Early October Wonder

I was wandering around the garden this morning and felt so happy and amazed at the amount of life and vibrancy surrounding me. There was a background buzz of honey bees collecting pollen, butterflies flitting around and I noticed new sprouts everywhere.

The bees were particularly enjoying this echium plant and the kale plants that have gone to flower.

Plenty of cuttings have proven successful and are happily sprouting away, like this smoke bush cutting.

And these black mulberry tree cuttings. (It's going to be fun trying to fit 20 mulberry trees in my suburban backyard!)

I'm very excited that all my blueberry cuttings are going strong. This one is even trying to flower!

The parent blueberries are looking lovely too and putting on lots of delicate bell flowers.

The tomato plants are going through some serious growth spurts and I've had to take the horticultural fleece off some before the plants burst through the top.

This Black Russian tomato wins the prize for first to flower. Fingers crossed I get get ripe tomatoes by Christmas!

Oca tubers have begun to put out foliage. And no, it is not a weed.

One pineapple guava is getting ready to put on a show of lovely red and white flowers.

This red currant plant is laden with fruit, amazing as I only planted it a couple of months ago.

Lastly, my ever generous black mulberry tree is putting on fruit.

What's amazing you in your garden lately?

Cauliflower Fail

I have real problems growing a cauliflower with good, firm, white curds and this season is no exception. Check out this spaced out specimen...

Cauliflower continues to perplex me. These plants were grown in the same bed as broccoli and the broccoli has produced amazingly well. Heaps of nice little heads and months of sides shoots. The cauli on the other hand, looked all nice and white and compact until it was the size of a toddlers fist, at which point I gently folded over a few leaves to blanch the head. All went well for a week or so then WHAM bits of green and yellow cauliflower started shooting and curling up randomly.

So what could be the problem? Soil consistently moist? Check! Soil full of organic matter such as compost and manure? Check! Fortnightly applications of seaweed solution or weed tea? Check! I've babied these bludgers! Luckily the distorted, yellowed florets still taste yummy, as do the succulent leaves.

I don't know which variety these cauliflowers were as they were purchased as some unmarked seedlings from a local market. Next season I might see if I have more luck with the purple variety  'Violet Sicilian' or stick to the 'Romanesco' broccoli that is very cauliflower-like and is much easier to grow.

Anyone else having similar problems? Anyone super successful and willing to pass on their growing wisdom?

What's Wattle Fencing?

I've been busily weaving wattle fences around plants in the garden using the last of the winter prunings (mainly from 2 very straggly snowball trees). I hope that these low fences will protect plants from wandering nieces, nephews and dog feet!

Wattle fence holding back soil and protecting a young apricot tree, strawberry runners and red currant cuttings.

These 2 little fences are protecting 2 tiny caper bushes that are just beginning to re-sprout after feigning death.

If you're interested in starting your own weaving project this is a great segment from Gardening Australia that should help you on your way.

How to Cook the First Artichoke of the Season

I harvested and ate my first globe artichoke for the season the other night. It was earthy and delicious and tasted of spring. They're a bit fiddly to prepare but once you know one end of an artichoke from the other it should only take a couple of minutes and the finished product is totally worth the effort! This is a really simple method that lets that artichokey flavour shine. Here's what I did:

Cut in half lengthways.

Cut out the 'choke' (which is the fluffy centre bit).

Cut off the top quarter of the artichoke flower.

Peeled off some of the tough outer leaves.

Peeled the stem (the stem tastes great too so remember to leave a bit on when you're harvesting).

Cooked in boiling, salted water for about 8 minutes.

Finally, I drained it, drizzled with good quality extra virgin olive oil and sprinkled with good salt (I use pink lake salt). I'm sorry to say that I was a bit excited about chowing down and forgot to take a photo of the finished product!

There are lots more artichokes forming on my plants so I can look forward to many more yummy morsels in the coming weeks. I'll even try to hold off eating them long enough to get a photo!

THIS Is a Garden Salad!

Yesterday was a lovely sunny spring day here in Melbourne- perfect salad eating weather! I picked some beetroot leaves, kale, chickweed (neither the chickens or I think this is actually a weed!), dill, shallot tops, sprouting broccoli and snow peas.

 I chopped it all up and mixed with some mayo, greek yoghurt, olive oil, sunflower seeds, left-over roasted fennel and salt and pepper. Yummo!

Can You Ever Have Too Many Seeds??

I have been stocking up on seeds for the spring/summer growing season. My seed containers were already overflowing but I just can't resist buying more varieties!

One very stylish seed box. Left of the divide for autumn/winter plantings & right for spring/summer plantings.

I was excited to find more seed companies selling smaller quantities of seed for around $1-$2 a packet (like Boondie Seeds and The Seed Collection). I can get all the varieties I want without feeling guilty that there is 3/4 of a packet going out of date in the cupboard!

It's no wonder that I've found myself raising 15 varieties of tomatoes this season! Now to find room to plant them all...

Two tomato seedlings. Their label is MIA so who knows which of the 15 varieties they could be!

Confessions of a Rookie Grafter

I grafted my first ever graft on the weekend. I've always avoided grafting because it seemed like a highly skilled craft of which I had no knowledge. That is until the joys of YouTube convinced me that it's not all that difficult. So, armed with some cleft grafting know-how, a couple of scions (courtesy of the Heritage Fruit Society), electricians tape, a tin of Steri-Prune paint, a pruning saw and more kitchen knives than I could carry, I tottered down to my established apple tree of unknown variety.

I promptly lopped of a 40mm thick branch low down in the tree and set to finding the best kitchen knife for the job of cutting down into the centre of the branch. The large 'chefs' knife turned out the best. I then set to work whittling away at the scions which turned out to be tougher then I thought. I ended up with a none-too-skinny wedge on the end of my scion pieces and set about jamming them into the cut on the existing tree. Satisfied with my job I dabbed a little bit of Steri-Prune on the graft and a lot on my hands then bound the lower parts with electricians tape.

Grafting apple scions. Scion wedges are too thick & top of the graft is left uncovered here.

Later that night I began to have doubts about my grafting job and decided to re-watch the grafting video that had inspired in the first place. I soon realised that I'd done a few things that were less than ideal. I hadn't covered the top cut with tape and the scion pieces were too thick, pushing the slice too wide (potentially allowing moisture to enter the branch). I also regretted applying the Steri-Prune to the graft. It smelt like nasty chemicals and the tree's natural healing process probably would have worked fine on this small graft anyway.  The following morning I set about re-working the grafts. I pulled all the tape off, pulled the grafts out, used a stanley knife to cut the scions down to a much thinner wedge (a recommendation I found while scrounging the net), trimmed the receiving cut down to fresh wood, replaced the scions and wrapped the entire end of the branch in tape. 

Finished graft after thinning down the scion wedges & covering the whole graft with tape.

Fingers crossed at least one of the grafts takes! I'd love to hear about your experiences in grafting (successes, failures, advice and techniques) so please feel free to comment below.

Risky Late Winter Plantings

Yesterday was the last day of winter... Yesterday I planted out a tomato seedling and my pumpkin seeds. Risky you say? Probably, but I did take some risk mitigation measures and look forward to seeing if they pay off!

I've planted my pumpkin seeds in a repurposed dog kennel (that I scavenged from the side of the road) with a piece of perspex over the top. I put 2 warty Galeux D' Eysines pumpkin seeds in one half and 2 Musquée de Provence seeds in the other half. These pumpkins are supposed to be so delicious they were traditionally eaten raw- can't wait to give that a go!

Hard rubbish dog kennel/pumpkin oasis.

The tomato (a Green Grape seedling) is tucked up under some horticultural fleece and is next to a bottle full of water. I hope the water will provide thermal mass over the cold nights.

Green Grape tomato seedling ready to bear some low temperatures (I hope!)

Quince Babies!

I have 14 new quince babies! They gestated for 3 months immersed in damp sand in a ziplock bag in the fridge (known as cold stratification). I was amazed to see that they had begun to germinate in there! They're now in pots and after 2 weeks are growing nicely (if a little leggy from minimum light). I've no idea what the fruit will be like from these plants (do they grow true to type?) but quince trees are so lovely that I really don't mind.

7 Things I've Learnt about Permaculture

When I first came across permaculture I thought it was all about gardening in a way that is as close to what nature intended. And it kind of is, but not in the way that I thought. I thought it meant getting naked, performing pagan rituals and gardening in the moonlight. In reality it's a set of really sensible systems that provide excellent results. If some people choose to apply these systems in a pagan, naked, light-of-the-moon kind of way then so be it but that's not what permaculture is about.

Permaculture. It's not voodoo!

There is a good reason for emulating nature and I had a serious 'duuuur' moment when I actually realised this. Forests, if left alone, do pretty well. They've been doing very well without our help for a very long time (in fact they often do much better without us!). They have complex ecosystems and lots of biodiversity that intermingles and co-habitates, thrives and flourishes. All without any help from humans.

Do you know how many hours I have spent trying to overpower nature, weeding a precise row of lettuce, removing fallen leaves or covering crops from the cabbage white butterfly? Don't see anyone doing that it a forest. If we copy nature (and in particular, food forests) we should be able to minimise our time and effort inputs and maximise the gain and overall health of the system.

Once I actually got my head around this I began to look at my backyard in a whole new light and really decided that I wanted to dig in (no pun intended) to learning about Permaculture. The 4 main resources that I've been using so far are the Permaculture Research Institute, the excellent articles on Temperate Climate Permaculture, the free online lectures over at The Regenerative Leadership Institute and David Holmgren's book 'Permaculture Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability'. Here's an overview of the ideas that have stuck with me so far:

1. Nature is good. Copy nature (as above). Everything has its niche and once you find it you can put them all together and they'll look after each other.
2. "The problem is the solution" sounds fairly contradictory and vague to me but once you get into it it's actually a great principle. It's about looking at the elements in an environment which we perceive as being problematic and using this as a cue to realise that what we're doing is not working (we're likely working against nature) and so we should modify the plan for that plant/area/building. It's a way of observing what's going on in a system and getting feedback on what's not working so it can be improved. For example you may have an annoyingly soggy patch of land that you want to dry up, instead stop fighting and turn it into the perfect place for a pond!
3. Ploughing soil is baaad, real bad. Ploughing and digging mixes the different layers of soil, breaking mycelium nets, destroying soil structure and adding too much oxygen, burning out the nutrients much faster. Far better to put all that good organic matter on top and let the worms do the work. In addition, grow plants like daikon, lucerne and comfrey to send down deep tap roots and add air pockets to the soil.
4. Every element in the system should have as many functions as possible. For example chickens can provide manure, weeding services, eggs, meat (not that I'll be eating my ladies any time soon!) and entertainment! Another good one is the Pigeon Pea which can provide food for humans, animals, they fix nitrogen, provide shade, wind protection and mulch. Most elements have more than one function but the idea is to pack as many great things into one plant/animal/structure as possible.

   

   Pigeon Pea seedling just coming up, I have high hopes for these guys!
5. Function of redundancy. If you have enough biological diversity, something will thrive. Even in tough conditions. It's about not putting all your eggs in one basket and reminds me of hybrid vigour in genetics. 
6. The idea of "succession" is a big one and goes back to the idea of copying nature but the goal here is to speed up the natural process. It's about taking degraded, bare land and starting with anything that will grow (likely things considered weeds/invasive species) and nitrogen fixers (they get nutrients from the air and so can survive in degraded soil). Once these plants have been in place for a while, putting roots into the soil and dropping leaves, the soil will be improved to the extent that these 'pioneer plants' will have lost their competitive edge and other, more nutrient hungry plants can take over.
7. Keeping water on site through the use of swales and mulch pits. These tools slow and hold onto water, gradually allowing it to seep into the ground. Swales are ditches dug along contours in the land to stop water running off. The soil from the ditch is usually piled on the low side of the swale to further stop run off and provides a great spot to plant fruit trees. Mulch pits are used as a very simple and inexpensive way to safely store and deliver grey water. Before I knew about mulch pits, grey water systems seemed prohibitively expensive and complicated to retrofit into an existing home. Making a mulch pit is easy. Simply dig a hole near trees you want to water, add some ag pipe, fill with chunky mulch and direct a grey water pipe into the ag pipe. It's better to have more than one mulch pit to avoid water-logging. Once the pit has water in it, all sorts of little microbes and creepy crawlies will colonise the mulch, remove nutrients and eventually turn the mulch into compost. Dig out the compost and start again! 

These 7 ideas barely scratch the surface but they're the ideas that have really stuck with me initially. What permaculture ideas do you use?

Frosty End to Winter

Despite the 2 harsh frosts that hit us a couple of weeks ago there are definitely signs that spring is just around the corner! We've had blossoms on our wild cherry plum since the end of July, our dwarf peach is just starting to blossom and buds are swelling left, right and centre. Now's the time to do any last minute winter chores in the garden before spring really kicks into gear. 

These are a few tasks I have lined up for the week ahead:

• Get one last coat of lime sulphur spray on the almond and peach trees before the buds swell too much (to control leaf curl).
• Go to local nurseries and see if I can pick up some bargain priced bare-rooted plum trees for planting out on the nature strip.
• Continue planting summer seeds indoors.
• Track down a piece of glass to complete outside cold frame.
• Graft apple scions (sourced from The Heritage Fruit Society) onto mature apple tree.
• Plant out some early potatoes and hope there are no late season frosts!

The contents of a frozen wheelbarrow.

Picking up this chunk of ice seemed like a good idea at the time... Brrr!

This wild cherry plum is the first plant to blossom at our place.

I even have a Globe Artichoke poking it's head up!

Golden Delights, a Taste of Summer in the Winter

I'm having a great time working my way through last summer's harvest of pumpkins. Latest to get the chop is my last Australian Butter Pumpkin. They are yummy when cut into cubes and roasted up 'til caramelised They still keep their shape unlike other, less dense pumpkin varieties. The seeds are also delicious roasted up in olive oil and garlic salt, mmm mm!

Freshly split Australian Butter Pumpkin, ready for the roasting tray!

Next to hit the chopping board will be my largest and most pretty pumpkin from last season. A Rouge Vif D'Etampes or 'Cinderella' Pumpkin weighing in at 7.6kg. I've become strangely attached to this beauty and will be sad to see it go... Although I'm sure the moment will pass once I taste it's delicious flesh!

Rouge Vif D'Etampes Pumpkin ready for the Fairy-God-Mother to do her thing, or for me to eat it!

That will take me to the end of my pumpkin stash, unless you count the one remaining shrivelled up excuse for a Butternut!

Sad looking Butternut Pumpkin

How are you all going with your pumpkin hoard, still feasting or have you nearly run out like me?