I was picking for an Indonesian style curry – ginger, galangal, turmeric, lemon grass, chili, Vietnamese mint (and I added – Kaffir lime leaves and garlic as well) and I couldn’t resist the photo. Add this spice base to an oily sauce and you have a wonderful curry sauce for fish or meat or poultry or vegetables.
I live smack bang in fruit fly territory. Bactrocera tryoni – Queensland Fruit Fly. They seem to be getting, if anything more prolific as the climate heats up, and I think over the years I’ve tried every known method of control, short of spraying, which I can tell without trying it wouldn’t work.
t’s a nice planting day today and I’m sort of ready – which is just as well because I have to go out and I’ll only get an hour or so in the garden today. I have advanced seedlings of carrots ready to go out, and places to put them, and seed raising mix for another batch of seed using my standard method for carrots. And the same for beetroot…
I have Principe Borghese and yellow cherry tomatoes. Both varieties are chosen for their fruit fly resistance and mildew resistance (autumn is often wet here), and they will cope with cold, so I expect them to keep bearing well into winter now. I have one Blackjack zucchini. There are several bearing now, and the tromboncino. I’m learning not to overdo it on zucchinis! I have a couple of Rod’s Lebanese…
The thing I love about snake beans is that you pick all these today, and tomorrow there’s the same amount again. And the other thing I love about snake beans is cutting them into finger lengths, lightly blanching, and dressing with a garlic-olive oil-balsamic-soy-honey dressing while they are hot.
It’s still a bit early for brassicas. The cabbage moths will still be active for another four months or so here. Except for brussels sprouts. Shall I bother with brussels sprouts this year? I am in a very marginal climate for them at the best of times and it’s not the best of times. If I’m going to plant them at all, I have to plant now and nurse them…
Two years ago I posted Part One of Homegrown Coffee. If you ignore the fact that I skipped ahead a couple of years, we’re now up to Part Two! This year’s coffee crop has been drying on a screen door on the verandah for a couple of months now. The beans are hard and dry and ready for the final stages.
I am really loving tromboncino. Usually by this time of year, my garden is so full that I skimp on the sweet corn because I just don’t have room for it in my intensively fenced beds. This year though, I haven’t planted any zucchini, and it’s amazing how much space that saves.
We are coming up to the summer solstice in the southern hemisphere. It’s really a very noticeable change if you are in the mood for noticing it. Our ancestors did – all the traditional festivals in most cultures (Easter, Halloween, Groundhog day, Christmas, Mayday) are held on these day length marker points , and plants most definitely notice. Most garden crops are highly sensitive to this cycle of lengthening and…
This time of year in this part of the world it’s all about fruiting annuals. I have more corn and beans and tomatoes and eggplants and capsicums and trombochino and squash and pumpkins and cucumbers and zucchini in the shadehouse than I will have room to plant out. So it’s just another round of the regular, staple roots this time – carrots and beets.