This week’s Challenger uses pecans and apple (both in season) and a secret ingredient – beetroot.
For large seeds like peas, it is not worth the seed germinating stage. I plant directly into a seedling raising mix that is mostly good compost with a bit of creek sand for drainage. For alkaline lovers like peas and beans I add a bit of wood ash to raise the pH.
You can tell we’re heading towards the southern hemisphere Halloween – we have pumpkins in such abundance that you can see where the idea of cutting faces in them came from.
This is not so much a recipe as a reminder. With cucumbers and mint both fully in season (going off in my garden) we have been eating a cucumber raita (or tzatziki – same recipe, just a short journey across the Middle East) as a side dish with practically every meal.
The box is full of a home-made seed germinating mix, mostly creek sand with a bit of compost for water retention. I like using mowed cow pats better – I collect old, dried cow pats and run over them with the mower to yield a catcher full of shredded cow manure. It has few nutrients to speak of but holds water beautifully.
Squid are generally a fairly safe choice – they breed fast, die young, and may even be over-filling their niche as their natural predators struggle to maintain their populations.
This is an Indian style oil-based pickle that is fantastic on the side of a vegetable curry, and really really good with cheese on bread.…
The dam is full of azolla – a little water weed that I encourage because it is symbiotic with a nitrogen fixing bacteria. Like legumes, it can grab nitrogen out of the air and stabilize it in a form that feeds soil and plants that are not so handily endowed with an in-built fertilizer factory.
My perfect storm is at an end, and life is returning to its usual very busy but kinda balanced state. To celebrate, I used this…
This all started with an item in the Sunday papers about how women really should do weights training. I looked at the weights, but that idea lasted all of about two seconds.