Start of productive season in the garden

I have a number of seedlings on the go. It's still not quite warm enough to plant seedlings out, I am hoping that end of October will be warm enough.

Every year I like to try a new plant - last year it was sweet potato. I didn't get much of a crop but I worked out where I need to plant them to get a better crop. I took some cuttings before the end of autumn so as soon as its warm enough I will be plant the cuttings out in the garden.

This year I am trying pepino melons and litchi tomatoes. They both are part of the tomato, potato and eggplant family. The pepino cuttings seem to be easy to strike. If they grow well and the fruit is worth eating I will take cuttings in autumn and keep them over winter.

Peony roses

Peonies are just gorgeous flowers. But they also require patience as they resent root disturbance and  being cut for sale is more than disturbance.

There doesn't seem to be a large variety of peonies available in Australia which is probably due to the expense and time needed to cultivate these beauties.

It's hard to know if the divisions sold are from mature plants or plants grown just for root divisions at the expense of flowers. If the information on the internet is to be believed than I will have to wait at least 3 years before I will see a flower!

I'm just excited that the shoots have started to emerge. Before I planted the peonies at the beginning of winter I put rabbit and horse manure in the soil with a sprinkle of dolomite. The top of the divisions were planted so they were 2 cm below the surface. I was happy they survived the hard frosts in winter, I read that they need cold winters but this year it got down to -6 on a number of occasions.

Now to see how they grow during the hot dry summer predicted.

Cardiocrinum giganteum - long wait for flowers

I've wanted to grow this for years. It's taken me years to get back into gardening and now that I have a couple large plots and I'm working on increasing soil fertility, I thought why not.

From the size of the bulb I would say that it might be 3 years old. Bulbs reach flowering size at 7 years so I have at least a 3 year wait if I am right about the age of this bulb.

The soil had rabbit and horse manure added over a month ago so it should be enough for this apparently greedy plant, more manure can be added at the end of summer if needed. I put a stake next to it so I know where it is after it dies back in winter.

I'm just wondering whether I should buy another one.

How many spring roll recipes can one have

In addition to stuffed chicken wings, I love a spring roll too. I keep coming up with new spring roll recipes. Last count I had 10 spring roll recipes;

• lobster
• crab and prawn
• prawn and pineapple
• poor man's lobster spring roll
• peking duck
• peking chicken
• chicken and pork
• chicken and pumpkin
• rice paper spring roll with bean shoot and wood ear fungus (rice paper when its fried is something else)
• vegan

I do need to start writing my recipes down. The more I come up with the harder it is to remember specific creations.

Great. Now I'm craving a spring roll.

Wings are my thing

I've probably deboned and stuffed about 30kg of chicken wings the past 6 weeks. It doesn't help that I keep coming up with recipes to try. That and I keep wanting to refine a recipe.

None of my taste testers are complaining though.

I've also managed to work out a deal - wings for cow poo for my garden. I have sources for regular free rabbit manure, horse manure and chicken manure. I couldn't say no to cow manure as well.

Trench composting or Dig and forget composting

I will be honest. I love gardening but not a big fan of back breaking labor. The idea of having to turn compost and harvesting it does not appeal to me. Saving as much kitchen waste like chicken bones from landfill as I can however, does appeal to me. 

My mother, back in the days when we went fishing, used to bury fish scraps in the garden which turned into rich, fertile soil. Further research on the interwebs told me that you can bury your kitchen scraps directly in the garden, including chicken bones. Trench composting, direct composting, dig and drop composting whatever you want to call it, suits me. You don't have to turn the compost, harvest it or worry about carbon and nitrogen balance. The compost goes directly where you think it is needed, or in my case where you haven't dug compost in before. And the best thing is that you don't to worry about nitrogen and carbon balance and you can compost fish and chicken bones.

Since I started what I like to call dig and forget composting I've noticed more worms and the time it takes for the kitchen scraps to 'disappear' is faster - in summer it can be as fast as 2 weeks for vegetable and fruit to compost. All that is left of the bucket of chicken bones I buried in one corner of the garden seven months ago is a handful of bone fragments. That tells me that I have healthy soil full of worms and microbes.

This is the depth you should dig and forget compost.

I dig and drop one bucket (I think it is 20 litres) from my parents place, two buckets if I felt like cooking, once a week. Make sure you dig a hole that is at least 30cm deep so that animals don't dig up the scraps. And mark where you buried the compost. The soil drops as the scraps decompose. The number of times I have forgotten and my foot has sunk into the compost hole.

What goes into the compost bucket? Pretty much everything - citrus peel, chicken bones (I debone chicken wings and thigh cutlets), spoiled dairy products, spoiled food - my sister saves prawn shells to put in the compost bucket for me. I even have a bucket at work that people put their fruit scraps and used coffee pods in.

Make sure you put any fish,prawns and chicken bones at the bottom of the hole. I freeze these scraps as I can only get to my plots on the weekend.

The rest of the compost bucket is dumped on top of any prawn, fish and chicken bones. When I rinse out the compost bucket I throw the water into the hole before I cover the compost with soil. I give the soil a quick water and hope that I don't dig it all up again when I dig my next compost hole.

Leaves, leaves and more leaves

Let me start by saying I can't believe I didn't think of using leaves to mulch the garden last year. This year? Different story.

I'm pretty sure I have collected and dumped at least 15 bags of leaves onto the garden already. Mum raked three more bags for me to take to the garden this weekend. If it doesn't rain on the weekend I will probably collect another six, and let's be honest as many bags of leaves as I can be bothered in the next couple of months. There are three different places where  I collect leaves. I want to have different size leaves and if I can save them going into storm drains all the better.

Last summer was unusually hot, specifically the number of 40 degree days we had. I mulched the garden but I had to buy a lot of bales of sugar cane mulch over the summer. It decomposed faster than I expected (thanks worms) so I had to top up the mulch twice. I would prefer not spending so much on mulch this summer.

Leaves are free. The plan is to mulch with leaves now, make some leaf compost and save some bags to mulch in summer. The best part about the community garden where I have plots (or allotments) is the equestrian park next to it. The regular equestrian events means free horse manure. It doesn't take long to fill a wheelbarrow with huge horse turds. I'm using horse manure to compost a pile of leaves on one plot. Hopefully the horse manure will help accelerate the decomposition of leaves. If I can get some fresh pure chicken poo I'll chuck that on too.


I've mulched the globe artichokes to give them some protection for winter. I will probably put another layer of leaves in a couple of weeks before the heavy frosts start.

How many knives does a 'have to be in the mood to cook' cook need?

About a year ago I bought myself a custom knife. The handle is pink and lime green. I loved it until it got a chip in the blade. I have to send it back and hope that the blade can be fixed. If it can't, well I won't be happy if I have to pay for the blade to be replaced.

Anyway, it hasn't deterred me from wanting, wanting desperately for another custom knife. You'll understand why when you see it.

Look at it. It's beautiful isn't it? It is almost three times more expensive than my pink and lime green custom knife was (and that was when when the exchange rate was better than it is now) but golly gosh I want this bad. 

The blade is repurposed from a horseshoe rasp. It's definitely functional art. Production time is currently three months because of high demand. But that is fine as I have to save up for it anyway.