We don’t have a lot of shade in the garden yet, as all the big trees are sensibly well away from the house, but there are a couple of small rainforest trees above the house, and I’ve used them to house some of my orchids. The Dendrobium nobile is looking quite happy way up in this fork, and has started to flower. I’m afraid I don’t know yet what the tree is, but it is quite common in the region, and holds a lot of lichen on its bark, so…
Read MoreMonth: September 2014
How do you know your daikon is ready?
With carrots you feel round the collar, same for beetroot and turnips, but daikon turn out to be easier to tell when they’re ready; they stand up out of the ground. I had no experience with them, and harvested some small ones a while back, but these, planted quite densely on a small terrace, left no doubt when I pulled the leaves back. It was good timing, as I have plenty of wom bok (chinese cabbage) to pick, although it isn’t in classic heads, so I included most of the…
Read MoreFertile eggs.
We have a broody hen. She was the last of them to insist on laying under the house as I was re-training them to use the laying boxes in the coop, and that was OK since it’s easier to collect those eggs. But then one evening she was still there, sitting so still that I thought she was dead at first, as she didn’t even move or cluck when I went to pick her up. I put her in the coop for the night, but next day she was back,…
Read MoreCymbidium on tree stump
This is a good climate for having orchids out in trees. Our Summers are warm, wet and humid, so many orchid types like to have their roots in the air or under a light cover of leaf litter. The driveway down to our house has a few old standing stumps and a couple of trees which get a good dappled shade. This Cymbidium had its pot broken in the move (or it might have just burst out of it, they have massive root systems), so I just wedged the root…
Read MoreSeeds for Spring.
I’ve just done an auto sum of the seeds I have. Seems it’s 150 varieties, so little wonder I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed. The biggest whelm is of course digging plots to house them, or getting them in seed trays, but even just filing them is becoming an issue. Most of them have been from Eden Seeds, a local supplier, and their germination rates have been great, on the whole. This means that I can probably blame poor-shows like Mitsuba on my planting conditions (which just makes me want to…
Read MoreZopf braided egg bread
As a bit of a reaction to the heavy wholemeal sourdough I’ve been making lately, last Sunday I was dreaming about zopf, the eggy-buttery bread that you buy in Switzerland on Saturday to have on Sunday (when the bakeries are closed). There are many versions of this type of bread, including the Jewish challah, which is baked the day before Sabbath. The butter is what makes it keep so well overnight, and the egg makes is rich and golden. I’d never made one before, so I learnt a few things.…
Read MoreNative bees.
Spring came right on time this year, today was beautifully warm and the insects were out in force. I will have to look up what some are, including the biggest ladybirds I have ever seen. But it was nice to see these old friends, native bees (Tetragonula carbonara, I think). We used to get them in Sydney, although it is a marginal climate for them there, but here they were swarming around some Bok Choi and Pak Choi that have gone to flower. There are plenty of european honey bees…
Read MoreSalad stars: Mibuna
Mibuna has been a great success over winter. A small 40 x 40 cm patch sown in late May has grown to a dense cover and provided as much leaves as I care to pick. And they are delicious. They go well in salads or can take a little cooking. I find the flavour and texture are a good contrast to lettuce in a mixed salad, where it is nice to have leaves from the lettuce, cabbage (the mibuna), endive and chicory families. In the picture here they are livened…
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