Restriction is a great stimulus for change, and lately I’ve been shaking up my usual sourdough, partly because I ran out of wholemeal flour. That led to a couple of white loaves, a few with semolina (very nice), and then, since I was on a roll, so to speak, I sourced some rye flour. For some reason it’s been hard to find here for a year or so, but getting it reminded me of the advantages of sourdough. My first loaf was 1/4 rye flour with a heaped teaspoon of…
Read MoreMonth: February 2013
Native bees
There are usually bees around whatever is flowering on the balconies, and I had never had a close look until the other day, when a conspicuous large brown and hairy bee was hanging around the rosemary. A quick search got me to the excellent Aussie Bee website and I found it was probably a brown carpenter bee. Then I realized that the rest of the bees that feed from the rosemary weren’t plain old honey bees, but blue barred bees. Right here in the middle of Sydney! It’s good to…
Read MoreBonsai
They’re undoubtably lovely, but bonsai are hard to keep on a balcony in Sydney. The problem is you just can’t leave them. I always lose them over the summer holidays, when a dry spell will combine with a breakdown of the automatic watering system. This is a maple that was a present a year ago. Deciduous bonsai are the worst. They are bare for a good 6 months, and if you have remembered to water the sticks over Winter and they come good in Spring, then you have to step…
Read MoreMiltonia
I asked the back yard orchid guy if he had any Miltonias, and he rather too keenly sold me this one. It is, to be sure, the real Miltonia, but what is usually called Miltonia, and what I was expecting, is the much more showy Miltoniopsis. Still, this one has been an interesting addition to my collection, and fills a flowering gap in later Summer. It is not right for an indoor display though. The colour is not particularly showy, and the flowers are somehow unspectacular. It also has a…
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