Dave Riley's Blog (202)

Spending time in the patch can be inspirational. Look and you shall see...

Worst of all, look and plan.

Does this obsession ever stop?

When you think the greenery is 'just so' you have to maybe do this or that.

The plants are a collective that maybe can do without you, but you can't help…

The year past in review.

Highlights both ecological and gastronomical.

1. Dragon Fruit Salsa: For me this is the most delicious way to partake of the exotic looking pitaya. I've planted Dragon fruits all over the place. Mine clamber over chook pens, prickly pear and frangipani alike. Now the…

I have seen a few Summers here. They come and go while the plants respond to the weather.

But this time around...

I am overwhelmed by the verdant growth. I've had to hack my way along the paths to get from A to…

Back to jungle mode. Ups and downs and undergrowth is the way I like it. No bare soil. Wall to wall Scurvy Weed (Egads!). Talk about greeeeen!

Spring onions,sweet peppers and maybe a Calabacitas...

Daikon…

I guess that I eat a lot of greens. My every day consumption is not of raw, but cooked, leaves.

I am not of the salad persuasion. Nor am I of the lightly stir-fried sort.

I try to grow the greens I like to eat. That way I always have plenty of different stems to forage.

Among my preferred leafy comestibles…

My garden of earthly delights. I like to grow what I like to eat.

White chokoes. Better tasting than their green cousins. Maybe not as prolific -- usually -- but this year I have them hanging down a'plenty. Much less slimy than the green and present to the mouth as a crisp veg. Ants, regrettably, love them.…

I invested energy  in drag and drop today. Did 2 beds in double quick time.

Just wrenched the verdant Scurvy Weed from its anchorage and dropped it as mulch where it used to grow but a moment before.

I'd been…

We are on the cusp of this season's great Vetiver venture.

Almost all of the clumps in our backyards have been harvested and we are 'bringing them on' (pictured at right) as divisions which are almost ready to plant out…

Today is a great day in the Kitchen Garden.'Tis also the first day of the rest of its life.It being at peace with the world.…

I eat soup every day for lunch. I love soup....and I guess I'm skilled at soupology.

Essentially my soup making works to a template.

1.STOCK

I make up a weak chicken stock by steaming up chicken necks for the dogs. I always have that on hand. I also make stock by collecting all our leftover bones -- cooked…

I just ate some fresh corn I harvested outback. So over Winter it is possible here in SEQ to grow corn...albeit on the coast.

I ate the corn with some shishito peppers I'd grown. They were from my frozen collection...but there are still some on the bushes.

Wee…

By Dave Riley

Founder & President

Tommy Toe tomatoes are often referred to as an Australian variety. This…

Since the cool months are Vetiver down time,I thought I'd invest any surplus energy into seed raising.

The scenario planned was to maybe hold a seedling  garage sale day once per month. I've done events like this before but without much success. This time -- in COVID times -- I thought the service was more likely to be community functional.

In…

It became that time of the year when I was about to run out of corn flour for tortillas.

The thought of being without my beloved tacos or quesadilla was too much pain & denial to consider taking on.

Since we are within the Covid-19 epoch -- let's call the period,'Covid Pan' for short -- when I went online hunting supplies, stocks were almost non…

I am negotiating a transition moment.

The primary school garden I had worked in & ran for a few years was running itself...that is before the pandemic. I had stepped back from it also to focus on my Vetiver activities.

But there is sure to be a local call for a 'community garden' to be established as we gain access to local building and…

As I've mentioned on occasion, I grow my own 'onions' -- my own Spring Onions./ Scallions/Green Onions.

You can imagine how many I can get through over any one year.

In the heat of Summer, harvest peters out and I need go out and buy bunches.While I have spring onions growing in my patch, I'm handicapped by the absence of accessible seedlings (due to there not being any in this Covid times )so I need to grow my own from seed.

Never that successful for my greenoid thumbs…

While I eat an evening meal, and may settle for coffee as breakfast, the great culinary love of my life is lunch.

Day in day out, I always eat soup for lunch.

And what a soup it is! A delicious stock to which is added whatever I harvest out back.

Each day I celebrate my kitchen garden by eating  it.

A bubbling…

I just got myself a seriously active brushcutter so I went outback and...

What I may seem to have here is a tabula rasa --  a blank slate-- but you would be mistaken.

What I have here are 'x' number of beds mulched with Vetiver and edged by Vetiver hedges. Maybe you can't see them because they too were cut short.…

My wife was talking to one of the ladies that come here Wednesdays.

She said to her, "Your husband is over weight. Is that why your garden is so overgrown and messy?'

While a bit rude, this crude perspective  rules the neatness obsessed.

My garden is overgrown because I want it that way. What…

I have long been a mulch junkie such that my garden has been built with lawn clippings. It is now a rich loam chock full of life. It is spongy and worm dense.

Hypothetically any weed 'problem' was simply blanketed with more mulch.

But with the recent drought conditions my working template fell apart. I was now overhead watering and my mulch supply -- via the 'Mower Men' of my acquaintance --dropped off to nothing.

Then the …