Eating from the Garden ... Frittata

We now have two new chooks settled in, Isa Browns that are so much more productive than our bantams. We're averaging about 10 eggs a week so finally have enough eggs to cook with. I made a Frittata for two using eggs with vege and herbs from our garden: tomatoes, leek, kale, basil, oregano and thyme.  The only purchased ingrediants were a little oil, a few mushrooms and some feta. This meal should be on the menu regularly now.  Next time I'll make a larger one so we have leftovers for lunch and use some our our own Goat Milk Feta which we made for the first time this week.

Homemade Fetta with garden herbs

I made Fetta today, with guidance from one of my favourite bloggers Gavin Webber I highly recommend his blog, I love it!
He is, "An Ordinary Australian Man Who Has A Green Epiphany Whilst Watching A Documentary, Gets a Hybrid Car, Plants A Large Organic Vegetable Garden, Goes Totally Solar, Lowers Consumption, Feeds Composts Bins and Worms, Harvests Rainwater, Raises Chickens, Makes Cheese and Soap, and Eats Locally. All In The Effort To Reduce Our Family's Carbon Footprint So We Can Start Making A Difference For Our Children & Future Generations To Come."

The rosemary is from my garden, the sage from our local Community Garden. The cost of this jar is probably about 25% what you'd pay in the shops and I think it tastes as good, if not better, and I know exactly what's gone into it. 

Update - December 2013

Astrid is home again, with two of us working in the garden we are making good progress. Here's an update ...

Herb Kerb

This area is reclaimed from the chicken run so it is fertile but has the usual water repellant qualities so it's been difficult to establish plants however we are now having some success and harvesting Thyme, Oregano, Purple Amaranth, Bok Choi, Cherry Tomatoes.  Seedlings that are coming along include: Eggplant, Capsicum and Rhubarb.  We'll be interested to see how much we can grow in this relatively small area (square metres), Permaculture Zone 1 - closest to our back door.

Raised Beds

These raised beds are two large beds (for crop rotation they are divided into two) of three.  Total area is 29 square metres.   The bed in the foreground is planted with potatoes, eggplant, and capsicum. One half of the bed in the background is planted with Alliums - leeks, onions etc. The other half is ready for legumes and corn. The corn grows well but Slaters "lumberjack" any beans we've planted. 

Raised Beds

Another view of the Allium bed with Kale growing very well in the bed seen behind.

Passionfruit - Oh the sorrow!

Passionfruit can grow well in Western Australia. Some vines produce 100+ fruit per year and at $1 each to buy it was an easy decision to plant a few.

We chose this spot for the first two vines.  It gets the morning sun until about 3pm in Summer and is protected from the burning Westerly sun.  

The vines grew so well that a few months later Gerry had to construct a sturdy trellis. This one is made from a frame found while Gerry was curb crawling ;) (during curbside rubbish collection).

The sorrow. Despite the lush growth we've had no fruit. The flowers drop off before fruit set. We're wondering if the plant is getting too much nitrogen.  An internet search suggests it could be missing vital nutrients so we pruned it back a little and added lime and trace minerals but now, a week later, we're not seeing any improvement.

Because of our early success we decided we'd plant two more vines.  This was a big mistake as one of the vines we chose has become a weed.  The roots send out shoot that are popping up where we don't want them.  At first we cut the shoots at the base but have since found out that this is a bad idea as it encourages the plant to send out more shoots. We're not sure how to solve this problem. As you can see we do have three fruit growing on these straggly vines.

 

In the beginning... August 2010

This is the backyard when we moved in - August 2010.  A fairly typical Australian example with an expanse of lawn, a shed, a cloths line and a dog (Cara).


We quickly planted some tomatoes, you can see the trellises in the left top corner.

The garden has a Northerly aspect.

The workshop/shed. A good site for espalied fruit trees?