Planted into potting mix a month ago. Look at it now. I think every single clove sprouted, and some of them now have leaves 30 cm tall. I have three boxes like this for planting out today, and I’ll put in another three boxes of cloves for planting out next month. Not that I need successive crops with garlic – they all get harvested at more or less the same…
These are my favourite capsicums these days. I call them supermarket flats, just because the seed originally came from some capsicums I bought in the supermarket. I picked them up hoping they might be non-hybrid and got lucky. I think they are actually Baby Reds, and they are doing brilliantly for me – a sweet, crunchy, thick walled, fruit fly resistant, small capsicum that bears well and long.
The Broad Bean seeds I planted nearly a month ago are up and looking healthy, and I have a spot where some zucchini and squash have just come out, so today they’re going out into the garden. It marks a real turning point. The autumn planting is here!
It’s nut season. Here it’s macadamia nuts, but further south it will be almonds and hazelnuts. We’re getting decent harvests from our trees now, and I’m loving learning to use them in savory food as well as baking. Pesto is a bit of a staple, and nut based curry and satay sauces, but I’m only just getting into extending the range.
In Spring and Summer, it’s the fruiting annuals that dominate the planting calendar. In Autumn and Winter, it’s the leafies. This is a big and interesting planting break, the first one for the season in this part of the world when I plant brassicas – kale, cauliflowers, broccoli, cabbages and chinese cabbages.
The big thing I’ve learned in 30 years of gardening is that if you have a good design that uses the permaculture idea of stacking functions, and you get in a nice rhythm, you can keep a kitchen garden producing really well with amazingly little time or work. The other thing I’ve learned is that if you lose the rhythm, and the stitches in time start missing out on saving…
Five serves of vegetables a day doesn’t seem like that much. I love vegetables and eat lots of them. But it’s amazing how easy it is to miss a day or two.
The basis for this is very much like my Everyday Sourdough recipe. The fruit and nuts though inhibit the rising, and I like it best when it’s chokka with fruit and nuts.
For perfect poached eggs, you need very fresh eggs. You can add vinegar to the water, get it swirling into a little whirlpool, do whatever you like, but you won’t get perfect poached eggs without very fresh eggs. Fresh eggs cook in one little mound with the white all staying together and a yolk that is high and has a glaze of white over it. The white sets while the…
If I can keep the routine going, I can harvest a dozen or so carrots pretty well most weeks of the year.