Coming back down to earth

Playdough al fresco! Snailosaurus rex.

Yup, I know, I've had my head in the clouds lately. The title of this post gives it away. Today I'm going to try and get back down to earth. 

Last week I was lucky enough to chat with Elaine Reeves from the Mercury. We had a wonderful wander around the garden, nibbling, enjoying the view of the mountain and the sunshine. But after she left I thought over what we had talked about and realised I spoke perhaps a little too much about the wonderful chefs I'm so excited to be working with,  and not as much about the root of our business, which is trying to contribute to a healthy and happy planet. So here's part of how I imagine it could work:

• I want a healthy family, and to help other people have the same. One of my kids eats reluctantly from a plate, but will gorge herself in the garden. So I'm trying to give her a good garden to feast from. She'll grow up with this as a normal way of living. With respect and value for food and how it is produced and also what it can do for her health. She already makes her own herbal tea blend from the garden when she has a sniffle. Yesterday our biggest Garden fairy was dressed as a superhero, undies on the outside, knee high, stripey socks, a cape, and a fantastic mask made from an egg carton. Our apple tree was being raided by the wildlife and superhero 'Apple Girl' was on a mission to save our apples. We filled the washing basket, Apple Girl and I, then processed and filled lots of Fowler's jars with apple puree and chunks. We grabbed spotty apples and ones that had been nibbled by pademelons. We trimmed blemishes and salvaged loads of delicious fruit that would normally be wasted. We cooked the apples for the puree with skin, cores and all, and passed them through a mouli marvelling at how little was wasted, and the pretty pink hue of our pulp from the colour of the skin. Now the rejected parts are simmering on the stove for the chooks. And the littlest garden fairy learnt how to ladle. So, much was learnt, food was salvaged, fun was had and delicious apple was stored, mmm crumble...! That's what it's all about!

• Packets of herbs, greens and other well travelled and over-packaged food items depress me. We grow a good variety of herbs here, with minimal work, and it is unimaginable to me to pay $4 for a tiny, shrivelled bunch of something bundled up in plastic and stickers. So I like to think that every little plant I sell means someone can walk to their garden or pot, cut only what they need and save some money, get herbs that are healthier for them and healthier for the planet. Without all that plastic, travel time and associated chemical use and carbon emissions. And for those who can't grow their own a few of us at the market bring along some fresh each week naked but for an elastic band or piece of string, harvested the night before and not travelled any further than you can travel to market. 

Treats from the last market

• Some of the plants sold in Tassie are also well travelled. Somehow the perverse economics of the world make it cheaper, in some cases, for retailers to bring plants across the water. To do this, those plants need to be treated with chemicals to reduce the risk of plant pests and diseases hitching a ride to our fair island. At Provenance we grow our plants in a home made potting mix made from composted Tasmanian pine bark, Tasmanian dolomite, blood-and-bone, sand, kelp meal and crusher dust, and two certified organic fertiliser blends. We use second hand pots (so please bring yours back!). We are setting up a mini wetland to clean the water that runs off of our growing area, and we use no chemical insecticides, fungicides or herbicides, only natural methods of pest control (lots of aphid-eating frogs) or preferably none at all! 

Alpine strawberry 'Alexandria'. Yum.

Satisfaction for me comes from selling an alpine strawberry plant to a little boy at the market, knowing he'll plant it with his parents, reap his gloriously sweet harvest, and maybe acquire a taste for gardening and the delights of REAL food. I couldn't think of a more satisfying job!

So, I'll pull my head out of the clouds, kneel in the mud, rub the earth off of some lovely potatoes and be thankful for being able to make a living from my home, with my family and feeling as though we're a small part of keeping the world the wonderful place it is.

Look out for my chat with Elaine Reeves in the Mercury tomorrow, Tuesday the 22nd of February, and come and give us a hoy at the Tas Farm Gate market this Sunday, and the 2nd 4th and 5th Sunday of each month. We're now on Facebook and Twitter. Check these out for updates of when we'll be at market and what's coming down, or even to request something you fancy for you garden or kitchen.

Baby Barnervelder, no longer this cute, now a gangly teenager, but I love this photo!

Bliss, or something like it.....

Flowers for a salad

It's been a magical afternoon. One of those sparkling days where it's blissful to have the sun on your back, but not too hot to dig, and not a breath of wind. The earth is damp from the rain earlier in the week, and it seems that every time I kneel to pull a weed there is a tiny frog sitting on it. I've snatched a moment while the 3 year old garden fairy is having an afternoon sleep (lucky for some!) to get out into the sun and sow, sow, sow. I'm hoping I'm not too late, that Summer will come, it's just running late this year. That things will have time to mature before Winter sets in. Despite a few setbacks and failures we are pretty impressed by the performance of our first-year plot. Carrots and radishes abound, we have a truckload of broad beans that are about to be cut down, and all the enormous missed pods will be dried for Winter use, along with a great crop of Purple Podded Peas, a variety that was bred for drying, and has also proved to be quite exquisite eaten immature as you would a snow pea.

 The Chioggia and Forrrono beetroot have flourished and I'm hoping that last weeks sowing of these isn't too late for a Winter crop. We also have a some newbies, for us at least. Burdock, otherwise known as Gobo is looking totally out of place with its enormous leaves. You can use it as a root vegetable, or eat the flowering stem. I think we'll go half and half with this crop, unless those roots prove to be irresistible and it doesn't get the chance to flower! This is our first year growing celeriac, and they look wonderful, so good in fact I'm almost looking forward to Winter. I reckon a brilliant companion for it on the plate will be Rapini, a turnip grown for its bitter green leaves and flowering stems. If all goes well you'll see both of these on the stall in June or July.

I've just sown a tray of a lettuce that I couldn't resist because of its name, 'Drunken Woman' and it's a loose leaf variety. Just the thing to cheer up an Autumn salad, with an accompanying drop perhaps? And a kale called 'Old Women Meet and Gossip'. Today I also noticed a brilliant germination of Hamburg parsley, a variety cultivated for its edible taproot, that looks a bit like a parsnip in the pictures I've seen.

But throughout all of this serene planting, weeding, watching fairy wrens twitter while sitting on the handle of my garden fork, or motorcycle gangs of plovers dive-bombing the Grey Goshawk above me, my mind is racing. Exciting things are afoot, here in the wilds of Neika.

Baby rocket

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about a fancy chef from the big smoke coming to visit. And I promised I'd tell you who it was, but me being me, I'm a bit later than promised.  A few years back, my wonderful mother in law (who yesterday chuckled at the aforementioned lettuce moniker) sent us to Sydney for the weekend. She'd lashed out and found us a lovely room at Circular Quay. We'd enjoyed a wander through the Botanic Gardens, and called Quay, not expecting to get in, but somehow we managed to get a table. Going to eat in a wonderful place with no expectations whatsoever is a rare treat. And oh what a treat it was. Five courses of beautiful plates, one of which was the best thing I'd ever eaten in a restaurant, a marvel of technique, contrast and deliciousness. Bah! A whole weeks wages on one meal, who cares! We won't ever forget it, so imagine how I feel when the mobile rings, I answer and get, 'Hi, it's Peter Gilmore here'. How does someone like that find us way out here in these wild hills? It turns out he'd tasted the Sea Celery, a native parsley-like plant that I'd sent to Hugh Whitehouse, the chef at Saffire, for his kitchen garden, and wanted some plants for himself. So he came over to our weedy plot and enjoyed a sunshiney couple of hours nibbling herbs, sipping tea, talking food and digging rainbow potatoes. And he was kind enough to offer to sign his book that I'd bought Matt for Christmas.

Equally exciting, and closer to home we've been working with our very favourite place to eat, Garagistes. If we ever get a night without the garden fairies, we have an unspoken agreement that we head straight there for dinner and amazing wine. Luke Burgess, the chef, is as obsessed with edible plants, grown with care, as we are. He is willing to try anything interesting that I take in to the restaurant, and to share his incredible knowledge and experience with us to help our little business grow. He was even kind enough to mention us in a piece in the latest Gourmet Traveller. To be involved with a place that has such intent attention to detail, from the hand made plates to the natural wines and the composting of kitchen waste, fits perfectly with our philosophy. We've also begun talking to some other exciting local eating places who might use a few of our unusual herbs on their plates,watch this space! Finding people who know how to work with unusual produce gives growers like me a licence to experiment, and I hope to reflect this with the produce that comes to market.

Another willing and wonderful experimenter is my partner, Matt Deakin. He is the chef at the Hobart institution, Mures Upper Deck. If you haven't been there for a while, you'd be surprised at the work he is doing, with access to our garden, another organic supplier, some great fish and his creativity. It is a wonderful perk being a chefs guinea pig, not least when it's dessert time.....

We'll be down at the Tas Farm Gate market this Sunday, the 13th, with lots of exciting produce, including Chioggia beetroot, a tiny few bunches of rainbow carrots- I have never tasted a carrot more delicious than the Purple Dragons I'm pulling from the garden at the moment, some Crookneck squash and Romanesco zucchini (if you think zukes aren't worth eating give these delicious puppies a go!). Also, if you like the look of those delicious flowers in the picture above, and fancy some for your dinner, please send us an email and we can bring some to market for you.

We'll also have loads of great plants, plenty of edibles, and the first of our Hobart local provenance plants will be making their debut. So rock on down and say hi! Veggies, stunning ham steaks, cupcakes to die for and 20 degrees the forecast. Sounds alright, doesn't it!!

Romanesco Zucchini

The view from the garden fairies window. 

Keeping up with currant events

It's been wet everywhere, and in the face of such  tragic destruction elsewhere it seems a trifle to worry about my berries, but for anyone with ripening fruit, this damp weather is rather ill timed. So, despite the warm drizzle, and the fact that all hell was breaking loose with the garden fairies jumping naked into their water-filled sandpit, I shut out all of the distractions and got stuck into picking the currants.

Right now we have red and black ones, along with a few young white currant plants producing only enough to be nibbled in the garden. From about square meter of neglected garden I've harvested almost 4 kilos of black currants from 4 plants. We got 5 kilos from the same area last year, so I think a good weed, prune and mulch is in order. Some of these will probably be frozen whole for making a medicinal brew, we simmer the currants with ginger, sage, thyme and fenugreek seeds and then add a little honey and lemon juice to chase away Winter colds. The rest will be turned into a syrup, for which I am still trying to find a recipe that I like....You can make a gorgeous jelly from them, kids love them straight from the garden, and I have heard of sorbet made with an infusion of blackcurrant leaves.

 

The rewards of neglect. This untended part of the garden has ample cover for our little pest controllers. Frogs are largely carnivorous and will clean up loads of garden nasties. The surfactant in some herbicide preparations, that is designed to help the poison penetrate the weed plant leaves, may also break down the skin of frogs.

Then the red currants. The blackbirds found these and there aren't many, so I think a bit of red currant ice cream for the garden fairies will be lovely. If I had more, I'd love to make a red currant jelly, which is so useful in the kitchen. My mum glazes scrumptious strawberry shortcakes with it, my pet chef (husband) deglazes pans with red wine, after cooking duck, wallaby or venison, then adds a generous dollop of the jewel like jelly. The kids and I slather it on hot toast. And I love to have a sprig or two of the stunningly beautiful, translucent berries to drape over the Christmas pudding. We have plans to move the plants into a netted garden this Winter where they will be protected from feathered thieves.

Currantly (sorry!) we have red and black currant plants ready for sale. Get them in now and they'll put on some good growth ready to produce a modest first crop next Summer. They are easy to grow. and they get to about a meter and a half high. Space plants around 1m apart if planting in rows. They do best in a well composted and mulched garden bed, with some protection from the hottest afternoon sun in warmer areas. Pruning is important, but the thing to remember is that red and white currants fruit on 2 or 3 year old wood, they need to be pruned so as to preserve older wood while encouraging lateral growth and maintaining an open branch structure.

Black currants generally fruit on 1 year old wood, so old fruiting canes can be pruned, leaving  the current years new growth, and making room for the next years growth. Having said this, we haven't pruned ours for a number of years, and they are cropping ok. 

In a months time there will also be plants of the divine Silvan berry ready to plant. This one is like a perfect, giant blackberry with a rich, winey, tangy flavour. Mmmmm! So find a corner for this one, it needs plenty of room and support, and heavy pruning at the end of each season, but it will produce fruit over a couple of months from mid December. And yesterday I divided 30 little white fraise des bois, which I find even more delicious than their red cousins. These should be ready in a month or two.

We'll be down at Tas Farm Gate with currant plants, and many others on Sunday the 23rd of January. Hope to see you there!!

Our most exciting current event is the hatching of 5 little chicks. 3 Barnervelder and 2 Rhode Island Red cross Barnevelder. So cute!

Lots of new plants!

I need an excuse to get in out of the sun. It's 28 degrees out there, and the garden fairies are playing in a tub of water. It's just too hot to linger on the nursery gravel getting out plants. So while I cool down, I'll write you a list of what plants are coming to market tomorrow. I'm not sure yet what fresh produce I'll gather, I'm waiting for the promised South-Westerly change before I harvest, but you'll find mint, chives, thyme, lemon verbena (great for infusing into icecreams..), kaffir lime leaves, wild rocket and many more tasty treats for you kitchen on our table.

Garden fairy with her dinner.

Some of these plants are available in limited numbers, so please let me know if you'd like something put aside for you.

Food plants:
Red and black currants

Alpine strawberries

'Temptation' strawberry Fragaria x ananassa An almost runnerless variety, said to bear tasty, heart shaped fruit all Summer, through to the first frost. You might even get an Autumn crop if you get these babies planted soon!

Angelica archangelica. This is the Angelica for culinary purposes. A few stems cooked with rhubarb reduces the amount of sugar you need and adds a lovely grassy, floral flavour. Biennial, produces a big crown the first year, and a huge halo of wonderful green, beneficial-insect-supporting flowers in the second.

Salad burnett, a great little green. Use the slightly astringent, cucumbery new leaves in salads or yoghurt dips.

Garlic chives

Chives

Perennial Spring onion. This Spring onion forms a clump which you can pull individual stems from as needed. I also collect the seed from it and grow baby Spring onions from them, or use the flower buds in a salad.
Variegated society garlic. Garlic flavour without the bad breath! Very ornamental, and lovely pink edible flowers too.
Roman chamomile This article is wonderful!
Dianthus, edible petals. Hardy, pretty perrenial. Remove the white end of the petal before adding to salads, cakes, drinks....

White borage, gorgeous edible flowers, and young foliage edible too. Self seeding annual, great bee plant.

Oregano, common and Golden Curly oregano. Greek on the way soon....

Marjoram

Italian parsley

Sea celery. A Tassie native, more reminiscent of parsley than celery, wonderful anywhere you'd use parsley, but perhaps a little saltier and earthier.

Lovage

Culantro, Mexican coriander/ saw leaf coriander/ Thai parsley. Annual. Grow this one in shade for lush growth. Used in curries or larp in Asia, or in salsas in Mexico.

Lemon balm, variegated form.

Sage, Common and Purple.

Warrigal greens.

French sorrel, wonderful Spring green, should be in every garden to add a lemony punch to salads, soups and sauces. Easy to grow, may die back in Winter when it can be divided and replanted.

Red shiso, self seeding annual, used to colour Japanese pickles, tiny new leaves and flowers in salads.

Laksa/Vietnamese mint

Mitsuba

Mints-All mints can become invasive. Plant them in a well composted garden or a good quality potting mix and either let them have their head and enjoy their rampant nature, or confine them in pots. You can cut the bottom from a good sized pot or bucket and bury this in the garden to keep them tame. Or a well watered pot in sun or part shade will do nicely!

Pineapple mint

Moroccan spearmint

Peppermint

Variegated ginger mint

Apple mint

Basil mint

Thyme

Globe artichoke, French Purple
Comfrey

Horseradish

Pineapple sage

Cossack pineapple. Low growing hardy annual, producing sweet, pineappley fruit that are covered in a papery husk. Great garden lolly for the little kids, or dinner party exotica for the big kids.

Tomatillo, purple Last chance to get these in. Tomato like plants produce copious amounts of savoury fruits for South American inspired salads and sauces.

Potted strawberries, Red Gauntlet and Fraise des Bois-Alexandria variety, with fruit on if I can keep the kids away!

Tassie plants:
Lemon bottle brush  Callistemon pallidus
White dogwood Pomaderris apetala
Bluebottle daisy Lagenophora stipitata
White flag iris Diplarrena moraea
Blanket leaf Bedfordia salicina
Creeping everlasting Helichrysum scorpioides
Silver Banksia Banksia marginata
Yellow everlasting, Ozothamnus obcordatus
Sagg, Lomandra longifolia


I'm sure that I've missed a few, and there are even more delicious plants in the works. And if there's anything you want please let me know, I love finding new plants and, when possible, would be happy to try and track down and propagate any edibles you might wish for!


We'll be at the Tas Farm Gate from 9 till 1 this Sunday, the 9th of January.

We really love food

Here, as you may have noticed, we love eating what we grow. 

And so, it seems, do other people. Some of our Cranberry Red and Sapphire potatoes, purple podded peas, edible flowers, Massey peas, broad beans, Warrigal greens and orach, found their way onto some beautiful plates on New Years Eve, prepared so wonderfully, I have to say I feel more than a little chuffed! (Click on the green words to see great photos from Food Tourist)

To find and grow these treasures, then hand them over to be treated so elegantly is truly inspiring and rewarding. To have the chef that is to prepare them come to the garden to see how they are grown. To sample different varieties of peas, and admire edible blooms with him, seems to me be a beautiful closed loop. Grower, chef, diner, with nothing in between. Produce plucked from the earth the day before it is to be cooked. 

Perfect.

......well almost. 

It would have been even better if we'd been there to eat it!

And now we are weeding, brushcutting and mulching madly here, in preparation for a Friday morning visit.

By a super fancy chef from the big smoke! 

What will we give him for morning tea? 

Can we speak with more than a stammer when faced with the prospect of telling our story to a man we admire so? 

We will write more on Friday if we get through it without falling into a swoon! 

Otherwise, we'll be down at the Tas Farm Gate market on the corner of Melville and Elizabeth Streets, this Sunday from 9 till 1 and we'd love to see you!

Goodness me!

Onion buds

Shungiku, edible chrysanthemum.

It seems that this blog has been viewed 999 times ( I'll conveniently forget that every time I look at it to do some editing that counts as a view) and I find that hard to believe!

So in true internet style, I'm going to give the 1000th person to have a gander at this, providing they can get to the Tas Farm Gate market in Hobart on the second or 4th Sunday of the month, a little thank-you box of plants. I will have no way of knowing who the 1000th person is, so if you are the very next person to leave a comment, (and maybe the person after that too as 1001 is a fine looking number) I'll put together a few little treats for you.

It is hard to believe that people read my musings, but you have, and I thank you for that!! This blog is a way for me to promote my business, share my philosophies and methods, but most of all it's a way for me to sort my thoughts out. I sit down to write something and then I have to make those ideas into something cohesive with practical applications. And I have to research what I write as well, so while I'm ranting, I'm also learning. And when people share their thoughts I learn even more!

Brooty, our Pea Combed, Rhode Island Red mother hen, due on 13th of January

So thank you interweb-land people, and I hope your Christmas was merry and that your New Year is joyous and bountiful! See you in 2011!!

Comfrey flowers. See that little hole at the top of the flower tube? That is how a bumble bee takes a shortcut. I worry about the effect these flower bullies will have on pollination, ripping flowers apart like this to get the nectar instead of crawling in as they are meant to and spreading pollen as they go.

Blushing red currants

Blushing strawberries

Roman chamomile

Holy wasabi! Oh, and Merry Christmas

Banksia marginata

My wasabi has been getting a right seeing to from caterpillars. I'm not sure if it's the cabbage white, or a little brown moth that lurks in our brassicas. The critter in question bungy jumps from the  foliage when disturbed, which seems to me a silly strategy as they are easily seen and squished whilst dangling in the air. So I haven't been bringing my plants to market as they are so ugly! But I've given them a little spray with Dipel,  an organically acceptable bacteria which infects only caterpillars that ingest it, which then become paralysed. It would be best used early in the season to prevent the build up in numbers of dubious garden guests. Even though it's ok to use in organic systems I still use this as a last resort and prefer to put up with a little damage and grow my main crops of brassicas in Winter when these greedy creatures aren't about. Anyhow, I'm bring a few slightly nibbled plants to the market this Sunday, they will look wonderful again soon, so get in early if you want one!

And I've fallen victim to the Christmas dilemma. I'm not huge on the commercial side of Christmas, (I LOVE the family and food!) but one important part of being a sustainable business is to be financially sustainable, along with fulfilling environmental and social responsibilities, and people will be buying gifts, and why shouldn't they be lovely plants? So.....

Christmas 6 packs from Provenance Growers!

Not beer, (sadly not my abs!) but lovely combinations of 6 useful plants!

I've put together the following Christmas packs for your loved one's pleasure this year. Stock of some varieties is limited so get in touch if there's something you especially fancy and I'll put it aside for you. I'll be tucking 6 plants from each list into a little box, or make up your own combination from the list on our last post.

Bush tucker combo, Sagg, Lomandra longifolia, edible leaf bases. Flax lily, Dianella revoluta, edible blue berries. Samphire,  Sarcocornia quinqueflora, edible stems. Sea celery, Apium prostratum, edible foliage, similar to parlsey. Warrigal greens, Tetragonia tetraginoides, edible leaves, Pigface, Carpobrotus rossii, edible fruit and foliage. Native pepper, Tasmannia lanceolata, leaves used as a flavouring, spicy when raw, becoming milder with slow cooking, berries used as a seasoning borne only on female plants (our peppers are seed grown so you may get a male or female). Native Bluebell, Wahlenbergia sp, edible flowers. Have a look at this wonderful article for more on some of these plants.

Feast on flowers, Dianthus, borage, chives, Roman chamomile, globe artichoke - French purple, Nasturtium and variegated society garlic.

Tassie native mix, A hardy blend of plants suitable for an average sized garden. Spicy Everlasting, Ozothamnus obcordatus, Myrtle Wattle, Acacia myrtifolia, Bluebottle daisy, Lagenophora stipitata, Silver Banksia, Banksia marginata, Paper Daisy, Xerochrysum spp, White Flag Iris, Diplarrena moraea.

Garlic chives

Tea, Roman chamomile, peppermint, Mexican tarragon, sage, thyme, Moroccan mint.

Unusual herbs, Variegated society garlic, white borage, salad burnett, Angelica archangelica, curly golden oregano, orange peel thyme.

Mints, Peppermint, Moroccan spearmint, variegated pineapple mint, variegated ginger mint, apple mint, common mint, spearmint.

Classic herbs, Italian parsley, garlic chives, thyme, oregano, chives, sage.

Asian mix, Laksa leaves/Vietnamese mint, mitsuba, red shiso, garlic chives, perennial spring onions.

So drop me a line at provtas@gmail.com if you'd like something tucked away with your name on it,  or come down to the biggest market ever, from 9-1, with your green bags, a good appetite (think awesome sushi, cupcakes and real Tassie flour!!) and have some fun with us. And a merry Christmas to you and yours this year!

What's growing on?

White Flag Iris, a hardy and beautiful Tasmanian plant.

Borage flowers, ready to head out to dinner!

I really need to list what I'm growing and get some kind of catalogue together. But, when the sun is shining (or even when it's not) I really want to be outside. And when I'm working inside I'd rather spend my time thinking through some aspect of growing plants that might be interesting to the people who find themselves reading this. But, a new plant seems to be ready to sell each week, and so I've decided to start a list of the plants we're growing for sale. When I've got more inside time I'll start with descriptions, cultivation requirements and uses, until then you'll have to find a good book, ask Google or come to the market for a chat with us! These are the ones that will be for sale at Tas Farm Gate market this Sunday.

Food plants:
Red and black currants
Warrigal greens
Lemon thyme
Alpine strawberries
Angelica
Salad burnett

This thyme is growing in a washing machine spinner and is plenty for our family.

Garlic chives
Chives
Roman chamomile
Dianthus, edible petals
Borage
Oregano
Marjoram
Nasturtium
Italian parsley
Wild rocket
Lemon balm, variegated form
Sage
French sorrel
Red shiso
Ginger mint
Laksa/Vietnamese mint
Mitsuba
Pineapple mint
Morrocan spearmint
Thyme
Globe artichoke, French Purple
Society garlic, variegated form
Comfrey
Horseradish
Pineapple sage
Heirloom tomatoes 
Potted strawberries, (with fruit on if I can keep the kids away!)

Wow! That's a lot of plants, and there are still dozens in the works, and more planned for next year.

Tassie plants:
This list is on the cusp of being bigger. Those Hobart plants are on the way, but it is staying cool, so they're taking their time. But while you're waiting.......
Lemon bottle brush  Calistemon pallidus
White dogwood Pomaderris apetala
Bluebottle daisy Lagenophora stipitata
White flag iris Diplarrena moraea
Blanket leaf Bedfordia salicina
Creeping everlasting Helichrysum scorpioides
Silver Banksia Banksia marginata


When I cleared a mass of weeds yesterday I found this thing in the photo below, but what on earth is it? Fungi, plant?? If you have any idea, please let us know.

Isn't it beautiful? About 1cm high, and those 'seeds' were stacked neatly inside the cone. Please tell me if you know!

Artichokes

 

Pretty artichokes. We have green globes ready to eat and French purple ready to plant. A stunning, hardy thing to have in the garden and scrumptious in the kitchen!

French sorrel, green globe artichokes and big garden fairy!

Come and see us tomorrow, Sunday the 28th on November, in the Melville St outdoor carpark from 9 to 1 at the Tas Farm Gate Market.

Pot-luck tomatoes

 

I've been a terrible nursery person. I rant and rave about provenance, about knowing the what, how, who of everything, and now I've blown it. I have two trays of lovely, healthy, sturdy, heirloom tomato plants, without labels! Oh no, the shame and horror of it, I won't be able to raise my head among my nursery friends again.  I've raised these lovely babies, but can't, in good conscience, take a stab in the dark and sell them as one thing when they may well be another. If I had enough cultivated ground I'd plant them here, but 50+ tomato plants already in the ground is enough for me to stake, prune, talk to and harvest, not to mention all the other goodies that are waiting for their spot in the garden. So, if I bring them down to the market on Sunday will anyone be game enough to buy them (at a generous discount of course!) and see what becomes of them? C'mon, take a gamble, tasty tomatoes will come of it whatever happens, but will they be black, cream, pink red or stripey, large, small or plum tomatoes? Only one way to find out!

I also have some lovely labelled tomato plants for those who know what they want, they are looking great, and right now is a perfect time to get them in. The varieties I'll have are:

BLACK ZEBRA   Heirloom. Purple mahogany coloured fruit to 4cm across with green-orange vertical stripes. Dark, firm flesh, with rich, smoky sweet flavour.

BRANDYWINE American Amish heirloom. Large, pink skinned, flattened, globular fruit. Reputed to have the best flavour.

DEBARAO  Small, red, egg shaped fruit with smooth skin to 4cm across and excellent flavour.

LEICESTER JONES  Bred in Tassie 25 years ago. Large pink, ridged fruit. Excellent flavour, good for Tassie conditions.

SNOW WHITE   Ivory fruit ripening to a pale yellow/cream, low acid.

SOLDACKI   Polish heirloom dating prior to 1900. Large, dark pink, flattened fruit with thin skin to 500g. Flesh is firm, deliciously sweet & low in acid.

STUPICE  Czechoslavakian heirloom, cold tolerant, with abundant sweet 2-3inch red fruit. Hardy, delicious and productive. *Our most productive here so far, early and cold tolerant.

THAI PINK EGG  Originating from Thailand & is today the most widely produced tomato in Thailand. Small, pink coloured, 'cherry' type fruit; 3-5cm long, or size of bantam egg. Changes from milky white with slight pink colour when young to darker pink as it matures. Plant 60-90cm. Hardy, disease resistant & resistant to cracking.

Bush variety - GEORGE (I don't know its real name, but George deserves a plant named after him!)
Fat, scrumptious field type, from George the market gardener near Margate, seed scavenged from a sauce tomato. 

And then, tomatillos!!!

Tomatillo, green variety, still ripening in June last year!

Have you ever come across tomatillos? I had a vague notion that they existed, but until growing them last Summer I had no idea of how wonderful they were. They are related to tomatoes, but the fruit are wrapped in a papery husk, or calyx. The variety I grew last year were green when ripe, but I'm also growing a purple variety this year. And they are brilliant, a completely new food for me, that was delicious and moorish from first bite. I guarantee that once you've tried them you'll be wanting some every year. We used them to make a green, lightly spiced sauce that we poached chicken in, and finished with toasted pumpkin seeds (see the recipe here). Raw they make a great salsa and I know that's only the tip of the iceberg. Due to an incident with a brushcutter last season, we went from having four plants to one in seconds, but the survivor yielded at lest 5 kg of fruit! A few market customers have shared their great ideas on how to utilise this wonderful fruit, it seems to be a bit of a club, tomatillo eaters, and the rest of the human species. So come and join the clique. I'll have plants of both green and purple varieties at the market this Sunday, and fruit at the market for your kitchen, when the weather decides it's time.....maybe mid-January? And if we're really in luck the South American culantro will be the new discovery for me this year and we can make a truly authentic salsa, or at least a Tasmanian approximation of one.

Tomatillo seedling, I can't wait!

Pretty flower, pity about the slug damage.

  

While I was wandering the internet looking for interesting tomatillo facts I read this unintended ad for chemical free farming:

Plants of P. ixocarpa were grown in the greenhouse in 1986 with seeds from a single fruit. Seeds were germinated in petri plates with wet filter paper. The plantlets were transferred to 7.5 cm pots and placed in the greenhouse. When plants reached 4 or 5 leaves (4 weeks), they were transplanted to the field. The field was ploughed twice at 25-30 cm deep, fertilized with 50 kg/ha 15-15-15 (NPK) and covered with black plastic mulch before transplanting. Rows were 120 cm apart with 60 cm between plants. Tomatillo plants were transplanted to the field on June 6, June 25, July 15, and August 1. Insecticide was applied at 15 day intervals. The first harvest was made after 6 weeks and harvesting continued at 10 day intervals for a total of seven harvests during the plant cycle. The estimated yield was 13,450 kg/ha. There was variation between plants in size, leaf shape, fruit size and shape, and yield. Fruit damage by lepidopterous insects was severe, probably reducing the yield by 20 to 30%. No major diseases were observed.

Yuck, that's no way to grow food! Black plastic, fake fertiliser and  pesitcides. Nope, what they needed was diversity. The little critters below are hoverflies whose babies devour pests like aphids, and then grow up to be dainty, efficient, little pollinators. In this picture they are pollinating my rat tailed radishes, for which I am very grateful!

Hoverflies

We germinated our seeds in composted pinebark mixed with sand, and grown in a re-used -plastic covered rabbit  hutch, before planting into a garden bed enriched with our compost, a lick of chook poo and mulching with mushroom compost. Our garden is a mix of different things, the bed the tomatillos were in also boasted some lovely Mexican marigolds for herbal teas, Winter and Summer savoury, tuberous chervil, wild rocket and rainbow chard. This diversity helps to prevent the type of infestation the plants in the trial seemed to suffer from. Pests can build up in phenomenal numbers when given a banquet of their favourite foods, with out the presence of other plants and animals that may keep the pests in check. And contact pesticides aren't that effective at killing animals that complete much of their lifecycle safely hidden inside fruit.  But they will kill beneficial creatures like our friends the hoverflies. And besides, who cares about a few caterpillars? (Unless it's half a one sticking out of your bitten salad sanger!) If all things are in balance on your plot you should be able to enjoy the fruits of your labour with minimal out breaks of pests and grub holes, and who would be without butterflies?

So come on down to the Tas Farm Gate this Sunday from 9 til 1 and see what's on offer! Broad beans and strawberries are on my shopping list.

This has nothing to do with food plants, but isn't it delightful! The Sky Lily Herpolirion novae-zelandie is usually found in high country where it forms dense mats covered in these amazing sky-coloured flowers every Spring. Here it is in a pot outside my back door where it makes me smile every morning!! See my friends at Plants of Tasmania Nursery if you fancy one for your place.