Vegetable Vagabond

Agriculture or electricity, for Tasmania?

2012-01-25T07:17:00.001+11:00

This discussion (below) is copied from a newsletter a friend of mine writes, called Crikey dot Ken. Ken is always on the ball about issues Tasmanian and especially those relating to the D'Entrecasteaux Channel.

I don't know enough about Tasmanian soil to make a good judgement but I do know that the area being discussed for this irrigation scheme is prone to drought, and that is why it is cheap land, while many parts of Tasmania have excellent rainfall.

I should explain that Tasmania has well established hydro-electric schemes and some new wind farms. It is in an ideal position to make all its own electricity if it manages these well and invests in innovative mini-hydro farms like this one. Its only other option is to pump electricity across Bass Strait from the mainland, at huge cost, which it has started doing, much to the annoyance of customers like me who are seeing their costs double!!

One wonders what is really behind all this; one thing is for sure - it is about money and politics, and not about what is good for the future.

An agricultural bonanza for Tasmania or just a few others?

There is something not quite right with the scheme to bring water for irrigation to the midlands of Tasmania from Arthurs Lake. A motherhood question would be, ‘Are you in favour of an irrigation scheme that would see productive farms producing food that would feed many thousands if not millions of people in Australia and across the world’? This political proposal is to pipe / drain water from Arthurs Lake in the Central Highlands to the lower cost land illustrated in the map to the right. It’s an engineer’s dream job.

But what are the cons apart from the pros? Arthurs Lake is a good size lake that sits below the much bigger Great Lake of Tasmania. The pros of Arthurs Lake is it has a catchment while the higher, bigger Great Lake has virtually no catchment apart from direct rain and snow. The Great Lake, last ten or twenty years, has been at the best say variable. The level of the Great Lake over the last twenty or more years has been bordering on empty most of that time. Traditionally the method has been to pump the Arthurs Lake water up to the Great Lake in the off peak and then funnel it down via Poatina Power Station which has been believed to produce the most efficient power generated in Tasmania such is the fall of the water. It has six turbines, with a combined generating capacity of 300 MW of electricity. There is a net gain to Tasmania using Arthurs water.

So who are the winners and the losers?

Now we are told Hydro Tasmania are being asked / told to for-go that water from the Arthurs Lake to feed the new Tasmanian Midlands Irrigation Scheme. If there has been modelling as to how much water is required for Irrigation; what is that amount? Does it equate to the water forgone by Hydro Tasmania for electricity generation? If the irrigation authority get it wrong with their estimates being on the low side of irrigation water required, will it be just as easy, or even easier, to take water out of the Great Lake too via Arthurs by reversing the past usual process?

As the Great Lake is likely to experience even lower precipitation and snow in the future will that mean that the most efficient power producer in Tasmania, Poatina, will be idle more times than not for lack of water that is drifting down a pipe line to the midlands to produce food and wool in a much less efficient way than Hydro Tasmania creating good clean electricity that is destined to fetch astronomical prices on future mainland markets. The infrastructure is already there to produce electricity.

The irrigation scheme will cost 100 million dollars for a harder to earn, unknown return This is more a shift of money from the electricity uses of Tasmania to the pockets of a few wealthy investors and some hard working farmers. In hindsight, all will be left is a few trout fishers looking at the mud of Arthurs and the Great Lake much like the older anglers reminisce about the great days of the Shannon Rise. This could be one of the greatest shift of capital from the Tassie battlers to the corporate board room, ever, and that’s saying something.

Thanks Ken for allowing me to put this on my blog.

Wanted: Smiles of comprehension....

2012-01-20T08:30:00.000+11:00

I hear it so often and I am sick of it.... "I have a vegetable garden... but... so much gets wasted because I don't get around to eating from it..... Its so convenient to shop at the supermarket....." etc etc etc etc until I want to scream. It is a disease; contagious, malignant, but avoidable.

These people feel distressed, annoyed with themselves and helpless to know how to change. I see it everywhere and hear the same excuses, smell the same car fumes, see the same rushing, rushing, rushing in the main streets but, at the same time, I sense the desire to do it differently, the pleading for a solution.... and now help is at hand!

I am going to give a few talks and run monthly workshops, where I show people how to live and eat from their gardens; where we go into my garden together, find dinner and cook it in minutes, then eat it together. We will laugh and enjoy it. This is my passion and I think I can do it, if only I can inspire them, from the very beginning, to listen with their hearts and minds and learn with me. We will relax, step back and review the way we approach thinking about food and we will have fun doing it. It will definitely be more fun that shopping in a supermarket and so rewarding.

Smiles of comprehension are what I am aiming for and if just one person continues the journey afterwards, I will be happy. Diseases are sometimes persistent and need constant, repeated treatments so I want my garden to be open for therapy.... like a personal trainer, I will be!

Contact me if you'd like to join in.

'Tis the season to relax

2012-01-19T07:37:00.001+11:00

Such a good time was had and sooooo handsome are my boys () that it has taken me all this time to choose the Christmas photos to put on the blog....

"Food, festivities and fun" was the theme for the Flints, as it was the first time we'd been together for a year. It seemed Hugh was not going to make it, as a thunder storm hit Hobart as his plane was about to land at 5pm on Christmas eve but good old Qantas found a break in the storm, after an hour of circling the skies, and Hugh finally arrived safely.

On Christmas day chef Hugh produced these delicious prawn cocktails whilst using every dish in the kitchen and calling all hands on deck....

Meanwhile, Alex quietly and very expertly baked a magnificent nut roast (left back) which every vegetarian should have in their repertoire.

We shared Christmas lunch with old friends, on the lawn, under a pretty market stall gazebo that I just love and am so glad I bought last year.

If you love leatherwood honey, you may be interested in this photo of the leatherwood trees in flower which I took when we went on the Tahune air walk, a suspended walkway high up in the tree tops, out of Geeveston.

Then we went on a day trip to Bruny Island, just a few minutes by ferry....

To me, Bruny Island is all about the sea; crystal clear water, brilliant white sand, and views to take your breath away.....

...plus berries to gorge on, on pancakes and in glasses, at The Berry Farm.

Summer here is soft and green, with the odd hot day for swimming.... and the whole area is laden with fruit. Heaven.

Life is good. Get there fast then take it slow.

A summer salad for a barefoot gardener

2012-01-17T12:55:00.001+11:00

I love bare feet. I love soft, green paths and I love my gentle summer garden in Tasmania.

By 7pm the heat of the day has diminished, there's a gentle sea breeze and I walk my shaded, clover paths in bare feet, finding salad greens here and there, to fill my basket and my plate. There is even a late raspberry to be found.

So many people have suggested ways I could control the wildness of my paths and keep them clear of weeds and grass and clover but I just nod and say thanks for the advice..... then I just mow them. Clover mows beautifully and never grows too tall when your mowing is late. It is luxuriously soft to walk on and makes me feel very happy, as I work barefoot in my garden this summer.

A fine tilth to end a fine day

2012-01-04T22:47:00.001+11:00

Some people end the day with a beer or a wine or even a home-made limoncello but I ended my day with a fine tilth, and ecstatic I am about it too. There are few things that give me greater pleasure than achieving such a thing, especially after the rugged start the soil had earlier in the day.

Wednesday gardening at my place saw some looks of concern as I described the job for the morning which was to clear out a large strip of garden, totally overgrown with last season's vegetables gone to seed. We could not even see the end of the strip, so high had the flower heads grown, many being 2 metres or more.

Summer in southern Tasmania had turned dry and warm the last couple of weeks (at last!!) and the soil was hard, compacted and full of the wretched thick stems and tough roots associated with plants intent on reproducing. There were fennel, kale, beetroot, red cabbage, celery and parsnip, all particularly robust. I had cringed for weeks, every time I walked past this part of the garden on my way to visiting the chooks, at the thought of launching into tackling the job.

But, I smiled sweetly and made light of the work ahead as I showed the gang what I wanted them to do.... no good backing off now, when I had 4 great women willing to make the attack with me! I headed in first, with shears drawn ready to cut my way through the forest. Following close behind was Lorna, who collected up the debris and threw it over into the chook yard so that Robin could get to the stumps and dig them out. On the other side of the bed Sandra and Ann followed a similar routine with Lorna managing well to keep up with the clearing up.

These seed heads were not left to grow due to laziness on my part but rather to supply friends and seedsavers with seeds to sow. Most of the seed pods were well developed but not yet fully mature so I chose to leave standing 2 or 3 of each variety until I am able to collect the seeds. Some were not worth keeping as they will have crossed with others or because they were not that good a variety in my opinion.

Once cleared, we aerated the soil by pushing in a fork to its full depth then levering up the soil just enough to break the clumps.... no turning involved; much easier on your back and on the soil life below the surface.

Some time later we stood and admired a job well done..... the day moved on and I did not have time to get back to it until much later. Earlier, someone had said the only way I'd get a decent sowing surface was to borrow their tiller but, although I did not say so, I had another option in mind; something as old as farming itself.... so in the meantime I put the sprinkler on for a while so when I did get a chance to do stage 2 the soil had turned from heavy and grey to moist and dark.

All was quiet and peaceful when I returned at 5.30 with my trusty old rake. I placed the rake on the soil and began the rhythmic motion required to rake the surface ready for seed sowing. It was then that I felt that connection I sometimes get with the earth; something innate, ancient and deep. The big clumps of dry dirt from the morning slowly turned to a fine, dark, damp tilth between the tines of my old rake. This soil has a beautiful texture; the best in my whole garden.

As the evening light softened, and the chooks crooned their gentle words to one another behind the fence, I once again thought how much I enjoy working with soil and sowing seeds; how right and good it feels, how purposeful and meaningful it is and how seeds are the basis of all our food, and by sowing them year after year we are sowing the seeds of the future of our own civilisation. Food security, climate change, biodiversity, in fact the health of every living thing on the earth, depends on seeds.

Life is good. Rake a fine tilth and sow some seeds with me.

The berries are in.... but the geese are out!

2011-12-24T07:51:00.001+11:00

The berries are in! Yippee!

People's gardens are overflowing with them and everyone has a smile on their face.

For a joyful, playful view of Christmas, from a bunch of happy goats..... watch this delightful video

My 2 new geese, who I thought were safely fenced into goose heaven, were found out wandering beside the pond this morning..... and Alex and I had been so proud of our handy work....

....and then they strolled into the water as I turned the corner. Oh dear.... Deb said keep them enclosed for 2 weeks and its only been 2 days!

Well, there's plenty of grass for them to mow so maybe I will just have to let them start work. Surely they will stay near the pond, since that is where the grass is.

Merry Christmas to all bloggers.....

to those who are enjoying Christmas in sunny Australia and picnics on the beach, to those of you huddling by the fire in the northern hemisphere.

Eat, think and be merry!

The exciting birth of the cape gooseberry

2011-12-16T07:41:00.001+11:00

	By the end of winter the capsule that was green, then brown, has skeletonised and the seeds inside are housed in the shrivelled yellow fruit, if it is not eaten by me!
	In spring, if the capsule is in a moist place, the seeds germinate and send down tiny roots through the threads of the capsule skin and then masses of miniscule green leaves begin to grow and fill the capsule.
	Still the capsule holds tight, until the growth of seedlings inside put such pressure on the skin.....
	that it pops open, shedding its skin forever and another generation of cape gooseberry plants are born! Such is the joy of growing food. Life is good.

Raspberries without netting.... the story from both sides

2011-12-15T16:54:00.001+11:00

I just picked a bowl of raspberries from the garden. I did not have to battle with netting; I have very many birds all flitting about .... so why didn't they get the raspberries? Camouflage!

I planted raspberries along a flimsy fence I put up when I first came here, to separate chooks and vegetables. The winds that first year were ferocious so I let some very strong mallows continue to grow on the chook side of the fence to help protect the vegetables from the wind and to disguise from the chooks what I was doing inside the vegetable garden!

Lazy gardener that I am, all I have done since, to the mallows, is to trim them like a rough hedge. Now they are flowering with masses of lilac flowers. Luckily the raspberries, on the vegetable garden side of the fence, have managed to flourish. I have been meaning to put up bird netting over the whole row, as people said I would not get one raspberry if I didn't keep the birds out.

Well, lazy gardener that I am, the net never did get put up, the raspberries are ripe and I have just picked a bowl full, with not a single berry missing from the canes, as far as I can see!

It is very hard to see, from these photos, but that is the point! It is also hard to see for the birds! From above, the row of raspberries is disguised by the purple flowers from the mallow. Magic! And so simple.

Sometimes.... in fact, often.... its best to wait a while and see what happens before rushing off and buying yet more stuff. I try to outsmart the birds and the pests and camouflage is one of the easiest options in a lazy gardener's compendium.

Geoff Lawton...my latest hero

2011-12-14T07:14:00.001+11:00

The man who brought us those videos about finding the ancient food forests in various locations. I love his passion and want to go outside and DO the things in this video TODAY!!

But, why oh why does the price of $36 become $46 at the checkout? People are not supposed to advertise prices in Australia minus GST. All prices must include GST. And the shipping cost of $6.50 is outrageous. Well, looks like all I will ever see is this trailer!!

Its my pastry and I'll cry if I want to....

2011-12-13T07:18:00.001+11:00

....but luckily I didn't need to.

Four keen pastry students fronted up in my kitchen on Saturday and we got down to work, making 3 different types of pastry. Mine was then made into a pie or tart which we baked and then, later, sat around and ate..... well, someone has to do it.... and what an excuse to eat spinach and fetta pie, apple pie and peach tart all in one day!

The characters that gather in my kitchen for these workshops are what make life in Cygnet such a joy of the unexpected and such fun.... they would make a great TV show... and I have someone coming to stay later this week who might just be the person for the job.... more on that next week.

Here's me, enjoying myself immensely while the big Scotsman is no doubt saying something almost unintelligible, but very funny.

Sometimes I was rather pleased that the result was as superb as I knew it could be.... but there were moments when it could have been otherwise.... like when I turned out the upside down peach tart, having only ever made it once before!

Of course we had a short break for coffee in the garden... before heading back inside to finish the apple pie.

The proof of the pudding....

Thanks to the photographer for providing me with so many photos .... again!

Foraging for Food Walk

2011-12-12T09:24:00.001+11:00

All night it poured with rain. All through breakfast it continued. I was sure there would be cancellations. I checked my emails and listened for the phone.... then they started to arrive; early, happy, laden with home-made food and drinks to share. Before long the clouds lifted and as we stood in my lawn, while Jilli gave us her introduction to the world of weeds and herbs through human history, I thought to myself how wonderful it is here.... how lovely the people are..... how they turn up prepared for any weather...how generous they are..... how lucky I am to have Jilli as a neighbour.

We set off to Jilli's and spent a good hour and a half delighting in her amazing knowledge of English edibles which now run rampant in our gardens. Jilli's garden follows the same creek as flows through my garden and on the banks of it she has naturalized what we generally call weeds but are, in fact, the staple foods of the peasants of England for thousands of years. Here we all are, walking beside the trickling stream and looking for the little orange markers Jilli had used to mark the plants we were learning about.....

Telling the difference between Dandelion and....	Cat's Ear, for example....
Jilli's newest composting method is this woven design from Suweto.	Then back at my place for a shared lunch....

Jilli had made stinging nettle soup, using the large, English nettles from her garden but I have the smaller, Tasmanian nettles in mine. The soup went so fast that this is all that was left on the hotplate of the gas BBQ for a photo!

I made a dip which started out being chickweed pesto but, oh lalala, I had an embarrassing number of disasters while making it and thought it was ruined..... but people loved it and even asked for the recipe!

Amanda is a blogger who came all the way from Hobart and brought this fabulous elderflower cordial (quite different to Deb's divine nectar but equally as delicious), amongst other things. She has a great blog called Gourmet Gatherer. Since she is new to blogging, do call in on her and say hello. I was lucky to get this photo of Fern and John with the cordial because it too disappeared in no time!

We finished the afternoon with coffee and Judy's soft and perfect scones.

Jilli provided us with handouts for the weeds we happily now call friends, and even recipes to make sure we enjoy them in our everyday lives as well as a comprehensive reading list.

This kind of knowledge is invaluable for we Australians who have no tradition of eating from our own wild places, having scoffed for too long, over the last 2 centuries, at the Aboriginal people who knew the land and Australia's own wild edibles. We must now learn to eat weeds from other countries, gathered in our own gardens, and to find what knowledge we can about edible Tasmanian plants.... including a native elderberry and a raspberry found in the forests.

A piece of paradise and history for sale in Tasmania....and incredibly affordable

2011-12-07T18:02:00.001+11:00

We went to this coffee shop for a Ploughman's Lunch on our way back to Cygnet recently. Sally served up the best lunch we'd had for ages and topped it off with a side of beetroot relish. It was so good we asked her if she had it for sale..... and when she said yes, and that she had grown the beetroot too, we bought the lot to sell on The Garden Shed market stall. We sold out in one day!

Evandale is breathtakingly beautiful, just like in the video.... oh how I would have loved to buy the business. I so hope someone falls in love with it and keeps it going.

Good luck Sally!

A Chance Meeting....

2011-12-05T19:03:00.001+11:00

I was at a market with Hugh; I bought some vegetables and some olive oil from a bloke and we exchanged a few remarks.... he was busy but I told him I was taking the oil back to Tasmania.... I gave his wife my business card and then we moved on..... Next day, an email invited us to visit Patlin Gardens and a friendship was begun.

Pat and Lina grow vegetables organically, but uncertified, between rows of olive trees at Angle Vale. Pat understands health, of himself and of his soil and plants. He said he used to use chemicals when he lived somewhere else and they made him sick so for many years now he has kept away from them and vitality oozes from his skin. There is passion in his voice. He has a lovely smile and a quick wit.

We spend hours wandering his 20 acres, chatting, understanding each other and I learn so, so much from him.... I learn a lot about olives.... varieties, growing them, eating some of them fresh from the tree.... and about the olive oil making process. I learn about zucchinis, of all things, and which to grow for the flowers and which to grow for the flesh....I learn about growing garlic for year round flavour.... I learn about sowing for a continuous supply. I learn an awful lot about growing for a weekly market, where it is no good having vegetables ripen mid-week and I grow to admire this man and his strength to do all this because he wants people to be healthy.

He cuts open a yellow beetroot and tells us about the way he talks to people at the market to try to get them to try new things and get them to feel the goodness in his vegetables and to understand about eating good food. I ask millions of questions but every time he shows me an unusual vegetable he looks at me quizzically..... and every time I know what the vegetable is, even if it is in its infancy, and I think he is surprised and we share some mutual admiration.

In the front yard are other fruit trees, all with understories of herbs and salad greens. This is how we should all be growing our food; maximising space, using herbs as pest control, as well as planting as diversely as possible.

They let the oregano flower then pick it and dry it, tying into bunches for the market. There are boxes of the bunches in the shed, along with boxes of their first garlic harvest, and the smell is intoxicating.

Inside the house, Lina has been preparing orders for her chilli sauce and olive tapenade. We are invited to sit down and share some olives and beer and it is a wonderful thing.... anyone who can get me to like beer must have magic in their veins!

I cannot explain well enough how privileged Hugh and I felt at the generosity these market gardeners offered to complete strangers. I am bringing back 20 litres of Pat's olive oil and plan on dealing with Pat and Lina from now on, with The Garden Shed and Pantry olive oil supplies and, hopefully, their pickled olives too, if Tasmanian quarantine allows. They hope to visit Tasmania and I have asked them to stay anytime.

If you are at the Showgrounds Farmers' Market, do say hello to Pat and Lina at their Patlin Gardens stall and do mention you are a friend of mine. You can safely eat everything they grow and know it is grown with a passion for health, between rows of olive trees, just to the north of Adelaide. Their business card says.... there are seasons for a reason.... and on the back, there are reasons for the seasons....you won't find out of season produce or food grown using plastic at this market stall.

Why I am, or was, feeling soooooo hungry!

2011-11-20T06:14:00.000+11:00

A quiet walk around Hugh's garden, picking bits for dinner.... a thorough investigation of the contents of his fridge and cupboards and dinner is underway, while I am home alone tonight....

The kitchen fills with the aromas I love so, so much.... while the air conditioner works hard to keep away the reason why they are already ripe in this garden!!

I swear this zucchini tripled in size during the heat today.... and the first, fresh garlic has increased in intensity too....

the herbs added zing to the salad.... and I am in heaven! See the watermelon radish? Usually its redder. There's rocket, sorrel, mint, tarragon, Vietnamese mint, garlic chives, lettuce.... and a sliced up falafel. No dressing, just crushed ice.

I wasn't going to eat it all.... I meant to save some for Hugh.... oh dear!!

If ever there's a reason I would leave Tasmania it would be because I cannot either grow or find locally some of the vegetables of the Mediterranean summer that are hard to grow there, without resorting to buying their tasteless cousins from the supermarket.

Later.... I have passed a test here at Hugh's..... unaided use of coffee machine 101.

Hugh's Guru Food plus... Adventures in Hugh's Garden

2011-11-18T17:12:00.001+11:00

If you knew Hugh you would not have been wondering why I have written barely a thing since I arrived at his house to stay. There has not been a minute to contemplate the meaning of life. Hugh has started making and marketing what he calls Hughsli Essentials.... food one should never be without .....and I have happily offered myself as packer, sampler, bottle washer and general helper.

As you can see, this is not me in this photo at the Adelaide Central Market, but his marketing helper, Georgina.

Since I arrived last Friday, I have been eating his gourmet toasted muesli every morning and nibbling away at the off-cuts of the Bar Up muesli bars during the day..... then there's dukkah, 2 incredible mixes of nuts and spices, a seasonal range of preserves including caramelised quince paste, mint and apple jelly as well as lemon and lime curd. Everything is sourced as locally as possible and here he is picking the mint for the mint and apple jelly from my mother's garden....

Hugh's own garden is based around 2 ponds which make this hot, sandy garden seem cool and fresh even when its 37 like today.

There are advantages to living in a hot, dry place..... you can pick up lounge chairs from hard rubbish collections, put them in your garden for a while and when they fall to bits, put them out and get another..... here is my favourite breakfast couch.....

If this was in my garden in Cygnet, it would be wet and mouldy all the time!

Or if you prefer to sit under the gazebo....

Hugh's passion for his garden, his own food and his new business are invaluable, enviable and exciting. Hughsli is now stocked in various locations all over Adelaide, from Goodies and Grains in the Central Market, to Viva at Burnside Village and The Corner Store in Semaphore.

Follow Hughsli on Facebook..... and please do click "like"!!

Sustainable Spencer Gulf King Prawns

2011-11-16T08:10:00.001+11:00

South Australia is managing its seafood industries better than most, and about a million times better than Tasmania. Sometimes I am very proud to be South Australian. Now living out of SA I can see that there are very many South Australians doing innovative and wonderful things. Oddly, the media within SA seems to focus on all the bad news of the state. The media needs to take a big look at itself and start supporting its community instead of trying to destroy it.

.....a remarkably special day for South Australian seafood producers in general, and Spencer Gulf prawn fishermen specifically as it marked the recognition of Spencer Gulf and West Coast Prawn Fisherman’s Association (SGWCPFA)as the first prawn fishery in both the Asia Pacific and the world to gain certification for sustainability from the prestigious Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). The MSC is a global program which assesses wild capture fisheries only and sets standards for sustainably managed fish stocks, minimal environmental impact and effective fishery management.

read the rest on Lamb's Ears and Honey.....

Salty hair, sandy feet and miles of sunshine....

2011-11-15T07:13:00.001+11:00

THIS is what I came to Adelaide seeking and, luckily, have found.... summer by the sea. Hugh lives near the beach... a wide, white gently curving beach in suburban Adelaide. I think I was a mermaid in a previous life because I live the sea..... sun, sand, dazzling light, curling waves, old, wooden jetties, diving into the water and coming up refreshed and free.

Young families find the shade of the jetty a cool and pleasant place to build sandcastles, stretch out on towels or frolic in the shady shallows, away from the heat of the early afternoon..... An Indian woman, dressed in colourful regalia, watches her husband and children splashing and playing nearby.... a talented young boy rides his skim board back and forth as the incoming tide sends blankets of shallow water onto the shore.... a little girl in pink, frilly bathers, splashes her dad in fits of giggles ...... a group of teenagers throw a variety of balls amongst each other, standing up to their waists in the sea, their voices happy and playful. An elderly woman in a smart pair of bathers wades out through the small waves, a delightful look of pleasure on her face.

Everywhere people are smiling, relaxed and happy. The sea, the beach, the warm sunshine do this to people the world over. I splash through the water as I go for a walk, the sand firm and flat and easy to walk on without watching where you are going. A light sea breeze skims across the water and flutters umbrellas and tents, as well as t-shirts and dresses. The silver light dances and sparkles on the surface, almost glassy, between the breezes.

On a day like today the temperature is perfect for walking in the lightest clothes, wet or dry and I hold my hat in my hand to feel the breeze blow through my damp hair. Glorious is the word that springs to mind, an absolutely glorious day to be alive and at the beach, at this beach, before the Adelaide summer gets too hot but far away from the still cold waters of Tasmania.

Back at Hugh's, we make a mango smoothie. Mangoes..... 3 for $5 at the market yesterday. There are some things that just cannot be beaten for sheer joy.

Self-sowing and re-growing my way to laziness....

2011-11-14T07:50:00.001+11:00

Another step on the way to Adelaide.... the Naracoorte Caravan park and a lovely cabin nestled in the gum trees which are laden with parrots and other birds..... then collapsing on the couch to read another chapter or two of Pattie's book, Food for my Daughters, stirring memories and thoughts in the cauldron of life.....

Basically I am very lazy but don't tell anyone! I thought of this when reading p.53 of The Book where Pattie says ".... I felt the incredible joy that comes from slowing down, keeping things simple (even if they seem more complicated at first) and savouring the stops along the way on the journey. Even if they involve washing dishes and napkins." Added to this is the fact that I have spent the day driving through town after town on my trip to SA and was disappointed but resigned to seeing how similar they have all become and how useless and alien they feel to me. I swear I will never go to Ballarat again, or was it Horsham or some other town full of the same shops, the same sterile atmosphere and supermarket carparks bigger than the whole of the Cygnet main street!

Simple, to me, does not mean queuing up at the checkout of another supermarket with a trolley load of food in plastic packets or pretty boxes or words proclaiming the goods to be made from real fruit or stupid things like chips that are baked not fried.... or milk that does not even live in the fridge. Simple is going outside my back door and picking food, cooking it (or eating raw...goodness, what a thought...raw fruit that is 100% fruit!) and enjoying the tastes, the story behind its short life, remembering who gave me the seeds and having someone to share it all with.

My idea of simple (and how I can be really lazy but seem very clever) is making my garden do 2 things for me.... self-sow some of everything (so I don't even have to remember when to sow the seeds), and re-grow (ie, have lots of perennial vegetables that come up year after year, like asparagus).

There are lots of other things I am lazy about in this simple life; composting for example, as in the previous post, and letting chaos reign in order to maintain an ecological balance amongst the wildlife in in the garden, as I have written and talked about many times before.

Life is good. Lets try to keep it that way.

Food for Pattie's Daughters gives me ideas whilst at sea...

2011-11-13T07:46:00.001+11:00

I am sitting at the little desk in my cabin on the Spirit of Tasmania Ferry, in Devonport Harbour, Tasmania. Its been a nice half-day's drive from Cygnet, in the south to Devonport in the north ... Tasmania isn't a very big island! The ferry trip is overnight to Melbourne and as I do not like the public areas of the ferry much I prefer to eat a picnic in my cabin, watch the port drift slowly out of sight before dark and then sit in bed and read or write. These cabins are the perfect way to travel and include power points for me to plug in and write a blog piece on my laptop if I am in the mood.

Sitting by the porthole which is spotted with drizzle, waiting for the ferry to leave port, I opened Pattie's book, Food for my Daughters. It is as if we were both thinking the same things at the same time because the pages I turned to (pages 34 -36) are about two of my favourite topics.... easy soil fertility and eating weeds! (By the way, the ferry is now moving.... I love it when we finally leave the land and head out into Bass Strait).

I think it was me who first told Pattie how I use the paths in my vegetable garden as in-situ compost areas. I throw onto the paths most of the weeds I pull out from the beds. From time to time I put straw or sawdust on the paths to neaten them up and cover the weeds I have discarded. Gradually this layer builds up in the paths then the worms move in, the composting process begins below the surface and by the end of winter the path has turned into a beautiful river of compost, cleverly lined up alongside your garden beds!

All you then need to do is use a spade to scoop it up onto the beds at the beginning of spring and hey presto, no compost heaps, no barrowing heavy loads of compost from distant corners of the garden, leaving more time for sowing and planting and enjoying time in the garden. (At sea now and heading towards Victoria where wild weather is forecast!).

This method is great for dry climates as, in summer, the paths become higher and level with the beds as you fill them with weeds and sawdust etc. Then it all rots down through winter, finally ending with the mounding of it all up onto the beds, allowing for good drainage through spring when the rains come. I have seen photos of some parts of India where the paths are built higher than the beds to keep the water in and stop run-off.

What I used to find in my garden in Adelaide was that almost everything self-sowed into the paths because, I presume, of the fertility and lack of competition there. Sometimes, like Pattie, I would actually turn the path into the next year's bed, so lush and prolific were the self-sown seedlings! My Tasmanian vegetable garden is not yet at this stage and people reading this having not seen my Adelaide garden will wonder at the audacity I have in speaking of this much order being claimed about my current garden!! Well, come back in 5 years, I say, and I will show you what I mean.

Pattie then goes on to talk about the current star (in the chapter on early spring) of her garden - chickweed..... and there's a delightful story which you will have to read yourself but the gist of the thing is this.... my neighbour Jilli and I are organising another Kitchen Garden Walk and this time the theme is Foraging for Food. (It is on Dec 11th and you can register by sending me an email) and it will be followed by a BYO BBQ at my place, using some of the things we find to make some of our shared lunch..... and Pattie had a great idea.... using chickweed as an ingredient in pesto and I think it would be wonderful in tabbouli, at this time of the year when my parsley is all gone to seed!! Its touch and go if there will be any suitable chickweed by December but if not then we will make some chickweed soup the day before, instead.

I love the way reading blogs and books can take your mind to a similar place on the other side of the world and you can feel like you are having a brain-storming session together, even years after the event..... or am I just crazy?? (No need to answer that one!)

This won't be published until I reach son Hugh's house in Adelaide where I will be online again....

Cygnet Community Garden... a garden for us all

2011-11-12T07:51:00.001+11:00

We are making a lot of progress with the little garden inside the poly tunnel at the community garden. It is a warm, lush, biodiverse garden in miniature. When the weather is foul, when the weeds outside just get too much to bare, when we need nourishment for our souls and when the grass is taller than little Alfie, we seek solace in the poly tunnel. There, trays of seeds burst into life, holding the beginnings of many future meals; there, lettuces and peas and spring onions and fenugreek and chicory appear to grow inches a day; there, neat rows can be easily maintained in a few minutes and the wind is kept away from plants and people alike.

Come with me and take a peak....

We have used the frame of the poly tunnel to secure 3 vertical "walls" of bird mesh for the peas. Every 2 weeks we have sown a new row, to ensure a continuous supply.

Most (but importantly not all) of the original beds of fenugreek, mizuna and mustard greens have been chopped and left on the beds, once they began to go to seed, then covered in blood and bone. In a few weeks we will plant our tomato, capsicum and eggplant seedlings into the beautifully enriched soil. Some have been allowed to flower and attract a variety of insects.

Eventually the centre path, which was once a compacted, dead section of clay, covered in horrible, black, slippery weed matting will be a source of in-situ compost as explained in the next post. Why waste valuable space when the path can also be an evolving part of the garden!

The salad I ate today came almost entirely from this tiny space and I could easily have picked enough for a family and still left plenty for tomorrow.

It is too small an area to bother keeping plants long enough to save seeds but it is still important to have many stages of life growing in here at the same time. The doors are open at each end all the time now so insects are free to come and go, keeping each other in check. But they will not do so if it lacks 2 things.... biodiversity and age-diversity.

Soon we will begin to improve the other side, which presently is just bench tops. There are plenty of things that would be happy to be slightly shaded by the plants on the wire shelving and the light in the poly tunnel is very well diffused so everywhere is lovely and light anyway. In a small area we must make use of all space, horizontal and vertical, and think creatively about doing so.

Please do come and pop in any time but especially on Tuesday mornings from 10am. Give a few minutes of your time and you will gain so much more than you thought. If you want to pick up some great ideas or ask questions about your own garden or try some new vegetables, do come and have a chat while you toil a little with us. It is so much more rewarding to garden and achieve something, while talking, than just to sit and talk!

Multi-cultural morsels in my garden

2011-11-09T06:26:00.001+11:00

The years go round and round; seasons come and go; garden pickings wax and wane, as does the moon and slowly I edge towards growing more of the things that make me smile. For some people, growing potatoes is a buzz. For others its English spinach or French radishes with their white tips. There is nothing that makes me smile more when they appear, self-sown in winter, than miners' lettuce and shungiku.

This year's crop of miners' lettuce (Claytonia perfoliata) has been the best I have ever grown.... well, it grew itself; I really had nothing to do with it except the odd sprinkle of water in my little hot house. It is not necessary to grow it indoors here but I will continue to have some indoors as its merry, almost heart-shaped, vivid green leaves were bigger and more succulent than any I have grown previously, anywhere else.

And now, as the leaves change to circular and the delicate flower stalks erupt from the centre of the leaves, it cascades over the brick wall edging in the hot house and looks like fairyland. I am still picking bits and pieces for salads but soon it will be stringy and too coarse to be be nice. I find the seeds too fiddly to find and save so I will let it self-sow and look forward to the first indication of it regenerating next winter.

Shungiku (Chrysanthemum coronarium) is otherwise called edible chrysanthemum. Popular in Japan, it originates from the Mediterranean and has none of the flavours of many other Asian greens. Rather it is .... well, more delicate, more European in flavour. The pretty, greyish, chrysanthemum leaves can be picked for salads or thrown into hot dishes at the last moment but, although the petals are fine to eat, the whole flowers are shockingly strong!

Here I found some growing better at a friend's recently, than at my place, and evidently it has been lush and magnificent all winter even in the worst frosts. I will collect the seeds of her's and sow them myself next year and look forward to many months of pickings when most people seem to be living only silver beet and kale. Nice as those are, and I do so love various kales especially, as well as most Asian greens, its nice to have these little treats in your garden; things that you are never quite sure of and which give such delight when they succeed.

James Wong .... you can't go wrong!

2011-11-01T07:49:00.001+11:00

I just happened across a new blog and this gorgeous young bloke with a passion for growing stuff to really excite the taste buds and keep your body and the earth in good order. The blurb says " Brought up in Singapore & Malaysia to an English mother and Malaysian father, his research interests include traditional medical systems, underutilised crops species & wild plant conservation." James Wong just happens to be featuring a native Tasmanian plant this week... tasmannia lanceolata or native pepper bush; one of my favourites!!

He is a botanist, gardener, broadcaster & natural remedies obsessive, who's passionate about all things botanical.
.....I'm putting together jameswong.co.uk as an alternative, fresh guide to cool stuff to grow, for committed plant geeks & horticultural virgins alike.
Over the next few months I will be uploading everything I know and everything I do - from recipes for my favourite herbal remedies to my "plant of the week" blog - as well as updates to all my latest TV, books and talks. Come back and watch how it evolves!
Ethnobotanist James Wong is throwing out the tinsel this year in favour of a more organic approach to celebrating the Christmas holiday in style. James demonstrates how traditional Christmas plants can be made into natural remedies, recipes and original hand-made presents to see you through the Christmas season. He reinvents winter classics, with his hot toddy made from Christmas tree, Cranberry mince pies for cystitis and stress busting egg nog made with home-grown saffron – to ease your anxiety when the in-laws arrive. For those with a fondness for over-indulgence, an effervescent rosehip sherbert remedy could do the trick. And, if the after effects of too many sprouts cause embarrassment, children and adults alike are sure to be delighted with a fennel and peppermint slice. As well as turning out our favourite Christmas plants into remedies, indulgent gifts and amazing decorations, James also travels the length and breadth of Britain to seek out the country’s best Christmas tree, Mistletoe and holly growers. To top it all off he serves up festive drinks, snacks and canapés all made from plants around the fire at his Winter garden party.

And for Christmas cooking inspiration try his.... Grow your own drugs for Christmas

My gorgeous son Hugh could be Australia's version of this bloke and on my next trip to Adelaide in a few weeks time I will be staying with him and writing here about his amazing food and gardening adventure through life.

Pohnpei Sponge Farmers

2011-10-29T08:23:00.001+11:00

I really like the New Internationalist magazine and website, for its articles of behind the scenes issues but also for its attempt to provide an online shopping site for those of us who do try to buy goods, clothes and presents that do least harm to the earth and actually provide a sustainable living to some group of people less fortunate than ourselves.

It may be crazy to ship sponges across the world but its better than many other options, like buying plastic toys made in China. Read a little about this and see what you think.....

In the sheltered lagoons of Pohnpei, Micronesia, the Marine and Environmental Research Institute of Pohnpei (MERIP) has set up a sponge farming operation as a means of generating a sustainable livelihood for local community members, many of which have no access to running water or electricity, and little means of earning money.....

Read more....

Bruny Island

2011-10-27T08:41:00.001+11:00

A half hour drive then a 10 minute ferry ride from Kettering landed us on Bruny Island for a 4 day holiday away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life....Funny how even living in Cygnet, rural Tasmania, feels busy now!

Pure white, squeaky sand beaches, crystal clear water, rugged cliffs, amazing views, unspoiled bush, wildlife everywhere, the incredible Bligh Museum, day after day of berry pancakes and coffee from the Berry Farm, and sleeping in a beach house by the sea....

Cook, Bligh, d'Entrecasteaux and many other explorers of the 1700's visited and mapped this part of the world. There is Two Tree point where fresh water could be found and it is not hard to imagine a square rigger sitting out in Adventure Bay while sailors and explorers gathered oysters, wood, water and botanical specimens, planting fruit trees, offering gifts to the Aborigines and naming peaks and bays.

	Two Tree Point where the same 2 trees are still alive, as evident from a painting in the museum.
Begun in 1836, the same year Adelaide was proclaimed a city, it took 2 years to build on this rugged, isolated spot.

The lighthouse at Cape Bruny is made of rocks hewn by convicts in the 1830's and is the second oldest in Australia, only accessible by sea for a hundred years.

We saw a Southern Right whale, rafts of mutton birds feeding at sea on their return from Russia and the Arctic, yellow-tailed black cockatoos, seals, echidnas and so many birds I have lost track of them all.... and between times we sat in the sun at the tables of The Berry Farm which must be situated in the most idyllic position of all of Bruny Island, and ate from Kathryn's delicious menu on this, the opening weekend for the season.

Other food stops on Bruny should take a leaf out of Kathryn's book; they all lack what it takes to lure me back again, whereas I will relish another visit to the Berry Farm as soon as the berries are back in season when I am sure the menu will be exploding with creative dishes, and friendly smiles will make me feel welcome again..... and I will sit by the pond, a stone's throw from Two Tree Point, listening to the lap of the sea and imagining the creak of old wooden ships at anchor in the bay.

We walked on beaches where the tiny footprints of penguins, oyster catchers and a myriad of other small creatures had left their marks overnight, where driftwood and fallen trees formed sculptures up and down the beach, where the Southern Ocean lapped the shores in lines of rolling, aqua waves.

We went on the Bruny Island cruise, from Adventure Bay right down the rugged coast, where seals and dolphins play and we saw the Southern Right Whale not far from the boat. The 3 hour trip was excellent, informative and entertaining.

There is a simple little sign on the side of the Alonnah road announcing plants for sale so we headed up the driveway and were greeted by Ruth, in a breathtaking treasure of a garden which should be on everyone's list of places to go on Bruny Island. Ruth is in her 70's and her enthusiasm for her garden is infectious. The plants for sale are not only natives, but there are also hundreds of exotics she has grown from cuttings and seeds from her own garden. She walked us around her verandah from where her entire garden spreads out before your eyes. Sadly I have no photos but by the time we left we felt like old friends and now I have several plants in my garden as memories.

I look forward to another trip to Bruny Island and a swim in that beautiful but very cold water!

How close to a train track can you set up a vegetable market?

2011-10-25T18:24:00.001+11:00

This close....

....and to think what some people complain about!!

(Thanks to the friend who sent me this link.)

A Subversive Plot

2011-10-25T07:24:00.001+11:00

Roger Doiron of Kitchen Gardeners International recently gave this inspiring, entertaining and important TED talk. Roger, you have excelled in this production!

Australia and the world... listen to this man, watch this video...

2011-10-17T07:48:00.001+11:00

20th Richard Jones Memorial Lecture, by John D. Liu

Tuesday 8th November

"How We Got Here... and the Path to Sustainability"

Be inspired by John D. Liu's vision of a new era in human evolution in which all forests, wetlands, grasslands, coastal regions and oceans are restored to near pristine conditions!
7:45pm for 8:00pm start
Free public lecture

For full details: http://www.rjml.org.au/

"Hope in a Changing Climate" demonstrates that it is possible to rehabilitate large-scale damaged ecosystems, to restore ecosystem functions in areas where they have been lost, to fundamentally improve the lives of people who have been trapped in poverty for generations and to sequester carbon naturally. This approach has been dramatically proven on the Loess Plateau in China, the highland area spanning some 640,000 square km in north central China. It is the birthplace of the Han Chinese, headwaters of The Yellow River and home to a new environmental and economic paradigm: A degraded ecosystem of more than 35,000 square km of land now teems with life and supports the sustainable economic, social and agricultural activities of its people.
"Hope in a Changing Climate" is the latest documentary produced by the Environmental Education Media Project (EEMP), an organization dedicated to placing ecosystem restoration at the center of the global discussions on climate change, poverty and sustainable agriculture.

Plants coming out of my ears allll weekend!

2011-10-10T08:00:00.001+11:00

Saturday am.....The forecast was for a cold change to bring rain and thunder but Erica and I were meeting at the Hobart Botanic Gardens Spring Fair at 10.30, rain, hail or shine.... and shine it did.

In Pete's Vegie Patch, Tino Carnevale from Gardening Australia spread his enthusiasm and smile over an attentive audience.... talking about this and that (crop rotation, compost, seasons etc etc) and tying it all together as only Tino can. He is a delightful man and I hope he stays with Gardening Australia for a long time. I'd love to meet his Italian father, who he speaks of often.

It is a treat to live in a state where vegetable gardening is such a popular thing. I love listening to Peter Cundall on gardening talkback, Saturdays from 9am (AM 936 and online from anywhere in the world) and seeing Tino in the Botanic Garden whenever there's a festival on. Peter is on holidays at the moment and Tino has taken his place on the radio.

Next stop, the Frog Hollow Nursery stall, selling heritage and unusual edible plants, propagated entirely by Zoe and Dave. It was heaven for me as I found some of my old favourites from Adelaide that I had not seen here before. Chinese sea shells, which I wrote about first back in 2007, caused me to gasp with delight and made the other customers at the stall laugh. Next was a strawberry called Cambridge Rival which I deem to be the best tasting strawberry in the universe, and so on it went until I had filled my basket and spent far too much money.

Wildseed Tasmania only sells its seedlings to the public at this fair (it is a wholesale nursery) and I was very excited to see them here again this year. Most but not all of the plants are Tasmanian and I collected many riparian delights for the edge of my pond. I am going to stock Wildseed Tasmania's seed collections very soon in my Garden Shed.

Next to Pete's Vegie Patch, The Friends of the Bot. Gardens were selling plants raised from seeds and cuttings sourced from the gardens and again I made quite a collection which they kindly stored for later pick-up.

Back at Erica's and the promised rain bucketed down. Never mind, we just had another coffee until a break in the clouds let us get out and plant Erica's very much smaller collection of plants.

Sunday am Cold, wet and windy was the forecast but again I managed to grab the sunshine in my shirtsleeves as I wandered the Farmgate Market in Melville Street. Two of my favourite bloggers have stalls there and I was keen to catch up with them and see what goodies they were selling. Chris has Hobart Kitchen Gardens blog and a fabulous stall of vegetable seedlings raised by him and sold singly for 50c to $1..... amazing value and you know they are local, hardened off and perfect for the current season. Paulette has Provenance Growers, and a stall to drool over, where you will find interesting, edible native and non-native plants all grown by herself..... this is where I bought my wasabi.

So, laden to the gunnels with mostly food plants, I headed home..... and at Oyster Cove, nearly home, while picking up a few bananas and oranges from Ye Olde Store, the temperature dropped to 7 degrees and the rain and hail let loose. At home I lit the fire and marvelled at how lucky I was with the weather all weekend.

A London supermarket growing food on its roof!

2011-10-05T21:49:00.001+11:00

Watch this video...

Food from the Sky

(If anyone knows how to put a vimeo clip like this one, on the blog please tell me!)

I found this video on Ooooby.... Out of Our Own Back Yards

Workshops in my Kitchen

2011-10-05T19:39:00.001+11:00

I am a passionate food gardener with an equal passion for producing food for passionate eaters. So, I have started running workshops to impart some skills I have developed over the years. I am a pretty rough and ready cook who goes out into the veg garden to get inspiration and the basics for dinner. Then I come inside, pick up a couple of cookbooks, or maybe go straight to my collection of printed-out recipes, sit at my kitchen table and see what happens in my head and taste buds.

My collection of cookery books fairly much covers the globe but I am much the best at Mediterranean flavours..... encompassing all the countries that surround the Mediterranean Sea. My favourite flavours are Moroccan, Lebanese and Greek. I adore lemon, cumin, olives, cinnamon,yoghurt, fish, chicken and lamb and of course all the vegetables grown in these climates, such as fennel, artichokes, beans, capsicums and eggplant.

I was lucky enough to come across someone who taught me how to make sourdough bread, soon after I arrived here last year. It is a simple method and good for the home cook who does not want to spend too much time on the details. Although it does not resemble any of the breads made in the countries whose food I most love, the flavour and texture are wonderful and I love it with soup or for breakfast with Karl's honey or a particular berry jam given to me by a friend here.... or with lashing of butter and vegemite.

So, my first workshops have been about sourdough. They are remarkably successful and set people off on the road to baking for themselves some of the breads they have come to enjoy from the various bakers around southern Tasmania, who, I must say, are truly excellent and I do not claim to know anywhere near what they do. Many bakeries here use organic flour, often not grown in Australia, but in my workshops we use Four Leaf organic, Australian flours, from South Australia. These I also sell in bulk, along with all the Four Leaf organic, Australian grains, in The Garden Shed and Pantry.

The first of the next two workshops is going to be 'Pastry Making'. For some reason I seem to be good at pastry and sooooo enjoy making it. Never the less, I am impatient and have developed simple ways of making several excellent pastries. We are going to make 3, in the workshop, each suitable for certain things. When I buy tarts or fruit pies at a cafe or bakery, rarely is the pastry as good as mine, except in France where they exceed anything I make!

'Cooking from the Garden with Me' is next. It is for people who want to experience making quick, simple, healthy, imaginative meals straight from the garden. We will gather what is available on the day, from my garden - vegetables, herbs and fruit - and add a few basics from my cupboards. We will think through a few ideas and get straight into cooking. Finally we will sit and enjoy the best, freshest, tastiest dinners in Cygnet.

I want to do this monthly, throughout the year so we follow the seasons. This is my forte and my passion and will take some time to impart to people used to shopping in a supermarket.

To enquire further about dates, costs and details, please send me an email.

Spider fairies in my garden.....

2011-09-30T07:04:00.001+10:00




	Early one Monday morning recently I noticed spider fairies had been working in my garden overnight..... their breathtaking story visible only for a few hours..... why is the world so angry when there is such beauty all around us..... all we have to do is open our eyes.....

A picture tells a thousand words....

2011-09-28T21:25:00.001+10:00

Update.....

If you love the glasshouse in this animation, check out this Gabriel Ash self-design GLASSHOUSE website.

I am NOT having plastic!!

Dreams... one day .....

Evolution...

2011-09-23T17:21:00.001+10:00

September 19th: So (as Pattie would start) I am sitting at my laptop with my coffee at 6am, like I often am, when in pops an email from Pattie.... "read my blog" was the gist of the message. So, being a good, obedient girl I went straight to her post that day on Foodshed Planet in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. What this usually means is that some amazing, deep and meaningful thing has happened which changes Pattie's direction and I sit and read it with tears in my eyes because she writes sooooo well. This time I also had tears in my eyes but for a different reason; it was hilarious.

Background...You see, Pattie has written a book that everyone in the world needs to read: "Food for my Daughters.... what one mom decided to do when the towers fell". Here, Pattie shares the evolution of her outlook on life from being a good, American citizen to being a citizen for the good of Americans.... I don't remember how I found Pattie's blog in the beginning but I started reading her journey right at the start, when her blog did not include the word planet, even.

Pattie had never grown food, or collected water from her roof or even mowed her own lawn. Since the towers fell, Pattie has helped start the first community garden in her area, fought hard for bike tracks, turned her back yard into an edible garden and even planted vegetables around her letterbox, become a voice for feeding the poor home grown food, started foraging from public fruit trees and started the Sustainability Commission at her local council, just to mention a few things.

But the book is not about that! It is about making connections, finding hidden treasure in people's souls, it is about passion, kindness, laughter and fulfilment. It is about children and childhood and growing food for, and now with, her daughters. It is about what happened on the inside as much as what Pattie did on the outside. It takes you to a space that removes the fear and stress of wanting to do something, and replaces it with a spirit which whispers to you "This I can do".

September 23rd Another early morning message from Pattie to read this piece and I laughed again, even more than before. So now I have 8 years to get ready for the arrival of Pattie and Julie, by kayak. If they time it right, they can paddle nearly right up to my front door. They'll need to duck under the bridge though, if the tide is high! Hmmmm, I'd better gets some ropes ready and maybe put in a post to tie the kayaks up to in my creek! Dreams and plans give life to us all, and having a friend like Pattie, who I have never met or spoken to, makes me very, very happy.

Life is good; get there fast and take it slow. (Do I need to explain this?)

A Food Forest Organism....

2011-09-14T06:19:00.000+10:00

He came upon it by chance in Morocco, when the surf was flat and he wandered inland.... 2,000 years old, 800 people supported by it....

Forests of food. Taking a leaf from the book of nature.... well thumbed but often forgotten.

Then he discovered another.... in Vietnam.... 28 generations of sustenance

These are examples from Ogbuzz....

....I suggest that we plant shelterbelts windbreaks and Food Forests of nut and fruit trees grown from seeds, mixed with edible and medicinal perennial plants and mushrooms on a scale even larger than the shelterbelt plantation efforts in the USA after the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, or even China's Green Wall....

New Forum about Food Forests at: Ogfor.com

The stories are in...

2011-09-12T06:26:00.000+10:00

Word got out about World Kitchen Garden Day on August 28th.... Now various groups have posted their stories and pictures everywhere from Kitchen Gardeners International website, to Facebook and Google+. If you have not seen any of them, here are some snippets and links for you....

KGI's partner in Kenya, the Organic Agriculture Centre of Kenya, brought together 70 people on World Kitchen Garden Day to learn about growing their own healthy food. Here are a few pics from their gathering.

2. And in Pakistan...

3. And in Mumbai....Braving the flooded streets, erratic schedule of local trains and uncertainty our volunteers reached the venue in time; their faces shining happily with the joy of showing off and sharing their prized harvests! ....Read more and watch some wonderful videos on Urban Leaves.

The highlight of the occasion were the talk and demos by ‘Anju Venkat’, a nutritionist at the Health Awareness Centre for the last 16 years. Drawing an apt and convincing analogy between ‘Amrut mitti’ and food, she explained that health is the result of healthful living or living according to the laws of nature. She spoke about the importance of consumption of organic food and ways of cooking that would preserve its nutritive value, bring out its flavours and colours to the maximum and provide optimum nourishment. This was followed by a cookery demo conducted by her, utilizing the plant yield contributed by the volunteers.

And in Bangalore, Udaipur and Bhubaneshwar.... all in India

I would love to hear of other celebrations, especially in Australia. Surely Maggie and I are not the only Australians to have organised something this year!

The perfect edible windbreak

2011-09-10T07:53:00.001+10:00

A link sent to me by Teresa has come just at the time I was thinking how to make a bit of a windbreak that will not block the sun on that side. Although I do not drink soft drinks (except for Tonic in my gin!) I could probably gather enough from others to do this. There is no container deposit here in Tasmania, which is shocking but true!!

Like Pattie, I do worry about the leaching of nasty things from these bottles into the soil and water but I wonder if plants would take them up.... I'd say probably not, although I don't really know.

This would be a fun thing to do at a community garden too and could be used around a play area, for example. Probably best at times other than mid summer, but maybe here in Tasmania it might be ok.

The whole preparation process is fully explained on this Container Gardening blog.

Thanks Teresa!

Living from the garden

2011-09-07T07:57:00.001+10:00

What I mean by this is blending garden, kitchen and outlook on life. This is my religion and I am as passionate a follower as many people are of their various conventional religions. I truly believe in its value and, like any zealot, that it is THE right way and I try to persuade people to join me in it.

My mother is 88 and one day when I rang her to say I was calling in, she said "What will we have for lunch? You usually come on market day when I have things to eat but that is tomorrow and I am nearly out of everything." I replied unenthusiastically "Well you are going to the supermarket today, maybe you could buy us something there." She exclaimed so loudly I had to move the phone away from my ear "Are you crazy?! You can't buy FOOD at the supermarket!! I am going to get washing up gloves and toilet paper." Like mother, like daughter, I suppose.

This does not mean I spend hours tending my vegetable garden, although that is what I would like to do. It is simply a mindset; eat what is abundant. Some people will laugh and scoff at eating cabbages and kale all winter and say they cannot do without a tomato salad, basil, eggplants and pineapples all year round. I sigh and ask them to lunch....

I cook some vegetarian meals every week for a local family, so come into my kitchen and see what fabulous food can be cooked using totally seasonal, winter vegetables and herbs.....

Coriander,red lentil and black bean patties
Broccoli and potato pie
Leek / broccoli etc quiches
Radicchio and parmesan salad
Baked apples
Spiced cauliflower soup to die for
Fried rice with Asian greens and egg
Pumpkin soup (3 entirely different recipes)
Heavenly, slow cooked red cabbage and apples with local apple cider
Potato and rocket salad
Red cabbage and fennel coleslaw
Cauliflower and onion balls with chick pea flour
Decadent parsnip soup
Turkish spinach / kale / any leaves soup
Prune and apple tart with brandy-soaked black currants from my cassis experiment
Root veg curry / potato and peanut curry
All kinds of bean and veg soups
Baked beans with my bottles tomatoes
Middle Eastern salads.... chickpea / couscous / spring onion
Maggie's spring onion and spinach pie with sunflower seed crust
Spinach and fetta pie
Spiced potato bugers
etc etc etc etc

My food is laden with herbs picked from my garden and include the freshest spices I can buy. Even though I get a lot of frost, I am learning what to plant that will grow happily outside all winter. I also have Vietnamese mint, lemon grass and galangal in my hot house.

I would like to recommend 2 amazing seasonal recipe blogs. Both are by women who I stayed with on my vegetable vagabond trip in 2008 and they both also have food garden blogs. Then there is a 3rd blog.... that Maggie and I write but we have not been so diligent as my 2 friends!

Food from the Mediterranean (Teleri, South East France)

Kitchen Garden Recipes (Laura, Cevennes Mountains, France)

Gardeners' Gastronomy (Maggie and me)

I stubbornly refuse to eat processed food that has more than 1 ingredient, if it is at all possible. I do buy things like curry paste, vegemite, black bean sauce but I make my own breads, biscuits, cakes and cereal (or eat my son's gourmet Hughsli), etc. I get milk from a cow called Sophie and meat from local people, as I have written about before. It is a good life and VERY cheap. Get there fast, then take it slow.

Seedsavers videos in my garden...

2011-09-04T07:02:00.000+10:00

Jude and Michel Fanton visited me back in May and we made some little video clips in my garden. Here are a few. You can watch more on their Seedsavers YouTube Channel

Daily Dump

2011-09-03T07:42:00.000+10:00

While most of us in Australia only have options of plastic for our compost makers and worm farms, in Bangalore, India, they are made from terracotta, in many shapes, sizes and colours so they look nice as well as being functional..... check out the Daily Dump website for lots of great ideas.

I found this link on a blog of someone who attended a get-together in Bangalore for World Kitchen Garden Day. The blog is called Organic Conversations and incorporates the Bangalore Terrace Gardeners group.

Urban Leaves

2011-09-01T07:12:00.000+10:00

Sit, absorb.....

I can't wait to visit next year..... Vegetable Vagabond Voyage 2

World Kitchen Garden Day connections abounding...

2011-08-29T09:31:00.001+10:00

Over 60 people came on my World Kitchen Garden Day walk in Cygnet, a tiny town with a population of 800!! Most were pretty local but a few had had quite a drive and I hope they found it worth their time. As I stood on a mound of grass on the edge of the Burton's Reserve carpark, holding the sign to guide people to the start of the walk, I started my spiel....

"World Kitchen Garden Day is about 2 things; growing our own food and making connections.....providing for ourselves as a community, not just as individuals..... so today we will make connections between each of us on the walk and then also with the people at the gardens we visit, so that we see the growing of food as a shared act, bringing us all together.

First, we will see what happens with the youngest in our community.... the pre-schoolers who spend some of their time at the Child Care Centre. Then we will move to the kinder at the Primary School and then to St. James Catholic School's Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden. Finally we will end up at the Community Garden where all members of the community are encouraged to come together to sow, grow and share...."

It was a good 10 minute walk to the child care centre where Alex met us and opened my eyes to what happens behind the gates there. I so wish I had taken a video. There is a garden for the 0 - 3 year olds..... herbs and flowers to smell and touch and pick, little groups of vegetables to nibble and harvest and chop up for soup lunches.... and the children are encouraged to do these things (under supervision of course).... sometimes they do it a little over-enthusiastically and replanting has to be done! Then there is a food garden for the 4 year olds.... bigger more structured... as Alex spoke, I could see people were really listening.... and then one woman said "This is so beautiful, can we donate time or money to help?" Wow. This was truly what this walk was all about and totally spontaneous.... purses and wallets opened and donations were made. After a few more minutes looking at the most gorgeous picture board, we moved on.

Next was the Cygnet Primary School's kinder where teacher Judy told us of how she had started this garden with another teacher several years ago. The children gardening here are 4 years old. They sow, grow, harvest, cook, eat and save the seeds. Think of 4 year olds doing all this... and they too are encouraged to pick and eat raw, whenever they are in the garden..... encouraged to pick anything as long as they eat it. Wonderful. What inspiring teachers...plus Helen who helps make meals from what they pick, 3 times a week. Again people on the walk wanted to become involved.... making those connections without being asked.

We moved on to St. James Catholic School where all the team had gathered to welcome us ... Ann Foale, the principal, Marcus, the programme's co-ordinator, Nicky, the garden specialist and Roy, the kitchen specialist.... plus some lovely students. It was at this point, while Marcus was explaining about the integration of the kitchen garden into everyday school life, that I realised that every child who goes to child care and/or school in Cygnet experiences growing, harvesting and eating of their own food. How many towns can boast that? Here, volunteers came forward again, wanting to be involved in this fabulous initiative.

Finally, to the Community Garden, my home patch. We walked and talked, ending up at the BBQ area for a cup of tea and some goodies, made by Liz and myself. Nearly EVERYONE stayed on for a while.... that in itself made me so happy. Bob manned the BBQ's... people chatted and guess what?? More offers of participation.... people actually wanted to come to the working bee next weekend and many hoped to make it to our weekly Tuesday morning gardening sessions.

Thanks to everyone who participated. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did and that you have come away inspired to not just be solitary gardeners, but an integral part of your community.

Window Farms

2011-08-28T07:18:00.001+10:00

Thinking outside the garden..... sure, its plastic and hydroponic but its also creative, attractive and possible for those millions of gardenless people in apartments with huge windows, for people who live in snowy winters, for people with limited mobility, for offices instead of ornamentals....

Check out the website....http://www.windowfarms.org/

World Kitchen Garden Day, Sunday Aug 28th....

2011-08-25T16:53:00.001+10:00

This wonderful day is brought to us by:

Kitchen Gardeners International (click then scroll manually through the gorgeous slide show put together by Roger Doiron, founder and gardener in chief of Kitchen Gardeners International AND instigator of the White House Organic Veg Garden campaign AND my especially good friend.

My friend Preeti, in India, is associated with a Community Garden in Mumbai. Here is their itinerary for the day.... you can read more about what they do on the wonderfully inspiring blog Urban Leaves. Find more locations of the day's events below....

Maggie from the Hills and Plains Seedsavers in Adelaide has a wonderful afternoon planned too:

AN ADELAIDE COMMUNITY GARDEN

welcomes you to celebrate

WORLD KITCHEN GARDEN DAY 2011

Sunday 28th August 1.30pm – 3.30pm

1.30pm International food and vegetable show, tell and swap

2.30pm Foods of the world afternoon tea

Bring a plate of food from your country of origin or use your favourite recipe. Also bring a cup & a chair.

If you have a neighbour or friend who is interested in kitchen gardening please bring them along.

There will be thousands of people all around the world celebrating kitchen gardening and strengthening their communities.

_____________________________________________________________

I cannot work out how to insert my poster for what is happening in Cygnet but here are the details in plain writing!

World Kitchen Garden Day 2011

Sunday August 28^th,11am - 1pm

Come on a walk to 4 kitchen gardens in Cygnet.

Hear what the knowledgeable gardeners have to say.

Meet at Burton's Reserve Carpark, Channel Highway, Cygnet in time to begin the walk at 11am.

Stay for a BBQ at the Cygnet Community Garden from 1.30pm. Bring something to cook on the BBQ as well as some salad or bread to share. Tea, coffee and cake will be provided.

Parking is in Burton's Reserve, opposite the Community Garden so access to your car is easy at the end of the walk.

Hobart Botanic Gardens as the seasons turn.....

2011-08-23T21:04:00.001+10:00

I have hardly left Cygnet since I returned from my trip to Adelaide in May. Why would I? Anyway, last Friday I went to Hobart to see my friend Erica whose birthday it was and I spent the day happily playing in the city; shopping, eating and walking in the Botanic Gardens. It was balmy weather and I so enjoyed a full day out and about.....

...which commemorates French exploration of Tasmanian waters beginning in 1772.

Spring has sprung!

An old cow ....part2: Kate the cave woman exposed

2011-08-18T11:14:00.001+10:00

I have to make a confession; deep down inside this vegetable vagabond lives a cave woman whose eyes shine with glee when she sees the hunter return home with an animal for dinner.... not a plastic-wrapped fillet from the supermarket but an animal with bones and skin and flesh and even innards, opportunistically gathered as described in the previous post .

Once it is cooked she tears off a leg and attacks it with gusto, without plate, cutlery or ceremony. She relishes every last morsel, leaving nothing for the vultures....

An old cow for dinner

2011-08-17T06:02:00.000+10:00

I try very hard, passionately even, to do the least harm in an educated and informed way. I am not vegetarian; I am a locavore; an opportunistic gatherer of food. Tonight I am having beef stew for dinner. The cow gave milk for years to a local family then spent the rest of its 10 years munching the grass in the same paddock it had always lived in. This winter has been extraordinarily wet and the old cow's legs were having difficulty with the mud so it was decided it would be kindest to end its life and remove the daily stress of walking over the extremely wet and boggy land.

I was given some of the meat. I hate the thought of that cow's body being turned into blood and bone at the abattoir. To me, the ideal use for a dead cow is to share it amongst friends and eat it. Then the remains are turned into blood and bone at the abattoir and sold by the trailer load.

Barely a drop of fuel in that 10 years was used to care for, kill, butcher and share this cow. Same could be said of the turkey I ate at Christmas time and the rooster, pork and beef I have bought since I came to live here. A few animals kept by caring people, on farms almost visible from my garden and killed at the Cradoc abattoir only a few kilometres up the road. I eat small serves of meat and these opportunities to buy from friends and neighbours are sufficient for my needs.

Compare the above with someone who gets their protein in other ways than meat and tell me that it is less harmful to the animals of the earth. As I see it, the more processing and transporting that is done, the more harm is done. Processing and transporting and big ag require a lot of mining to get the ore to make the metal to make the machines and all the parts have to be brought to some location and assembled before anything can happen. All this requires land to be cleared, buildings to be erected and people to drive daily to work at the mines and shops and factories..... and so on and so on. (This piece is not about employment, it is about doing harm to the earth and its life.) Consider a bag of tofu and all the people, machines and oil involved in getting it onto your supermarket shelf; all the invisible deaths due to land clearing, oil extraction, manufacturing and road kill....

I have lots of friends who are vegetarian and I do not for a moment want them to think I am criticising them. No. Everyone has the right to choose. But they must be informed choices, not emotional ones, if those choices are made in order to do least harm. We are especially lucky here in this part of the world to have food growing all around us. There is not one right answer for everyone in the world so it is necessary to weigh up each situation, remembering to look out beyond the final product on the shelf, all the way back to its source.

Eat, think and be merry.

SeedSaveUs at Ann's

2011-08-15T08:54:00.001+10:00

It was a lovely gathering at Ann's, in Woodbridge, on Sunday. All the usual suspects were there plus some new faces, which was great. Everywhere I go here seems to be so lovely and Ann's is no exception..... creative veg garden made from semi-circles of rainwater tanks, painted dark grey to be more aesthetic that glaring tin..... clever use of polycarbonate sheeting and foam boxes to make a perfect seed-raising house.... a beautiful creek that was so overgrown with blackberries that Ann did not even know it was there when she bought the land....a new orchard, a pretty house, full of light and warmth.....and, of course, a water view to die for.

Cars must have been bulging at the seams as they sped across the hills from Cygnet to Woodbridge because the seeds/plants/produce table in the hot-house was overflowing with things to share, as was the food table inside.

Thanks to everyone who came and I so look forward to seeing you again soon.

What do you do with Sprouting Garlic?

2011-08-08T20:50:00.001+10:00

You'd think after 53 years I would have changed a bit.... well I guess in some ways I have but I tell you what, I still keep far too many home-grown garlic heads for eating. Here I am, by myself, and yet I have a shelf full of left-over garlic in my sauna (ok, that's another story... but its well insulated, dark and dry!). I eat heaps of garlic; barely a day would go by without some garlic consumed but I always overestimate how much I am going to be able to eat before they start to sprout, or maybe I think that THIS year they really won't sprout because I have read about a better way of lifting and storing them.

So, the gist is, everyone who grows too much garlic finds it sprouting in the cupboard at one time or other in the year and, desperate not to waste a single clove that grew in the garden for so many months, suddenly needs recipes using heads, not cloves, of garlic!

When I was in France I was invited to a neighbour's house for dinner and was served home made garlic soup. I loved it so much I asked for the recipe, which was kindly written down for me, in French. The thing is, French women know how to cook. They don't need many directions or quantities in their recipes and so it was that this garlic soup recipe sat in my care, untested, and in French for a couple of years..... until now!

Last week I had a bucket full of sprouting garlic, a recipe to translate and a plan: test out the soup , make up a bag with 4 heads of garlic, a sprig of thyme and a copy of Marie-Sylvie's recipe and sell them at the market! Hey presto, I sold them all on Sunday and am still enjoying the soup I made to test it out.... not sure if my friends are noticing I am literally consuming a head of garlic per day though!!

Well, here it is.... It is beautiful, surprisingly simple and not at all overpowered by an intense garlic taste. I even had an email from one happy customer who wrote to me via the email address on my price tags.... and called the soup she had just made and eaten, sensational. Nice.

Thanks Marie-Sylvie..... bon appetit.

SOUPE A L’AIL

(Marie-Sylvie, Pindrat, Sept 2008)

Ingrédients : Ail - environ 1 tête par personne

Pommes de terre - 1 moyenne par personne

Farine

Thym 1 petit bouquet de thym

Sel et poivre

Crème fraîche (petit pot)

Eplucher l’ail, le couper en tranches fines et faire revenir doucement dans huile ou graisse de canard, il ne faut pas qu’il roussisse.

Eplucher et couper les pommes de terre en lamelle ou morceaux pas trop gros. Les ajouter à l’ail.

Saupoudrer de farine.

Ajouter la branche de thym

Saler et poivrer

Mettre environ 1 litre d’eau pour 4 personnes

Laisser cuire 25 / 30 mn

Mixer, ajouter la crème fraîche et servez très chaud dans une soupière où vous aurez préalablement mis des croûtons frottés à l’ail.

Garlic Soup

Translated from Marie-Sylvie’s recipe, Pindrat, France 2008

1 head of garlic / person

1 potato / person

Flour

a sprig of thyme

Salt and pepper

Crème fraiche or: cream mixed with sour cream

Peel the garlic, finely slice, fry very gently in oil or duck fat. Do not brown.

Peel and dice the potato and add to the oil.

Sprinkle in some flour, add the thyme, salt and pepper.

Slowly add water; about 1 litre for 4 people.

Simmer 25 – 30 mins.

Puree then add the cream mixture to taste.

Serve very hot perhaps with croutons. (I shredded a slice of my sourdough bread into my bowl of soup.... perfect)

Bold winter statements

2011-08-02T20:01:00.001+10:00

Why have I come rushing inside on this beautiful winter's morning? Because I have to show you what I saw when the sun came out, after the mist and rain cleared; colour, deep, dramatic and bold.

First, the kales and cabbages... you can see why some are called ornamental kale, but I should also tell you that these are some of the sweetest, softest and most wonderful salad leaves imaginable, in my winter garden....

Next, radicchio, chicory and all those other Italian bitter "greens" which are a jumble in my brain. The winter colours of this family is especially astonishing when the days are short and grey. They shine like beacons and consequently are very difficult to photograph...

and then rhubarb and some ornamentals.....

One minute white with frost.... then as the sun warms the air, brilliant colours return...

Spring onions are a great winter	herb which I use copiously

Winter food from my frosty garden....

2011-07-26T09:44:00.001+10:00

Even when the morning air is white with the cold of -3C, even when the grass is frozen and crisp under-foot, even when rusty old propellers are turned into art by frost, even when the firewood wears its white, winter coat, food flourishes in my garden.....

By lunchtime leaves return to brilliant green and are sweetened beyond belief, from the experience....

I have never tasted sweeter, crisper, more delicious Asian greens than these which are growing by my front door, nightly frozen and laden with frost by morning.

What is this winter meal worth?

If a cafe near your cold, winter home offered a warm, sunny verandah setting, looking out to a pretty garden and served a simple toasted sandwich of 100% home made ingredients: organic sourdough bread, chutney and Gavin's cheese, with a salad picked no longer than 10 minutes before serving to you, of lettuces, shaved fennel, sorrel, chervil, carrots and some home-pickled Tasmanian olives how much would you pay?

The salad contains no chemicals, transport, storage or refrigeration....just a few seeds sown some time ago by me and some olives sourced locally....Australian, organic flour for the bread, my green tomato chutney and Emmental cheese from Gavin (check out his new cheese blog!), for the sandwich. Now tell me.... would you get as much satisfaction from this lunch if you'd bought the ingredients from a supermarket?

Winter in Tasmania.... no need for plastic poly tunnels.... just sow what grows.

Life is good.... if you sowed your seeds long enough ago!

Seed saving.... is there a choice?

2011-07-24T07:48:00.004+10:00

Natabar Sarangi - The Source from the source project on Vimeo

A lovely video... India, rice, one man.

Another man needs to be congratulated today too.... Cadel Evans, Australian Tour de France winner 2011...almost. What determination! We are all cheering for him here.

Boys, barrows and a bush dance...

2011-07-21T08:15:00.001+10:00

I recently met Teresa at the St James Kitchen Garden launch. She has been helping as a volunteer to get the garden going and has written a brilliantly entertaining piece about using boys' energy in a non-Nintendo way, on her blog called In A Life.

And

Come along this weekend....

Join us to celebrate mid-winter this Saturday night (23^rd July) with a Big Green Bush Dance at the Ranelagh Soldiers Memorial Hall (a great venue for a bush dance).

Kick up your heels to tunes from the Steptoe Bush Band, Hemlock and Home Brew. The Steptoe Bush Band will be calling the dance, and the always amusing Naomi Edwards will be our MC for the night.

The night starts at 6.30pm, and entrance is $10 for adults, kids free. There will be soup, cakes and a licensed bar.

Proceeds from the night go towards the local government election campaign for Liz Smith and Rosalie Woodruff, your two local Greens councillors who are standing again in the forthcoming council elections. Let us know if you can bring a plate of something sweet (cake, biscuits, slice) to contribute to the food.

The Ranelagh Soldiers Memorial Hall is opposite the Ranelagh shop.

Complications of the simple life

2011-07-19T22:52:00.001+10:00

Whoever called living like I do, simple, was mad.... it is very complicated to pull all the strings of this life together. Successfully living the "simple" life is a very misunderstood and under-appreciated skill. I am not being arrogant or professing to have mastered the skill; I am very much still learning, but every day brings its challenges, rewards and complications.

Just take a look at what is on my kitchen table tonight....

sourdough bread rising.... timed to carefully fit in with tomorrow's schedule
sourdough starter which I have just fed
mung beans soaking in preparation for making patties tomorrow
dried mushrooms soaking because I have run out of them in my compost bags and need some for pizzas I am making tomorrow night
a new breakfast is on trial so in my crockpot I have 1/2 cup brown rice, 1/2 cup barley, 1/2 cup hulled millet, some dates, lemon juice, dried cranberries and vanilla stewing away overnight
2 little tubes of silver beet seedlings from Sandra, which need attention
the last of my Lady in the Snow apples to dry
a bag of dried lemon verbena leaves a friend gave me and I MUST find a home for
a bowl of oca, cape gooseberries and a large Jerusalem artichoke all of which need planting NOW
persimons from Alicia that I was meant to collect last week
on the stove is beef stock, made from bones given to me yesterday

and in the fridge

milk from Sophie the Jersey cow which causes endless complications with Frances who shares it with me.... I forget to leave her full bottles out for her to pick up if I am going out.... then what happens when one of us goes away.... and can we ever remember who has paid for what??
more sourdough starter that must be fed up and put into jars in time for market days
the last jar of last year's green tomato chutney that I made far too much of
jams from various people
stewed quinces (from the community garden) that I really must eat tomorrow
and.... Gavin's cheese!

and so it goes on...never mind the freezer....and there is only me in this house!! This is all without mentioning what is going on in the acre of garden and chook yard... or dealing with firewood.... Nor does it take into account neighbours and friends who drop by with / for other goods....

Then there are the things I refuse to use /buy/ eat / throw away.... oh lalala, sometimes I wish I didn't care so much.

Life is good, and complicated; especially the simple life.

School Kitchen Garden Launch in Cygnet

2011-07-18T17:23:00.001+10:00

Thursday afternoon saw the launch of the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Programme at St. James School in Cygnet.

It was a lovely, sunny afternoon..	Marcus is the co-ordinator and a local permaculturist and teacher
The indoor area is perfect for Tasmania and laden with seedlings	Don't you love these painted, indoor garden beds!
Roy, the specialist in the kitchen, cooked up a storm for the day, with his catering	Tools! How lucky they are to also have incorporated the programme with the horticulture course for the older students, allowing sharing of tools and some facilities.
With the construction of the outdoor beds coming on well, and the seedlings looking fabulous inside, its going to be all happening this spring, at St. James	If you would like to be involved as a volunteer, contact the school for how you can help instil a love and understanding for what it means to grow food, cook it and share it.

On at the Cygnet Town Hall Saturday night.... tomorrow!

2011-07-15T07:51:00.005+10:00

This looks like a lot of fun.... watch the video.

Bang!Crash! Tap!

World Kitchen Garden Day

2011-07-13T05:30:00.002+10:00

World Kitchen Garden Day is an annual, decentralized celebration of food produced on a human-scale. It is recognized each year on the 4th Sunday of August. It is an opportunity for people around the world to gather in their gardens with friends, family, and members of their local community to celebrate the multiple pleasures and benefits of home-grown, hand-made foods.

Here is the logo.... when you organise a get together you can download it and use it to attract attention.

Activities:
How people celebrate International Kitchen Garden Day and with whom is up to them. Some choose to do so in public ways with large gatherings of friends and neighbours, whereas others opt for a more intimate celebration with close family. Here are a few ideas for some activities you might consider organizing depending on the level of involvement you would like to have:

-a walking tour of gardens in your area
-a kitchen garden or local agriculture potluck
-a kitchen garden taste-test
-a harvest or planting party
-a benefit for a local food/gardening charity
-a kitchen garden "teach in"
-a single food theme party
-an activity at a local farm
-etc

Cygnet World Kitchen Garden Day Plans:

I am organising a walk again this year. Last year we walked to 4 private gardens but this year I am taking you to some new developments that have sprung up in the public domain here..... Cygnet Child Care Centre where Alex does a wonderful job of introducing the littlest members of Cygnet to growing and tasting foods from their own garden, St. James School (yet to be confirmed) which has recently started a Stephanie Alexander School Kitchen Garden, Cygnet Primary School (yet to be confirmed) and the Cygnet Community Garden which will hopefully have reverted to garden instead of duck pond by then!

We will meet at Burton's Reserve carpark at 11am on Sunday August 28th and finish up at the Community Garden for a shared lunch from 1pm.

See what they are organising in India at Urban Leaves ....

where this young lad was worried about his pet snail eating his spinach leaves, at a recent celebration in the garden!

In the USA its all about freedom.... freedom to grow food where you want to.... you won't believe this video.... it makes me feel sick to think that growing vegetables can be a finable offense!!

You can watch the video and read more here

Wild and woolly winter wonderland....

2011-07-12T06:32:00.000+10:00

Storm force winds, ocean swells of 9 - 12m, snow down to 200m, roads closed with snow and ice, flooded rivers and high tides and still we garden!! No snow at my place but at Sandra's (who is spending her first winter in Tasmania, from Brisbane!!) it looked like this......

This is Sandra's house last week...	and the terraced veg garden
...the seedling raising table	....all the seedlings survived!!

Then, Sunday afternoon was SeedSaveUs at Erika's and it snowed there too but the big flakes did not settle..... mostly they were blowing horizontally as we surveyed her garden!


These must be the coldest water chestnuts in the world!	But inside the straw bale house it's deliciously warm...
...and another fabulous spread.	Then we got down to the serious business of talking about tomatoes. We swapped seeds.... hard to believe its almost time to sow tomatoes when its snowing... and produce and seedlings and information but I forgot to take any photos. What a dill I am!!!

Tomorrow is community garden day again and, can you believe it, its STILL raining and windy and freezing.... a week solid of rain!!! Surely they won't make me swim through the garden, which is now almost completely under water?!

Radio quotes today on 936 Tasmania.....

2011-07-11T14:22:00.001+10:00

"We are the only species that works all our lives in order to buy food that will kill us...."

and

"People say they don't want to spend time grubbing away in the soil to grow their food cheaply but are happy to work all their lives in order to afford organic food and special hand-made things that other people have made, and pay top price for them!...."

"That's what makes us special!"

Life is good...even if it is a bit strange....

Cheese

2011-07-10T06:07:00.000+10:00

Here is a decent size piece of cheese, the photo being stolen from a friend's blog Olives and Artichokes. It would not have cost the earth and its taste would have beaten hands down anything made here in Tasmania for 5 times the price and 1/5 the size, with a fancy name and plastic packaging. But help is at hand! Gavin makes cheese, good cheese, great cheese, even, and I am soon to have some......

Where is our acorn gene...

2011-07-09T06:03:00.000+10:00

It seems to me that humans, on the whole, have lost the "acorn" gene. The squirrel gathers acorns and keeps them safe ready for the winter. Squirrels and all other plant and animal species seem to know in advance, of changes in their environment.... you see fruit trees flowering early or late, not just one tree, but all in a region.... baby birds of one variety hatching all at similar times, and those times vary year to year.... late ripening tomatoes (from a colder than normal summer) somehow managing to defy the frost, and ripening through into June when normally one frost and they are gone.... All these are signs that everything else is adapting to constant change, planning for these changes and altering their daily behaviour.

But humans? Oh no! They expect everything to stay the same. They do not prepare their nests / collect food / follow the seasonal changes / adapt in any way to patterns in their surroundings. Scientists study things that stay the same as well as things that change and, for the last 200 years or so, humans have relied on technology to react to these findings and create ways to allow humans not to have to adapt to change but instead to change our environment to fit our needs.

Genetic modification in agriculture is an example of humans trying to adapt its world to its own needs so ordinary people can still buy cheap packets of flour, bags of eggplants and litres of soy milk on the shelves in the supermarket (so they have more money left for entertainment and stuff), oblivious to desertification of the planet, destruction of biodiversity and consequent climatic challenges to agriculture and farming communities and, ultimately, themselves.

Can we have lost the acorn gene so fast or is it still there, lying dormant? It seems to still be visible in some humans and these humans are trying desperately to, firstly, make the rest see the changes all around us and find ways of adapting to them, and secondly to realise that we are causing the changes through our own short-sightedness and lack of the acorn gene which makes squirrels plan for the future....

A disease has crept in and is sweeping the world; a disease which has laid dormant this gene for planning and adapting, for their future, in humans. It is called money. If you have the money disease, you can ignore everything else. It develops like a computer virus..... working away behind the scenes, infiltrating every corner of your existence, making you feel busy and useful; too busy to stop and think about what you are doing and where it will lead. And, like with the computer virus, its insidious nature means it is sometimes not apparent until its too late.

So, before we self-destruct, lets put money aside for a while, open up to our minds and get out our innate "acorn" gene, think about what really would be best for the future of mankind and take a small step on a new path. If 6 billion people took one step on a new path, wow, what an impact that would make on our future.

Caution; thinking required.....

2011-07-08T06:40:00.000+10:00

Make the connections. Change a little every day.

Life is good; let's keep it that way.

Bananas and climate change; a symposium in Peru

2011-07-07T06:17:00.000+10:00

Bioversity International always has interesting news and information on everything to do with biodiversity and food....

Bioversity International uses agricultural biodiversity to improve people's lives.
We carry out global research to seek solutions for three key challenges: Sustainable Agriculture, Nutrition, Conservation

Representatives from 21 countries met last week in Peru for the first international symposium on ‘Banana and Plantain in Latin America and the Caribbean’. Peru, especially the north west, is an important organic banana growing region.

The meeting focused on the impact of climate change on banana and plantain diversity and finding alternatives to prevent or mitigate its negative impact.

“The symposium opened with some great presentations, with many questions coming from the smallholder farmers who are the real beneficiaries of climate change research” said Miguel Dita, Bioversity's banana expert in Latin America and event co-organiser.
For more information visit the symposium website (available in Spanish only) or read 'Desert Bananas', a report by Andy Jarvis (CIAT/CCAFS) one of the keynote speakers at the event.

Amazing local women.... and then there's me.....

2011-07-06T06:27:00.000+10:00

The wind that blew Dorothy's house away to the land of Oz was nothing compared to last night at my place. I felt like I was on a ship caught in a storm at sea..... buffeted this way and that, the wind howling through the gum trees down by the road before crashing into my bedroom like a series of giant waves.... the rain and hail hitting the windows, hammering the tin roof and no doubt filling my already gushing creek.

By 4.30am I gave up on sleep. By 5am I was sitting up in bed with the hood of my thickest jacket covering my head and a hot coffee in my hands. Sunrise is not until after 7.30am so I could not see outside, except that it was very black when I nipped out to the verandah for a couple of pieces of wood for the fire.

I managed to get back to sleep for an hour or so, much later, and decided at 9am that I was not going to the community garden today at 10am. I was sure no-one else would be there anyway so I threw some more wood on the fire and settled down to writing some emails and reading some blogs. At 10.30 I was still in my pj's, luxuriating in the unexpected free time, when the phone rang. I could hardly hear for the noise of the rain on my roof.....

"Hi Kate, its Jane. I have brought a load of mulch in my ute and wondered if you are coming to the community garden today to help me unload it...."

"Not sure if you have noticed Jane but its a bugger of a day for gardening and....."

"Yes but it'll only take 1/2 an hour and I have the wheelbarrows out ready...."

The community garden is only at the end of my street ..... surely Jane had gone mad....it was about 4 degrees and pouring....but her enthusiasm is infectious and rarely have I come across someone even more passionate about it all than me .... so.....

"OK Jane. I will be there in a few minutes."

Seventeen layers of clothes later, I left home. By now two others had turned up at the garden. They must be mad too, I decided.

The 4 of us did not even mention the weather as we slogged away. I mean, there was no point at all; it was cold and wet and bloody obvious! It didn't take long to unload the stuff and then wimpish me suggested everyone might like to come and sit by my fire and have a coffee and congratulate ourselves but...... Jane and Laura said they'd just pop down to the IGA and pick up some more cardboard for another project we are working on and Alex said, sarcastically I thought, that she'd brought some native plants to plant and it was a GREAT day for planting them.

"Alex, its not a great day for anything but coffee by a fire" I suggested but already she was out of earshot and heading off with her home-grown tea trees and bottlebrushes.

We worked away and the sun came out for a moment before once again the rain beat down, but we got the job done, discovering an overgrown pile of mulch which we dug out and used, along with 5 large car tyres, completely hidden by weeds.... perfect.... the trees were now mulched and guarded from enthusiastic brush-cutters.

Three more community gardeners popped in.... two stayed for tea on the verandah. They are definitely mad as well.... There we were, stalwart gardeners in very wet pants, and 17 layers of woollens and coats sitting out on Liz's verandah in the cold Tasmanian winter drinking tea as if it were summer.

I congratulate these women and especially Jane, who rang a few of us up and got us out for a memorable morning's work.... my wet and muddy jeans hang in front of the fire, my old black ski hat hangs there too and my new gardening gloves have made a muddy puddle on the hearth tiles .... I am sitting here on the couch in my long johns which are nearly dry and, finally, I have coffee.

Life is good; sometimes unexpectedly so.

Recently in my garden kitchen

2011-07-05T09:48:00.001+10:00

We talk about our kitchen gardens, where we grow food, so I thought I'd call my kitchen a garden kitchen, where I cook food from my garden.

	My sourdough bread is so forgiving... the only really important thing is taking good care of the starter.... Not from my garden... oh well.
Cherry clafoutis.... my bottled cherries plus garden-laid eggs!	Finely sliced red cabbage, fennel, sorrel, carrot, oil, herbs,lemon juice, my tamari seed mix.... oh lalala!
	Brussels sprouts, kale and chicory from garden to plate in 10 minutes... just look at the colour! Cook veg then toss in a pan with cooked potato, garlic, grated lemon peel, shredded, cooked chicken, toasted fresh
	breadcrumbs, herbs (I used sage and winter savory), a light dressing of olive oil and verjuice/lemon juice. Bon appetit!
Baked pasta.... cook pasta, layer with anything... eg my bottled tomatoes, basil pesto I freeze in ice cube trays, roasted pumpkin pieces, herbs, then all topped with a mixture of yoghurt, eggs, a little parmesan then grated nutmeg. Bake until settish.

Our Daniel

2011-07-02T07:36:00.000+10:00

How lovely it was to see Daniel grow in confidence and maturity during the last couple of years I was in Adelaide.

I first met him, with my friend Maggie, at the Urrbrae Agricultural High School Saturday markets, where his enthusiasm for his stall was so endearing and his knowledge amazing.

With his mum, he soon joined Maggie and I in our Hills and Plains Seedsavers group and young Daniel could be seen mixing with families, newcomers and the rest of us old farts, with not a care for the age differences.

Now he is a TV star appearing frequently on Gardening Australia with Sophie Thompson. I think this is the best episode yet....Daniel is relaxed and happily chatting about what he is doing in his winter garden in Adelaide. You will see this on Gardening Australia tonight or here, now.....

http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/video/

A Taste of the Unexpected

2011-06-30T16:18:00.001+10:00

I have come in from the absolutely adorable, warm, winter sunshine and a delicious coffee to tell you about something. The postie arrived a few moments ago and I thought I'd read the introduction to the new book I am selling, which he was delivering, while I had my coffee on the verandah. The author, Mark Diacono believes life is too short to grow unremarkable food...and he makes growing your own into a rather swashbuckling and delicious adventure to ensure that the food that you grow is done so as to give those who eat it great pleasure, not just a meal.

I had tears in my eyes when I read the forward and the introduction! I am in heaven... this is my kind of book, written by my kind of bloke, in wonderful words and pictures, to inspire a passionate approach to food growing and eating. Forget abundance, go for flavour.

"This is a food book; it just happens to start its journey in the in the garden rather than the kitchen... and once you start growing fine food, you'll very quickly find that it becomes something you do rather than simply what you eat, and that life becomes quietly, immeasurably, sweeter."

Amen!

He suggests growing and eating Szechuan pepper, lovage, day lilly flowers, cardoons, shungiku, Egyptian walking onions, oca etc etc. I have grown all these except the Szechuan pepper and do thoroughly recommend them too.

A Taste of the Unexpected by Mark Diacono.... now available at The Garden Shed and Pantry by email order, for $35 including postage in Australia.... or from the Cygnet market this Sunday, 10 - 2, for the same price.

The death of common sense

2011-06-29T07:02:00.001+10:00

The federal government is losing in the polls for trying to introduce a carbon tax. The carbon tax at least recognises a problem that needs urgent attention - we need to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, which, when dug up and used to make energy, increase pollution and carbon dioxide in the air.

The Tasmanian state government is short of funds..... and is planning on closing 20 Tasmanian schools to raise a bit of cash, meaning that, apart from anything else, there will be a forced increase in the use of fossil fuels to get these children to other schools. Moreover, the remaining schools will have to be enlarged to accommodate the extra students, using more fossil fuels. Extra teachers will be required and they too will have to travel, probably from where they lived near the previous school, up to 30 minutes drive away. Then, something will have to be done with the existing schools..... and so on.

Not a single mention has been made of this in the media. I feel like screaming! But I had to laugh when a friend sent me an email yesterday putting all my thoughts into a nutshell....

An Obituary printed in the London Times

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years.

No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.

He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:
- Knowing when to come in out of the rain;
- Why the early bird gets the worm;
- Life isn't always fair;
- and maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).
His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place.

Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition...

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children.
It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims.

Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in death, by his parents, Truth and Trust, by his wife, Discretion, by his daughter, Responsibility, and by his son, Reason.

He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers;
I Know My Rights
I Want It Now
Someone Else Is To Blame
I'm A Victim

Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone.. If you still remember him, pass this on.

If not, join the majority and do nothing.

My philosophy

2011-06-24T06:58:00.000+10:00

The paths that we take in life, although they may dart here and there and sometimes seem to lead to nowhere, do, I think, follow the theme we were born with, or developed in young childhood.

When I was 2 my parents bought a shack on the beach, only 45 minutes from our home, but far, far away from our home life. I am lucky to have the poster of it in my kitchen here. There, I spent every waking moment on the beach; wind in my hair, sun or rain on my face and my fingers playing in the sand, in the rockpools and through the hair of our 5 dogs who were my companions. My brothers are both 10 or more years older than me so I spent a lot of time alone with dogs and the sea. We went there at least one weekend in 4 and for nearly every school and uni holiday for 20 years.

We used to put a little net out in summer. I would paddle my canoe out and collect the fish at 6am, before the crabs got up. I was very young and I suppose my parents were watching me, but I felt hugely free and independent from that young age; just me and the sea. I learned about the waves and the wind. Launching my canoe was all about timing and I enjoyed the challenge. Often it was glassy calm in those sheltered waters and I could see to the sand on the bottom as I paddled. I frequently shared the early morning with dolphins and sting rays and once even a seal. The net was crusty with salt and often had coloured seaweeds entangled in it. I loved the feel of them in my hands as I removed them from the net but once I had collected the 2 or 3 fish caught overnight, I would paddle madly back to shore before the slimy bodies of the fish slid from the front of my canoe, to the back where I sat. I never thought to take something to put them in until this moment!

In winter the waves crashed on the shore, not far from the shack and I slept to the feel of the shack being slammed with the wild wind and pelted with rain, the roar of crashing waves and the snoring of a dog or 2. There were a few other shacks in the row below the cliff and, luckily for me, there was often someone to play with. In winter we'd run down the beach to where the waves for body surfing were biggest, dive into the freezing cold sea without hesitating, and, with our towels flapping in the wind, we'd race back to hot cocoa and scones. It was paradise for me.

This close connection with nature and growing up feeling I was a part of it and not that it was separate from me, has given me a connection with the earth that few people I know have. I keep it to myself mostly because it is not easy to explain in full. But the philosophy I live by is to live with the earth and do least harm. This means I need to know about food; where it comes from and how it is grown and processed. I do not want to damage anything, just to feed me. All creatures are equal. I would rather eat a kangaroo shot in the wild, than any farmed animal because the kangaroo does not require the clearing of forests, the building of fences or the use of machinery. Best, is eating feral meat, shot on the hoof; wild goats, pigs, rabbits, deer and camels, in S.A. Then I would be helping the wild animals and plants by reducing pests the destroy their native habitat.

Some people say being vegetarian is best. I don't agree, here in Australia. One animal shot dead in the wild would feed me for months, with no other destruction to anything. The rest I grow or collect or buy locally, except for spices and coffee and the odd bit of soy sauce etc. This may not be possible to feed the world but it would certainly help if more feral meat was available here in Tasmania, as it is in South Australia.

Everything I eat has come into my kitchen through close scrutiny, and I read labels constantly, trying to work out what to buy or not buy. It is part of who I am, part of inner me. My whole life I have felt this connection with the earth and the need to teach others to take care of what we have, to look at what you do and do least harm. It reaches into every corner of human existence, not just our food, and needs careful consideration as humans divorce themselves more and more from reality.

Make the connections and do least harm.

The Launch of "Relaxing Stories"

2011-06-23T06:14:00.000+10:00

Relaxing Stories App for iphones

Today we have launched the Relaxing Stories app. It is free to download for a limited period (download here). We hope you enjoy the app.

The App at a glance:
- 29 unique stories (5 available for free)
- 8 stories in both male and female voices
- Set in more than 10 different scenes
- 6 voices to choose from
- Easy to use interface
- Non-intrusive user experience (no ads!)

Of course, none of this would have been possible without a really awesome team that backed us up.

Alex Flint, Christo Fogelberg, Deeksha Sharma and Akshat Rathi spearheaded the project and took on very important roles complementing each other’s skills beautifully.

All the excellent authors who have given us the chance to bring such quality content to you the listeners, thank you very much.

Philip Robinson, Katie Steel, Abigail Ballantyne, Maeve O’Donnell and Dylan Townley for lending their excellent voices. It is their voices that give the app it’s character.

A special thanks to Monic Gupta and George Knott for their excellent support in helping us kick off the project and then continued efforts throughout the project. We are also grateful to Tejas Yadav and Kelly Dhru for their key inputs.

The Oxford student radio Oxide has been very kind in allowing us to use their high tech equipment to ensure top quality recordings for the stories.

The superb logo that has kept us going through all the hard work in this project was made by Surabhi Rathi. We thank her for all the work and we are very happy that her design skills have spread throughout the project including many of the posters and beautifully designed story snippets.

More than 25 people have beta tested the app for us and their inputs have been key to making the app as perfect as possible. Thank you for your time and efforts.

This simple and clean design for the website was the work of Apurv Ray and Deepak Thomas and we thank them for their hard work.

Here’s a big thank you to all of you and we hope that the product brings to you a relaxing experience.

Alex Flint, June 17, 2011

I don't want free stuff

2011-06-22T07:01:00.001+10:00

Everywhere I look, people are offering free this or that, if only you'll buy their product. Sometimes I love the product, like The New Internationalist magazine, who have a great deal out for a subscription. However, I do not want the free, organic cotton backpack. It is not right. I am trying very hard to buy second hand things, if and when I need them. What's more, black dyes, such as that used in the making of the free back-pack, are shocking for the environment, even if they are eco and anyway, I hate black.

It is ironic that the cover of the magazine may well have the title "Reduce, Re-Use, Recycle" or "Why do we need a carbon tax?" stamped across its cover, while at the same time, there is a black back-pack going for free if you subscribe. When is the connection going to hit people and, instead of all this talk and argument, commonsense start to be a little more common?

I have stopped all subscriptions to paper products and I wait rather impatiently for the chance to buy an e-subscription for my favourite magazines. Then, if there is an article I want to keep, I could save it on my computer or even print it out at home. There are mountains of e-magazines but not the ones I love, yet. They have to be user-friendly too, and able to be saved, article by article.... not just be a pdf version of the paper product.

Here I am, 52, wanting to make the best use of the technology we have. There must be millions like me and millions of younger, more tech-savvy people ready to reduce their carbon footprint and take to the e-waves in a truly useful way. I saw on the TV that there are now 3 billion internet users now. What a customer base!

In the meantime, I have asked many people here if they'd like to share a subscription to The Organic Gardener, for example, .... people who fight for sustainability, grow their own food.... wonderful people in every way.... but so far no luck. I thought if 4 of us shared a monthly subscription then that would mean we could have the magazine for a week each. Maybe this rant will change their minds!!

Make the connections and DO something.

...and the winner is....a superbly ripe cape gooseberry

2011-06-17T08:43:00.001+10:00

Which cape? Cape Town, South Africa.

.....full, rich, fruity, sweet, aromatic and quite elusive. (Sitting on top of a plate of oca, from previous blog post)

Frost hardy, prolific bearers, incredibly easy to propagate from seed.... just place the whole, ripe fruit on a pot of soil and watch the seeds germinate inside the capsule!

If anyone has the cape gooseberry with the orange capsule, please let me know.

Two new seasonal tastes in my garden

2011-06-12T19:12:00.001+10:00

Plus one from the sea....

First, "Tassie Berries" or Chilean guavas have been in abundance even on my small bushes planted only a year ago. Because they grow so well here, someone is marketing them as Tassie Berries as once New Zealanders chose the name Kiwi Fruit for the Chinese gooseberry. They grow soooooo easily from cutting taken now too. Chilean guavas are ripe right at the end of autumn/early winter and explode in your mouth with a taste of summer. Evidently they make superb jam but I have so far only eaten them fresh. They are tiny and very tasty and you just pop them in your mouth, a bit like those tiny alpine strawberries. Everyone at the community garden enjoyed them when I picked some and took them to the tea table.

I want to get people to try whatever is in the garden that they maybe did not know was edible or have never eaten before. At the moment we have lots of Asian greens waving their hands in the air, saying "Pick me, pick me!" but hardly anyone is! So one day we all sampled the different parts of the plants, as the flavours and intensity vary from flower (usually the sweetest part) to stem and then to young leaves and finally old leaves (strongest). Its worth knowing this, then you can choose which part to use to suit your own tastes. And, unlike a lot of European vegetables, Asian greens do not, on the whole, become stringy and bitter when they go to seed and can be eaten at any stage. Furthermore, the green seed pods of, especially, the daikon radish are, I think, the best part of the whole plant. Throw them into a stir fry and they stay crisp like water chestnuts and are very mild.

Next is oca or the New Zealand yam, which actually is not native to NZ either! It is from the Andes and is in the oxalis family. Oca is ready to dig once the foliage dies off. This is now, in my garden. They are very popular here in Cygnet and I am looking forward to trying them tonight. They say you just cook them as you would potatoes. It was quite delightful to push the fork into the soil, lift the clod and see so many, beautifully coloured tubers. Mine are pink but they evidently also come in yellow and purple, a bit like sweet potatoes.

Third, is seaweed. It is sad they are called a weed, when they are perfectly lovely, native sea plants. Yesterday I went for a walk on what is left of the beach at Randalls Bay. After the south-easterly storm last week, most of the sand has gone and in its place, is a mountain of kelp and other seaweeds. I have often tasted seaweeds on beaches in SA and I must say that this one was very edible and rather nice in comparison! Not only is now a good time to collect it if you are growing asparagus or making liquid manure, but it must be the perfect time to eat it too, as there it is, free, tossed up at us. We must be crazy to think that food originating in a foreign land (mostly Europe) is more worthy of consumption than what is under our noses. If you don't want to eat it raw, dry some, crumble it up and use in soups. This is an idea gathered from the Japanese who do this a lot with sea plants.

Wheat biodiversity, draught exclusion, split peas and Elizabeth David

2011-06-08T16:31:00.001+10:00

It happens often; I am washing the dishes, while listening to the radio or just meandering through my mind, when an idea comes along that I absolutely must write about that minute. Off come the washing-up gloves, up flashes Live Writer and before a word is typed, something else pops into my brain, from another day or another life and then there are 2 topics that need attention. Sometimes I jot down a link or a couple of words about both so I don't lose either of them in the excitement. Then I relax a little, cast my eyes out the window and catch sight of another topic, as a bird swoops by, a frog croaks or a spring onion uncurls an out-of-season flower......

And so it is today that I concoct such a crazy heading as the one above. Actually they are all related, as everything is in reality (OK Alex, I am sure you will suggest otherwise!!). It is one of those days when no-one goes outside who doesn't have to. The wind is ferocious, blowing in powerful, turbulent gusts straight off the Antarctic. There is flooding in Hobart and Huonville. Snow is causing chaos on parts of the road I was driving on in the sunshine, only a couple of weeks ago, north of Hobart. The rain is horizontal, and has been all day and most of last night, lashing the windows and creeping into the bathroom through a poorly designed vent directly above the toilet! My pond is full and the creek is gushing, almost up to the top of its bank. It is 9C which seemed icy when I was out battling with the wheelbarrow and the wood heap but I am very warm inside with just my small, slow combustion fire on low.

And that is the thing..... this wind is very southerly, maybe even a little south-easterly, not the usual north or south westerly. And what that means is that the wind is hitting straight onto the back of my house which is the laundry and (wet) bathroom, instead of the kitchen and lounge room where more of the windows and doors are. The bathroom and laundry are forming a great draught exclusion zone. I knew draughts were a problem with this house but I did not realise how significant they are, despite my efforts at using weather strip and other products to try to fill the gaps around my old windows and doors. I wish I had an answer.

So, what does one do when gardening is cancelled and an inside day is thrust upon us? Cook, that's what..... pea and ham soup, Tamari-toasted seeds and bread.... well not actually make bread yet but read about it in a book I had never really looked at much although I have had it forever.... Elizabeth David's English Bread and Yeast Cookery, published in 1977.

It is such fun to read a book written in a particular era, about that era, rather than as an historical depiction of an era past, if you see what I am saying!? I was 19 in 1977 and thought I was very modern, no doubt, but now it seems like I am reading about the 19th century, when Elizabeth David talks about all the different flours available, and buying flour from a baker, if you like their bread. There would be parts of Australia nowadays where you would not find a baker making real bread for hundreds of kilometres, never mind asking for a special flour!

One very interesting thing she mentions is the use of the exact same idea of the 85% flour that I use and recommend for making my sourdough bread. As with Four Leaf's flour mill, the older, English mills did not remove the germ, but instead just some of the bran, making the flour less course and easier to work with.

I am passionate about biodiversity and believe it is the answer to many questions related to maintaining and improving health for humans and the planet, as well as adapting to a future of uncertain climatic conditions, worldwide so I revel in Elizabeth David's words describing the huge range of wheat varieties used in different parts of the UK, Europe and America up to and including the 1970's.... I wonder how this compares to today?? .....Then she goes on to discuss equally interesting facts about rye and barley and other grains and how they vary all over the world, making the history of breads a fascinating topic. .... and there's another 500 pages to go.

Every 20 minutes a little, brightly coloured, plastic and wire-spring bloke does the Samba on my kitchen bench, telling me its time to stir the soup again..... thanks Alex, he makes me laugh every time. Its not every timer that is so entertaining!

Using and re-using vertical space in a fishy kind of way.....

2011-06-06T18:58:00.001+10:00

When people just get on and use their initiative like this it re-ignites in me the belief that the answers are there.... all of them.... we just have to work them out and not wait for others to do it for us.

I found this video on Ooooby.... Out Of Our Own Back Yards

Am I the only one who gets it??

2011-06-01T21:20:00.001+10:00

I have been sitting by the fire watching the world's woes presented as unrelated events, each with a different reporter, in a different part of Australia or the world.

First, was the carbon tax.... please tell me if I am wrong but I thought that was to try to help or force (depending on your point of view) industries to look at innovative ways to do their business while making less carbon pollution.... and I thought that was because there seems to be some agreement amongst some levels of government that we should do something about climate change. However, it seems that a carbon tax is just another excuse for immature behaviour amongst politicians, without any discussion on the root cause of why we need one.

Second, was quite a lengthy piece on how the high Australian dollar is making it hard for fruit growers and processors in Victoria to export their goods. In fact, it showed 2,000 perfectly good, 80 year old pear trees being ripped out of the soil. Then the screen was filled with the picture of a supermarket shelf loaded with cheap, foreign, tinned pears(mostly grown in China, they said), packaged with Coles home brand labelling.

Now, to me, naive as it may be, these two items are bound together as if with super-glue and any decent current affairs programme would have been asking serious questions about the dedication of a government, putting itself forward as being tough on climate change, whilst allowing our own fruit growing and processing industries to be sabotaged by cheap, poor quality, foreign fruit being shipped thousands of kilometres across the seas to supermarket shelves, where they sit in tins lined in plastic, instead of in decent, Australian steel (of course steel has its down sides but let's not get side-tracked!!). There needs to be an incentive to buy Australian and someone needs to stand up and explain the connection between all this carbon dioxide in the air, and all these foreign tins of fruit in the shops.

Third, there was an economist explaining that the terrible floods in Queensland back in January were the cause of the bad state of the Australia current account deficit; you see, many coal mines had been either flooded or had access to them cut off by the floods and thus have produced a fraction of their usual coal exports ever since. He was then explaining that all will be up and up (on the graph to nowhere), once that production is back to normal again.

Again I actually naively imagined that coal was one of those industries that maybe should be rethinking its future, now we are all agreed that we are getting tough on climate change... and that getting back to full production and filling those world markets for massive amounts of coal was the whole reason we are having such an affect on our climates.

So, I thought maybe if we stopped importing so much rubbish from China and started eating our own, Australian-grown fruit and veg, then we could break even with this current account deficit thing. And if we started putting solar panels on every roof (in the sunniest country on earth) then we could make electricity even in the floods and we wouldn't need the coal to be mined.

Am I the only person who sees the link between these news items? Perhaps I should send Julia an email and explain the simplicity of the whole thing.... tough action should mean encouraging everyone to grow food, buy Australian and catch the bus.

The impact of the Fukushima nuclear disaster on the global food chain

2011-05-29T17:37:00.001+10:00

Here is the translation of part of an article appearing on Kokopelli's website. I thank the people at La Vie Verte for translating it from French and for publishing it on their website. I hope I do not overstep any lines by copying all of the translation here.....

“Seven weeks after the tsumani of 11 March 2011, the situation of the reactors of the nuclear plant of Fukushima-Daiichi is deteriorating inexorably. On April 28, TEPCO announced that the ambient radioactivity was about 1220 milisievert/hour, which corresponds to practically 10 million times the dose of artificial radioactivity admissible in France (1 milisievert/year).

“In the US, plutonium 238 and plutonium 239 appeared from 18 March onwards: in California and Hawaii, and were respectively 43 times and 11 times higher than the maximum level recorded during the past 20 years. In March, drinking water in San Francisco contained 181 times the admissible dose of iodine 131. On April 4, rainwater in Boise, Idaho contained 80 times the admissible dose of iodine 131, as well as cesium 137.

“All these radioactive isotopes have been deposited in Europe, and if we are not finding them it is because we are not looking for them.

“Before the end of 2011, all the soil on the planet will be inexorably contaminated by daily and permanent radiation of the Fukushima reactors. The same goes for the oceans and the water tables. That is when the radioactive isotopes from Fukushima will begin the long process of bio-accumulation by moving up the various levels of the food chain. In 2012, the whole of the planetary food chain will be radioactive and therefore hyper-toxic for human health.”

“The safe limit of radioactivity is a huge scientific scam. Let’s recall that, according to experts in endocrinology, there is no such thing as a safe limit of radioactive contamination and furthermore, low levels of contamination can be the most dangerous for the human fetus than contaminations from large doses.”

“What to do? First of all, set up techniques for decontaminating soils. After Chernobyl, the sale of cheese was banned in Austria; however, we soon observed that cheese produced by organic farmers which had been using zeolites were exempt of radioactivity. All volcanic rocks from the family of zeolites have the reputation of being able to block heavy metals and radioactive particles. The first line of defense in the face of heavy metals and radioactivity is a microbial life in the soils and the presence of humus and minerals which are vital to the harmonious nutrition of soils. This first line of defense is absent from the majority of European soils which are dead, sterilized, oxidized and whose food products do nothing but generate in the human body free radicals which promote degeneration.

“There are also techniques for decontamination using mushrooms or plants to “fix” radioactivity. It is not easy to transform a garden or field into a mushroom plot. It is much easier to plant sunflowers or hemp/cannabis. Some studies have highlighted the fact that these two plants were used with success after the Chernobyl disaster.
The question remains how to recycle these plants after decontamination. We could suggest organizing pick-ups and sending them to the Elysee (presidential palace in France) or to the headquarters of EDF or Areva.”

More than ever, I say to Australians grow organic food / buy local and avoid all imported foods.... and for heaven's sakes SAVE your seeds!

The bin, the sky and me....

2011-05-26T18:38:00.001+10:00

I've never lived before in a place where walking the rubbish bin to the road, on a chilly late autumn evening, makes me smile so much. The sky is big out from my west-facing garden; nothing obscures the vast, changeable sky from north-west to south-west. It is from this way that the weather approaches from the enormity of the southern ocean and clouds are often skimming across the sky, at several different levels, in very different shapes and patterns, in colours from brilliant white to deepest, darkest black, all at once. As the sun sets beyond a row of distant hills, each layer is painted as if none were existing in the same sky, on the same night. It is quite extraordinary and something I have gained by chance in the purchase of my pretty cottage in paradise.

But that is not all that makes me smile. Neighbours in coats, also putting out their bins, call and wave a cheerio, the T-shirt clad lad from next door speeds past down the incline of the footpath on his skate board, dodging all the bins, as if it were a race track and spirals of smoke puff briefly from the equally pretty cottages that line the other side of my street, as people prepare for the chilly night. On the way back to my door I collect some extra kindling from under my gum trees, the crack of dry wood searing through the night air as I break it up into fire-box sized pieces.

One of the reasons I enjoy all these ordinary events is that I do not put my bin out for collection until it is full, which is every few weeks, maybe once every couple of months, so I do not normally have a reason to be wandering about in the street at dusk! If everyone only put their bin out once a month, the truck would only have to make 1/4 the stops to collect the same weight of rubbish, saving time and fuel because stopping and starting wastes a lot of both. This is one of the small things we can all so easily do to reduce our footprint on the earth and that was another reason why I was smiling.... it feels good to make less rubbish AND to dispose of it in a more energy-efficient way, with such little effort. Try it and enjoy the experience!

......another reason to be smiling.... my first attempt at making sourdough pitta bread was pretty good and will go nicely with my freshly picked dinner.

2011-05-23T22:08:00.003+10:00

Click to play....

Create your own free digital greeting

Embrace our Australian seed freedom

2011-05-15T08:21:00.001+10:00

I read a lot of blogs, scattered throughout the world. People grow vegetables and save seeds in every corner of the earth. This can be a solitary occupation and blogs connect us and keep the passion alive. Amazingly, seed saving has become very political in some parts of the world, with multinational seed companies forcing small seed companies not only out of business, but, in the EU, trying to make it almost impossible to share heritage seeds!! Read more details on the website Seed Sovereignty.

And read 2 of my favourite European seed saving blogs.... Patrick's Bifurcated Carrots and Søren's In The Toad's Garden. Thanks for the photos, fellas!

Seed saving and swapping, not selling, is still allowed, however and I have just read of an enormous gathering that recently took place in Belgium, bringing together people from all over Europe, to a seed savers gathering. Wow.... imagine meeting up with thousands of like-minded people, all speaking different languages, but coming together to share seeds of their favourite vegetables.

In Australia we are free to sell /share our own seeds, adapted to our own climates but, on the whole, people find it more appealing to buy a few seeds in a pretty packet, from an unknown climate or country, more often than not repackaged from a multi national seed company! Yes, this applies to ALL seed companies you may be buying from, even from what you think is a small seed company selling their own saved seed. Yes, it is a good idea to buy from small, local seed companies but ask them where the seed is saved before you buy too much. They save what they can, themselves, but buy in more than half from overseas.

I struggle to get a few people to come to our seed swap days, where we share seeds we have saved in our own gardens. Pretty packets have more allure, especially those with foreign words on them. Sure, we can buy them once but then we should save them ourselves and get them adapted to our own soils and climates.

Seeds are the basis of life. Its all very well building an eco house, owning an eco car, turning off the tv, reading books on sustainable living, getting solar panels, eating organic food and shopping at second-hand shops but these are only the tips of the ice-bergs. Without seed biodiversity, humans, birds, insects..... all animal life, cannot exist. Without animal life, plant life cannot exist, and so the world slithers back to moulds and bacteria.

The reason for the demise of seed saving is simple: money cannot be made from gardeners and farmers saving their own seed. It is free. It needs no advertising, no equipment, no inputs at all..... nothing that can be commercialised.

If you want to do something that gets to the core of saving the planet, join up with others and save seeds.

The best natural products on earth....

2011-05-10T17:30:00.001+10:00

Its funny how we take so much for granted.... Here I am back for 2 weeks in SA, where I lived for 50 years, seeing and doing things I have never bothered with before.

I was pissed off with SA when I left.... the succession of governments who did not do a single thing about water allocations until it was too late (and even then have not followed through on promises), who failed to encourage reducing the carbon footprint of South Australians, who continued to let the urban sprawl build concrete jungles all over the best agricultural land in the state and so on and so on.....

I was pissed off with some of my family and friends.... I was pissed off with living in a bubble, surrounded by desert which took days of arduous driving to break through... I was pissed off with the never ending heat of summer where weeks of temperatures over 40C were becoming the norm, and where stupid governments said you could fill your swimming pool but not water your lettuce or fruit trees.....

I was pretty pissed off all round, actually, and I went to live in a cool, damp place which has soothed my soul and made me smile every day since.... even when it gets down to minus 4C and it takes me 10 minutes to get all the layers of clothes on or off!

BUT.... trying to start a sustainable/green/healthful small business in Tasmania, at the bottom of the whole world has been an interesting challenge and made me see SA with new eyes....

Where else but SA can you get terracotta pots of every shape and size, made by hand for 4 generations, in your own town, from clay dug only a couple of suburbs away? Where else but in SA can you see the clay arrive in trucks and experience the gentle clatter of the amazingly old machinery that turns it from dirt, into blocks of potters' clay? Where else but SA can you talk to the man whose passion for clay oozes from his skin and who is excited about maybe making some sourdough proving bowls for me?

Where else but SA could I spend time watching the world's best pasta being made by hand, not as a show for the public but just as a family going about their daily business in a suburb only a hop, skip and a jump away from the potter?

What other city but Adelaide offers the ability to take a short drive to the farm and mill and talk to the farmers and millers whose organic grains, flours and seeds are sold all over Australia, including to the pasta makers?

I could go on and on about the produce of SA and about the small businesses tucked away in the streets of our very own Adelaide, doing things as they have always been done; no fuss, nothing wasted, by hand and charging only enough to live a simple life.... all the broken pots are thrown back into the mix and not a single one is wasted; just as with the pasta, where the trimmings go back into the mix and come back around and around.... Where else can you get the very best range of organic / hand made produce, from soil to finished product, right at your doorstep? Nowhere!

South Australia has blossomed in my eyes. I am proud to be South Australian again. Despite the lack of leadership in the government, despite the negative angle offered incessantly by the media here, and despite the enormous challenges of heat and drought, South Australians are doing what they have always done best - quietly producing some of the best natural products on earth, using few resources but ingenuity and sweat.

Now I am having to work out ways of bringing these fine things to Tasmania. It is totally against my principles to start shipping things around. But, people will buy grains and flours anyway and they will buy pastas and pots and bowls too. Isn't it better that I bring them from SA than someone brings them from China??

http://www.bennettsmagillpottery.com.au/

http://www.labruzzese.com.au/

http://www.fourleafmilling.com.au/

The long and winding road....

2011-05-07T20:26:00.000+10:00

It had been a long but very pleasant day's journey, through 3 states; about midnight Friday the Spirit of Tasmania ferry would have brought me into Victorian waters, then the Saturday car trip from Melbourne across to Naracoorte, South Australia. I felt stiff from the hours behind the wheel, and light-headed as you do when finally the noise and movement of driving all day finally deposits you safely under the canopy of a large, shady pepper tree.

I opened the car door and knew I was in SA by the sounds alone.... parrots..... in the huge, sprawling gum trees and bottlebrushes along the banks of the creek bordering the caravan park. It is as distinctive a sound as any I know and so reminiscent of 20 years at Mount Osmond, Adelaide. Now, sitting here at the round table, in one of those boxy cabins with a sagging bed and simple but adequate set of facilities, the sun is setting on the cheering voices I just heard as a siren signaled the end of a local, Saturday afternoon footy match nearby ..... and the parrots are beginning to find their roosts for the night.

The air is still and cool and I think of my pretty little house in Tasmania and how far away it feels..... almost like another country. There, you cannot walk so easily through the bush, it is much thicker and more varied and dotted with ferns and lichen and boggy reeds. There, the birds in my garden are smaller, darting here and there and people get very excited when they see one parrot! There, the air tonight will no doubt be much colder, already it will be dark and home fires will be well lit for the evening. There, the shops will still be open! But it is nice to be in SA, where all you need in the evening is a jumper, even if everything does close half-way through Saturday afternoon.

Luckily I still have enough of Sophie-the-cow's milk left for my coffee tomorrow morning. Luckily I still have some of my home made rye sourdough bread and some of Karl's honey, Annette's chooks' eggs and some Tassie butter for breakfast. Luckily I still have one serve of risotto made with veg from my garden, to heat up tonight for dinner, plus the last of a box of salad greens from my garden.

Luckily, I have some luxurious home made soap from Kim, Gavin's gorgeous wife, which I am going to christen in the shower in a moment and, best of all, I have some of Gavin's fabulous home made parmesan cheese for that risotto! Oh lalalala! Gavin's cheeses are destined to be famous..... mark my words!!

It was a hop, skip and a jump from the ferry this morning to Gavin's house, near Melbourne, at 7am but I managed to get lost... twice! But the welcome was warm and wonderful and I soon was sitting down to a hot, English breakfast; my donation being 2 large mushrooms from the bags at my place, a loaf of my sourdough bread and a basket of Lady in the Snow apples from my tree.

It was so good to be there again and see all the new creations Gavin is working on. Seeing the new dog, Teddy, getting to know his way around and playing with Holly made me resolve to get 2 dogs as soon as I can find some with the right vibes, when I get back home. The story of Pickle is for another day....

Tomorrow is Mothers' Day. I will see my mother and I will be having lunch cooked by Hugh ..... I can't wait!

_________________________________________________

.......Hugh has started at a new restaurant..... Aria... Greenhill Road, in the old ETSA building, which is now very smart apartments.... with parking spaces saved especially for Porsches....

I was treated to a taste of the future for this newly revitalised restaurant..... Italian, with flare..... locally sourced, top quality ingredients..... today a casual meal cooked by Aaron and Hugh for their mums and relations. Oh how wonderful it was, after arriving in Adelaide only an hour before, to sit on top of the world and eat a feast, with my wonderful son Hugh and his new work 'family'.

The Greeting of Gavin and a second Voyage of the Vegetable Vagabond

2011-04-23T13:17:00.001+10:00

Recently Gavin, from The Greening of Gavin, started doing some interviews with bloggers, and posting them on his blog. I think this is a great idea because it is so nice to hear the voices and stories of people whose blogs we all read, wherever they are in the world. I was the guinea pig and you can hear the chat I had with Gavin here....If you'd be happy to chat with Gavin, so we can all get to hear you and about you, send him an email: greeningofgavin@gmail.com.

During our talk, I mentioned a trip I went on in 2008, where I stayed with bloggers all around the world, who I had never met, but had communicated with on our various blogs. I called it Voyage of the Vegetable Vagabond. Here is the story of the day I went to Gavin's. There are 37 blog posts from that trip, with photos of the people and vegetable gardens I visited and fabulous local foods I ate, but to start at the beginning you have to go to the oldest post and read from there.

I am giving a talk and slide show of my trip to the Cygnet U3A group in a week or so and this has started me thinking....

In 2012 my son Alex will be graduating with a PhD from Oxford University and I plan to go to the graduation.... what mother would not! And in my mind is another Vegetable Vagabond trip.... and this time I WILL write the book, complete with stories from the first trip too.... Who will I meet this time? Who will offer me a place to stay for a few days in exchange for me digging in their soil and cooking in their kitchen? I have a side bar full to overflowing with my favourite blogs from all corners of the earth.... I'd love to meet some of you and share laughs and stories and local food with you, wherever you live. I am pretty sure it will be in the second half of 2012 but the dates are not set yet.

Here is the bloggers picnic Patrick and I organised in the Oxford Botanic Gardens...most of us had never met before but felt we knew each other from reading each other's blogs.

Please do send me an email if you think you wouldn't mind me dropping in to see you and we could start making some plans....

Adelaide Re-skilling Festival Launch

2011-04-20T18:12:00.000+10:00

So often these days we humans only seem to gather together to buy things. What a great idea this re-skilling day was.... a bunch of people getting together to share what they know how to do. I saw the advertising for this day and it was so simple and soooo cool.... "come and share something that you can do". That was about it! And come they did.... one bloke brought his car that runs on old oils; someone was making sauerkraut; others were making and playing instruments; yet another doing quilting etc etc. It was the launch of a nice idea and I hope it takes off.... The Adelaide Re-skilling Festival.

Adelaide Reskilling FEstival from esm on Vimeo.

If Detroit can do it, we all can....

2011-04-17T15:24:00.002+10:00

Detroit's Industrial Collapse Gives Birth to Flourishing City Gardening Movement

Urban Roots Trailer from Tree Media on Vimeo.

New documentary highlights the incredible rise of urban gardening in one of the least expected places.

April 14, 2011 |

The collapse of industrial cities continues: Detroit, once ranked the 11th largest city in the United States, has seen it’s population decrease from 2.2 million to just over 700,000 according to the 2010 census. This Earth month, Tree Media, the creators of The 11th Hour, are releasing Urban Roots, a film that highlights the hopeful emergence of urban farms in Detroit, as a struggling city finds a new voice, and asks the question, when everything collapses, what happens next?

Urban Roots is the latest documentary from Leila Conners, Mathew Schmid, and director and Detroit-native, Mark MacInnis. Urban Roots centers on the rise of urban farms in Detroit where people are taking matters into their own hands. Citizens are working together to create self-reliant communities based on organic food and have transformed many abandoned lots into community gardens and farms. The people of Detroit are taking back Detroit: one garden, one farm at a time.

Read more....

Seeds, glorious seeds; what more could you ask for....

2011-04-12T10:24:00.001+10:00

... so the song from "Oliver" goes... well, it would've if I'd had a say!

I must have written this same kind of post a dozen times, with reference to that song! To me, seeds are the elixir of life. I am never happier than when messing about with seeds.

Here are some of the tomato seeds I have collected this year and it is interesting to see how different the colours of the fresh seeds are. It has been a shockingly cold summer for tomatoes here and these tomatoes have all behaved differently...

The Jaune Flambe ripened first by far but were not all that flavoursome (although people tell me they usually are). Next came the Rouge de Marmande which outperformed all the others by miles.... or by kilograms. Every Rouge de Marmande bush was laden to breaking point with hands of big, luscious tomatoes that have ripened quite well late in the season, giving me at least a few bottles of passata for winter and plenty of fried tomatoes to have with my mushrooms for breakfast. Those which were here in my hothouse when I moved in a year ago I named Kate's Medium Prolific. They have ripened sporadically but I have never seen so many medium sized tomatoes on a plant before. Last year they continued ripening right into winter in the hothouse but this year I planted them outside as well. Hillbilly is popular here but failed to impress me this year, there being few fruit and lacking flavour. Green Zebra I found to be less than ordinary, having a squishy texture and very watery.

I love vegetables that form beautiful seed heads like this carrot. Who would expect one carrot to shoot a spike up to 3m into the air and top it firstly with a mass of fine, white flowers and finally settling to this cap of soft, faun seeds? Nature is incredible.

This is the first time I have seen garlic bulbils "in the flesh". The garlic we usually grew in Adelaide did not do do this....well, mine never did! So, as well as a good, strong heads of garlic, I have ended up with solid balls of baby garlics, wrapped in brown paper, each on a nice little stick.

I will be planting them out into foam boxes this week. This is a cheap but time consuming way of increasing your planting stock for future years.

More than just a stall...

2011-04-03T17:35:00.001+10:00

So (as Pattie would say!) I had a stall at the Cygnet market today, for the first time. I forgot my camera so you'll just have to read my words and use your imagination.....

A big, friendly, old hall full of nice wooden trestles, tables, boxes, cake stands and electrical appliances.... a narrow, blustery lane outside filled with open vehicles, the odd dog, people in coats shuffling back and forth to the hall with stuff to sell.... gorgeous aprons, pork pies, cakes, herbs, vegetables, fruit, plants, freshly dug potatoes, tulip bulbs, art works, herb teas, hand-made soaps, jams and pickles, wooden bowls and dibbers, organic dry goods, books, ho mi's and everything in between.... the heater is on and I am glad it is an indoor market!

I am the new kid on the block and other stall holders come over to say hello, once they have their own ready to go.... everyone is friendly and interesting.... there are accents from the whole world of traders; some like me, very new to this game... trade begins between the stall holders before the market is open and I have already swapped a jar of my apricot jam for a tomato jam, the likes of which I have never had before .... and I have 10 large tulip bulbs for a bag of my pasta ..... and I have a baguette and a loaf of 5 seed bread for some post cards and some seedlings.

It is amazing how exciting it is to swap stuff, without money changing hands. I will treasure those things much more and remember the day I got them, simply because I did not use money, but instead formed a bond with the growers / makers. And it works in other ways too.... my stall was not just my own goods; I had already swapped and bartered my way through cloth bags, kilograms of fresh hazelnuts, 20 packets of parsnip seeds, 4 jars of honey and paper bags of plums in the days leading up to the market. One end of my trestle was shared with Rod, who turns amazing bowls and dibbers from Tasmanian wood, and in front of the trestle were boxes of produce from the community garden, collected and carried in by Mary and Laura who kindly stayed on and helped make the day not so stressful for me!

The customers were a mix of friends, acquaintances and unknowns but everyone had a smile and time for a chat.... some had far too much chatting to do but the skill of a stallholder, I am learning, is to be therapist, advisor and friendly face while, at the same time, selling your wares in a timely manner so you can move on to the next face and not lose anyone by not acknowledging them.

The regular stallholders said it was a slow day, but it sure was busy enough for me! I only had time to nip over to the pork-pie stall just before they sold out, to get a bite for lunch and apart from that I hardly left the 3 metres of trestle. Luckily, though, Rod's daughter Amy who was at the market selling husband Cam's wonderful breads, came up to me at one point and asked if I'd like a coffee from The Lotus Eaters Cafe.... and do you think I'd say no to the best coffee in town?? Oh, that reminds me, they said they'd like some more of my tarragon next week.... and for that I will get a free coffee and hopefully an eccles cake too.

This is a very different life to living in Adelaide. Barter and swap is everything here. The people form the core of the economy, not the money. I have been here now just a year and already I feel like I am one of those people....

Hugh's Essentials

2011-03-26T08:17:00.001+11:00

I guess every mother is proud of their children and I am no exception. Let me tell you about son Hugh's latest ventures in the world of food.....

Here are his savoury muffins, baked in clay pots, and available from The Corner Store, Semaphore, SA.

He developed what I think is the best toasted muesli ever, just for his own breakfast enjoyment (and his mother's!) but now also is selling that at The Corner Store and at Goodies and Grains in the Central Market, Adelaide.

Next, he has made up little packs of amazing, spicy nuts. When he tried them out on the other chefs where he works, they bought the whole lot! They are now also available at Goodies and Grains....the nuts not the chefs.

His range is currently called 'Hugh's Essentials'... I am still waiting for more photos, however.

Now, this is all very nice and enough in itself but what makes me even more proud is that he has enrolled in a course for starting a small business, has found a class of graphic design students to help him design a logo and some packaging, has set up a business bank account and started to really take charge of his finances and his future ........ at last!

All this while he is working full time as a young chef and growing much of his own food in his backyard.... not to mention surfing and jogging and partying, not necessarily in that order!

Hugh's food garden....

From this..... to this.

A mother, passionate about home grown and local food, could not more proud.

Apple Pressing with Bob Magnus and Tribe

2011-03-24T14:57:00.001+11:00

I thought I had been to paradise already, several times. I have seen pristine nature, incredible sunsets, dolphins swimming around my canoe, amazing thousand year old farmhouses, the unbelievable vegetable gardens of Chateau Villandry and some tropical forests of orchids that took my breath away. But one warm, calm, sunny morning recently I stood here.....

and thought that, of all the places I have been, this must surely be the most beautiful of all. It must be very satisfying to have made such a rich, fruitful, lovely space and to work in a garden with a view like this. Vegetables, flowers and hundreds of fruit trees flow from one to the other, in a glorious garden setting that invites you to go further, to look around the next bend and walk through the trees, never losing sight of the water.

I was there to experience the Magnus's weekly apple pressing ritual where, during the many months of the apple season, Bob and a young tribe of family helpers crush apples and make juice for the extended family's following week.

March : Obtain a Yield

2011-03-15T06:20:00.000+11:00

I love this year's permaculture calendar, where each month depicts one of the 12 permaculture principles. This video explains better than I can, three of the principles:

(If only I could obtain a yield of mangoes here in Tasmania!)

I am obtaining a yield, however, and today's consists of more big, thick, juicy mushrooms from my $4 bag of mushroom compost as well as green fennel seeds to go in my rye sourdough bread and in so many other things I love to cook.

About this time last year I sowed fennel seeds. Most formed nice bulbous bottoms, which I cut and ate. This generally put out more shoots and a few of them I eventually let go to seed, so I could chew the fragrant, sweet, spicy flowers as well as save some seeds for cooking and some for sowing. The stalks are now taller than me and laden with huge heads of very large, plump, green seeds.

A few years ago I discovered something about fennel seeds.... once they dry on the plant it is almost impossible to collect them without getting any of their tiny flower stalks and that these miniscule stalks are REALLY irritating to eat in an otherwise fabulous meal!! It was only last week, when I had run out of bought fennel seeds, and wanted some for cooking, that I thought "Aha! Usually when you buy fennel seeds for cooking, they are green! Maybe there is a clue there about when to pick them for cooking." Sometimes I am really slow and really dumb! I have now picked several large heads of green fennel seeds and they are soooooo easily removed from the stems without getting any little stalks. Each head consists of about 1,000 seeds so I will be saving more green ones and less dried, brown ones (for sowing) from now on. The trick will now be to let the green seeds dry well before I attempt to store them or they will go mouldy. I cannot think of many other vegetables which have seeds that are also a spice.

Suddenly I feel like a Turkish spice merchant, with my pile of exquisitely fresh, colourful, fragrant fennel seeds on display.

Pickle.... snoozing whilst keeping alert for the sound of a rabbit hopping by!

What to sow in Autumn

2011-03-13T13:41:00.001+11:00

When most people are lamenting the end of the summer growing season, my mouth is watering with the coming delights of the Asian greens in a multitude of quick, simple, delicious winter meals.

If you love fresh ginger, limes, Vietnamese mint, sesame oil, black bean sauce, oyster sauce and/or mirin then now is the time to sow every Asian green you can find seeds for. They need a rich soil, ample water, will happily grow in moderate shade (some will grow so fast even in full shade that it is scary to think what would happen if they were in the sun!), and can be ready to start picking in a few weeks.

Ching chiang pai tsai and mizuna

Mustard greens and others

In Tasmania, I am sowing some of them where I will be covering them with a cloche, not covered in yukky plastic, but with a fine, white curtain, like people use to stop you seeing through their windows but which lets the light through.... I am hopeless at fabric names! You can find them at op. shops very cheap. I bought piles of them for $4 and I also use them to keep off the cabbage moths in summer. Asian greens do not need protection from frost but they do grow a bit faster that way. Even the celery I have had under that fabric during this cold summer, which happen to be next to red cabbages I was protecting from moths, has grown twice as fast as the celery not covered.

If you have fresh parsnip seed, sow it now too.... today! I have had one disaster after another with my broccoli seedlings but I am determined to get some going, even if it is getting a bit late here. Kale is popping up everywhere in my self-sowing garden so, if you just love the sight of the strong, dark, knobbly Cavolo Nero leaves dusted with frost (as in this photo) on those clear, freezing cold Tasmanian winter mornings, then sow it like mad now, along with the dainty but equally hardy Red Russian kale and any others you come across. I am digging up some of my seedlings to sell. Kale leaves are delicious boiled, tossed with pepper and garlic, then topped with smoked salmon or very good bacon, and a poached egg, for breakfast. Great before I go off to help at the community garden and keeps me going all morning.

Lettuce is wonderful to sow now and, surprisingly, it loves the frost, as this photo of red coral lettuce in my garden last winter, shows. Keep sowing every 2 weeks for a continuous supply of leaves through winter. Under the cloth cloche they grow faster but it is not necessary.

There is nothing nicer for lunch by the fire in winter than thick, hot soup, a piece of aromatic, home made rye sourdough with lashings of butter and a bowl of salad leaves, broad bean tips and young spring onions, still icy cold and coated in melted frost.

Next is beetroot..... devote whole swathes of soil to the glorious beetroot and its various, astoundingly beautiful leaves. If you tire of baked / boiled / shredded beetroot this winter, make juice. I love apple, carrot, celery, beetroot and fresh ginger juice. All of these can be in your Tasmanian garden in winter, except the ginger. (I am looking forward to the galangal in my hothouse being a ginger substitute before too long).

I grew celery all winter last year, in my hothouse along with Vietnamese mint, various herbs, some very late tomatoes and one big head of broccoli. This year I am sowing most of these outside but now have lemon grass, galangal, 2 capsicums and 2 tomatoes in there. Celery will definitely have a place there again.... in fact I have just picked the seeds from the previous celery and shoots are regrowing... a very economical plant indeed.

After you have done all this sowing, it will be time for garlic, broad beans (Oh no! Not again, surely!), oniony things, mache, miners' lettuce, coriander, chervil and green manures.

So, don't give up and collapse when your summer harvest is over. Even in cold places like southern Tasmania you can grow food all year round. The food that grows through winter with you, provides the perfect assortment of nutrients for you. It is commonsense but, sadly, commonsense is not that common any more.

Discovering art at Watermark

2011-03-05T08:56:00.001+11:00

My life seems to be full of the joys of growing and cooking food and sharing this joy with others so when Frances said "Are you going to the opening of the Watermark Exhibition on Friday night?" I had no idea what she was talking about. Luckily, after a brief discussion, I agreed to meet up there at 6.30 last night. The Cygnet Town Hall was the venue.... a lovely old building in the main street. Watermark is a biennial art exhibition of local, new art with a water theme.

Now, I lack all artistic ability and, in the past, have avoided art exhibitions and felt no connection with art at all. I love to look at nature and I feel a great connection with it but, just like I do not enjoy shopping, I have never enjoyed looking at art. Shocking thing to admit, I know. I also prefer the sounds of nature and the peace between the sounds, to music of any kind. So there we have it.

So it was a first for me, to walk into the opening of an art exhibition. Most of the rest of the Cygnet and the surrounding population was there but luckily I was one of the first to enter the door. I saw something immediately that drew me to look more closely. At the far end of the hall, as if made just for my eyes, was a most beautiful, very large bronze abalone shell.... and as I walked closer I read the little sign on it.... please touch. Now this, I discovered, was what was lacking in my connecting with art previously. I touched the shell and it was wonderful.... I turned around when someone tapped my shoulder and there was Todd, who used to live in my house with Tonia, who made my garden some years ago. Todd was beaming.... this beautiful creation was his! Suddenly there was a connection.... out of the soul of this big, strong, young man came big, strong but delicate art.... that actually spoke to me.

The rest of the evening was similar. So many of the people I have met here in this last year had something entered in this exhibition. Do not for a moment think this was an amateurish show; far from it. Southern Tasmania is full of artists of the highest caliber. Some of my Garden Shed customers pointed out their paintings, sculptures and photographs and I was lost for words at their skill and creativity.

Maybe I will begin to enjoy art in this artistic community where you can touch things and know the artists as friends. One day while it is quiet I will go back again and take a photo of the abalone shell but the look of pride on Todd's face I will have to keep in my own head.