All Blog Posts (984)

I've always had  a garden when I was living in a house. A food growing vegetable and herb garden was my habit.

And I've always cooked since I started batching it. With a longstanding preference for Middle Eastern foods, I developed quite a skillset.

Then when I fell ill 33 years ago I combined the two obsessions.

I grew things to eat -- of course…

April 2019

I have pumpkins coming in now (taking up a lot of room). I've planted spuds out too.  Lettuce seeds are growing but I'm not sure how valuable they'll be in winter - pesto sounds good.  Silverbeet are also doing well on the north. 

There's a fair bit of citrus to harvest but the south side of the yard continues to die back.  No sun.  I've slowed down feeding the fish.  There's very few eggs from the chooks but the quails are still…

With the recent rain, the veggies gardens are really coming to life this year with promising growth and some produce already being harvested.

In the tuckshop area, we planted some lettuces, which are already being used for tuckshop. Some education was needed to make sure that the whole lettuce hearts weren't plucked out altogether and only leaves were harvested to ensure continuous supply. As it were the first lettuces were going to seeds already with the heat. Experience learned,…

Finally the rain has hit!  I am getting rain weekly and the garden is sure enjoying it.  I can't wait for school holidays to start so I can get a lot of work done now that the weather is cooling off.  

The asparagus certainly perks up with the rain.  I harvested 10 spears last week and I've obviously missed quite a few this week.…

Getting there...

As I prep the beds for 'Autumn' -- albeit a hot & sweaty task -- the Vetiver hedges have reached a stage where they are becoming true enclosures.

Wee packets of soil they are.

I've only recently trimmed the hedges for mulch and split some of the clumps to supply stock for a local community plant-out along the…

Well, well, well... !

After being extremely slack for a very long time on this site, I've found myself back due to the quality info on here. I've been researching 'Dyschoriste depressa' for the newsletter I write up regularly, and found that another member (Ann) had posted some pics of this dreaded weed we're currently doing battle with!

Although I've been away from the BLF community for quite some time, thoughts of wonderful members I've…

Hi Everyone,

Is anyone else disappointed that the cyclone is not giving us any rain?  I was holding off watering this week cause I was like "Torrential downpour on its way" to no avail  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  Not happy!

Well I've had my first (ripe) black sapote.  Now I have waited almost a year for this fruit to ripen.  It is continually flowering and setting fruit but I've worked out it needs a lot of water to keep them so most drop off.  This one has…

I've always viewed my garden as a Kitchen Garden where what I grow is determined by what I eat. That perspective has waxed and waned over the years as periods of experimentation set in, only later to pass.

Ironically, my most recent menu advance was not located outback, but grew indoors instead.

When I started sprouting mung beans near the wash…

The dry continues to make returns on the garden produce harder and harder ..... it has teased us a couple of times with clouds and the lightest of sprinkle but not even to wet a table napkin.

I have all my worm beds under a large tarp to help keep moisture in and stop the beds from baking. 

Worms are a pretty easy part of the ecosystem I have in place to keep going, but it…

Well, it has been a hot and dry summer. The garden beds were really dry but quite a few things survived. Luckily for us, the rain arrived right on cue. A little drizzle here, another downpour there and before you know it the garden will be brimming with life again. No time to lose. This year we are starting bright and early with greens and tomatoes for the tuckshop.…

I have heard we are going to get rain in February :-)  so I decided to throw in a few bean seeds I saved from the last crop in the garden.

I can't find the discussion I was in when I mentioned I had a broccoli plant I had seeded from a previous crop and it was ready to be collected again ...it has an appearance in the clip.

I have over the past couple of years been saving…

I emigrated to Brisbane a year ago and I have a small  shady area. 

Love to grow delicious berries. Can anyone advice me please. 

Thanks

helen 

I finally got around to prepping the school garden for the return of the children next week. It survived the Summer graciously.

The beds we did not cover with weed mat, I carpeted with harvested Vetiver mulch and they've done OK -- not much in way of weeds.

Hardly any '…

I have had to delay plantings to at least 3 of my beds due to the hot dry conditions even though I am covering with shade cloth and netting that I have made up on tunnel hoops, it is still taking a lot of water just to fill the local cafe's orders.

The continuing dry spell will be starting to make an impact on fruit and veg prices and availability soon enough, so as a grower its always good to know you have at least…

I shot a video of the planting out I did last season and changes I made for our Youtube channel.

As an update, I had to redo all the beds I used the organic material mulch on, going back to using landscape fabric as the pests were eating me out of any usable fruit.…

Hi Guys,

Welcome to 2019!  As usual, it has been a very busy holiday season and I'm due back at work next week.   But, I feel like I have accomplished a lot these holidays so am feeling rather chilled at the start of the new work year.  

My holidays have gone like this: 

Week 1: Down to Melbourne to drop my 2 daughters at my Aunts to work the summer holidays down there.  Flew back on the Thursday and was driving up to Mackay the next day.

Week 2:…

I think I have made the transition to 'flat breads'.

It all began with my passion for Knäckebröd (Swedish style rye crisp [as in flat & hard] bread)...

Still make 'em. Still love 'em.

Gotta  always have  Knäckebröd on hand.

With the invested practice I can quickly put together a batch of these…

Well the last 18 months have bee awful!!!! I have had a resurgence of Meinghers and on top of that now have vestibular migraines and peripheral vaso-dilation. On a bad day I either pass out, have attacks with acute severe imbalance and nausea, or poor balance and headaches!

Still I have gone 9 good days in a row just before Christmas so on my good days i am now in the shed in the heat and in the garden in the evenings.

My garden looks neglected now but I am slowly working to get it…

Well, I finally have a small space within the nursery that surrounds my new home, to grow some pots of edibles for myself. 

Some sunlight during the day but shade in the arvo.

Because I'm renting I'm keeping to pots and grow bags (still to come) so I need food plants that won't grow huge or need too much space and are productive and versatile.

Herb pot (foreground) has been going for many months now at the last house-sit. When moving, I emptied the pot, shoved the plants…

Has any one here done any preserving using lacto-fermentation?  If so how do you store your jars once made?