Dinner with Friends

Tonight's dinner...

Lucky us! Our friends joined us for dinner.
Sourdough mother from Carol, whey for bread from Shani,quiche a gift from Neri, olives from Michelle, salt from Aileen.  We added our own home grown salad (mostly) and dressing and labna made with our own yogurt. Yum!!

Stir fry, anyone?

Garden harvest...

Included is: amaranth,water celery, beetroot, sweet potato leaves, kale, thai basil, silverbeet and two types of chillies. We'll add some almonds, and a homemade sauce of honey (purchased from a work colleague), soy and sesame oil. Served with brown rice for a super healthy, quick and delicious meal.

Happy St Patrick's Day

 Cara always claims she's Irish on St Patrick's Day.  Have a good one :)

Herb kerb - update

January 2014

February 2015

Lemongrass doesn't take long to flourish when it's in just the right place.  Ours, in front of the Japanese style gate, is nestled next to the lavender and Thai basil, with a healthy apricot in the background. We use the lemongrass in a very tasty Cambodian Yellow Curry recipe. Available Here We have a friend who gifts us Kaffir Lime Leaves, they really lift the flavour of the dish.

To add to the Yellow Curry we can include our own grown chillies and kale. If we're lucky the eggplant might continue to produce as it's been doing so for two years.

Can you see the worm tree? The brick keeps the lid in place. It's polypipe with holes drilled randomly to allow access for worms, and then it's two thirds buried.  Scraps are added to attract worms to the area.   Best placed near trees.

Basil abundance

So easy to grow, Basil is a much appreciated crop. I love the smell. Every year I save the seed, but I don't need to as it self seeds  around the garden, finding spots where it's happy.

I use it for homemade Pesto and tried it in Tomato and Basil Soup for the freezer. Tasty!

Giant Russians

Surprise ... Garlic

Homegrown Garlic

Growing amongst Parsley and Thyme - Cucumber or Zucchini?

Our garden note keeping has fallen away and so occasionally we'll find a surprise in our garden, something we forgot we'd planted. Gerry pulled up some garlic recently, thinking it was spring onions or something similar.  A very nice surprise.

We've a few plants in the garden now that are a mystery to us.  Cucumbers and zucchini plants look so similar when they're young that we'll just have to be patient and wait until they have fruit before we're sure.  This isn't a good gardening strategy of course as we could end up with lots of  zucchini plants and no cucumbers at all. In the raised beds the planting is more systematic due to the crop rotation plan and starting seedlings for the beds in trays but in the 'herb kerb', where we are aiming for a food forest, we plant seeds every week and are just grateful if anything survives the Slaters who lumberjack so many of the young seedlings.