2015 - Page 5 of 9 - SpadeRunner

Pink Cleomes

June 17, 2015December 29, 2015 Stephen Carlin

At last we have some colour in our cleomes! I first sowed the seed from a seed company pack back in Summer, and all the surviving plants were white flowered. They were an elegant foil for the colourful zinnias planted alongside, but they were supposed to be a colour mix. Growing cleomes It turned out to be a timing thing. The February blooms provided ample seed for an Autumn planting, which grew much better than the Summer sowing, but of course they were all white too so I risked my last…

Growing Celtuce

June 6, 2015December 29, 2015 Stephen Carlin

The celery of the lettuce family is called celtuce. It’s been selected for its stems, rather than the leaves, but the young leaves are also good for salads. Sowing seeds too thickly is a common error, especially for me, but fortunately with lettuce you can salvage the situation by thinning them out and using the thinnings for salad. We have been having celtuce as a salad lately, and also for cooking, as I thin out my lettuce bed in favour of standard lettuce.

The first year: dangerous Australian wildlife

May 28, 2015December 29, 2015 Stephen Carlin

Australia seems to be regarded in awe by other places for our multitude of deadly creatures, and I can confess now that I was worried about what creatures might lurk here at Hill House. As I grew up on the other side of the country and had lived in towns and cities on this side, I was unfamiliar with the level of wildlife here, and expected that it would be frankly seething with animals, some of which would be keen to bite. But I can report back that we have been…

Our gardens; the first year

May 26, 2015December 29, 2015 Stephen Carlin

A blank slate was what we wanted with our new garden, and when we moved here, that’s what we got. There was a small, roughly fenced and terraced vegetable plot on the hill below the house, which had been mostly abandoned to layers of cardboard and plastic. The rest was grass, with lantana and other tall weeds on the fringes. In our first year we have tried and moved a couple of gardens, and begun to plant the ornamental gardens round the house.

Our first year: moving towards a more sustainable future

May 20, 2015December 29, 2015 Stephen Carlin

We have just celebrated our first year here at ‘Hill House’. It’s been a great time, highlighted by meeting new friends and settling into the community, as well as having lots of visitors. We also got our beautiful smooth fox terrier, Willow, who has kept us busy. The daunting unknown of looking after 20 hectares has now become more a familiar reality, as we find out what is achievable here, but there will be many years to come of trial and error to try achieve a more sustainable future here.

Making daikon kimchi

May 19, 2015May 16, 2016 Stephen Carlin

Making daikon kimchi is an excellent way to spread out a harvest. My daikon (white radish, mooli) crop did very well, but after a few weeks of picking, the final half dozen plants needed to be pulled to make way for the next planting. So with the fridge already loaded with daikon roots, I decided to try a fermentation.

Black capsicums for the vegetable garden

May 17, 2015December 29, 2015 Stephen Carlin

Black capsicums are eye-catching, and they are often commented on by visitors as they sit on our kitchen bench, looking lustrous and mysterious. I bought the seeds for that reason, as part of an assortment of capsicums and chillies, lured by the colour. After a season of them though, I don’t think I will persevere. What’s wrong with them? They fruit well enough, producing a steady crop, but that doesn’t translate to table. Some didn’t progress past tiny fruit, some stayed deceptively green until they were overripe, but the main problem…

Rosella jam and cordial from the one batch.

May 12, 2015December 17, 2015 Stephen Carlin

Rosella (Hibiscus sabdariffa) makes great jam and cordial, and here’s a way I have found to make both from the one batch. The cordial is refreshing and slightly astringent, which I find perfect for a rehydrating drink on a hot day. The jam is a little like plum jam, with an intense red colour. I took our third picking of rosellas the other day, and thought I would try cordial again, but this time with a recipe suggestion from Hip Pressure Cooking. Her recipe is for blackberry essence, but it…

Mugwort and bees

May 11, 2015December 29, 2015 Stephen Carlin

This morning I was worried I had a bee swarm under the house, there was so much buzzing going on. Turns out the bees are crazy for the flowers on our mugwort and are buzzing round in big numbers with full pollen sacs. They are mainly european honey bees, but also our tiny sugar bag bees and some tiny flies, so a real pollinator feast.

Bunching onions; transplanting

May 6, 2015December 29, 2015 Stephen Carlin

Onions are another crop that can be tricky in the subtropics, but generally they need some patience and understanding. Most types need cold weather to form good bulbs, so for warmer climates bunching onions with their different growth habit can be a good choice. They are like permanent spring onions and they grow like massive chives, with many stems. Growing bunching onions Autumn is a good time to sow, to take advantage of the cooler weather. After moving here I planted mine in late Winter, which was not an ideal start, but…