adaption and resilience

For me, climate change is on the doorstep.

If I differentiate the back of the house from the front, the two spaces each have a different combination of energies or microclimate. For example, the back yard has the air moving quite differently as it tumbles off the multi-story house at the rear. Whereas the front yard is somewhat sheltered from the wind by our own home and the surrounding limestone wall. The back yard is mostly shaded, whereas the front yard is in full sun, apart from one section that has some afternoon shade from the neighbour’s carport.

All the garden ’soil’ is black sand, alkaline, free draining, and repels water.

We are considering installing a greywater reuse system and rainwater tanks as Perth’s 800 mm rainfall is reducing each year. The sprinkler ban during winter and now back to only being able to use irrigation twice per week is not enough to easily manage a lush food producing garden.

At the moment I consider myself fortunate in that I have the opportunity to grow my own food and that it is still a choice. That is, if I don’t grow food in my garden I can go to the shops and I buy what I need. It may not be as tasty, and there will be dozens of other decisions to make such as do I buy the local oranges from Gin Gin, Western Australia, oranges from South Australia, or from California. And that is not including the varieties or whether to buy organic or biodyanmic.

Eventually, we will have the greywater reuse system, rainwater tanks, solar hot water system fixed and back on the roof (currently we are using gas), and a photovoltaic system. We already have a pretty light carbon footprint, but we will do our best to look at ways of reducing it further.

Working with the climate, adapting to it, I feel is a better way of living sustainably and increasing resilience. So no, we won’t be installing the exterior uplights, swimming pool, or airconditioner that appears to be the new home essentials.

organic and biodynamic weekend

Saturday was mostly taken up with Yoke’s ‘Wholegrain, Sprouted Wholegrain and Essene Sourdough’ workshop. A dozen of us ate and baked our way through:

• wholemeal sourdough sandwich bread
• multigrain sourdough bread (sweet and moist)
• black rice sourdough ciabatta (very sweet and dramatic looking)
• quinoa spelt sourdough bread (would look great with red quinoa)
• light rye spelt sourdough bread
• dark rye spelt bread
• essene bread (we made wafers and decided these may have been early ryvita but much tastier)

Yoke demonstrated making a multigrain sourdough bread dough, which we got to take home to bake. Also, we had the choice of what dough to make ourselves to bake at home. I made a quinoa spelt sourdough bread with 50% cooked quinoa and 50% sprouted quinoa. Apart from being a bit big for my small loaf tin and the difficulty of getting it out, the crust was crisp and the bread was delicious. We had it with Borlotti Bean soup on Sunday.

Now I need a kitchen gadget, i.e. a juicer/grinder to pulverise the sprouted grains. Having seen Yoke’s Samson – it was so quiet and steady, I’ll wait until I can save up for something similar. However, apart from the essene bread and multigrain, I can bake the other breads from the workshop and perfect these. What is really great about them, is that they require a lot of starter. Great for the those days, when it is plentiful and raring to go.

Armed with sun hats and umbrellas, on Sunday we went up to the WA Biodynamic Festival at High Vale Biodynamic Orchard in Pickering Brook. It did rain while we took a tour of the orchard, but the weather was warm and we missed the very heavy downpour. The guide’s presentation was interesting and he answered many questions clearly and succinctly. A article written about biodynamic vs traditional farming was posted with a photographic display of the farm that explained that a biodynamic farmer’s enthusiasm for the health of the soil is what makes them different to traditional farmers that rely on products brought onto the farm.

One of the reasons we went to the Biodynamic Festival, is that they promised tasting of their core cider. It was worth the drive. Unfortunately, we could only taste it. Distribution is not happening until January next year. We’ll be watching out for it.

Over Saturday and Sunday, I emptied the worm factory tray ready to plant seedlings, and moved the compost bin for the first time. Also planted two lots of cucumbers (bush crop and burpless), sweet corn, basil, and red onions. I planted the seedlings in the worm castings, and spread the compost around the plants. The compost is very black and a nice crumbly texture, and very wormful. Hopefully the worms will find new homes before the neighbourhood magpies come on their rounds. There were so many snails, that I opted for the snail pellets. Not sure what the biodynamic or organic gardening technique is for snails. Strange as it may seem, I have found that they prefer my basil seedlings to beer. Perhaps they are not Australian snails

my first pomegranate

I got to eat the first ripe fruit from my very own pomegranate tree.

When I cut it from the tree I noticed that it had the obligatory spider in the end of the fruit. I don’t know why pomegranates have spiders, whether they are a particular species, or just opportunists.

It is one of the few things I don’t have to share, as H can’t be bothered. Also, he spits the pips out!

I scored it so that I could break it apart more easily – as you do.

Interestingly, when I went googling on how to propagate the pomegranate tree, I read on http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/pomegranate.html that:

For enjoying out-of-hand or at the table, the fruit is deeply scored several times vertically and then broken apart; then the clusters of juice sacs can be lifted out of the rind and eaten. Italians and other pomegranate fanciers consider this not a laborious handicap but a social, family or group activity, prolonging the pleasure of dining.

It was ripe enough, although it could have been left to ripen further. It was tasty, and it was mine.

There is a second larger fruit on the tree, and if I get to eat it this then the tree will have already paid for itself based on current greengrocer prices. Bonus.

divine

I have been growing marjoram for over a year. It is used instead of oregano when we feel like a change in our Greek Salads.

Recently I harvested marjoram to use in a dish titled Oysters Bercy in Rosemary Hemphill’s Cooking with Herbs and Spices.

To some it may appear back to front to choose two teaspoons of flavouring, over the main ingredient of three dozen fresh oysters. But I think you have to have fresh from the garden herbs as well as fresh oysters for this dish as the flavours are so subtle.

Bruno at South Perth Seafoods provided us with two dozen beautiful oysters. I almost felt that it was a waste to coat them in a creamy sauce. A bit like a good malt not needing anything but a glass to drink from.

However, I’m pleased that I tried the Oysters Bercy recipe. It is DIVINE.

Note: The recipe does not indicate the number of servings. I could not quite stretch myself to purchase three dozen oysters, and two dozen appears to do well as a main meal. Recently I prepared this dish for four as an entree, and two dozen oysters seemed right for that too.

someone’s been eating my porridge

I’ve been checking the underside of plant leaves looking for the culprit or culprits that are neatly nipping off leaves at the stem.

It is caterpillar season again, and having spotted them nibbling my newly planted basil and spinach seedlings I’ve resorted to the ‘vegetable dust’. No organic gardening for me this season.

The infrequent rain washed the vegetable dust off the leaves today so I’m out doing the rounds looking for more nibbling.

The basil and spinach are fine, but I noticed this critter on the ivy geraniums that were given to me a couple of weeks ago.

When poked, the millipede swung around to ward off my leaf and then curled up. Based on this behaviour, I’m guessing that it is a Portuguese millipede [1].

I thought that millipedes were like snails and that they went for the decaying stuff in the garden, but perhaps like snails, they like fresh green leaves too?

[1] Department of Agriculture Gardennote 02 (PDF)

propagating

Yay, I now have umpteen clear acrylic lids for my propagating trays.

I have been trying to remember when this project started. It was after we got a shade house and while I was a member of The Digger’s Club. It was also when H was using acylic for another project, and used to go the company of a family friend to get it cut to order. Well, we no longer have the shade house, I have not been a member of the club for over ten years, and the plastics company no longer exists because the proprieter died.

I resumed propagating and growing plants from seeds last year, and completing the project was a way to clear the material from H’s shed.

H obtained a new tube of glue, and we set up the ultra-violet tube in my fish tank light fitting to fix the glue quicker. This was after H spent many painstaking hours scraping and cleaning off the paper that was adhered to the acrylic to protect it.

Today, I took some cuttings from the Santolina chamaecyparissus [1]. This is very hardy plant with silvery-grey foliage and pretty yellow button flowers. Once established, it requires very little water. I know this, as the plant from which I took the cuttings was the last surviving plant from my herb garden on the verge that had not been watered for many years.

Santolina also has a very pungent smell although I don’t find it unpleasant. When I checked my book for spelling the species name, I read that the plant is used “sweeten the air”. I’ll hopefully be using it as a fill-in plant while I kill and remove the couch from the side verge.

[1] Unfortunately, I didn’t take pictures when it was flowering last month.

here comes another one

I saw my first Lady of the Night (Epiphyllum oxypetalum) flower a couple of weeks ago. But I have spotted this one forming much earlier.

out or in

We were going to the Somerville, but both of us were still up to our eyeballs in work when we should have been preparing our picnic. So we finished work and then cooked the same dish we were going to have at our picnic. The only difference is that instead of the bottle of Trilogy that we usually take to the festival films, we had Annie’s Lane Shiraz instead which is pretty yummy.

Jill Dupleix writes of her spaghetti with natural tomato sauce recipe; “The shock of the cold, raw tomato against the heat of the pasta brings this dish alive”.

When I read this, I thought “Oh yeah”. But we have had this dish several times now, and it is OH YEAH!

It is very simple to make, but you do have to prepare the tomato sauce an hour or so ahead.

Also, if you cannot obtain the small amount of basil leaves from your garden or grocer, then you can always make pesto with the remainder if you have to buy a minimum quantity as dictated by the packaging. I had planned to do this the previous two times that I got too much basil, but today was the first time I actually did it. We find pine nuts are too tasty to be sitting around in the pantry.

lady of the night

The Lady of the Night in the Front Verandah garden flowered.

It started or I noticed that there was a flower bud at midday. It didn’t appear to start opening until about 2100, but it could have been blooming before then.

I also had to be a lady of the night so that I could record the opening of the flower. I nipped out in my nightdress to take photographs every half to on the hour until about 0030. H set up his overhead lights to provide better light than the camera flash could offer and accompanied me out and connected them up each time. Thank you!

H continued to check the flower after I finished, but said that it did not open any further.

The next morning we noticed that the flower was hanging down from its stalk.

It only flowered once and in the night.

The colour, texture and scent of the bloom was worth staying up for. Except, that if the weather had been cooler and I had been able to get a good night’s sleep I may not have been so keen

two stems

The first leaves on the stem that grew from the mango pip look like a bird with tall wings and a long curved beak.

The stem and leaves grew quickly over less than a week. So did a second stem.

I read that it was better to nip out the second stem. So I did.

Now the mango seedling looks like any other seedling tree. That is, off centre in the pot due to the size of the pip (now covered).

I have since read that it may be better to grow a grafted tree. There is a mango tree in a garden that I pass on the way to the local shops. I’ll ask the owner whether I can have a cutting from their tree to have a go at grafting when my little seedling tree is established enough.