I have one of those huge, chaotic families that are impossible to describe to someone else. And tomorrow, we’re all gathering, (outdoors, under marquees), for Christmas lunch. This year, my contributions to the table nearly all come from the garden, one way or another – icecreams made with real egg custard, passionfruit for the pav and the punch, green salad, rosemary oil sourdough crackers, and this seafood sauce.
Tomorrow morning, at 8.47 am, we here in eastern Australia reach the crest of the year. The earth tilts its face fully towards the sun, the shadows that day will be at their shortest, the day the longest.
Come with me on a picking walk as I pick dinner out of the garden.
I forgot about the party. I had half an hour to get a plate together to take. Woops. This is such a good, easy, fast recipe, and if you have sourdough culture going and rosemary in the garden, it’s all but free. And they are really good.
A key insight of permaculture thinking is that there is no such thing as “side effects”. Everything has multiple effects. Everything exists in a networked ecology of interdependencies, ripples, cascades and risk insurance redundancies. So verge gardening has to be looked at as a sector analysis that takes account of all the “wild energies” of “the public”, and some of them are quite wild.
My usual use for lemon myrtle is as a treatment for coughs, colds, runny nose, stuffy sinus, hayfever. The essential oil in lemon myrtle is 90% citral, the same essential oil that gives lemon grass its lemon scent. Citral is antimicrobial – antibacterial, antifungal and antiviral – and it’s also anti-allergic and anti-inflammatory.
Our two year old tropical apple is fruiting, and the apples are so good – sweet and crisp and intensely flavoured. The description says they…