Jerusalem artichokes

I have not had much success with the ol' Jerusalem artichokes. I have figured that it is position and amount if water that has mean poor production and small crops.

Well I had this amazing and curious type of sunflower come up this last summer. I left it in while it dried up and looked pretty pathetic. Finally I went out there to pull out this massive plant and it was only then that I realised that I'd shoved a couple of Jerusalem Artichokes in there some time, maybe a year ago.

What a bumper crop of artichokes! These are all from one plant and they look amazing. Time to search the web for some good recipes...

Planting asparagus seeds

I'm pretty excited this year to have a female asparagus plant.

I bought a few plants last year, as I had the year before, and the year before that. The spears are not supposed to be harvested in the year following planting, so we have only tasted a few over the past few years.

Not knowing whether or not I could successfully grow asparagus held me back from buying plants in bulk to start with, but now I am wondering whether I should just go all out and plant a whole lot so I can get a decent harvest.

This is where the excitement of the female plant comes in. I now have a plant with berries and seeds, and if what I know about seeds holds to be true, these seeds should lead to the growing of new asparagus plants.

I have given it a shot and planted out some of the berries into pots. I'll let you know how it goes!

Popcorn

I am loving snacking on popcorn at the moment. Whether it be plain air popped, buttered or caramel, I love it.

My mum borrowed my air-popper a few days ago to make a batch of caramel popcorn to take into work and today here I am with a hankering for popcorn. I could pull out a pan and some oil, but I thought I'd have a go at popping regular popcorn in the microwave. Surely all the microwave popcorn manufactures do is put corn kernels and artificial colours and flavours in a bag a seal it, right?

Well I tried 1/4 cup of corn kernels in a brown paper lunch back with the opening folded over in the microwave for 1 minute 45 seconds (the time a small 'snack' microwave popcorn bag suggests for our 1100 W microwave).

It worked beautifully! This photo was taken after my littles had already started munching away, so the bag doesn't look very full, however the 1/4 cup of kernels filled the sealed bag perfectly.

Jerusalem artichokes

Here is my harvest of Jerusalem artichokes. I have grow a few plants for the past few years. I'm never really sure what to do with them in the kitchen, but I have my opportunity to try out some new recipes. Perhaps if we find one we really like, I'll put more in for next year!

Garlic planting and sowing Winter crops

I have been busy sowing seeds for my perennial flowers and bulbs that I haven't been paying nearly enough attention to the vegie patch. While the Autumn harvest vegetables are coming to their natural end with the fast approaching frosty weather, it is time to Winter plan the garden.

My children, and some kids from over the back fence, have started me out with sowing brassicas. A few weeks ago the kids were all playing together in our back yard when the youngest (almost 4) wanted to go inside and "do craft". Keen to keep them outside in the beautiful weather and away from messing up the house, I managed to sell the idea of doing 'garden craft' with enough enthusiasm that the children were excited about selecting seeds to sow, writing labels for their pots and sowing their seeds. My choices of seeds were somewhat limited in terms of vegetables so they all sowed different brassicas - broccoli, romanesco broccoli, cauliflower or purple cauliflower.

The children were excited to be taking their flower and vegetable seeds pots home and I made a start on sowing my brassicas.

Over the next few days I will be also be planting out the garlic. We use a lot of garlic in our cooking, so it is a must plant in our garden. Planting garlic is quite easy if you haven't done it before. You need some 'seed garlic', which can be bought from your local garden centre or supermarket, but you'll need to look for locally produced, preferably organic garlic.

To plant, break the cloves apart but do not remove the papery covering. Plant in organic rich soil around 5-10 cm apart with the pointy end pointing up and just below the surface. Water in well, adding seaweed solution if desired. I cover the beds with a chopped pea straw or sugar cane mulch for water retention, keeping the weeds at bay and a little extra soil warmth.

I'll be sowing out a few beds of green manure as well. Green manure enriches the soil as it grows as well as when slashed and dug into the soil a few weeks before planting out in Spring. I usually sow a green manure crop after a tomato, capsicum, eggplant or potato crop as they tend to draw out a lot of nutrients from the soil which needs to be replaced before expecting another vegetable crop to grow.

Happy gardening!

Delights in the garden for 4 year old

I love days at home. I commented on this to my husband a few days ago, and his response was "So that's where he gets it from". Our 4 year old is a real home body. He much prefers being at home to going out.

Today I feel a little flu-ish and am pottering at home doing a little weeding, watering and washing - nothing too strenuous. Meanwhile, my boy is climbing trees, playing in the tree house, digging holes to transplant seedlings and now, much to his delight, playing in mud. How he enjoys this freedom to explore nature as he discovers insects and plants, and gets well and truly dirty in the process!

He calls out to me at times and we investigate things together. At other times he studies how things work or plays with fluid dynamics. It is a wonderful thing to watch. This is the pre-schooling education that he enjoys the most!

And the scrap celery is in the garden.

Remember the celery that I was growing from scraps? Well I have planted it out now. It has just gone in today, so we'll see how it continues to grow...

Small, sweet pleasures

I thought I'd lost my raspberry canes to dry weather over the summer, but thankfully a few canes survived. Now that we are getting fruit again, we are very pleased... and will take greater care to nurture the canes through the hot and dry summer next year!

Mummy, I'm in the carrot aisle!

When collecting and harvesting, my son likes to get right into it. Today he was squeezing between the corn rows and poking his hands through to the carrots, reaching for tomatoes and searching for herbs. I love the way he was commentating his pathway through the garden as though he was out shopping and wandering up and down the aisles. My garden isn't quite big enough to supply all of our fresh produce needs, but it's great that he sees it as the place to get food.

Although he is now stamping through the too-long grass, waving his 'carrot sword' around and slicing down all of the dandelion heads, complete with sound effects. It's a charmed life in the garden!

Cucumber

Look at the spikes on that cucumber! They are somewhat fiercer looking than the spikes on zucchini - both wonders of food that are not seen in supermarket vegetables because they brush off very easily.

Limes

We have two lime trees, a kaffir and a Tahitian lime. Over the few years that we have had them, the crops have been minimal or non-existent. But this year it looks like a great year for fruit, with some well developed fruit and many more developing. Yum, yum!

My daughter, the artist.

My 6 year old is developing a love of painting and I am so proud of her artistic talents. She is a pleasure to watch during the creative process as she studies the flowers and brings the paper to life.

Growing celery from scraps

I'm more inclined to believe that the celery will actually grow from the bottom inch of a store bought celery. Not only is this sprouting a lovely top, but roots are growing. I started this one a week ago, at the same time as the carrots.

Sprouting carrots

I have seen this growing 'investigation' in children's gardening books, but recently I read (ok, saw on Pinterest) that the carrots will actually grow again from their sprouted tops. Let's see how it goes!

These are carrot tops from home grown carrots (from seed), sitting in a tray from my "sprouts alive" sprout growing system.

Gate to the patch

The gate to the patch was looking a little dull, so we have added some colour.

Record keeping

I am terrible at remembering what I have planted when it come to seeds. If I don't label it straight away, I'm lost by the time the seedlings come up. So this time in my trays, I am putting labels and taking a photo with the seed packets so I know exactly which ones were sown. The idea being, that when I forget I can go back to the correct seed packet for planting and growing advice!

Pinterest, the great time waster

I have recently started using Pinterest. So many interesting things, so much inspiration. I suppose instead of watching tv serials in the evening, I'm now being inspired with house and garden ideas, which surely is more productive, right?

Time for a wash

Well it certainly looks like it is time to give Issy a wash. The thing is, I only washed her 5 minutes ago...

Hot and dry

It has been a hot and dry summer. The plants are sweltering and so am I. Since I last posted in December I have managed to tidy up the plants that had gone to seed and get a few more seeds in. They are coming up, which is surprising given the lack of attention they have been getting... watering every few days and the odd bit of new mulch.

This picture is of one of the most successful beds at the moment. Sad, I know. The mulch is due to go down in this photo, so you can see the new watering system I am trialling on some of my beds. This is a sprinkler hose turned upside-down, to direct the water straight into the ground rather than up and into a gorgeous mist, perfect for running under if you are 4 or 6 (or 33 and it's a really hot evening). A layer of mulch can be used to cover the sprinkler hose and soil and keep the moisture in.

The big tank has now run dry, so I am at the watering dilemma. It hasn't run out this early in the season before. We are now on town water for watering the vegies, which is not ideal.

The carrots are doing surprisingly well and the corn should give us a crop. I do have some capsicums and chilies ripening up and some nice looking tomatoes both in my garden and in the self-seeded patch. The pumpkins are creeping and looking promising, although I lost the first plantings of zucchini, cucumber and sugar baby watermelon (caught out by a few hot days). More zucchini and cucumber went in, but we won't get a long harvest season out of them as they are not yet even flowering.

So we'll continue to spend the days out of the heat and get some gardening done in the cool of the evenings. And hope for rain.