A winter garden (?!)

A little while ago I read an excellent analogy used to compare a renowned climate scientist and his views and predicitions versus those of a local climate sceptic who constantly finds reasons why the world is not warming such as "xxx part of the world has just had its wettest, coldest summer since 1944" etc. The analogy begins with the climate scientist and the sceptic both out in the forest. The climate scientist has access to a fire tower used to spot oncoming bushfires so he climbs to the top  holding a pair of powerful long range binoculars. Over on the far horizon he can see a massive cloud of smoke coming over the hills towards them so he calls out to let the sceptic know there is a bushfire on the way. Down on the ground all the sceptic can see are some trees "no fire here, lets get on with out picnic" he tells the scientist. Without wanting to sound like the antithesis of that sceptic "'back in my day we always had frost at this time of year" - it really does seem like the winters are getting shorter here in my neck of the woods.

Here's a couple of pictures of my capsicums back at the start of the month:

They won't get the size or the sweetness of late summer picked fruit but they remind me of 'piiman' (the type of green peppers they have in Japan) so they will do just fine for the odd cooked dish (they will be a little bit bitter to eat raw)

I have also been picking the very last of the eggplants and the climbing beans (that has to be a record for June!)

I finally harvested some fresh turmeric as the leaves yellowed and began to wilt combining it with some other slightly tropical ingredients - chili and lemongrass to make my seasonal a new seasonal favourite from Neil Perry.

Since the photo of the capsicums was taken, we finally got a cold snap (compressed into one week it seems) which finally managed to budge some of the green leaves from my crab apple. My pathetic stick of an apple tree- (its never given me an apple)  is still hanging onto one green leaf.

Throughout the month of May and the start of this month I have been keeping up my challenge of eating at least one thing from the garden each day but with cold snap and my beans finally finishing up things are getting a little more sparse.

My Tuscan kale is not far off though, and the first of my broccoli is starting to develop little buds in its crown. I have planted a few cabbage out in the planters that seem to promise they will form nice round heads and my snow peas have gone ballistic (just a matter of making sure the pesky rats don't come back)

Thinking ahead my plans to build a new planter for my next summer planting of Japanese burdock ('gobo') out the back away from my chookies were fast forwarded thanks to the discovery of this dumped pallet. It was perfect for my plans to grow a single row of gobo along the wall here. In the meantime I have planted some chard I got from the local produce swap and some more broad beans.

Waste not.....

Last Wednesday was World Environment Day... this year's theme was 'Think Eat Save'.  This is a mantra that's close to my heart and part of my philosophy that has lead to my interest in all things related to backyard food production.

According to UN Food and Agriculture Organisation 1.3 billion tonnes of food goes to waste every year- the equivalent of the amount produced in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. At the same time, 1 in every 7 people in the world go to bed hungry and more than 20,000 children under the age of 5 die daily from hunger.

Seems like a big problem with insurmountable  issues involved.. but starting small.... just imagine if everyone here in Australia grew a few pots of herbs for example.... how many acres  of productive land would no longer be dedicated to growing herbs destined to end up soggy and slimy at the bottom of the fridge  (if any one has EVER used a entire pack of herbs in a dish I would be surprised) not to mention the dubious jars of 'fresh garlic' and tubes of squeezable  'herbs'  sitting up the back with a best before date of 2008. 

Anyway I digress here's how we deal with food waste at our house:

Growing 'waste' into new plants  

Here are  four crops I have grown from what would have otherwise become waste 

'Royal Blue' potatoes - the origin of these is a couple of sprouted spuds from Jones Potatoes from Warragul in Gippsland

Garlic- in the early days I grew the dreaded 'Chinese' import stuff reasonably well (it was little strong and garlicy). I also tried some South American bulbs with no success. Lately I have found good sources of  local organic garlic for sale at local farmers markets - going cheap at the end of the season. I eat what I can and plant the rest.

Ginger  (with some lemon grass cuttings) - this is my first attempt at growing ginger! for some reason this year an unloved  piece sprouted on my bench rather than simply shriveling away. Hopefully it will survive the winter

Sweet potato- once again, not sure how this will go- it started growing so I put it in the soil. Its looking a little wilted after a chilly winters night.

Feeding waste to 'chooks'

Sadly less effective than expected.... we don't have kids... just 2 adults who have kind of figured out how to match a serving size with an appetite .. so the food the chooks like is fairly limited. Here's a list of what they do and don't like:

Do:

•  bread crusts (we don't eat a lot of bread but they take what they can get)
• dregs from the cereal pack (mixed with grain - a great mash)
• rice or pasta stuck to the pan bottom- soaked off with hot water and added to the cereal dregs
• porridge (they happily clean the pot)
• hot chips (minimum chips is never minimum- much to their happiness)
• capsicum seeds (chuck the cores out and they pick them clean)
• ditto pumpkin seeds (if they are desperate)
• apple cores and skin (chopped finely)- makes me feel less guilty about losing the goodness peeling apples for cooking when I know it will be recycled back in eggs and poo.
• over ripe fruit (peaches, plums etc) - put into mash

Don't: 

• any kind of green leaf/ peeling etc (you have to be joking! they only enjoy greens straight off the plant!)

Feeding 'waste' to worms

We have 2 small worm farms that process about 1-2 litres of kitchen peelings  and coffee grounds per week. The main thing with the worms is not to let them overheat in the summer. A few days heading towards 40 degrees plus and they end up in serious trouble (I learnt the hard way during the crazy heatwave prior to the black Saturday bush fires in 2009. I came home from work to a hideous stench in my front yard- a 1000 or so rotting worms in my backyard).  My remedy since then has been to put a frozen drink bottle in the worm farm on very hot days which seems to work (either that or evolution has worked exceptionally fast).  Other than that my worms are pretty tough. Contrary to popular wisdom and unlike the chooks they are NOT fussy  and happily live with food they are not supposed to like- onion and citrus.

Mad about Mexican.

gathering ingredients for a Mexican feast.

Up until recently my  'Mexican' food experiences comprised of the following: Somewhere on our American road trip when I was 15, half price margarita night at Taco Bills- uni,  and Old El Paso. When I lived in Japan I even found the taco shells (made in Australia) at Sony Plaza a popular store with a weird mix of make up beauty products, Tim Tams, and other imported groceries.

Always keen to experience new  flavours,  I was quite excited with the opening of a  'Mamasita' a few years back, this was perhaps the first of recent batch of Melbourne eateries touting authentic Mexican food and Tequila. Unfortunately as with most over hyped things here in Melbourne, my excitement was short-lived. The one time we went we rushed out of work early got there at 5.45pm on a Tuesday... and found we had the last 2 seats in the place crowded at a bar whilst everyone else was lined up for hours from the front door and down the stairs. So I had given up on Mexican until I came across an entry in the Footscray Food blog for La Tortilleria- real tacos just round the corner in Kensington and the best bit you can by fresh tortillas made from freshly stone ground corn to take home.

So with tortillas in hand, a few left over chillies, capsicum, tonnes of fresh lime and some fantastic seasons avocado (not my own) I have unleashed a Mexican cooking frenzy. To date I have experimented with  Neil Perry's recipe for chicken adobo and a smoky pork tacos from Taste.com (lots of the other similar recipes contained apple/juice so I also substituted some of the chicken stock with apple juice for this recipe and added a couple of mild chilies).

I addition to creating a side of avocado with lime and coriander I also found another unusual Mexican ingredient at the Gasworks farmers market- tomatillos. I had never seen these before, but my friend having just returned from a brief stop over in Mexico assured me these are indeed found in Mexican markets.

I am excited about attempting to grow some of the tomatillos from seed- any hints?

Helpfully they came with there own recipe sheet for 'Tomatillo Salsa Verde'. The tomatillos first need to be cooked- apparently they are normally boiled but this recipe suggested baking these along with a couple of cloves of garlic which is what I did.

The recipe then proceeds as follows (note I created mine with about half the amount)

• 500g tomatillos
• 1/2 cup chopped coriander
• 1tbs fresh lime juice
• 1/4 tsp sugar
• 2 jalapeno or padron peppers (seeds removed for less heat)
• roasted garlic
• salt to taste

All the ingredients are then put into a blender for a couple of pulses to chop fairly coarsely- place in a serving bowl and there you have it.

tomatillo salsa and some avocado and coriander with lime

Common ground

You know when you have well and seen the very last vestiges of the summer when you have pulled your last tomato plant- letting go of the last juicy green tomatoes that will sadly never ripen. Today I pulled the last ones out from the back corner of the lane- they get away with staying up there jumbled in with the raspberries. But I have pulled them out and planted broad-beans- like the tomatoes I will let them run rampant up in the back corner.

Out in the Pitt Street block we are coming to the end of the 6 month council  trial of the planters. Most people have cleared out the summer crops and have winter crops well underway in anticipation of the planters remaining post the trial.

I am still growing the Lebanese eggplants I planted very late in the season. Each of the 3 plants has yielded heavily and is still fruiting. I would like to leave the last fruits on the plants but it's a difficult balance as I lost a couple of kilos to pilfering neighbours (to my knowledge these are the ONLY things that have been seriously pilfered so they must have been good). I am hoping to scratch together the last of them for my final serve of Chinese chili eggplants.

Planter box harvest: egg plant, lettuce and beetroot

Two of the box 'owners' have officially relinquished their responsibility for their planters and until the future of the project is known I am planting out with the leftovers and thinnings of my winter seedlings.

Asian greens and sprouting broccoli

Carrots

I am trying new crops this year sprouting broccoli and cabbage. Seed from my carrots has run rampant in the backyard garden so I have spent the afternoon planting into the abandoned planter boxes. I hope that if the garden remains we can get more people involved in planting out boxes - but in the meantime I am not wasting space!

In Meg's box the seeded coriander is also running wild. When my chook litter bin was overflowing I gave Meg a bag of the composted wood shavings and poo. (I think it was the secret of the eggplants and is now paying dividends with the coriander). In exchange for the poo I have thinned out some of the coriander that's now choking the spinach.

I have pruned the basil from an 'unofficially' relinquished planter box for a last jar of pesto before winter sets in.

basil for pesto & pasta

In the of  midst all the gardening action I have also been busy with another project- which I must now shamelessly plug!

Its an idea that's been knocking around since my trip to the Solomon Islands last year....  at the time it really worried me what happens to plastic waste in countries where there is no where (recycling/ landfill)  for it to go. Based on my work back here in Australia I came up with the idea of up-cycling the plastic into building materials. The technology exists but it would need help to get it over there and on the ground. A week ago I saw an ad for an international competition to make it happen.... if I have piqued your interest in something non garden related... please take a look...http://www.thisisyourplanet.com/ideas/beauty/329 . The competition works by popular vote. The top 4 ideas from each category (mine is beauty- as in the environment not as in me personally) go through to a professional judging round and the chance to gain $25k towards making it a reality. I am currently tracking in 5th place and all it needs is a few more votes...

Real Bannockburn free range chicken

Sitting down to my regular half hour "grow your own eat your own" fantasy fix that is SBS Television's Gourmet Farmer last Thursday, I was dismayed to see it is now sponsored by Lilydale 'free range' chicken. Surely Mr Matthew Evans, Gourmet Farmer would be dismayed too, to see that everything he goes on about- honest food- that's raised in a ethical way- was being compromised by 'Big Chickens' muscling in one the vision we all wish we had access to everyday. Lilydale chicken is owned by Baiada- Australia's largest chicken processor. Aside from the fact that free-range is very much a side business (albeit growing) from its regular factory farming business, Baiada also has a dubious reputation for its treatment of workers, many of them new migrants to this country- you can read more about that here and here (be warned the second article is pretty nasty as it describes the death of a worker at the plant). Another big chicken processor La-Ionica was fined a $100K by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission for misleading customers about its 'free to roam' factory chooks. La Ionica also has its own 'free range brand' - Bannockburn Chickens, given the company's history who knows if they are actually free range as we think of it or if they even come from the town called Bannockburn (just west of Geelong).

With all this on my mind I thought it was time I got around to telling the story of my real Bannockburn free range chook- from his journey as an egg (yep, he was conceived in Bannockburn- hopefully where his parents are still happily pecking around in the yard) to our plates a few weeks ago.

Its a journey that many people I know have questioned as a matter of ethics..."but how could you do it?, "isn't he a pet?", "if you don't need him wouldn't it be kinder to take him to the vet and have him put down?"(mmm- after which time he would be put into landfill while I went off to buy another chicken?) But the fact is I eat meat and if I can't face up to the reality of that in my own backyard, is it right that I allow the 'brand' on the supermarket shelf to hide the reality of really going on?

The decision to raise chickens was one we had considered carefully with the decision if we had a baby rooster (a part of the natural process) we would dispatch and eat it. When our five chicks hatched I kept a sense of detachment, anyone one of them could have a life measured in weeks rather than years. But each week was a good week- from about one week old they were out scratching in the yard (under our watchful eyes for just an hour or so at this stage), hunting and digging. As they grew it became obvious there was one rooster in the midst. He was a bit of an individual, he loved sun baking, legs splayed, wings stretched (maybe because it took him ages to feather up- a sign we were warned by the breeder he would be a boy). As time went on I wondered wouldn't he make a good breeder (picturing a bucolic image of him standing proud over his flock) - but when I went into the for sale section of backyard poultry there were dozens of other people with the same idea. In commercial farming, free range or not  roosters are expendable,  they are summarily executed on the first day of their lives. My boy had the chance to run around, roll in the dirt, carry on like a complete ratbag chasing the birds, woo the ladies,and towards the end do what roosters do with his surrogate mum and half sisters- (god love him)  thankfully I don't think he got it quite right!

Once he started crowing it was pretty much time to face reality. I researched on the net- 'home chicken killing'- forums on different methods, what time is the right time. Most people seemed to think around 14 weeks before they get too leggy, some people said killing chickens older than that wasn't worth it as they were all leg and no meat, others suggested waiting until 22 weeks for heritage breeds when the meat had filled out. It all seemed right in theory.... but I was worried about the practice - what if we got it wrong? I wasn't sure I personally had the physical strength to make sure it was a clean kill. To add to the dilemmas, G crashed his bike and tore the ligaments on his fingers rendering him 8 weeks out of action... with a loudly crowing rooster cooped up in the spare bedroom at night.

It was through my connections with the local permaculture group we got the opportunity to dispatch our rooster as part of a skill share session. Anyone with an interest could come along and learn how to kill, pluck and butcher their home grown roosters. In the end three others joined G and I when we drove him 500m up the road to the local community centre. Rather than the fear and terror that must be felt by the millions of other chooks, snatched in the darkness, jammed into crates and driven out in the open at high speed down the freeway, our rooster was sitting in his familiar crate (albeit a little hungry and impatient). When he was taken out and held upside down by his feet he seemed a little annoyed, then dazed for a minute as his head hit the block - then it was all over in a short couple of seconds.

Everyone then learned to pluck, gut and joint the chicken. The moment the feathers came off we could see the difference, long and leggy, his skin yellow.

commencing the gutting process

We brought 'Roo Roo' home in a plastic tub. As a small sign of respect, or rather sentimentality I took the bits we didn't want (the head and feet) to bury in the garden next to my other beloved hen. With the smell of fresh meat, his mama Boss came running over expectantly looking for some tasty treats. It seemed a bit macabre but really made me appreciate there is no such thing as sentimentality in the animal world. In my chook's eyes one minute he was there and one minute he was gone, end of story.

In the pot- no added artificial flavours or colours!

But I am a sentimental being- so I wanted to make sure this meat was treated with respect. Originally I had planned my favourite roast chicken recipe, but with dispatch happening on Sunday we didn't have the time to let the meat rest so we opted for 'Coq au vin' (Mathew Evans recipe) using a good bottle of Riesling, some free range pancetta (substituted for the prosciutto which was not available) and stock I boiled down and froze from my last roast chook. For such a seemingly skinny bird I struggled to jam all the pieces (including the frame) into my stove top casserole dish. All in all he gave us four delicious meals:
 (plus I took a small taster to work for my colleagues who were curious enough to try).

• two  hearty goes at the coq au vin (after two days resting in the fridge and reheat in the oven, the second helping was sensational, rich, slightly gamey flavour falling off the bone)
• meat shredded off the frame to top a delicious pizza with Meredith marinated goats cheese, fresh herbs and home grown tomatoes and zucchini 
• 500mls of left over liquid to form the base of a rich pumpkin and leek risotto (with even more left overs for lunch).

On the first night, I set the dining table and opened a good bottle of Ten Minutes by Tractor Mornington Pinot as it seemed apt to respect and reflect. 

At the end of it all, was I glad I did it ? Yes. Would I do it again  Yes, although our chicken breeding days are over for now. What did I take away from it all? That we should think deeply about where our food comes from and that we should also take time from our busy lives to pay respect for a moment for the animals we didn't know and where ever possible make sure we choose the most ethical meat options we have available.

The only way is up (and out)

With the cooler (but sadly not wetter) autumn weather in place, I have been busy completing my autumn planting season (both edibles and other). Ever eager to improve on my home grown haul  I am keen to maximise my harvest using all of the resources I have available (land and sunlight being the limiting ones). Unfortunately with two young pullets (who unlike their broody box reared mama) have been raised to develop a keen sense of curiosity and experimental taste buds, I have added in an extra layer of consideration when planning my planting. The first step has been to utilise my growing areas outside the yard - lane way,  community planter box and a revisit my attempts a at front yard 'ornamental' cabbage bed (sadly a dismal failure last year). This has involved shifting half my brassica plantings  (primarily cavalo nero and sprouting broccoli) to the outside planter boxes, not only to increase the available sunny planting area but also as a safeguard against damage inflicted by any unsupervised garden raids.

The second strategy is to utilise pots strategically placed in paved sunny areas closer to the house.

While out at one of the home improvement mega stores -shopping for some irrigation pegs (technically designed to hold down irrigation tubing- but they work just as well to hold down mesh to protect ground cover from foraging hens) these pink pots caught my eye. I have teamed them up with this slightly modified antique ladder from a hard waste collection to build a tiered strawberry planting (filled with runners I secured at our local produce swap). Facing the ladder on the angle allows for the eastern morning sun to reach under the ladder for a planting of snow peas and some coriander, the idea being that the ladder serves as a frame for the snow peas.  Since its installation the girls have taken a serious and destructive liking to the snow peas so I am currently improving on installing removable mesh around the base of the ladder. Since the photo there have been more caging works on the recycle tub behind for some additional snow peas and a small fence around the front planter for another coriander planting.

How to keep a rooster in suburbia.....

Ok this is my second chook post in a row, but its an issue that's been preoccupying us of late. How to keep a rooster in suburbia. Lock him in the wardrobe of your spare room seems to be our current answer! Not permanently of course!

Using a 'night box' for roosters is a common solution to keeping roosters in suburbia and it's a technique we have been experimenting with over the past few weeks. Basically the theory goes that if put your rooster in a box/pet carrier and put it somewhere dark and quiet (sheds and garages are the normal options) the rooster is disorientated and unaware that its dawn so doesn't crow (or alternatively the sound is so muffled no one can hear). Catching him to go into the box has proved the most difficult part of the exercise. First we bring him inside and give him a few little snacks. He actually doesn't seem to mind the box, no doubt it's warm and dark and quiet and makes for a better nights sleep than being jostled by the girls outside. Of late hes been jumping off my lap and walking in there of his own accord.

As we don't have a garage our first option  for the box was the shed. Unfortunately our chook pen is a kind of a lean-to on the side of the shed so the minute the girls were up and squawking, off went the rooster. We could still hear him (and the girls) at the front of our compact weatherboard house- no doubt so could some of the rear neighbours.  The next step was the laundry. As I am yet to get around to organising my dream renovation to transform the laundry/ toilet into a European laundry with powder room and toilet there is still an old shower with fully enclosed glass screening. This has actually proved very handy on a few occasions.  It's where we kept our first two girls before they were big enough to go outside and more recently two dwarf rabbits I found on the run in my street. Eventually as no one claimed them, ,they were re-homed by the RSPCA (much to the relief of my cat). Unfortunately directly across from the laundry is the back of neighbour's house with rooms that are being rented out to international students. Our rooster was less excited by the girls but it only took a flock of the local ravens or a singing magpie and he was off again. With daylight saving drawing to a close I also didn't feel like a 6 am wake up so we needed to get creative. G suggested the wardrobe and its worked a treat. If he does crow we can barely him, let alone the neighbours, so the wardrobe it is.