Living the ‘good life’ has no hard and fast rules. There’s lots of right ways to have a more sustainable, enjoyable and thoughtful life. Everyone has a different take on what 'living green' means and compost chick is all about looking at the options and adopting what works for your goals, lifestyle and budget.
SEEING the first eggs of the new year is always exciting.
It's a nice way to start off with fresh eggs for breakfast. So on January 1, I made pancakes and gave the hens the left-overs as a reward.
The little devils tried to get into the basil posts growing seedlings and the cherry and rouge marmalade tomato beds yesterday and I was just in time to stop Hilda from tearing down some cherry tomato branches.
I've been a bit lax in staking them up enough so must get into it.
Far bigger than Cats versus Hawthorn, Ford versus Holden or Anzac biscuits with or without coconut.
Well, almost bigger than the Anzac debate.
But I digress - hen do you plant your tomatoes?
Some vow that Caulfield Cup day is the go, while others decree that AFL Grand Final Day is the go.
Peter Cundall has some excellent advice in his latest Weekly Times column and Diggers if you are after heirloom varieties, check out the Diggers website.
A friend at work has planted some heirloom seeds and given me a plant - we don't know what variety it is so it will be exciting to find out when it finally fruits!
Different types of fruit trees need to be pruned at different times of the year.
While some gardeners like to go for the 'ground zero' approach, usually spring pruning ia lighter - more like getting a trim at the hairdresser than a buzz-cut.
He talks about how your garden over the years becomes another part of your family and your history.
Thinking back on the gardens I've created over the years, I fondly remember the roses I planted in Melbourne, my five gorgeous frangipani trees in Avalon, Sydney and the massive fruit and vegetable garden I recently moved from in Jan Juc.
Now I have another blank slate to work on and its an exciting prospect.
The old saying garden as though you have forever is a good one - but I'm thrilled and cannot wait for the weekends so I can get down and dig, weed, clear and plant!
LEEKS are one of the easiest and most delicious vegetables to grow.
In today's Weekly Times, Peter Cundall has an excellent article on growing these great vegies.
Here's a nice recipe to make and share with friends and family.
Leek and Spud Soup
Ingredients
60ml (1/4 cup) olive oil
1 brown onion, halved, chopped
3 cloves of garlic clove, crushed and chopped
4 medium (about 700g) peeled
desiree, pink eye or pontiac potatoes, cut into 2cm cubes
2 leeks, pale section only,
washed, dried, thinly sliced
1.25L (5 cups) vegetable stock
4 thick slices day-old white
bread, crusts removed, cut into 2cm cubes
125ml (1/2 cup) low-fat greek yogurt or thickened
cream
Pinch of salt
2 tbs finely chopped fresh
chives or corriander
Method Heat 1 tbs of the oil in a large
saucepan over medium-high heat.
Add onion and garlic and cook, stirring,
for three minutes or until the onion softens.
Add potato and leek and cook,
stirring, for 5 minutes or until leek softens.
Add the stock and bring to the
boil. Reduce heat to medium and gently boil, uncovered, for 20 minutes or until
potato is soft. Remove from heat and set aside for 10 minutes to cool.
Meanwhile, preheat oven to
180°C. Place bread in a roasting pan. Drizzle with remaining oil and toss until
bread is evenly coated. Toast in preheated oven, shaking pan occasionally, for
10 minutes or until crisp. Remove croutons from oven and set aside.
Transfer one-third of the
potato mixture to the jug of a blender and blend until smooth. Transfer to a
clean saucepan. Repeat in 2 more batches with the remaining potato mixture.
Place the soup over medium
heat. Add the cream and stir to combine.
Cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until
hot, then taste and season with salt.
Ladle the soup among serving
bowls and sprinkle with chives and top with croutons.
ABC TV Gardening Australia fact sheet advises... But in winter roses need a stronger prune to encourage good, solid, new growth. • Look for spindly stems. Follow these down to where they’re about the thickness of a biro. Then remove them. • The best time to prune is in June or July. But if you live in a really cold area of Australia, then wait until early August so that the frosts don’t knock back the new shoots.
• Look out for branches that are totally dead – any that have die back – need to be totally removed, right down to the stump level.
• Try and open up the centre of the bush, so there’s more air circulating.
• Look out for any water shoots – these are an olive green or even pink colour – and are absolutely essential. Take care of the water shoots because these are the young growth and this is where the rose will have its flowers. Just prune it lightly, so it will shoot out and produce more flowers.
• Never be afraid to remove large sections of the rose bush. Do this every couple of years to rejuvenate new growth. Remove any old branches, or any stems that look warty and crinkly.
• If you’re a timid person, prune about a third back, but, if you’re a radical like me, get out your secateurs and prune back by about half. Always from the top. And if you do that, you’re going to find you get many more good shoots for flowers.
• Look for an outward facing bud and cut. The new growth will then grow outwards and produce flowers around the outside of the bush. If you cut to an inward facing bud the direction of the new growth will cluster in the centre.
• Aim to cut at about a 45 degree angle and make sure that the cut is sloping away from the bud so that rain and dew won’t collect in the area where the bud forms onto the stem. This will help stop fungal disease.
• Heritage roses don’t need a lot of pruning. Just prune them to shape and tip prune regularly. Remove any dead bits.
• Ground cover roses are easy to prune - so easy that you could practically run over them with a motor mower. But if you are using loppers just cut them back, almost to ground level. They will re-grow by spring, particularly with some fertiliser, and mulch.
• Fertilise about three weeks after you’ve pruned.
• Remove the clippings and prunings from the garden. Clear them up. Don’t put them into the compost, but into the rubbish bin. This stops the spread of disease.
• Spray them with lime sulphur while the plants have no leaves and are dormant. That gets rid of scale and other fungal type diseases.
THIS weekend I aim to finish pruning my fruit trees.
So I'll spend an hour or so giving the secateurs and saw a good clean, oil and then sharpen.
There's something very satisfying about reducing a triffid to a few sticks which you know will burst forth in greenery in spring and by summer be adorned with apples and peaches.
My chooks like to cluster under my feet as they vie for insects falling off the branches.
The lemon tree has grown a bit since this images taken so I'll be
getting rid of the busy branches crowding up the middle
to allow air flow and sunshine in...
As usual the delightful Sir Peter Cundall has some very useful tips to share.
Remember to toss all the cuttings into the green waste bin instead of the compost bin in case of pests or disease.
Check out the excellent Weekly Times article on adding nutrients to your soil.
Despite the wonderful rain, I'll be in my wellies and sou'wester and the chap will be similarly attired this weekend, as we work as getting the garden beds in shape.
As Sir Peter Cundall writer, minerals are the food of plants. Some are required in relatively large quantities while only tiny amounts of others, called nutrients, are needed.
I know it's cold outside, but it's a great time get out and enjoy the garden before the winter chills really hit and the soil becomes too cold and hard to dig.
If the rain ever stops, I'll be in the garden this weekend...
PLANTING garlic is very satisfying, very easy and now is the time to get moving with this delightful aromatic bulb.
You can use good-sized corms from your last harvest or purchase organic garlic from a number of suppliers. A friend has even used shop-bought Australian-grown garlic, pulled apart the cloves and planted them with good results.
Isn't garlic gorgeous!
Plant the tops of the bulbs just below the soil surface, with the pointy end upwards and the flatter or root end should be pointing down. I plant mine around 10 cm apart, in rows about 30 cm apart.
Simply leave them and they are ready to harvest late next spring or early summer depending on your climate. The redoubtable Peter Cundall has some excellent tips here.
It's also good to plant around roses to control aphids and other pests.
As well as being delicious (I reckon nearly everything bar porridge tastes better with garlic and I'm working on this), it's also great for your chooks. A piece of crushed garlic in their fresh water will help them combat any intestinal parasite problems the girls may have and so far I've not noticed any taste seeping into the eggs they lay. The dried stems and leaves of the garlic plant after harvesting can also be strewn in their coop to deter fleas and other insects.
And for us, many health benefits can be enjoyed from garlic - including lower blood pressure. Repelling vampires? The jury is still out.
Meanwhile, growing garlic is so easy everyone should have a few bulbs in their garden.
KEEPING a pumpkin vine inside a garden bed is akin to herding cats.
While it is exciting to see my vigorous vines swarm around the garden, it can be a bit disconcerting to have to evade their tendrils when walking around chasing chooks or doing the watering.
Gidget checks out the pumpkins
Growing pumpkins is so easy, their triffid tendencies can get out of control.
Constant vigilance is the key, otherwise you wake u one fine autumn morning and realise a cucubit the size of a VW bug is sitting in the middle of the grass and moving it will require a forklift or at least a friend with bigger biceps than I.
But the joy of seeing these amazing vegetables grow is unbelievable. Now my pumpkins are looking pretty good and each morning I do a dash about and tap them to see how ripe they are.
A good way to to work out when these pumpkins are ready to be harvested is similar to spuds - when those big elephant ear like leaves start to look wiltered, miserable and sparse, this is a sign. A reliable method of testing for pumpkin ripeness you give them a sharp knuckle-tap. If your pumpkin sounds hollow then it's ready to be cut free and cooked or storied.
Another sign I picked up from (Sir) Peter Cundall, is when pumpkin stalks begin to shrivel and wrinkle and form tiny, vertical cracks, it means the darlings are fully mature.
My little darlings are stored in and on a wooden box, close together but not touching. By leaving them exposed to full sunlight for a couple of weeks it completes their ripening, hardens up their skin and ensures long storage so you can enjoy them all winter long.
St Peter of Cundall has some excelllent advice regarding fertiliser in his latest column of the Weekly Times.
He gives some wise words on how a slow-acting fertiliser is crucial for adequate plant nourishment in the colder months.
Read.
Follow his instructions and we cannot go wrong.
Bless you St Peter.
Harvesting your own garlic is one of the joys of gardening.
Pulling up the bulbous cloves, hanging them to dry, sharing with friends the scrumptious taste of your own garlic – well, it’s up there with growing heritage tomatoes with basil, keeping chooks and eating passionfruit straight off the vine.
St Peter of Cundall has a great article on the ‘stinking rose’ as it is sometimes known in the latest Weekly Times.
Always plant more than you think you will want - once your mates get a taste they'll be asking to swap you some of their extra pumpkins / lemons or homemade bread for it. The more garlic you plant the better it gets! I find that it’s a good plant to have around roses too.
Don’t use supermarket garlic as planting corms – unless you are sure that you are purchasing 100 per cent certified organic they could be full of nasty chemicals. Better to get them from a reliable supplier such as your local nursery or someone like Diggers.
Start planting garlic and once you tatse it you’ll never go back to horrid, supermarket garlic again.
