Spider

Gardening Australia Episode On Air

Back in June I told you about Gardening Australia coming to my house to film my garden and to build a potato cage with me. you can watch that episode at these times:

• Saturday, 25th of August at 6.30pm on ABC 1
• Sunday, 26th of August at 1pm on ABC 1
• It will be on ABC iview in the Lifestyle section until the 7th of September
• If you miss all of those times it can be downloaded from the Gardening Australia Website for years to come - it's episode 22, 25/08/2012 - This won't be available until the 26th of August.

Lemons and a Lime

My Lemon and Lime trees are being much more productive this year; don't get me wrong though they're not giving us bags full, but it is better then previous years.

Gardening Australia!

Today Gardening Australia came to my garden to shoot a story! I'm not sure when it will be put to air but it's all very exciting. They came early this morning and left mid afternoon. We did lots of little shoots around the garden and Jane Edmanson helped me build a potato cage. I'll keep you informed about the viewing times of my story.

The crew and all there gear:

The finished potato cage:

Dwarf Peas

I recently planted the dwarf snow pea, dwarf sugar snap peas and dwarf shelling peas that I was growing in a tray. I've constructed some trellis out of stakes and wire mesh to grow the peas up. You can't see the trellis very well but there are three sections; two of them are straight and one is round. This is the first time I've grown peas in the garden bed and not in tubs so I'm being extra diligent with my snail spotting. I've spread around used coffee ground to try and deter the snails and slugs but it doesn't last long with all the rain we're having.

Fingers Crossed for a Productive Winter

All the seeds I bought back in February have been sown and are all seedlings now. To protect the mini wongbok, baby broccoli and purple sprouting broccoli from snails and slugs I've placed plastic bottle collars around them. Previously I've had great success deterring slugs and snails by spreading coffee grounds around the plants so I did the same this time as well. My local cafe saves big bags of used coffee grounds for me whenever I ask; organic and free pest control! My garlic is going well so far, unlike last years garlic that failed miserably.

I stated a tub of dwarf snow peas 7 weeks ago and there going really well. I also started a tray of dwarf snow peas, dwarf sugar snap peas and dwarf shelling peas. I know your suppose to start peas in the ground but it rained everyday for a week so I just started them in a tray, fingers crossed it won't hurt them too much in the long run.

Radishes & Turnips

My well proven theory that home grown always tastes better than store bought made me take the risk of planting something I'd never eaten before. It could have gone wrong had I disliked either of them but that couldn't be further from the truth. They do live up to there reputation of being super easy to grow! I did slightly neglect them but they still turned out well and I'm glad I took the risk. I planted Watermelon Radishes and De Nancy Turnips.

Radishes

Turnips

Using the Harvest - Oven Dried Tomatoes

With the never ending harvest of tomatoes this year I've  had to come up with more creative ways to use them up other than tomato sauce! I looked on the Internet and found a way to oven dry them. 

Ingredients

Tomatoes

Thyme/ Rosemary/ Oregano

Olive oil

Garlic

Instructions

1. Pre-heat oven to the lowest temperature possible; mine is 140 oC. Oil a baking tray.

2. Cut tomatoes in half and place them cut side up. Drub rosemary, thyme and oregano with oil and put them in between the tomatoes. Spray/ drizzle the top of the tomatoes with olive oil.

3. Bake for 2-6 hours. After 2 hours check cherry tomatoes to see if there done. You want them to be squishy but not brittle. 

4. Sterilize a jar and place a whole garlic clove, spring of rosemary (or other woody herb) and cooled tomatoes; fill to the top with olive oil. 

*Notes* Don't put in the fridge other wise the oil will 'set'. Use within a few weeks; but they'll be gone before you know it! Check the oven every half hour to make sure none of the tomatoes have burnt.

Using the Harvest - Basil Pesto

Home made pesto is super easy to make and it's 10x better then anything you can buy at the store. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients

Bunch of basil

45g of toasted pine nuts

60g of grated parmesan

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

5 tablespoons of light olive oil

Instructions
1. Combine the basil, pine nuts, parmesan and garlic in a food processor and wiz until finely chopped.
2. With the motor still running slowly add the olive oil in a slow but constant stream. Once all the oil has been used scrap the bottom of the food processor and wiz again to combine everything.
3. That's it! You can store it in the fridge for a couple days but if the top is left exposed it oxidises and goes brown. To counter act this either cover with oil or push glad wrap onto the top surface. If this fails the brown top can be scraped away but the bottom is still good to go!

Dwarf Peach

I received a gift card for a home improvement store for Christmas and I decided to buy a dwarf peach with the money. I'm really excited to see how it goes and fingers crossed I'll be eating peaches soon. 

Tomatoes, Tomatoes, and even more Tomatoes

The tomatoe plants are surcuming to black spot quicker than I'd like but they're still giving me lots of tomatoes from them. This morning I picked just over 1kg of tomatoes from 2 of my cherry tomato plants, the yellow pear plant, a grosse lissie plant and a Tigerella plant.

Winter Veggies

Summer is coming to an end and it felt like I was only just started to figure out what summer veggies to grow. I visited the Diggers Club today and bought up my winter veggie seeds.

Peas - I had such success with my dwarf snow peas last year that I thought I'd have a go with a climbing pea and a sugar snap variety also

• Dwarf Snow Pea 
• Dwarf Sugar Snap Pea
• Purple Podded Dutch Pea

Below Ground Crops - I was hesitant to even try growing below ground crops with the many failures I've had, but I think I've learn from last years mistakes and I'm giving it another go. 

• Turnip De Nancy 
• Watermelon Radish
• Red Marble Onion
• Mammoth Purple Garlic

I'm also super excited to see who my broccoli and cabbage so since I haven't try growing these before and they are always a luxury buy at the supermarket!

• Baby Broccoli 
• Purple Sprouting Broccoli
• Mini Wongbok Cabbage 

Mega Zucchini

I picked this zucchini off my costata zucchini zine yesterday and it weights 1kg!

My Garden Friends

This morning I was greeted by a parade of garden friends. There was a pray mantis on one of the grasses,  a lady beetle eating powdery mildew on my zucchini plant, a spider setting up camp near my malabar spinach and a stick insect hanging out on my chilli plant.

Colour Hunt

Over the last two weeks my days have all started the same; I go outside in a search for colour. Generally I'm disappointed but the last two days have been promising. I've been waiting for all my beautiful green veggies to turn colour so I pick & eat them! I haven't had much produce from the garden beside my green, purple and butter beans and I'm itching for a big bowl of tomatoes!

My grosse lissie tomatoes are all still green, the tigerella tomatoes are almost ready and the pumpkin still has a long way to go.

The Jalapeno and Standard chillies are still green but the capsicum's are starting to turn.

Mum & I in the Garden

New Years Harvest

2012 has arrived nicely with my first reasonably sized harvest.  I picked some Green & Butter Beans, Spacemaster Cucumber, Costata Zucchini, Strawberries, Yellow Tumbling Tomatoes & Mini Mama Capsicum this morning. I also have my first Wrinkled Butternut Pumpkin forming and some more cucumbers and zucchinis.

Me standing next to the pumpkin ladder.