

Note: The results may have been quite different had Mr 2 not decided to do some ‘weeding’ thus creating havoc in my lettuce bed and setting cropping back by quite some weeks.

This week The New Goodlife talks about the Top 5 things she has learnt about cooking from scratch.

Share
Posted in Autumn Harvesting, Top 5 | 23 Comments

Monday Harvest – June 4, 2012

Posted on June 4, 2012 by Liz

Wet and wintery that’s how Melbourne is at the moment.  Fittingly my first harvest is a cold weather one – the first of this years broccoli crop.  Although I could, in theory, grow broccoli pretty much all year round here I tend to only grow it during the cooler months.  This is partially due to space considerations, partially because of the aphids which tend to attack during mid to late Spring and partially because I have yet to find a variety that enjoys our summers (although I do imagine they exist).

This is a very small head of Calabrese – hopefully a great many side shoots are yet to come.

In contrast to that rather insubstantial harvest the tamarillos are still plentiful, with another 30 or so harvested this week.

With the start of winter I did a bit of garden maintenance.  I pulled quite a few of my remaining basil plants (I think the remainder will go this week) and froze the leaves of the Italian variety.  I find that the variety of Thai basil I grow loses its flavour on freezing.  I have bought Thai basil (for culinary purposes) in the past that doesn’t but I’m not sure what the variety was.

The other plant I pulled out was my last tomato.  Rouge de Marmande was my best performing variety this year and I was sad to see it go but it was looking very sorry for itself indeed.  Most of these remaining tomatoes had a trace of colour on them so I’m confident most will ripen inside.

I have yet to pull my eggplants, but I imagine with the cold weather we are having that will be a job for the coming week.  Ditto the capsicums – they are last years plants and I think getting them through a second winter would be asking too much.  I will overwinter the chillies though.

My daughter, Miss 5, is currently addicted to Masterchef and as a result is keen to cook regularly.  This became her salad course.  She combined celery, chervil, parsley and lettuce and then dressed it with a pomegranate molasses dressing and sprinkled it with pomegranate seeds (she is very partial to pomegranates).  It was remarkably successful.    The red in the basket is a tamarillo – I don’t have a producing pomegranate plant….yet.

My final harvest of the week is another first – my first Tahitian Lime.  Very exciting.  I didn’t do anything nearly as interesting as Barbara Good did with hers, mine just went into some guacamole (another of my daughters cooking projects) but was delicious nonetheless.

For more veggie ogling head over to Daphne’s Dandelions – there’s sure to be more than enough for anyone.

Share
Posted in Winter Harvesting | Tagged | 42 Comments

Roasted Sweet Potato & Parsnip Soup

Posted on May 31, 2012 by Liz

My daughter must be learning about the seasons at school at the moment as she keeps mentioning how tomorrow is the first day of winter.  Personally I think having to run to the shower so as not to lose too much body heat between it and the bed was probably clue enough but it is nice to be reminded….I think….  I do struggle with winter, actually that’s only partially true – what I struggle with is grey Melbourne days and in winter we tend to get a few.  Today though was sunny.  A lovely day for gardening and a lovely day for eating the products of that gardening, in this case some nice root veg.

I love soup, pretty much all kinds; spicy ones, thin ones, thick ones, creamy ones – the list goes on but the ones I like best are the ones that are pretty much no trouble at all to make and this is certainly one of those.

Sweet Potato & Parsnip Soup

  • 1kg root veg (I usually make it with sweet potato, parsnip and carrot but you could use any combination of root vegetables)
  • 2 onions
  • 2 tblspns olive oil
  • 1 tspn cumin seeds
  • 1 tspn mustard seeds
  • 1/2 tsp ground turmeric
  • 1/2 tsp chilli flakes (or sambal added later as I did)
  • 1.25 litres stock (veg or chicken work well)
  • Salt & Pepper

Cut the root vegetables and onion into large dice.  Place into a bowl with the oil and spices.  Mix together.  Place the contents of the bowl onto a baking tray.  Roast at 180 degrees for about half hour or until the vegetables are soft.  Remove from oven and place into a saucepan.  Add stock and bring to the boil.  Season with Salt & Pepper.  Puree.  Serve topped with some Greek yoghurt and chilli.

I’m sharing this recipe on The Gardener of Eden’s Thursday Kitchen Cupboard , and Greenish Thumb’s Garden to Table.

Share
Posted in Potatoes, Recipes | Tagged , , | 27 Comments

Top 5 (well actually its a Top 7 this week): Seeds to sow over winter

Posted on May 29, 2012 by Liz

It’s the time of the year when my mind turns to ordering seeds – seeds to sow over Winter for the coming Spring and Summer season.  These are my top 5 food crops to sow over the next 3 months, provided you live in a temperate climate in the Southern Hemisphere anyway.

1. Onions – There’s still time to sow onions this year.  I find that I can sow bulb onions anytime up until the end of June and still have a successful crop.  Spring Onions can be sown all year so now is as good a time as any to get them in the ground.

2. Tomatoes – I sow my tomatoes in July, inside initially taking them outside once they have germinated.  I give them protection for the rest of winter as they grow on to seedling stage.

3. Potatoes – Most of the seed potato suppliers should start to have seed potatoes available from now on so its a perfect time to buy seed potatoes.  You get by far the best variety at this time of the year and you can plant them anytime provided your garden is frost free.

4. Herbs – I sow quite a lot of herb seeds towards the end of winter, usually in late July with my tomatoes.  Parsley to replace the plants that will go to seed once Spring begins.  Basil, undercover, for the coming summer season.  Dill to make sure I’ve got some ready for when the cucumbers arrive.  And Coriander because its the only time I can get the damn stuff to grow.

  

5. Beets – In late July I also start to sow beets – both beetroot and silverbeet.  The silverbeet will replace those plants that bolt in Spring and the beetroot provides an enjoyable Spring harvest.

This week I couldn’t limit myself to just 5 plants – I know, i know, indecisive but for this week, and this week alone here are number 6 & 7:

6.  Peppers – I sow Chillies and Capsicums in late winter – usually in August.  They seem to do best for me sowing in early August.  If I sow earlier they seem to take forever to germinate – or that’s how it seems.

7. Eggplant – This year I plan to try sowing my eggplant a little earlier as the plants are reaching maturity later than I would like.  Usually I sow in August but this year I’m thinking of trying them in July with the tomatoes and see what happens.

What are you planting this winter?  Or what did you sow last winter that you wished you’d sown earlier or later?

In other Top5 news; this week The New Goodlife gives us her Top 5 herbs to grow at home.

Share
Posted in Top 5, Winter Planting | 18 Comments