My basic garden philosophy is that if you want a garden that yields quality as well as quantity with a viable amount of time spent overall, you have to go with your climate and environment. For me, that means virtually effortless mangoes, but peaches that are half for me, half for the chooks. But, the end result of all that is that, this time of year, I have lots of…
Chooks are such a good way to double the harvest. These bok choy were self sown and if I’d been pressed for space I would have fed them to the chooks as greens much earlier. We ate a few leaves, but then since I had nothing desperately needing the spot I let them go to seed – which they did very happily, producing lots and lots of seed (which is…
I’ve started harvesting the potatoes and they are such a treat, and breakfast is such a good meal for them to star in.
For years I have wondered whether zucchini flowers were the new mushroom, as in the famous 70s feminist adage ‘Life is too short to stuff a mushroom’.
The trouble with luffas is that I want them for Christmas, to go with my handmade soap. But I can’t plant them early enough here for them to mature and then allow time to clean and dry before Christmas.
These aren’t exactly the 5 minutes of the usual Breakfast Cereal Challenge recipes, but they’re fast enough for a weekday morning. We had this batch for…
Strawberries are still the star fruit in my garden, but the tussle for number two is hot. There’s still a paw paw a day most days, and though the fruit fly sting most of our stone fruit, there are enough early peaches and plums on the tree to just share them with the chooks – they like the stung spot with its little grub the best. But I think number…
I really am too far north for brussels sprouts, and climate change is only making it worse. Every few years, just often enough to keep my hopes up, I jag a combination of variety, timing, and weather that gets me a crop. But most times there is just not a long enough period of cool weather for them to form sprouts, and I get loose leafy sprouts. I should give…
I‘ve started bringing in the garlic. It’s a good crop this year, which I’m really pleased about. I think, like a lot of gardeners, I was extra conscientious about planting this year. I really really didn’t want to end up buying Chinese garlic. As well as all the usual concerns about what agricultural chemicals may have been used growing it, and the methyl bromide treatment demanded by Australian quarantine, there…
Thanks to all those who commented. You made my mind up for me! I resolved the eat-it-or-plant-it dilemma by splitting the difference.