There’s a (very small) limit to the amount of mustard we eat as leaf – a tiny bit to heat up spinach and feta muffins or add a bit of spiciness to Saag, but that’s about it. But the seed is valuable. I make seeded or Djion mustard from it, use it in curries and dhal and pickles, and sow the seed to harvest as microgreens this time of year.
There’s lots of leafies to harvest at the moment. I’ve got a bit of an addiction going for Rocket and Macadamia Pesto, (without chili this time of year). The rocket you can see on the left of the photo, just next to the spring onions, is just the right stage for pesto. I have another patch of younger rocket that I like better in salads – it’s that bit milder.…
I used every trick in my arsenal for preventing bolting, but still, just a week or so after planting out, this little Chinese Cabbage seedling has decided it’s just feeling too sexy for its shirt. The days are getting longer at an exponentially faster rate now so everything wants to flower and set seed.
I think this is one of the huge risks in climate change, that urban people completely don’t get. Farmers gamble, constantly. They make educated, considered, intuitive guesses based on gut feeling, the tiny signals that intimacy and experience allow. Those guesses are sometimes right, sometimes wrong. Bad guessers go broke or resort to mining the land. Good ones get it right more often than wrong and succeed. Climate change is…
One of the most important insights that really changed the way I garden was realising just how long plants are babies for.
The turmeric is flowering, such gorgeous flowers. They’re hidden deep within the foliage, but the plant is very good looking anyway. At least in summer. It doesn’t work so well as a decorative plant because it dies right back in winter – a period of yellowing daggy looking leaves, followed by bare ground with not a trace of the bounty underneath.
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…
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…