How to build a worm farm for almost nothing!

Hi blog people, 

This is me, relaxing on milkwood farm http://milkwood.net/ out near mudgee. Went with a friend who won a prize, very blessed to spend time out here under the stars, with like minded ppl, immersing ourselves in the world of vegetable growing and market gardening.

Spending time under here around the fire, and in the classroom too.

One of the things I learnt was that worm castings are an important ingredient in potting mix, and that worms will happily subsist on a diet of animal manure and coffee grinds... And already knew the worm liquid is amazing foliar spray - you dilute it and spray in leaves of plants...

At milkwood, their worm farms were made from old bathtubs raised on star pickets with some aggregate in the base, then a large piece of shadecloth over that, filled with all the worm food, the worms, and big enough that it can fold over the top to keep the worms shaded and moist.

The following week I headed out to our local tip which has a buy back centre. I came home with a pile of star pickets, a stainless steel industrial double sink and a garden kneeler for weeding for under $20!

Cleaned out under the rabbits, visited a local coffee shop for old grinds and a friend from permaculture who has worm farms was able to share some and hey presto - a worm farm for almost nothing :) a bucket under the drain collects the liquid, and the worms seemed to have fully settled in after a couple of weeks there!

Home sweet home!

Off to the show

Well, for my veges, not me :)

I have entered some of my produce in the local agricultural show, also some crochet, some pottery and a kasundi sauce I made the other week.

A collection of herbs - no flowers allowed

While I love doing this and showing what can be grown in a small suburban garden, I experience a huge frustration when I go and them get told that I have presented things wrong. I get told i have failed by leaving one inch of rhubarb leaves not three inches, or am disqualified for having flowers in my collection of herbs - borage, which I grow specifically for its flowers which are amazing in salads.

Root veges must be presented with leaves attached

Cherry tomatoes in bunches

Zucchinis are less than 20cm long otherwise they are marrows

Herbs have no flowers

Rhubarb and silverbeet must be pulled away from the plant not cut, 

Pumpkins must have stems attached

Most specimens must be presented on plates, or in a shallow tray

Any other suggestions people are aware of???

After I explained my frustration and it leading to my not entering anything last year one of the stewards said he would take on the responsibility of drafting a guideline for presenting fruit and veg! They're going to put it on the web so I will post a link once it's up. 

Has anyone else grown fruit or veg for the show before?

This is the link to our local show http://www.nowrashow.org.au/ 

And our figs ripening in the sun :)

Happy gardening...

Hannah

Harvest monday - jan 27 2014

Enjoying the blogger app for I-phone, so much easier to blog now! Anyhow, unlike those othe the northern half of the globe it's full production mode here in australia, so my garden is doing well. 

What I picked this morning....

Spring onion and parsley went into potato salad,  zucchinis might be part of dinner, the sweet corn definately will - it's the first ones I've harvested this year!

Egg will go in the pile as I used up most of them in some baking earlier this weekend, and strawberries and figs will probably be breakfast tomorrow! 

Loving meals from the garden.

Coffee from the source

Earlier this month I got to do something I had never done before. Pick and process some local coffee. I had seen coffee growing in the Sydney botanic gardens once when I lived there, but this was taking it to the next level. 

Now a developing polyculture chemical free farm Buena vista runs weekend workshops and sells produce through local markets and the not for profit food company http://www.greenbox.org.au/ that I also sell some of my produce through. 

We showed up to a beautiful day and a spread of tea, coffee and cake served with beautiful vintage china, then headed out for a tour of the farm. http://www.buenavistafarm.com.au/Buena_Vista_Farm/Welcome.html pigs with paddocks, chicken caravans, beautiful gardens, all overlooking the beautiful south coast!

Eventually we headed to the coffee plantation, which was planted in the top paddock of the old dairy farm after the farmer retired from milking, in the lounging paddock, soil built up over years of cattle resting there after feeding for the day. 

The coffee berries are red and sweet, and easy to pick, and lots of great conversations about coffee and the farm was had as the harvest was nearly over and there was actually not a lot left.

Once we had stripped off the remaining berries we headed back to the shed to process them, extracting the beans from the berries, cleaning mucous off and setting them out to dry. The beans need to dry for about a week before anything else can happen so luckily a previously picked batch was just finishing and we took that in to hull

Coffee beans are a little like peanuts once you get them out of the fruit, with a hull or husk, skin and then the bean inside, ready to roast. 

The roasting took place in a large steel tube with tines inside that stirred the beans as it turned over a gas flame. Sitting a talking about coffee and farming whilst listening for the coffee to "crack" in the afternoon sun was a pleasure. 

During the day we also were fed a beautiful lunch sourced almost entirely from the farm including pork sausages and smoked chicken... And then at the end of the day a coffee taste test and a coffee tree each to take home! I can reccomend a visit to the farm, or a try of any of their produce. 

I think it's happy here, already has two sets of new leaves. Let me know if you want to come over for coffee in around 2-3 years time :)

I think my next post might have to be on having patience...

Hannah

The magic of a fire and a shared meal

There is something amazing about the way a fire enthrall. It can seem that no other entertainment is necessary than the wonder at the way the flames dance and wave and gradually consume the wood they are fed. 

Of course if you are male like my husband they also call you to action - to feed them and poke them and rearrange them. 

We love to cook on the fire at the end if the day in summer, to sit around it eating meat toasted over the fire, watching the sun go down, maybe with a little music. Tonight an old friend shared the fire with us and we sat and chatted until it got dark and the fire started to get cold. 

What I love about summer....

Winemaking

Firstly, hello!

As mentioned in a previous post I was having issues with Internet on my laptop and have not been on here much, however found a mobile app yesterday and seems like I may be back on board :)

So we got an amazing lot of grapes off our wine grape this year - quality off sultana grape was so much less that I have promptly installed a drip irrigation system for the area around the sultana grape! It will benefit the raspberries, the mulberry and the new loquat and coffee plants too.

So after picking around 8-10 kg of grapes we are attempting this recipe http://www.food.com/recipe/wild-grape-wine-38780 and as I had a red wine yeast pkt we did add some store bought grape juice too. 

It was tedious boiling and then getting the liquid out through a clean tea towel but as the grapes did not all ripen at the same time it seemed to work better than anything else I've tried. 

The recipe says you need two vessels and siphon between them in initial stages so I will be off to buy another container today. I'll let you know how it goes in about a year!!! 

If anyone is still reading this I will be around more and please do comment and say hello.

Hannah

oops - set the smoke alarms off tonight :)

Cooking of course!

I found a recipe for Gozleme which is a rustic Turkish snack stuffed with silverbeet and salty feta.

I don't have silverbeet at the moment, so I used a mixture of Cavalo Nero, Mizuna and Beetroot leaves.

I found a 'good taste' magazine from last month at the op shop - so 50c instead of $4!

Gozleme:

600g plain flour

1tsp salt

410ml warm water

1/4c olive oil.

Mix til dough comes together, then knead until smooth and elastic... Recipe said for 10 mins... I learnt a new way of kneading on masterchef last week. Carefully stretch the dough out as much as you can by pulling one side toward you and pushing the other side away... then carefully roll it up. Only needed to do this about 6-8 times (less than one minute) and it was good, didn't stick to the bench at all.

Place in a bowl covered overnight if possible, or at least for the day (I mixed it up in the morning and cooked them for dinner.)

*for all the sourdough ppls out there, I actually redid recipe with sourdough - about 500g starter with 300g flour, salt and I forgot the oil, but it didn't seem to need it :)

Filling

6 cups finely shredded leaves

4 shallots finely chopped (the mini onion ones rather than the green onions)

100g ricotta

250g feta.

Mix well.

when ready to cook divide the dough into 6 portions.

One at a time roll out to a rectangle about 20x40cm

Top half the dough with the filling, leaving a 3cm border, fold the other half over and press edges together.

Recipe said to cook on flat BBQ plate on med low heat - drizzled with a little oil 5 mins or so each side... as it's wintery - cold and blowing a gale outside, I cooked on flat cast iron pan inside - which cooked really quickly - only 1-2 mins each side but well cooked inside and not burnt... although the smoke was all through the house :)

Serve cut in half with lemon or lime wedges to squeeze over!

I'm always looking for recipes using things that are in the garden - seasonal recipes...

To help this I have rearranged my recipe magazines into month by month, not worrying about what type of magazine, meaning that I can pull out all the magazines for the month I'm in a flick through to find something that I already have the ingredients for... In this recipe all I had to buy was the ricotta and the shallots. (Had some feta in the fridge already, and the limes are from my mum's garden. (Her tree gets so many there's no point planting my own tree :)

How do you plan seasonal recipes? any tips or ideas?

Garden update, may 2012

The garden is growing beautifully.

This bed has lettuce (with some baby broccoli planted - as the lettuce is not too far away from being munched and will make way for the broccoli to grow, We have started to pick some leaves but not whole plants, then garlic, some of which are growing strong, others didn't do so well. Onions getting bigger, beetroots as starting to plump up at the base - so excited for our home grown roast beetroot salads in winter. Carrots and parsnips also just starting to thicken....

This bed has rocket still going strong, picking basil in top left and dill bottom right, cabbages and broccoli starting to get bigger (although having to watch them carefully for catterpillers) but the stars of this bed today are the legumes, broad beans bottom left to top right (grown from my own seed) and peas the other direction. Both just over the height of the walls of the bed and looking healthy as. There are tall poles attached to each of the corners, the peas have a frame in already to start climbing up, wheras broad beans will just have twine wrapped around them as they grow as they need support but don't use it to grow, whereas peas send out little feelers that grab onto the trellis and pull themselves up...

I can almost taste them!

Have a happy day xo :)

Gratefulness

Rasperries surprising me with red globes of goodness, it didn't last very long as a ring....

Sunshiny days spent in the garden and at the beach with a friend, eating icecream by the bay....

Knowing that God is with us, never forsakes us, even when we feel a little lost...

Beautiful babies to create for. This is a jumpsuit with a skirt added to make a little dress for winter, perfect for little Hadassah, my friends' new daughter.

Weekends :)

Gardening and Cooking with Friends

It was lovely to spend the morning gardening and cooking with some friends from the permaculture group and with some friends from church who are interested in similar things.

Jody and Deeann weeding the cherry tomato jungle - and all the subsequent weeds, pruning the grape vine and harvesting what they could.

We spent the morning gardening, below you can see the other garden bed near the house weeded, mulched and the rhubarb plants were dug up, divided and replanted with soil food - horse manure and dynamic lifter! We then stopped for (a couple of pots of) tea and lamingtons, and then spent the rest of the morning cooking. Made sweet chilli and tamarillo sauce, posted about that one last week, bottled pears and demonstrated and discussed drying food. I am currently experiementing with my first fruit leather.

Jody really enjoyed bottling fruit and was very proud of her bottle of pears.

Working with 4 is so much more productive than one.

Thanks for those who came lending a hand. hope you had fun, and your cuttings grow well!

Have a lovely day xo

Bush Tucker Harvest

About three years ago I planted a Midyim berry plant

Daley's Fruit Nursery have this blurb about them

Have to be the morst delicious of all the Australian Bushfoods. They can vary in flavour from extremely sweet to a rather aromatic almost menthol flavour. They occur naturally on the coast, from northern NSW up to Fraser Island in QLD and were a favourite food among local Aborigines. they do best in a shady sheltered place, with well, drained soil but are very adaptable to most sites if water is available. They make a great ground cover, tube specimen or garden plant. They are attractive, growing to a maximum height of 1m and width of about 80cm. Narrow pointed leaves, 1-3cm long which are silky and red/pink when young, giving them a lovely flush of colour. They have a delicate mass of white fluffy flowers, which occur in spring and summer. They can produce fruit twice a year - jan and april. fruit is best eaten freash, seeds and all, but can be added to fruit salads, into a pie or made into a fabulous native jam.

Three fruit up close, you can see they are a light grey, speckled with blackish dots.

I have my bush planted under the apricot tree, and after I mulched the courtyard food forest it has just taken off!

Also spent the morning putting small nets over the new pears to see what they do, there were about 15 formed pears all up!

Off to babysit my gorgeous nephew now as his regular babysitter has a meeting and I am not at work. Looking forward to taking him to the park as there has been a break in the rain and the sun is shining :)

Have a happy day xx

It's Autumn here.... or is it spring

So I live in Australia, which means at the moment as the northern hemisphere are enjoying the weather getting warmer... here it's getting colder.

But... perhaps due warmer weather accompanying recent heavy rains, it appears my garden has decided to put out in hopes that winter might have been and gone.

This is my almond flowering.

And some budding pears! There's about ten or so pears forming. I won't worry about the almonds, but I think I'll net the pear and see how big they get.

Otherwise normal activity in the garden... pulling out spend summer plants - beans, capsicum, tomatoes and feeding the bed in preparation for planting autumn legumes on the weekend.

Have a happy day xo

Exciting new project... and chokes!

Very exciting to be asked to be part of a new blogging project -

can't say much yet but know it will be fun

And bless your world

and mine

For now you can see the photo shoot done to start setting up the blog....

Soup for lunch!

Made from Jerusalem Artichokes straight from the garden.

These were planted in the spot they're growing about three years ago, got a harvest the first year, then little the next, then they were mulched over with newspaper and woodchips and suddenly they made a reappearance!

They are a member of the sunflower family and you just eat the tuber - great sliced thinly in salads, pureed and mashed, or just baked.

Jerusalem Artichoke Soup.

Saute One onion diced in 20-30g butter.

Add 500+g jerusalem artichokes (scrubbed and chopped roughly) and 1 litre vegetable stock

Bring to boil and simmer 15 mins or until soft. Puree and season.

Delicious!

First prize at the show!

First I thought I would share my latest blackboard photo. We painted a blackboard in out kitchen, about the size of a door, where we can write messages, draw pictures, and of course ask others to contribute to the communal artwork. The latest one includes a picture I drew of a date J and I went on, a rainbow drawn by my neighbour, some scribbles by my 18m old nephew and my little toadstool...


It's now a clean slate and ready for some friends and guests to leave their mark....

To make your own blackboard, just buy some blackboard paint, pick a wall and paint about 3 layers of paint on... It's that easy. Paint is water based and works really well.


I also entered some produce and products at the local show this past weekend. I got first for carrot cake, zucchini, capsicum, roma tomatoes and plum jam, second for white bread, fancy bread (I made raisin toast) scrapbooking, set of cards and bottled mulberries in syrup.

Some judges have silly rules. I got nothing for the best collection of herbs, because a couple of mine were in flower, and only second for mulberries when I was the only one in the category because the jar wasn't full. I don't make these things to sit on a shelf and look pretty, I make them to eat! And with the herbs, the one they pointed out was Borage of which I only eat the flower... arghh. Someone needs to write a guidebook for entering things at the show...

Enough of my rant. I also got three highly commendeds for photos I entered, and I am going to use all the photos I printed as gifts to people through the year.

Lots happening at the farm... all 1/8 of an acre of it :)

I am loving having a strong set of arms (belong to my husband) who is happy to dig holes, move heavy things and is currently installing my fence between the lawn area and the vege garden area. All the posts are in now, just need two more recycled hardwood rails - from my BIL who is renovating his and my sister's house and ripped out some walls.

I have been busy in the kitchen...

Sourdough english muffins for breakfast this morning...

Sundried tomato and olive sourdough loaf....

And exciting to be bottling the first produce entirely from the garden! 4 size 20 jars of yummy rhubarb. I was given the plants from a special friend who was killed in a freak car accident shortly afterward and they are very special to me. This year I divided most of the original plants and they are doing so well. I always make sure I leave two leaves and one baby leaf on each plant when I am picking it.

Sourdough loaf (you need starter from a friend or watch multitudes of youtube videos on how to grow your own.

Feed your starter with a flour/water mix the night before

Before work the next morning....

1 cup starter

1 cup water

1/2 tsp salt

1 tbsp sugar or honey (only if going to be a fruit loaf)

I put all these in a mixer with a dough hook and then add plain flour (mix of regular and wholemeal) until dough forms a lump and comes away from the sides.
Then place dough - still a bit sticky - in an oiled bowl and turn a few times to coat in oil (stops it drying out) Put the whole bowl in a plastic shopping bag and leave all day.

When you get home from work.

Tip dough (should have about doubled in size) onto well floured bench.

For a plain loaf - knead a minute or two then put in loaf tin

for a fruit loaf - knead a minute then use fingers to spread dough out into a rectangle. Sprinkle mixed fruit (I am using sultanas/raisings and dried plums at the moment) and 1 tsp mixed spice onto the bread, then fold it over and knead the fruit through a little. Place in loaf tin.

For a savoury loaf. Do the same but use sundried tomatoes and olives (no pits) chopped roughly and I use mixed italian herb sprinkle too. Place in loaf tin.

Leave for 1-2 hrs. (I have noticed that there is a warm spot just in front of my oven... not sure why, but tins go there while oven heats up)

Bake in a hot oven 200-220'c for 30-35 mins

Should pop out of tin straight away.

(loaves can also be made freeform on a pizza stone)

delicious toasted.... just had two slices of fruit toast to prove it.

Anyone have any other interesting sourdough recipes

Hannah xo

vege garden update

Everything is growing, and currently it's raining and all the plants are loving it! In this bed all the potatoes are up and I have filled in their trench with the soil I had taken out of it. When they grow some more I'll pile up some compost and straw for the potatoes to keep growing and more of a harvest out of a small space.

In the middle I have just planted fennel, beetroot and climbing beans under the frame. On the end near us is some silverbeet from my sister which has just taken off this week, picked first leaves this morning to have on sourdough toast with poached eggs.

On the right from front to back is basil, carrots, eggplant, lettuce, okra, tomatoes and capsicum, more carrots and rocket.

The photo of the other garden didn't work but we are eating cabbage, broad beans, coriander, broccoli, celery, kale and onions.

In the very rear of this photo you can also see the great fence my hubby is putting up for me, it is to hold an antique blacksmiths vice from his great grandfather, and to seperate the vege garden from the rest of the yard. I am going to use the thickest straightest prunings to use as palings to make it look as natural as possible and will use it to grow something, maybe passionfruit? Any other suggestions...?

Upcycling - recycling but better.

Rhonda over at Down to Earth posted this week on recycling and asked others to talk about their efforts. My house, and the majority of it's contents are recycled in some way, in fact it's only in the last year or so that I have ever bought new furniture (although I did buy new whitegoods when I moved into my house as I had given my old ones away a year before when I moved from Sydney to the south coast to board with friends.

My garden beds are recycled from old fences, rabbit cage from an old chook cage that was chucked out on the side of the road, Some of my plants are recycled (cuttings, saplings from other gardeners, even a mature pear tree that someone gave us in return for digging it out of her garden.) About half of my kitchen equipment is recycled, handed down by an aunt when she replaces things, collected at op shops and garage sales etc. Clothes the same. The list could go on....

Probably my favourite example of recycling/upcycling is my wedding. (click on hyperlink to go to photographer's blog) I got married in June and a lot of things were recycled. Candle holders from op shops and markets, vases from a friend at church, ring holder made from an antique prayer book by inserting a secret hole by cutting out with a punch. We also had a friend drive me to the wedding in a recycled boat (he bought it worse for wear and did it up) some friends were taking bets that I would fall in as there wasn't a proper jetty and we had to walk off the front of the boat

The most important upcycled item was my wedding dress. I purchased it over ten years ago (about 9 or so years before I met my husband but anyhow, it was a steal) in a second hand shop as it was beautiful and fit me like it was made for me... It was a bit old in style though - think lace sleeves with frills over your hands, high frilly neck. I unpicked the sleeves and worked out that I could modernise the dress by pulling it to the sides. Lucky for me I have an amazing friend who studied fashion design and together we recreated the dress....
And it was an amazing wedding!

This last photo is a photo of us recycling a shed - It was originally recycled with old corrugated iron roofing, built around an old cottage fireplace with chimney - to use as kitchen for a camp, and storage when camp not on.

It was blown down in storms last year in September (on father's day - Aussies will remember the weather on the south coast) and we rerecycled it.

Spring and all it's sweetness

My garden is full of spring, new seedlings, lots of broad beans ready for picking, grass growing faster than it has through winter.... but my favourite thing is flowers... especially on the fruit trees. This is my nectarine, which is one of the last to flower. We had a couple of days of high 20's even up to 30 degrees celcius here in the last week, and it finally decided to bloom.


Also blooming is my new pear tree... and the most gorgeous baby pears forming after the flowers are done... I think it's a new favourite, they are just so perfect. The apple trees are just budding, small bunches of tiny buds pushing out of their branches almost miraculously.

Chamomile... looking forward to harvesting some of my own for tea...

Citrus... limes, oranges, lemons and more... the scent in the morning is divine. I am watching out for the descent of the stink bugs, but they haven't arrived yet and I am hoping that newspaper and mulch that has gone down over the last year may just have broken the cycle....

Roses... just because they're beautiful, and I think I pruned at the right time this year

Grapes... one vine already has tiny bunches coming out. The sultana I planted two years ago is growing leaves but no fruit yet... hopefully it still will.

Strawberries, mustn't forget them... have started work on a driveway of strawberries. Can't wait to see it complete, but as we have to kill off the difficult weeds and grasses that are underneath, it is going to be a work in progress for a while.

learning new skills

A year or two ago I bought some cake decorating equipment at a garage sale. My grandma has a history of beautiful cake decorating, equisite fine lacework and my parents wedding cake (in fact every wedding cake of my aunts and uncles) my dedication cake and other special events were all celebrated with cakes she had made.

Today I spent the morning with a friend from church learning and experimenting with how to use some of the equipment I had purchased. These are the piped butter icing cakes, a sunflower, a flower and a swirl. Then we played with fondant, and I made a rose and a carnation. Amy my friend has attended two short courses and then taught herself the rest, and is very inspiring. She was very impressed with the supplies I had bought... and it may have inspired her to start attending garage sales :)

I had one of the cakes for afternoon tea with a cup of earl gray, and it was very nice.

Then while I listened to a uni lecture, I made cassoulet - I have been wanting to make this since we ordered it on our honeymoon in july and it was delicious, both then and now. I roasted vegetables to go with it, and the sage, leeks, kale, potatoes and sweet potatoes were from my garden! And served with my sourdough bread... The proportion of food from the garden is steadily increasing...

I didn't find this recipe on any of the websites, but the place we went served the dish with an amazing crumb, reminded me of farofa from brasil. The chef told me it was almond meal and sage in olive oil.

My version of sage crumb
1 cup breadcrumbs
1/4 cup almond meal
1 clove garlic crushed
small bunch sage leaves finely chopped
s and p
2 tbsp olive oil

Lightly cook garlic in oil then add other ingredients, turning to coat crumb with oil and prevent burning. Ready when fragrant and lightly brown. Serve generously sprinkled over cassoulet

Speaking of the garden, yesterday I visited a gardening friend and came away with a plum tree sucker I had been wanting ever since eating the fruit of one of the other trees, a fig tree, warrigal greens, leeks, carrot seedlings, mint, currant bushes, turnips, and land cress. Everything seems to be growing well, and the bunnies are enjoying the pepino leaves she picked for them.

fire's burning....

We have been enjoying clearing up some of the remains of my recent kitchen renovations by making use of the firepit. it's a 44 gallon drum made from steel and cut in half that I picked up at the tip for $2 or so. I drilled holes around the base on the outside to allow for ventilation and propped it up on a couple of old bricks and hey presto - it's a fireplace. I have a grate I can put over the top to make it a bbq too.


There's something magical about flames, I can sit and watch them for hours, occasionally adding a log or repositioning... We have had a few dinner parties now outside around it with mugs of soup and fresh bread, cooking damper as the coals die down (delicious) or just enjoying it while people are arriving and chatting. an essential part of the backyard :)