Category: Gardening

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The power of sunshine

On days when the sun shines it always seems that you can achieve anything. This morning waking to a glorious blue sky was a wonderful surprise after the cold and wet of the last few days. The vege garden is bursting along with growth – it’s hard to keep up with the caterpillars who probably think they have found paradise. I’m not too fussed as long as they leave us enough food for our dinner. Today was worm tea day – plants get fed every two weeks. I found out a few month ago that my in laws had a worm farm and weren’t using the worm tea. Now that I have told them they can use it as fertilizer and how to dilute it (1:10) we have family squabbles about who should get the supply of worm tea each time.  It has encouraged me to start thinking about starting our own worm farm as the plants just love the worm tea and it would mean we could recycle our organic waste. We presently share a small wheelie bin with my mum but if we reduced our organic waste we could perhap share our bin with a third person in the street or change to a company that only picks the bins up when you want it picked up. The worm tea would also make a great gift idea for friends who garden (although not the most fragrant gift!)

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To Leek or not to Leek

I have been umming and aahing for weeks over sowing leeks. Every different source of information I read gives me varying advice as to when I can plant them – it gets very confusing for a learner vege gardener. I’m not even sure I like leeks but I have become so enthralled with the pleasure of eating our lovely home grown spring onions and red onions that I thought I would continue with the onion family. My pack of mini leek seeds tells me I should have had them sown by early summer – December – but seemingly there are lots of opinions Gardening: The leeks you want – Gardening – NZ Herald News so I’ve decided this morning to go ahead and give it a go. I can always take them in over winter as they will be in pots. On the sowing list this morning was also more baby carrots, spring onions, winter spinach, heritage lettuces from Koanga nursery and mixed variety lettuces. While writing this I am munching away on gorgeous cherry tomatoes (must plant lots more next year!). Everything I have grown over the last year has been from seed – it feels a much greater achievement than buying seedlings from plant shops. I was so proud this morning to see my first 3rd generation lettuce growing happily – grown from seed I collected from lettuces that had self seeded from my first set of lettuce seedlings that I bought two years ago. My mother-in-law has also collected seed from the lettuces I grew for her and has in turn passed extra seed on to her sister. My $3 investment in six lettuce seedlings two years ago has produced at least a hundred lettuces so far and will continue to grow hundreds more for a growing group of people.

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Summer Garden Challenge

My summer garden of veges in pots on the front porch is booming away. Lettuces, spring onions, red onions, mesculun, peas are all providing us with summer veges. The beans, cherry tomatoes and parsley are not quite there yet but should be ready in a week or two. Yesterday I sowed more spring onions, lettuces, chives, basil thai and parsley. Now that I’ve got the hang of keeping a constant supply of veges I thought I would branch out with the type of seeds I am trying. So yesterday I purchased some organic seeds from Commonsense Organics. I am looking forward to seeing what type of lettuces grow from my Koanga Gardens  heritage lettuce mix. My next step is to get some certified organic potting mix so I can raise some organic herb seedlings and pass them on to friends/family as gifts.

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Mesculun Mess

With my new job last week keeping me busy I was very proud of the fact that I managed to find the time and energy to get sowing some mesculun seed. I borrowed a long trough from my mum, filled it with potting mix, sowed the seed and then watered it lovingly for two days watching it eagerly each day. On day three to my horror I found that one of my beloved furry family members had decided it was just perfect for a litter tray! I almost cried. I decided to reuse the potting mix by putting it into some smaller containers and sowed some sunflower seeds in these as the potting mix could no longer be used for vegetables. I then started all over again sowing my mesculun but this time I recycled some of my husband’s fence netting and used that to cover the trough. There definitely are times that buying your vegetables from the supermarket is a lot easier than growing them yourself but you then don’t have the memorable stories to reminisce over as you eat your hard earned home grown vegetables at meal time.

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Spring growth

I popped outside to feed my vegetables today and there were my lettuces already germinating after only three days since sowing. It is so cheap to grow from seed as long as you are willing to wait – which is something as modern consumers we are not so good at. Yesterday was such a lovely day for gardening – I went and worked in my mum’s garden to help out and make a bit of extra money for myself. I hadn’t been in her garden for about a month and it was so lovely to see everything I had planted a month ago – lettuces, spring onions, sweet peas all doing so well. She hadn’t been watering her peas though! More sweet pea seeds went in yesterday – they are so lovely to have as a splash of colour around the garden. A number of plants around the garden have self-seeded – too many for mum’s small garden – so my next task is to transfer them into pots and pass them on to other people. Everyone has old pots in their garden/garage – if you run out ask around, there shouldn’t be any need to buy pots. Anything can pass for a pot as long as you can put holes in the bottom of it. That way my only expense is potting mix and a few seeds everynow and then.

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Food Focus

I’m going to have to cheat this week and buy some lettuce seedlings. Our Green Salad Bowl lettuce is still going well and our Cos lettuce is ready to eat but the warm weather has brought with it lovely eager insects and anything could happen over the next few weeks to my lettuces if the insects start to win the war. So as a safety measure I am going to bridge the gap between my plants and my seed growing by planting some shop bought seedlings. It is still cheaper than buying lettuce from the supermarket to eat – I was given gardening centre vouchers from my workplace when I left my job so it won’t affect the budget buying seedlings. Hubby was so excited with his eating his first Cos leaves on Sunday that straight after dinner I went out and sowed some more for him. Our spring onions have taken off and we love having them ready to toss into everything – last night they were perfect for chicken fried rice. If you don’t have a recipe try Simon Holst’s one Simon Holst’s fried rice  – I stole his grated carrot idea, it adds lovely texture and colour to the fried rice.

Chicken Fried Rice – Simon Holst

250g boneless and skinless chicken breast or thighs, 2 tsp soy sauce, 1 tsp sesame oil, 1 tsp grated fresh ginger (optional) , 3 Tbsp canola or other oil, 1 large egg, 1 Tbsp water, 1-2 spring onions, finely chopped 1 medium carrot, grated 1/4 cup frozen peas, 1 1/2-2 cups cooled cooked rice, 1/4-1/2 tsp salt.

 Place the chicken in a sturdy plastic bag and add the soy sauce, sesame oil and ginger (if using), then massage the bag to coat the chicken. Leave to marinate for 15 minutes or refrigerate for up to 24 hours.

Heat 1 tablespoon of the canola oil in a large non-stick frypan. Add the marinated chicken and cook for 3-5 minutes per side, depending on thickness, until cooked through, then remove from the pan and set aside.

Lightly beat together the egg and water, then pour into the pan. Cook until it sets into a thin omelette, then lift out and set aside.

Add another tablespoon of oil to the pan. When it is hot add the spring onion and carrot and stir-fry for 2-3 minutes. Stir in the peas, rice and the last tablespoon of oil. Cook, stirring frequently, for another 3-4 minutes or until the rice is heated through (add a little extra oil if the rice sticks).

Slice or dice the chicken and the omelette and stir into the mixture. Season to taste and serve.

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36 days after my resignation

I’ve been so busy getting all my tasks at work finished off before I leave that I’ve only just realised over a week has flown by. I never thought  resigning would be so much hard work – I have just finished at least a 70 hour week and still have more hours to do at the weekend. To fit everything in I am writing this at ten past midnight! My poor plants have been slightly neglected but I have managed to water them every few days while racing out in the morning to work. My seeds are continuing to germinate away quite happily. Despite being absolutely exhausted each day we have stuck to our budget and resisted takeaways on the way home from work. Hubby who is absolutely anti-gardening admitted tonight while we were making dinner that he loves having home grown lettuce that he can get whenever he wants. He is eagerly awaiting the spring onions to have their spurt of growth – probably two weeks off if we can get some good sunshine.  Of course he just wants to eat the food, he doesnt want to help grow it. I found a possible job today for December and January so have to get my CV organized this weekend also and send it off – fingers crossed. Also have to get hubby’s GST return done tomorrow. How many hours are there in a weekend?

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28 days after my resignation – Drunken Woman

Well it is four weeks ago today that I gave in my resignation. It feels great until you realise there is only one more pay check and then the money stops coming in. It is getting a little scary now as reality gets closer. Came home today to find my Drunken Woman Fringed Head lettuce seeds had germinated after five days. This frilly red tinged lettuce made it into the NZ Gardener Sept 2010 for their 100 best vege picks for growing in Kiwi gardens. It seemingly likes hot summers and cold winters and is happy to reproduce when left to seed – my kind of lettuce. Given that a lettuce was $3.97 in our Countdown today my growing efforts in the garden are saving us a fair amount of money each week. Not quite saving me a weekly salary though! Hubby is starting to put in growing requests now – he would like some Cos lettuce in the garden so will have to round up some seeds and get planting.

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24 days after my resignation

Today I came across the old label from my prolific self-seeding lettuce that I have been writing about for the last few weeks – Green Salad Bowl – I finally know what I have been eating most nights. This is a great loose leaf variety which grows happily in any container. We have about eight lettuces on the go so we don’t over pick one particular lettuce. My mixed lettuce seedlings (grown from seed) I transplanted into their ‘pots’ today and I also started sowing Drunken Woman , Biscia Rossa, Buttercrunch and Little Gem lettuces in newspaper pots. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW4t_6dTAvA&feature=related My seeds seem to like our warm laundry and all my seeds over the last year and a half have happily sprouted without any effort. I just grow them in toilet rolls or newspaper pots with potting mix and cover with a piece of newspaper. My last lot of lettuce seeds I sowed straight outside in an ice cream container and they seemed to like it so I will see how my inside seeds go in terms of germinating and compare the two methods. I might need to move my pots soon to some other spot on the site as it is starting to become hazardous to enter by the front door and I imagine the number of pots will continue to grow once I am unemployed in four weeks time. I wonder if hubby will be happy to live on lettuce if I don’t find a new job?

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18 days after my resignation

So now after 18 days the question everyone keeps asking me is “Have you found a new job yet?” I have been casually looking but part of the reason I gave up my job was that it wasn’t good for me so I don’t really want to go back to a similar job. I want to see if it is possible to alter my career somehow without losing everything I have worked for including the house that I built with hubby. Today hubby and I did garden maintenance on my mum’s property – it was lovely to be outside in the fresh air gardening and cleaning up. You get a real sense of satisfaction getting a job completed and being able to see something completed. I have found a new love over the last year – growing food for almost no cost. Today I planted out some of my pea seedlings into my mum’s garden Growing peas. I have found they tend to be quite happy being transplanted if you just plant them toilet roll and all.   

The two parsley plants I gave my mum earlier on in the year have grown into almost a giant shrub – I think I might need to find her a few recipes that use a lot of parsley!