Its all about the beans.

Its been a while since February's last post - and before you know it- its March. Despite the absence of posting, my challenge has been more or less met- with something out of the backyard on a daily basis.The eggs came and went as a welcome contribution- and today I found out why- Spazz has gone back to her moult. The tomatoes are still struggling on- and hopefully the warm weather this week will help them along. I am pleased to say three of the guerrilla capsicums survived the picking raid and grew, so I am looking forward to a stir fry with the first one today! The first of the eggplants have also been picked and eaten along with the last of the jalapeno peppers. But whats really been keeping up the challenge are the beans!  steamed beans- meat and three veg style, steamed beans in salads, stir fried beans and beans in Thai curry.  One of my favourite seasonal recipes is this Chinese style Jill Duplex recipe for wok-fried green beans with chili pork. This recipe works just as well with free range chicken mince and it can also be slightly re-worked into a Chinese chili eggplant dish or a combo of beans and eggplant! The only trick with the egg-plant is to slice it into matchsticks and fry up  in small batches first in oil (I use peanut). This allows the oil to soak into the eggplant -not exactly healthy  but delicious. The egg plant is just set aside and mixed in later. I grow 'lebanese' eggplants as they lend themselves to Asian style cooking.

February's harvest



February is a big month in the garden and thanks to a surprise egg from Spazz which has been followed up thick and fast with a daily lay, I am confident I am going to meet my challenge (all homegrown items listed in green).

Kicking off last week I started with roast lamb with the first of the climbing beans steamed on the side.

On Sunday I cooked more apricot chicken (chillies and thyme) AND my famous baked cheesecake with fresh berries (and eggs)

Monday I created my own version of chicken larb gai  (Thai basil, chillies).

Tuesday was Valentine's Day with cheap and cheerful Vietnamese at Footscray's Sapa Hills.

Wednesday: Apricot chicken leftovers.

Thursday: Special fried rice- I use left over roast meat dice and an add with capsicum, peas, spring onions and fresh eggs.

Friday was the Great Debate at the Sustainable Living Festival and a quick bite at Flora in Flinders Street.

The perils of a guerilla garden

Behind my house there is a dead-end laneway. Abandoned and unloved- who could resist the temptation of taking over for a bit of guerrilla gardening. I have been growing plants there for a number of years now- I have been using old tyres (no one will steal them) but the jury is out if they are safe to use due to potential toxic leachate so I currently re-thinking this strategy. Over past summers I planted zucchini (with limited success), pumpkin (with no success- not enough morning sun?) beans, capsicums and  feral tomatoes. Very early in the spring I planted out surplus raspberry runners.Following my bumper seed saving and sowing I was left with some surplus capsicum which I chucked in the tyres. Its also worth noting that I had previously topped up the tyre garden with some newly composted chook poo -so I was secretly chuffed when the plants not only grew and survived but out- budded and fruited the plants actually growing in my garden. Sadly when I popped out last weekend - ALL of the dozen or so baby caps were gone- extra sadly was they weren't even ripe. I am convinced it wasn't kids or vandals (they would have just chucked them on the ground)- and I have had a sneaking suspicion its not the first time- tomatoes and raspberries have also gone but it was hard to pin the blame on a human with those- there's always birds and rats an an escaped guinea pig (who happily ran the gauntlet of the local cats and survived out there for a week or so before we reunited him with his owners)- but anyway the capsicums were well and truly picked and taken. I have a put a sign up suggesting that who ever it (I have my suspicions) might like to join the cause by helping to water an nurture the plants. There's still more baby caps so will be interesting to see how it goes!

Curry gets creative.

One of the things I feel truly blessed about, living here in the inner west of Melbourne, is being able to shop at the wonderful Queen Vic Market. As a rule I avoid buying fresh food (meat & veg) from either Coles of Woolies. It used to just be about the price, but now its more to do with ideology. Recent media coverage of unsustainable $1 per litre milk and 'the war of fruit and veg prices' makes me wonder what kind of an agricultural industry we could maintain in Australia if the big 2 totally monopolised the market. Following on from my weekend away- I was faced with the challenge of coming home to an empty fridge as its impractical to go to the market during the week. I needed to come up with some creative menu items. My starting point was various bits of left over steak in the freezer and some pre-cut potatoes left over from when my friend had been a bit ambitious around her menu planning during the weekend down at the Peninsula . Searching through my recipe book of Age mag cuttings and Curtis Stone 'feed your family' brochures (what was I saying about Coles) I came across a recipe 'Spicy Lamb and Sweet Potato Curry' (Neil Perry). This recipe had caught my eye as it uses fresh turmeric.(one of my purchases from my annual free loaders trip to the Melbourne Flower and garden festival.

My very first piece of home grown turmeric!

 I figured with a little imagination (sweet potatoes/ potatoes - no one will know the difference? beef/lamb?) a successful exploratory dig in the turmeric pot, home grown chillies and kaffir lime leaves from my friends tree (these store well in a tupperware container at the bottom of the fridge and/or in the freezer) and a trip to the new Asian supermarket up the road, I could pull it all together with the following result- fresh and delicious!

Tomato salsa

Its been a while since I posted on the blog and this has largely been due to my lack of inspiration from the garden. A string of warm weather and 2 weeks absence from my weekly Vic Market shop have limited my creativity in the kitchen. As far as my challenge goes its been about as exciting as 'tomatoes' with the salad to accompany chops on the BBQ.  The highlight of this period was spending the long weekend with friends down at Somers on the Mornington Peninsula. The weather was calm and balmy, so on Friday night G took a net and torch down to the beach and caught a bag full of garfish. The fish were carefully cut down the centre, gutted and backbones removed, flattened with a mallet to break down the smaller bones and simply pan fried with salt and pepper. I served this with a simple tomato salsa; fresh tomatoes, a few slices of red onion, generous amount of salt and freshly ground pepper, topped with home grown basil. Combined with the sweet, fresh flavours of the fish it was the perfect summer meal.

Hooray for herbs

Growing your own herbs always seems to make it onto the 'Top 10 beginners tips for sustainable living' tips  but sometimes I wonder whether chucking a few leaves on your plate is having any measurable impact. Its hardly achieving self sufficiency but when you do consider the cost every time you spend $3 on a bunch of herbs at the supermarket, combined with the footprint of transport, refrigeration, the little plastic sleeve and the inevitable waste that comes at the end it all does have the potential to add up.
On Saturday night I made the most of my herbs and roasted a chicken (free range of course) using Kylie Kwong's 'Radical Roast Chicken' recipe. The recipe combines a stuffing of fresh herbs- tarragon (plus I add thyme for some extra flavour)- and tops off the chicken with torn bay leaves, crushed garlic and a spring or two of rosemary. All of these picked freshly from the garden. Unfortunately my visit to the tarragon pot seemed to confirm suspicions that something was up- recently I have found bits and pieces wilted and broken. At first I though not enough water and then too much- I wondered if the girls had been involved or if it was other birds. Despite covering up the pot to protect the last few stems this is what I came back to yesterday........

I am now convinced its smaller critters at work....... I have come to the conclusion that growing things in pots needs to follow the same theory as garden with regular 'crop rotation' to minimize pests taking control. So I am planning to re-pot this baby  with some new soil on the weekend. I will give the dirt to the girls to poke around in, and give it break from growing.

The cult of Diggers

a mix of daikon and parsley seeds

 It seems lately that a day doesn’t go by without an article appearing in the media that waxes lyrical about Diggers and their heirloom seeds. Take this article from the Age the other day. But do you really need to pay $49 to become a member of the Digger’s club to have a productive and sustainable garden?

I must admit briefly flirting with the Diggers concept with the purchase of some Diggers heirloom tomatoes. Last year was my second attempt and I went all out with the full mixed punnet (Black Russian, Tigerella and Mortgage Lifter) I think they were accidentally under priced so it seemed like a bargain at the time. This was at the expense of other varieties I have planted in the past.  Blame the weather or the fact they were planted out in October, but I think I had a grand total of about 3 tomatoes! The only tomato that did come through was the  likely certified commercial hybrid cherry tomato that’s  still feeding the family this year.  Not to be deterred I undertook to save the seeds of a single Black Russian (along with my hybrid cherry) to produce this year’s crop. While the cherry tomato and its descendants are coming along I am yet to be impressed by my ‘Diggers’ descendants.

Its also worth noting Diggers doesn’t have a moratorium on so called heirloom seeds, many of the seeds advertised in the catalogue are available through cheaper brands like Yates and Mr Fothergills or are sold as seedlings at Bunnings (even under the budget labels!). I have been growing  seeds  from the same $2.5 pack of Mr Fothergills version of Diggers ‘Blue Lake’ climbing beans for ages and now I have moved onto their babies (bean and pea seeds must be some of the easiest seeds to collect and grow).

Despite all of this I did have to thank one friend’s dalliance with the Diggers cult when I harvested my second crop of Daikon (Japanese radish) seeds today….. I will have to admit I don’t think these ones  are for sale down at Big W.