Urban Leaves

If only every Suburb had a Community Garden and a Kitchen Gardeners Swap Meet.

Many people today are striving hard to fit into today's culture.
Many of us vegetable gardeners feel a little out of place at social gatherings. We would much prefer to be in our gardens, pruning, planting, weeding, picking or preserving our produce.
Our to do list is endless, sorting seeds, making sauerkraut, pickling olives, transplanting seedlings, propagating cuttings and there is always pruning to be done.
I meet very few gardeners who are not keen to talk about what they have been growing or how the weather is affecting their garden.
So we have this group of home gardeners who meet together every few months and we always have a good time.
When we meet to swap seeds, excess produce and ideas, we also share part of our lives with each other.
We may meet for just a couple of hours but friendships are formed, phone numbers exchanged and the promises are made to share produce as it ripens and matures.
Someone has chokos to share, someone else has excess chillies, another has apples and firewood, the list goes on and on.
Cuttings and prunings, excess seedlings, potted plants are brought and given away.
Cuttings of herbs, curry leaves and berries, ginger, galangal, lemongrass and cardamom plants are divided and shared.
Variety is being added to people's gardens, new plants and ideas are being introduced.
People are taking things home to grow, things they had never heard about before. New flavours are introduced and as people try new things and use them at home, their palates change and they look forward to trying new and interesting plants.

And so for a few short hours people are introduced to new things, new ideas and new challenges.
If we lived in any rural area in any other country it would be a natural thing to save seeds and share with neighbours. But in Australia the majority of people are buying their fruit and veggies from large supermarkets or fruit stores. These unknown, mass farms are often using many harmful chemical sprays and fertilizers to achieve a perfect looking product, which looks good but lacks the flavour and nutritional value of organically grown produce.
Our priorities in life should be healthy pure rain water, fresh clean air, viable seed, local, organically grown food and a healthy lifestyle.

A lifestyle which includes rest and relaxation, time to spend with others, time to share a simple meal or wander around a friend's garden.
When you live in a city you see people constantly rushing around, driving children from one paid activity to another. Children who have been in child care all day are seen throwing tantrums in shopping malls and supermarkets as their hassled parents fill supermarket trollies with chemical laden foods, coloured beverages and other sugar laden sauces, cereals, sweets and cookies.
I guess I am just getting to be a grumpy old granny, but to those of us who grew up in the forties or fifties we remember a much different world.

Most families grew their own vegetables, had chickens for eggs and chicken for a special occasion.
There was no television, people sat and chatted about their day, listened to the radio or read books, played cards or board games.
All the neighbourhood children played cricket on the road, there were fewer cars and people rode their bikes, walked or caught public transport.
Anyone remember going to work in an old steam train?
I did. I caught the train from Liverpool Station to Central station in Sydney. A group of us teenagers met in the same compartment each day and played cards or just chatted.
Now the people I see walking the streets are plugged into their  iphones or ipods and don't even look at anyone.
Time is money now, so people rush everywhere, drive like maniacs and have no concern for anyone but themselves.
So it is with great pleasure that I look forward to when our garden group meets again.
Our dream would be for every suburb to have a Community Garden and every Community Garden to have such groups meeting several times a year.
  

Pine Mushrooms Asian Style

Autumn in Adelaide brings chestnuts and pine forest mushrooms.

Today we spent quiet afternoon wandering a friends property gathering mushrooms for dinner.

We arrived home to walk the dogs then head for the kitchen to prepare these delicious mushrooms.

We cleaned and sliced them and then fried them in a little olive oil with lots of fresh garlic, chilli and grated ginger.

We cooked some Hakubaku soba noodles and added a little with sesame oil.

We returned all the mushrooms to the pan and added freshly sliced Asian greens, fenugreek and coriander leaves and some tamari and already cooked chestnuts. We bought the chestnuts last weekend from Nirvana Organic Farm they are fantastic.

We served the mushrooms with the noodles. They were absolutely delicious, I reckon we might head to the forest again soon.

And I think we shall also prepare this delicious, best in town 3 minute noodle dish.

Galangal from Garden to Plate

Getting to know Galangal by Maggie

We think it is lesser galangal, what do you think?

We took these photos of our experiments with galangal.

It is a really lovely plant and the flavour is quite different to any other herb.

I shall revisit this galangal story sometime when I know more about it.

THE EDIBLE WATER GARDEN

  There are so many situations where you might benefit from growing something edible, in water.

• If your water supply is very limited
• If your soil is impossible to work
• If you are renting a house
• Or live in an apartment with a balcony
• Or only have a small court yard
• If you go away a lot, as water gardens are very low maintenance
• If you just love having lush green growth in a dry climate
• Just for something different

I don't know why edible water plants are not promoted in dry areas like here in South Australia because it is so beautiful to look out on a pond or tub of reeds, such as water chestnuts, or the graceful and colourful taro leaves or the lime green water spinach stems and leaves all of which can take the heat as they have their feet in water. No water is wasted and keeping the tubs topped up with water is easy, so long as you have a creeper such as azolla on the surface to reduce evaporation and keep the mozzies away.

I have 3 large tubs from a hardware shop. Each is ........ To insulate them from the heat I surrounded them on 3 sides with small bales of straw and sat them along the front edge of my vegetable garden.Here they get a little sun but are in the shade of the carport roof during the middle of the day. I don't know if this is necessary but they are certainly very happy there, with no attention except a little water now and again.

Right is November 2008 and left is today, April 2009.

Each tub is about 1/3 full of rich compost.  I planted into this and gradually filled the tubs with water as the plants grew in height.

 

I am always on the look out for suitable plants as they are hard to get. I started with just 1 or 2 water chestnut plants that I found in an Asian shop at the Central Market. Cath produced so many last year she didn't want them all so now I have hundreds.The reeds will die down in winter and I will harvest the corms then. I bought water spinach in November at an Asian Green Grocer, to eat, and I put the stems in vases of water to get them to sprout roots. By January they were overgrowing the vase and sprawling over the kitchen bench. I have been able to pick leaves for salads and cooking now for 3 months and they are still growing fast. The taro plants I bought at the Stirling Spring Fair. I hope there will be lots of tubers when I dig them up in winter. The water cress will eventually go to seed and seems to happily reproduce each year, providing more than I can eat.

 

If, like me, you are addicted to leaves then growing water spinach and water cress are a must. If you like digging up potatoes and finding buried treasure then taro and water chestnuts are for you. If you live somewhere too cold for hot climate plants, there is some more information on Edible water plants here. Scroll down that page for more links. There is a lovely website all about watercress here. Interestingly, it was thought in ancient Greece that watercress would cure a deranged mind. It hasn't done much for me!

I am giving a little talk to some inner city gardeners later this week. If you know any blogs about gardening in small spaces please email me the links so I can pass them on.

There are a few more of my photos here.

COOL GREENS FOR A HOT DAY

Tuesday was a very good day to stay inside as it was a hot and windy 41C. I thought the garden would suffer but when I made a tour of it once the shade from our enormous gum trees had come across, at about 5pm, it was all looking good except for the pumpkin leaves which I am sure will come good overnight.

As Wednesday is my allowed watering day, I set the drippers to come on at 3am..... not the 6 - 9am the government says, but near enough and far better I think, as the plants have time to enjoy the extra water before the sun comes up. In South Australia, once the sun is up, in summer, it is intense.

People from the UK and Europe always comment on the strength of the Australian light and the brightness of the colours. When I was there in September / October, everything was soft and the sun was warm and pleasant and mostly I didn't even wear a hat for gardening. Here, even on a cool day in spring and autumn, the rays of the sun burn into you and sensible people wear hats..... I feel I need to, just to keep the sun out of my eyes, it is so intense.

 

Before it got too hot I picked lunch.... a couple of types of lettuce, some broad bean shoots, sorrel, basil, nasturtiums, Black Russian tomatoes. I love this lentil salad I make..... I think it is in Gardeners' Gastronomy. Yes, I had meat.... a leftover feral goat chop from the BBQ on the weekend.

This photo at left is of the water spinach I bought and as a vegetable and put in this vase ages ago. I even went away fro 2 weeks over Christmas and it not only survived but grew all these extra shoots and leaves. The leaves are very small because it has no nutrient and no direct sun, while it sits on my kitchen bench in bright light..... show me a place where the light isn't bright in South Australia right now!

Those I planted out in the tubs of water have bigger, dark green leaves but haven't grown many leaves yet. Hopefully this hot weather will see them take off.

Daikon Cakes and Daikon Fritters

Ting has posted several ideas for using daikon, here are a few more for you to try and experiment with.

I have been making my own version of daikon cakes after I found this wonderful food blog called nook & pantry .
Amy is a med student who was born in Shanghai and is now living in Seattle.

Amy has 2 daikon cake recipes on her blog - daikon cakes is like a vegetable fritter and delicious.

She has many other yummy recipes including blueberry crumb bars, Korean pancake, green onion pancake, blood orange olive oil cake and green tea truffles.

Amy says she likes to experiment with recipes and you can see from the variety above, she is a very creative cook.

I think one of the fun things about cooking is experimenting with different ingredients, flavourings and textures.

So if you are trying to use up the daikon in your garden or if you are planning a winter garden, daikon is a healthy, hardy and delicious vegetable, if you know how to prepare it.

Daikon are delicious when young and just eaten raw or grated with an Asian salad dressing.

Asian salads are often called pickles, in the same way that Indians call their vegetable accompaniments raitas or fresh chutney or Mexicans have salsas.
They are all lovely fresh veggie and fruit dishes which can be served on their own or as an accompaniment to other dishes .

Thanks for your blog Amy and we look forward to more yummy recipes from nook & pantry.

Pickled Daikons

Viggies Gnomes asked me about the pickled Daikons I made for Kitchen Gardners' Day. I have to admit that it was first time I grew Daikons and it was first time I made pickled Daikons. (It doesn't taste quite the same back home.)

The main goal is to make daikons as crunchy as possible, and then mix in the dressing or sauces you like for some time to let the flavour go into them.

1.Cut and dry it:
Wash Daikons, cut into strips. (Leave the skin on) Put on a mash to sundry for a day or two, untill the surfaces of Daikons are dry and not stingy and the Daikons are soft. This process makes Daikons more crunchy and makes the unpleasant taste of Daikons go away. You could omit it.
2.Salt it:
Salt them a little and knead a few times. (they'll become more moist).
3.Compress:
Put them tightly in a jar or put a heavy stone on them for a day or two at room temperature.
4. Seasoning:
Mix with the dressing or sauces you like for some time to let the flavour go into them.
For example:
Ginger + rice wine+ soy sauce
Miso
Chili sauce
Hot chili oil + fermented black beans(black beans sauce)
If put in the fridge, it should last for one week or two.

I think it's best to eat pickle daikons with plain rice soup:)

Have fun!



I found the below picture of pickled Daikons with chili sauce on the net.

Prepare Daikon leaves

Here is one way to prepare daikon leaves if you find them too tough or too bitter to eat.

1. Salt the leaves.

2. Leave it overnight, massage them from time to time. The liquid of the leaves would come out a bit.

3. Squeeze the liquid out. Wash out the excess salty water.

4. Chop into small pieces.

5. Stir fry with some chili, delicious.

......

Daikon leaves are full of Vitamin A, Vitamin B1, B2 ,Vitamin C and Iron.

To eat whole food is always good from Chinese Traditonal Medicine's point of view. Because each part of the vegetables usually has different properties, by eating whole food you get a more balanced diet. So don't threw away your Daikon leaves!

From CTM's point of view, the properties of Daikon are:
Daikon leaves: Neutral, sweet and bitter.
Daikon roots: Cool, sweet, and Pungent.

More information on Food properties in CTM, see:

Propterties of Food From a TCM Perspective

Rub the leaves with salt.



















Leave it overnight, massage them from time to time. The liquid of the leaves would come out a bit.


Chop into small pieces. Stir fry with some chili.

Starting our Autumn, Winter Garden

Well we are having a wonderful warm autumn, and some rain as well.
Its hard to believe we have just had a long heat wave.
Tara and Niki have been hard at work watching Bob extend our small veggie garden and get some seedlings planted. Click on Photos links to see more.
( look how the dogs hair match the new luxury house and back fence next door)

Brett's Hydroponic's Update

Howdy All,
As promised ages ago here is a little pictorial update on my hydroponic venture. I'm still to automate the systems in regards to self watering, however considering the heat we have been having in the last few weeks I have hardly had to add and water to the containers apart from the occasional top up of only a litre here and there. Also the plants are surviving extremely well without any sheltering in full sun. The only obvious side effects being some burnt leaves especially on the celery and greening of the perlite from too much sunlight exposure to the nutrient rich water - this is more aesthetic than a worry and can easily be resolved with a rinse - similar to grey hair so I've been advised.

I'll add more photos in the coming weeks especially of how I've put things together. See you at Deb's on Sunday
Cheers
Brett



Carrot seedlings about 3 weeks old in a 5 to 1 mixture of perlite and vermiculite. About 90% germination and no dead un's since the heat wave.











I have 2 raft projects happening. This is where no medium is used and the plants sit in containers where their roots dangle in nutrient rich water and are also exposed to air. This one made from an old styrofoam box has tomatoes, celery and Asian veges














My other raft in an old esky with Asian veges in rockwool transplanted last Sunday 9/3 - only one has failed from 18. You can see how much water has been used - about 3 cm, not bad considering the heat and wind.















Basil is going great guns in this perlite mix. The lovely purple and pink crates were rescued in the last hard rubbish collection. The chillies, capsicum and continental parsley are suffering more so from the wind than the heat but are still hanging in there.















In the front crate is sheep sorrel seedlings and the back one contains Persicaria odorata aka Laksa Leaf, Vietnamese mint, Vietnamese coriander, Laska plant, Knotweed, Rau ram, etc, etc















Chard seedlings in rockwool that will be transplanted without any root shock straight into the rafts or purple crates or into a pipe system I'm finishing when the temperature is a little bit kinder.

Red Shiso and Japanese Cooking

We have 3 big shiso plants in our garden that came up from last years planting, I should have taken some yesterday to our gathering.
Anyway I must start using the leaves so I have repeated the following links so you can check out these great sites:

From the Foodhoe Files
Foodhoe Foraging

The recipes at the Foodhoe Files site are by Eric Gower and his book Breakaway Japanese Kitchen.
Eric has a website called The Breakaway Cook.

I also found a great Japanese site called Yasuko-san's Home Cooking.

The author says: "My mother, Yasuko-san, was born and grew up in Takaoka, Toyama, Japan (her personal history). She prepares good old home cooked meals such as "Nimono" (simmered vegetables) etc, and enjoys entertaining friends at dinner."

You will find recipes such as Shiso Juice, shiso miso and sauteed eggplant and green pepper.