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 MoreYear: 2014
Seeds 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…
Read MoreFrisee, or moss curled endive.
Moss curled endive was a treat vegetable when we were living in an apartment. I didn’t often see ones that looked appealing to buy, and they can be tough and bitter. In Sydney they tend to be sold with the outer leaves pulled back and tied together, so they look a bit odd and inside-out. These ones from the garden have been quiet achievers. I sowed them back at the end of May and they sat in their half-row, not doing much but surviving the dry weather well. As with most…
Read MoreHomemade kimchi result
It’s a week since I made homemade kimchi from wom bok, radish, and chillis out of the garden, and I’m really impressed with the result. It seems such a dodgy thing to do, to pile vegetables in a bottle and let them ferment of their own accord at room temperature, but it really works. We had it first night with pork chops, a classic combination. The kimchi cuts the richness of the meat. The second night we were going to have it as an accompaniment to chicken breasts, but ended…
Read MoreTime for sowing
Spring is feeling near and we have hopefully left any cold nights behind, not that we had many, but most importantly it has been raining after a very long dry spell. I see that other gardeners in the region have been winding back their vegetable planting until wet weather returns, so I guess there will be a lot of people out getting their hands dirty now. The forecast is for showers for at least a week, so it’s a good time to get the last of the August seeds in,…
Read MorePlanting citrus for Spring
We were in at Tweed Heads (our closest city, on the Gold Coast) on Sunday, and bought six citrus saplings to plant for Spring. They were reasonably priced, come from a local nursery, and most importantly looked healthy. In Spring here citrus have a big flush of new leaves and flowers, and it is important to catch the growth spurt to get the most out of the season. I have a lot to learn yet about citrus care in the subtropics, but I’m giving it a go. Looking around at properties here you…
Read MoreAll-wholemeal sourdough
I discovered last week that the local IGA supermarket has 12.5 kg bags of wholemeal flour, so I got a bag to see what sort of bread it makes, and have been impressed. Normally I use white bakers flour, and add other flours in a 3:1 ratio, as the other flours aren’t ‘strong’ high protein bread flour and dilute the cohesiveness of the dough. I also thought that 100% wholemeal would be too heavy – I’m sure I read that somewhere. But this flour is rated for bread making and the…
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