At the beginning of this year I planted broccoli, both the Purple Sprouting, and the pretty lime green Romanesco varieties. The plants grew… and they grew… and they grew… They were massive, but no flowers appeared, just more leaves and they got taller. I was getting ready to pull them out and send them over to Maggie’s chooks, when someone mentioned that dumping some ash from the fire around them may spur them into flowering mode. Continue reading
Vegetable Garden
Rhubarb & Frosts…
As mentioned in my last post, we recently endured a spate of heavy frosts. While the visual effects were stunning, the aftermath in the gardens has been quite destructive! Citrus, lemons, limes, mandarins, etc literally froze on the tree, and because there was no reprieve from the frosts – they just kept coming, night after night after night, the fruit did not recover and turned to mush. Initially the fruit looked perfectly normal, but when you touched it, it was soft and squishy, and finally it just fell from the trees. That is not all, people in the district fear that their precious trees may not recover from the trauma, and it is the centre of many conversations within the community. That is just the citrus trees… There has been so much more destruction in the garden, and many have lost so, so many of their treasured plants and trees. Fortunately we were very lucky and my wonderful husband’s diligence saved so much. Continue reading
The Frozen Garden!
We have recently endured a spate of heavy frosts, and for us it was very cold – minus 7.6 celsius etc. The first morning I got up and wandered down to the vegie patch, before heading into the garden for the community in Stratford. As I worked in the garden there I was kicking myself for not having got up earlier and taken photos of the beauty that a frost creates. I know that it also causes devastation, but all I saw was beauty. Continue reading
A Gluten Free Cooking Class
This week I held a one-on-one cooking class for a wonderful new friend, and fellow volunteer from the Garden for the Community at Stratford, Maggie. She wanted to learn how to make my gluten free Weed Pies – I continue to be fascinated how popular these pies are. I did a blog on them last year and whenever I serve them up they are a hit – they have been served at lunches, morning teas, even the opening of the local Stratford Shakespeare Festival a couple of months ago! Continue reading
Horseradish in the garden
I recently posted some images of freshly made horseradish mustard on a forum page and was fascinated to receive quite a few questions about growing horseradish. So for anyone who may be interested, I have put together the following information. Continue reading
