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 MoreMonth: August 2014
Homemade 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…
Read MoreMaking kimchi from thinnings.
Yesterday I was out checking the veggie plot and thought I should thin the beetroot. Beets come as compound seeds, and so they can germinate in bunches, and because they have been fairly slow to get going I didn’t have the heart to thin them when I should have. Now I’ve got big plants squashed together. It’s not survival of the fittest among beets in the garden, so it was well time to pull the smaller ones to make room for the big’uns. Then I thought I should do the…
Read MoreDaikon
Daikon is not a vegetable that I bought often, maybe because it tends to be sold as big specimens that seem daunting to get through, but when they’re home grown they’re more appealing. I sowed these at the end of May, and after a slow start they are off and jostling with the turnips next door. A feel around during a weeding revealed a shoulder, so I pulled one to see how they’re going (and thin them a bit). The result was not a huge root, so apparently they can…
Read MoreTurnips
Turnips are only second to radishes for quick root crops. My carrots are still tiny, the beetroots are not far ahead, but the turnips sprouted luxuriant greens and started showing their purple shoulders after about 6 weeks. I needed to thin them, and we were having salmon for dinner, so I pulled three to go with. The cultivar is ‘purple top white globe’, from Eden seeds. I put in ‘gold ball’ in the same sowing, but they haven’t done well, and have been overshadowed by their neighbours. They were delicious.
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