The Ugly Truth About Gardening….

…isn’t the floral gardening gloves or the safari hat, or even the dirt under the fingernails. Actually, it’s letting things go to seed! My garden at the moment looks like it has been taken over by great giant warty stick insects – that are taller than me! But what has actually happened, is that the silverbeet (chard for those of you reading from the States ;-P ) has gone to seed. And since I am a gardener who likes to save her own seed, I have to put up with these monsters that are sprouting up everywhere.

Normally, I don’t care so much for an untidy garden, after all, if it was good enough for Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden (no, there were no gardeners there, were there? Yet, it’s everyone favourite garden), then it is good enough for me. But some things are always the exception to the rule – scraggly gone-to-seed plants are mine.

Unfortunately, this is pretty much all I have growing in my garden for the time being too, since we had the 30 year floods hit on Christmas day – our suburb being one of the worst hit. I lost all my cucumbers, lettuces, most of my tomatoes, and anything that was at seedling stage (that means nearly EVERYTHING).

So, today, I decided it was time to clear everything out. Since I had put my hand up for the Nillumbik Home Harvest Festival, and volunteered at the bare minimum, silverbeet, then I figured that I must at least have that GROWING by harvest time in April (which is Autumn/Fall over here in the Southern Hemisphere).

Well, I was pleasantly surprised. Not only so I have a few seedling silverbeets starting, but I also found plenty of parsnip and carrot seeds to share on harvest day. I also will have plenty of spaghetti squash to contribute to the event, which should challenge the chefs and cooks on the day! I might even have a few watermelons and rock melons to spare – fruits that normally don’t grow this far south, but have been the only thing to flourish with all the rain and humidity.

But my greatest find was one last Golden Queen peach, clinging to a branch. With all the Queensland weather we have had this summer, all our stone fruit have moulded as soon as they started to ripen. But I found one that is close to ripening. One that I can take off the tree now and let mature on a windowsill inside.

Hopefully, there will be one peach to enjoy this season!

I Have Found My Happy Place…

…actually, it’s been found for quite some time now.

I know it has been a long time between posts, So here’s an update. Unfortunately, it’s not an edible gardening inspired post, but as least it’s a post 😉

Every year I tend to go AWOL around this time (well, normally a little later than this, but it’s an Spring this year). I get out there in the garden and frolic in the dirt. I pull weeds, I rediscover the good growing spots in the garden, and I plants bucket-loads of seeds. I have such an addiction to buying seeds that I am no longer allowed to enter Bunnings with my credit card. In true addict-style, I bought four packets of seeds from my fave eBay seed seller, Lil Miss Seedy, this morning to celebrate the fact that I would be dedicating my blog to gardening today.

This year, besides the obligatory vegetable seeds, I have also promised my daughter her very own secret garden. Shock Horror! That means flowers, and LOADS of them. Luckily, it is a secret garden, and can be hidden behind the orange trees, otherwise my friends and family may pull me up on the fact that I have finally caved.

My daughter, on the other hand, is terribly excited about having a new garden. She has decorated it with all her fairy statues that she has been collecting for this very purpose. While it is endearing, it is also distracting. As I plant, I have to keep rescuing the poor dears from being buried alive. I have also had to explain where fairy heaven is after stepping back to admire all my hard work and accidentally squashing one into oblivion. Interestingly enough, my daughter has announced “Don’t feed the fairies.” When I prompted her, she replied with, you’ll get taken back to fairyland and you can never escape. Erm, think she’s got her fables mixed up there!

New Beginings….

Planted in the garden today along the chook wire trellis:

Sugarsnap Peas
Telephone Peas
Snow Peas
Miles and miles of Pak Choi
Australian Yellow Leaf Lettuce

Planted in the top vegie patch:

Spring Onions
Cos Lettuce
Green Sprouting Broccoli
Snowball Cauliflower
Sugarloaf Cabbage
Detroit Red Globe Beetroot

😀

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So Long Between Posts

Since last summer I have been so dejected with my garden. The extreme heat killed everything last year. I haven’t even been game to weed. With winter, has come enough cool weather and moisture for stuff to start growing again. Any greenery is good as far as I’m concerned.

So what has actually been happening in my garden? Besides the weeds, there has been plenty that has self-seeded. Open pollinated seeds are wonderful things. With absolute neglect and chicken invasion (we moved the coop, and it is STILL not secure), we have plenty of silver beet, mustard, carrots, onions, dill, leeks, lettuces, wheat, oats, marigolds and parsnips growing. And that is just what I can see at a glance. I’m not really game to get out there and hunt around too much, otherwise the chickens will follow behind and dig up all the goodies.

We also have masses of stinging nettles. These are great to dig back into the garden as a green manure, but I prefer to eat them. Most people look at me like I’m a martian when I mention that stinging nettles are one of my favourite vegetables. The first obvious question is: “Doesn’t it sting when you eat it?”

No, stinging nettles don’t sting when you eat them, but that is only after it has been plunged into boiling water. Both this and vinegar neutralise the sting. Of course, picking it and preparing it is quite a treacherous path. I once picked nettles while wearing those thin latex gloves – even through two pairs, you will get stung! I had to soak my hands in vinegar, rather than the usual quick wipe over. To pick nettles you need thick rubber gloves. The ones you buy to wash dishes with are perfect.

So what do you do with the nettles, once they are picked? Besides washing them thoroughly, they can be cooked and used in place of spinach or silver beet. The flavour is far superior to either of these greens. My favourite recipe is a greek one that involves homemade filo, fetta, onions, dill and nettles. You mix up everything and roll it up in the filo. It is then baked in the oven and eaten warm – YUMMO!

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It’s Been a While…..

…since I have blogged. To be perfectly honest, with the drought killing my garden, there hasn’t been much to report home about.

But today we took a drive up through Kinglake and Flowerdale for the first time since Black Saturday. And to use a much used phrase, nothing can prepare you for it. You would think after all this time, there would be a bit more greenery, but there’s not. Surprisingly though every little spot of green is a pure marvel – greener than any green you have ever seen. It’s not until you drive out the other side before you realise that the green is still washed out, drought riddled and not the colour of Ireland at all.

It’s hard to describe that first sight of burning on the mountain you have always known, you see it from a distance long before you see the scarred bits. The first sight is through trees and you aren’t quite sure if you saw it or not – the skeletons of trees. Then as you drive out of Whittlesea, the first signs become apparent, I didn’t realise how close it actually got to the town. Your breath catches and your eyes sting as the tears are held back. There is no relief as you climb up into the mountain, every tree is burnt, there is not enough cover. Normally the trees hug you close and you feel sheltered, not today!

Today I saw right through the trees to parts of the mountain I never knew existed, it was like peering into a persons soul and seeing all the secrets they never wanted revealed. There is a long stretch of the road that winds through, and then the houses appear. I am surprised to see them standing, some have rows of burnt trees so close that you wonder if a God does exist and why he chose to save this house and not the one next to it? Truly there is nothing sadder than a lone chimney, standing nude on the hill, no longer protected by its house.

We drove through Kinglake, we saw the houses missing, we saw the shops missing, we saw a lone blanket on the side of the road and we saw the occasional puddle of metal that was once part of a car. But what we were most eager to see was Flowerdale, you see, we very nearly wound up living there a few years back. As were drove in, the shape of the hills felt right, but nothing was where it should be. So many of the familiar houses were gone. Then we realised that the empty spot we were staring at was the remains of one of the houses we inspected. Which meant that on the other side of the road was the farm we were outbid on. What we saw was the remains of a shed – that was it. It is very humbling to know that we escaped death and we didn’t even know it. I am so thankful to know that the people who did buy the farm were part time farmers, and they would probably not have been there on the day.

Actually, there is something sadder than the lone chimneys, and that is the dents in the safety barriers. Three months on and the roads are cleared of all the horrors that were presented to us on the news, in the papers, on YouTube. But nothing can hide the fact that these dents were caused by trees, great big trees that fell. Great big trees that fell and then prevented people from fleeing the mountain. Each one of these dents represents people who lost their lives. And seeing them over and over again does not ease the pain, it just makes it more obvious just how horrific it was up the mountain on Black Saturday.

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Victorian Bushfires

Last Saturday we lost power due to the extreme heat. It was the hottest day on Victorian record. I had been checking the CFA website all day as I have relatives and friends who live in rural areas. All was fine as we packed up and headed to my in laws for dinner. An hour and a half later we arrived home to discover that Kinglake, Marysville and Narbethong had been wiped off the map.

It’s hard to describe exactly how I felt. Four days on and I still don’t believe it. Saturday night though, was spent staring at the CFA website. They were filling in fires so quickly that only the suburb was listed. We still have friends we haven’t heard from since Saturday. While our immediate family is safe, we are still in mourning over the loss of lives. We still can’t believe that something of this magnitude could happen in our backyard.

I watch the world news and stare in disbelief as globally Kinglake is bought to the world, and the irony that this has happened because there is no longer anything there. I listen to the stories that friends tell me of people who escaped, their friends, their families, their colleagues. We hear of the stories of their friends, families and colleagues who didn’t make it. It rips my heart from my soul to hear these unbelievable stories. These horror stories, these stories that will go down in history along with the worst natural disaster this country has ever seen.

As I write this, the winds are picking up again. By Friday they are expecting the fires to break containment lines. I wonder when the horror will end. I wonder which other towns will be wiped from the map, how many more lives will be lost.

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Summer Heat

Today is the third day in a row that Melbourne has recorded temperatures in the 40s. It’s a new record apparently. Some people seem to get excited over things like that.

For me, though, I just peek out of the window every so often and watch another plant dry to a crisp. Occasionally I venture outside in the heat that is so hot and dry that you don’t even sweat. So far we haven’t lost any chickens, but I watch and I worry as they hang their wings and pant until they cough. There are no fire threats near us, but we are buffered in suburbia. Still I worry.

Two years ago we breathed the smoke and haze for days as the closest national park burned. It was terrifying even though we live half and hours drive away. I feared for the people who lived through it, who fought for their properties, who rescued injured animals, who saved lives. How they managed through all the smoke, I do not know. It was hard for us to breathe and we were no where near the danger zone.

Today I smell the air as I feed the chooks and while there is no smoke on it, it smells very much like it would the second before a flame erupts. Everywhere I look, I see parched and barren ground, the very skeleton of the earth baring its soul. I fear I will lose at least one of our orange trees, many of my vines are dead and gone already. Beans hang on a vine that has dehydrated beyond redemption. I suspect all I may be left with are the corn and tomatoes and the dill that scents the air as I hang out clothes that are dry before they are pegged.

When will winter come?

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Garden Photos

I was a bit trigger happy with the camera this morning:

Our first ever batch of apples. This variety is Golden Delicious

Romanesco zucchinis. They appear to be EVEN more rampant than the common black variety – Yikes!!

Our first batch of grapes – I’m pretty sure this is a green table variety

Amish Paste tomatoes – these are third generation, so they grow exceptionally well now in our garden

The completed dome on the wood fire oven. Now all that is let to do is a layer of fire blanket and rendering!

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"Changing Climate, Changing Times"

Last night on TV I came across a program on SBS entitled “Changing Climate, Changing Times.” It looked right up my alley so settled in with a glass of wine…

I must say, I was a little disappointed with the overall tone of the movie. It was set in the year 2075 and showed the possible changes that global warming could bring and how humans might handle them. While it was optimistic in that it assumed that the world would stay populated (unlike some who believe that a few more degrees will be the very death of us and our civilisation), it also assumed that we would be miserable with the change. It showed fields filled with wind turbines and solar panels, yet the narrator still pinned for oil and the use of a car.

Are we really that shallow that we cannot see we made a mistake with the mass consumption of a finite product that took our mother earth millions of years to develop? Why do many people seem to think renewable resources are a step backwards? After watching people go back to using horse and their feet for transport(remember those funny little bony things attached to the ends of your legs – they aren’t just there to stop you from falling over), I wonder why we don’t see fossil fuel as a step backwards. Or perhaps an interesting little diversion from evolution. A detour we took to see if the journey would be any shorter – and in the earths case – it just may have been.

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Mmmm…Apples…

For anyone who has ever wondered whether harvesting is an instinct or a developed trait need look no further than this post. I have answered the age old question of instinct vs learnt response by simply walking past my apple tree tonight.

This is the first year we have had apples grow on one of our apple trees. As I was wandering around outside sticky nosing in and about my garden to see what had changed since this morning, I caught a scent on the air. It was the wonderful aroma of apples – you know the smell. When you wander past the fruit shop and you just feel the urge to buy an apple, or when you open up the pantry and the smell of fruit spills out to greet you. It was this very smell of fragrant apple that made my mind instantly fly into a panic! I had the almighty sudden urge to rip the apple from the tree and scurry inside with it to hide somewhere safe and dark and cool.

I would imagine that it is this very same thought that set peasants a-gathering many many centuries ago. Of course the apples are not ripe yet, it is only the middle of summer. I dread to think how I will be come harvest time in autumn. I hope I even make it that far!

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