The fruits of my garden - Garden Share Collective January 2016

Well it's time for the first Garden Share Collective of 2016.  The GSC is hosted by Kyrstie at A Fresh Legacy and Kate at Rosehips and Rhubarb.  Head over to check out all the wonderful gardens and gardeners who join into the link. Another month (well two really, as there was a well deserved break in December!) has passed, so it's time to have a look at everyone's garden and the fruits of their labour for the past month.  And that ties in well with the theme for this month, which is - Fruit!

Of course, here in Australia we are in the middle of summer - a crazy wet and wild summer in Sydney, but summer none the less.  I heard on the news tonight that Sydney has already received around 225ml of rain this year.  Plus we've had a number of 40 degree days, which is unusual for us as well.  It seems to mean that many of my plants are looking a bit bedraggled, either drowned or burnt, but the weeds are thriving! 

At the beginning of January I had my nieces and nephew come to stay,  My eldest niece is quite interested in gardening, and asked lots of questions about how to grow different herbs and vegetables.  My youngest niece told me that she liked my garden as it was just like "going to the shops" - this was after she helped me cook dinner and we picked the capsicum, chillies, oregano, and lettuce fresh from the garden.  Interestingly, while they were staying we watched an episode of Gardening Australia (I was quite amazed that an 8 year old, 12 year old and 15 year old would happily watch a gardening show, but that must be the power of Costa!).  And from that episode I learnt something I had never realised - that any plant which produces a seed bearing product that can be eaten is considered to be a fruit.  

By that definition, not only are your traditional "fruits" such as citrus, stone fruit, berries and others included in this list but also tomatoes (ok so I knew that one), capsicum, cucumbers, eggplant, zucchini, and pumpkin - the list goes on......

 So it turns out I have quite a number of fruits in my garden.  This month the tomatoes have continued to grow and flower, although I transplanted a number of my plants and they are yet to fruit - also they have been overtaken by the weeds.

My eggplant has produced it's second fruit, and I think it looks so lovely.

My capsicum plant produced a few more good size fruit, although is a little bare now.  I did learn though from A Fresh Legacy recently that it may be worth keeping my capsicum plants through a two year cycle, and they may produce better in the second year.  So I will be trying that theory out, and will let you know how I go next year.

My raspberry plant has also been recently transplanted to a new spot, and although no fruit have appeared the plant certainly looks a lot more healthy, so perhaps next year will be a better year?

The cucumber and zucchini plants have succumbed to powdery mildew, which might be to be expected in this kind of weather.

The chillies always look nice and bright and this year I planted a few different types.

My lemon tree does have some fruit on it, but I need to take them off as it is still only young.  And my passionfruit vine is growing brilliantly, but as it was only planted a few months ago I will wait until next season to hopefully get some fruit.

Apart from my actual fruit, I like to think the rest of the garden is still "fruitful" - the spinach just keeps on growing ,my apple mint plant is going great guns, and as I discussed in a recent post my lettuces have been a bit variable in their growth but are growing none the less.  Plus my marigolds that have been planted for companion planting with my tomatoes (they are supposed to repel white fly  - even if it doesn't make any difference I always think it looks pretty!) and other plants are flowering away and making the garden look quite cheerful - it an overgrown and weedy kind of way.

This one is called apple mint.  I haven't actually tried it yet!

My poor tomatoes are being over run with weeds

As usual, my to-do list is dominated by weeding!  Plus I really need to fertilise all my pots, as a lot of the plants are starting to look a bit droopy - I think with so much rain a lot of goodness has probably been washed away.

My compost bin (which is a pretty cheap one to be fair) has started to fall apart and so I am considering relocating my compost - however I'm just not sure where it is best to go so not sure when this will happen.

I'm also considering redoing my whole sprinkler system.  While it works well to water my pots and plants, particularly when I am away often with work, I think the sprinklers are not the best way to get water to the plants and I need to look at putting in drippers instead.  This will also protect my verandah, which seems to be getting wet a lot and the wood is starting to look a bit worse for wear.

We will see how much I actually get done when it comes around to next months post!  Happy gardening to everyone and I look forward to seeing all the different and wonderful fruits for this month.

Garden Share Collective - Does Size Matter???

So I'm quite liking the idea of the themed posts for the Garden Share Collective.  And this first one is on size.  I think of it as that age old question - does size matter???

I tried to use a fancy program to draw a plan of my garden.  But it didn't work, so I have hand drawn it.

Because when it comes to size, my garden is on the "it's not the size it's what you do with it" side of the argument.   The majority of my garden is planted in the front of my house as this is both the largest area and the area that gets the most sunshine.  However, this is still a small courtyard.  The garden beds are basically one long bed running almost the length of the courtyard on the southern side of the courtyard, which is about 6m long and probably 70cm wide.  Then two beds at the front of the house, around 2m long each and also about 70 cm wide.  My neighbour is replacing the fence on the northern side and when this is complete I am considering digging in another bed, however it will not get very much sun so I'm not sure if I will be better off just using the fence as a vertical garden.

So I really won't be likely to become self sufficient growing here.  But I can still have great fun in the garden and provide at least some nice fresh additions to our meals.

The plan (please excuse the fairly slap dash manner) is here.

A pretty rough and ready drawing of our front yard.  Note the lovely feature of the bins, which have to be stored at the front of the garden as we have no side access to hide them out the back!!  Entire yard is 6m x 5 m and most of this is paved courtyard.

An older shot of the garden bed on the southern wall - it's now a lot more full and green!

The pak chois grow well

Hard to believe the whole garden started out looking like this 

Another shot of the main garden bed on the southern wall - this was during last summer and before I realised my tomatoes were being attacked by fruit fly.

 So because of my lack of garden beds I have to use a lot of containers.  Lots and lots of containers.  I am gradually filling up the courtyard with plants in pots.  My neighbours have taken to donating their unwanted pots to me (which I'm very happy to accept) so it probably won't be long and I won't be able to walk through the courtyard.

My dwarf lemon tree in one of my many brightly painted pots

Two lovely low line containers planted out with asian greens.

My kaffir lime also planted in a pot

My lovely pots of ranunculus with the never ending flowering snap dragon next to it.

I also struggle a bit with the sun.  The front faces east, and so the front yard gets morning sun.  The southern wall gets sun for most of the day, but the western side has the sun go off by late morning.  The back courtyard gets almost no sun due to buildings around it and a very large oak tree in our neighbours yard.

Even though I don't really have enough room to properly grow vegetables I am really enjoying learning about gardening and from my successes and failures.  I am quickly realising that given the space constraints I'm better off planting and growing those plants which are fairly high yield for small space.  Pumpkins are out!.  My snow peas have been brilliant and I have just planted out a crop of sugar snap peas to see how they go.  Mind you, there has been carnage as I didn't properly protect them from snails and slugs.

Prior to my snow pea harvest on Saturday - the wire trellis was being pulled off the wall!

My tomatoes yielded well in summer but the fruit fly ruined those.  Still, the capsicum plants are good for fruit and lettuce and rocket are always favourites and easy to grow.  

My capsicums went quite well so I will be planting some more this year.

I'm looking forward to harvesting my first garlic crop, and I'm hoping my square metre of precious sunny space will be worth giving up for 6 months for a good crop!  The broccolis and cauliflowers haven't really returned enough on my investment of space.

The garlic took up a fair amount of space but if I get 20 bulbs out it will be worth it.

Celery is going well in lots of different pots and my herbs are growing even out in the shade of my back garden.  

So this month I have started planning my spring garden, planting cucumbers (destroyed by slugs) sugar snap peas (also attacked) eggplant, zucchini, rocket, parsley, lettuce, tomatoes and asian greens.  Once I deal with the slimy critters (been out liberally applying table salt to them all tonight!) I will try again with some of my seedlings.  

I think as well I will try my hand at growing some carrots, and also some radishes and capsicums - all from seed - which will be next months GSC theme!  Happy gardening to all and look forward to seeing you next month.  

Garden Share - May 2015

Oh dear.  So many songs could sum up this month - and all of them include the word rain!  "Raindrops keep falling on my head", "Who'll Stop the Rain", and especially the old childhood favourite "It's Raining, it's Pouring".  Sydney has been hit hard with storms and rain, and I really feel like I haven't been in the garden all month.  I shouldn't really complain, while we sprung a few leaks and have one very wet wall which needs outside repairs to the weatherboards and will eventually probably require resheeting inside, in comparison to those who lost a lot more than us we were relatively unscathed.

So while the rain has meant that I didn't have to/was not able to do any particular maintenance all month in the garden it has also meant I don't have much to show for myself for the garden share.  Same as last month, I'm joining in the Garden Share Collective (which is hosted by Lizzie at Strayed from the Table) and feeling inadequate when comparing myself to other lovely gardens.   

Rocket along with my marigolds for pest protection

The lettuce, rocket and mizuna have kept on growing and although have been raided for multiple salads they're still going ok.

The basil I have let go to flower as it seems to attract an awful lot of bees, and I feel like they might not have a lot of other flower sources at present so it seems like a good idea to give them something to eat.  Also, let's be honest, I "let" it go to flower because I haven't been bothered cutting them off in the rain.

I have about four small capsicums on one of my plants, the other seems to have not enjoyed the rain in it's pot, I think it needs a good feed of some kind of fertiliser.

I somehow have four very late tomatoes which are growing on my self seeded tomato plant - will be interesting to see how they go - I may need to hang them up somewhere to ripen as I'm not sure they will make it on the plant.

My kale - well it has been annihilated by caterpillars.  The broccolettes also have been attacked, but nowhere near as badly.  When I have the chance I have been picking the caterpillars off and squashing them, but with the weather and the vast quantities of caterpillars I have unfortunately found most of my plants completely stripped and nothing to be done.  Serves me right for being so proud of them last month and ignoring any warnings about the cabbage moth.

The potatoes in a bag experiment also seems to be going quite well, although has been completely neglected.  I think it is time to add more dirt to keep the production up, so that is on the to-do list.

The chillis just keep on keeping on.  I pick them and give them away as we can't use them all, and still they keep growing.

So that is what has survived.  And my to do list is probably exactly the same as last month, as I didn't get anything done!  I just need to add some cleaning up tasks  -

1) Get stuck into the weeding - the abundance of water around seems to have been mostly to the benefit of the weeds
2) Sweep up the leaves which are everywhere and wet and put into the compost - most are well on their way to rotting with the water around so hopefully this will make faster compost
3) Plant my garlic - this may be far too late but I have been reluctant to plant due to the water.  I am sure I read that garlic doesn't really like wet feet.  Anyway, I figure I have three bulbs of garlic, I might as well try out planting, and hope for a good result at the end of the year.
4) Pull up those late tomatoes and capsicums and plant out something else -  I haven't decided yet what to plant!  According to Lizzie's planting guide (find it here) I might look at carrots, turnips or broad beans - or maybe all of the above.....
5) Hill up my potatoes in a bag to keep the yield high.

So let's hope my next month Garden Share is a bit more interesting!  Any suggestions for what to plant will be gladly accepted as well.  

Cooking with some of our home grown produce

I might be the main gardener and DIYer in the family but I am very spoilt as my husband is definitely the main cook!  Not only does he cook nearly every night, he also likes to make rather elaborate meals, like our Bento Box meals.  So he's written a guest post for the blog to show one of his most recent creations - 

Now that we’ve got some veggies growing in the garden, it’s time for the best part, eating them! One of the first trips away we took together was to Japan, a country with a tradition of great food. One of our favourite meals is a Bento Box, which is great for entertaining. Our Bento Boxes were given to us by the in-laws, and they bought them here - 

I tend not to experiment with Bento Boxes, rather I cook four dishes that I have previously done individually. That way you know that each of the four dishes will be good in their own right, and you have a better idea of how to time each dish. I nearly always have a salad, so that it can be made and set aside, and a rice or a noodle dish. For this meal, I also made chicken and chive rolls in soy and maple syrup, and fried prawn balls with sweet and sour dipping sauce. I combine this with garlic steak rice and a crab and mango salad.

Garden produce - lovely chilli, herbs, capsicum

 So to start, here are some of the ingredients for the salad that we grew in the garden, including thai basil, a capsicum, 5 chillies and coriander. Julienne (slice long and thin) the chillies and capsicum, then coarsely chop the basil and coriander.

Supermarket ingredients - hopefully soon we will have limes growing too

These are the ingredients that I bought from the supermarket. I julienned 4 kaffir lime leaves and the mango, then coarsely chop the seafood extender (you can use fresh crab meat if you want to be fancy, tofu for a vegetarian salad). Put it all in together, squeeze out the juice of the lime and put it in the fridge for later. I then put the rice onto cook, and when it’s ready, I rinse it in cold water in the colander and leave it there for later. I got this recipe from the Australia Masterchef series 3 cookbook. 

(editor note - he has tweaked the salad recipe a little, but click on the link for the general recipe)

Mango and seafood salad ready to eat - yum!

The next dish to start on is the chicken and chive rolls. This recipe comes from a book that’s very special to me. It was written by the Aunt of my PhD student, who gave it to me as a present for supervising her before she went to Japan. It had just been translated into English, which is a little bit helpful.  Find it here - 

Ingredients for the chicken and chive rolls - another ingredient which will soon be available from the garden

So, to start with you need some chicken thighs and chives. I sliced the thighs and opened them out, then rolled them around the chives, securing them using toothpicks. I then set these aside in a bowl and mix equal volumes of cornflour and water for later.

Next, the prawn balls. This recipe is from a book we bought on another holiday, when we went to China. It’s not Japanese, but it tastes great so what the heck. Just take 2 slices of bacon, ½ a kilo of green prawns and six water chestnuts and cut them into pieces as fine as possible. Mix them with a teaspoon of sugar, ½ a teaspoon of salt and 2 teaspoons of cornstarch, then cover the bowl and put them into the fridge until later.

 

Ingredients for the prawn balls

 Then, I return to the garlic steak rice, this recipe is also in the Simply Japanese book. Slice four cloves of garlic and place in a large frying pan with olive oil on high until fragrant. Take out the garlic, then cook a New York cut steak for 3 minutes onto each side. Remove and slice thinly. When ready, usually after the chicken and chive rolls are cooked, put the steak, garlic and rice back into the frying pan with a lug of butter and soy sauce to taste.

Now, going back to the chicken and chive rolls, I deep fry in the electric wok. The temperature is to be 180^oC, I re-mix the cornstarch and water, dip the chicken and chive rolls into them and then into the deep fryer for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, I put 2 tablespoons sake, 2 ½ tablespoons of soy sauce and 2 tablespoons of maple syrup into a frypan on low heat. When they’re cooked, I transfer them into the sauce and coat them as much as I can, before removing the toothpicks and slicing them thickly.

Prawn ball mix

When they’re done, I take out the prawn mixture and roll about 2-3 tablespoons of the mixture into a ball and then roll them over breadcrumbs to coat. I turn the temperature in the wok to 190^OC and fry the prawn balls for 3 minutes each, usually I need to do two batches. While they’re cooking, I put all the ingredients for the garlic steak rice into the pan on moderate to high heat. I get the salad out and start filling the Bento Box with the salad, then the chicken and chive rolls, then the garlic steak and finally the prawn balls. Turned out not too bad.

The final product - four delicious dishes which were polished off pretty quickly!

A tale of two cucumbers

I don't really understand gardening. Guess that's kind of a given already! But my
cucumber plants are a case in point. A while back (can't remember when- October some time?) I planted some cucumber seeds. Two lovely seedlings duely appeared, and I carefully tended them. When they were getting to about 8cm tall I transferred them to the garden. So far, so good. And so same. But something has gone wrong.  I initially started this post when there were still two plants, although one was looking pretty bedraggled.  Unfortunately, one plant has now given up the ghost.  The other however, is going from strength to strength -

Early growth on my stronger cucumber plant

The poor weak cucumber plant which has now completely given up

The remaining cucumber plant going (and growing) strong

So what is the difference? Same soil same water same shade to start off - I am not too sure!  I'm starting to wish that I had some more seedlings ready to go- maybe it will just be one cucumber plant for me.  Can you get fruit from just one plant?  Much as I like the idea of growing from seed I think perhaps I am better with seedlings.

Mind you, my radishes are going ok, and they were just seeds sprinkled in the garden bed.

Early days of my radishes (and I think that was rocket seedlings coming up too - sadly the slugs seem to have destroyed them)

And radishes growing strongly - as my dad says (quite scornfully I must add) "even a child can grown radishes"

And here is my capsicum plant also grown from seed.

But this very prolific capsicum plant was planted from a seedling.

Lots of capsicums although they don't seem to get any bigger than this quite miniature size

So I like the idea of growing from seed, but for success I think seedlings are the way to go!