STURT DESERT PEA, SOUTH AUSTRALIA'S FLORAL EMBLEM

Why aren't we South Australians all growing this stunning plant? Sturt's Desert Pea (Swainsona formosa) requires absolutely no water after germination and the seeds remain viable for hundreds of years! Seeds are available, evidently, from State Flora in Belair National Park.

Its one need is very good drainage and preferably sand. These are photos of when I grew it in the summer of 2007, in a very sandy patch of soil that the previous house owners must have used to backfill behind a retaining wall. They grew to be about 60cm wide and high. If your children have grown out of their sandpit, fill it with these!

 

As you can see at the bottom of this second photo, in the middle, it is a true pea and forms pea pods. The "eyes" of the flowers go from red to black as they mature and each spray forms a circle around the stem. I have no idea why I didn't collect the seeds or if I did, what happened to them but I am going to try growing them again. I don't know when to sow them, but I will find out! 

 

If you want to do the permaculture thing and make sure everything you plant has 3 or more uses, then here is one such plant for all South Australians..... they will attract native birds to be your pest controllers, they require no extra watering, they must be one of the most mesmerisingly vibrant plants in the whole plant kingdom and they are all our's!

 

 

Here is a shot of them growing in their natural habitat, courtesy of aaardvaark and flickr.

The Story of This Blog

This blog was started in October 2006 soon after a small number of individuals gathered at Fern Ave Community Garden to see if they were interested in forming a seedsavers group. Most of us had never met before and none of us had a plan! We put our names and email addresses on a piece of paper and said yes, we would like to meet again and talk about our gardens, our histories, our ideas and get to know others who enjoy growing food in some way.

Diana said: "What shall we do with the piece of paper.... who is going to look after it and do whatever needs to be done? I am really a bit out of touch with technology to do email lists?"

Viv said "I don't think I want to do that.... is there anyone who would like to?"

Ever the sucker, I said I would do it.... I would be the communicator between us all. And so I took home the piece of paper and wondered what to do now! Every day I would say to one or another of my family members... "I have a great idea for the seedsavers group".... or "hey I mustn't forget to tell them all about this insect / compost / funny story / great vegetable harvest " etc etc. But I still didn't know what to do to keep us all in touch with one another.

One day in October son Alex said "Mum you should start a blog for all these people and all this stuff you want to tell them." I knew nothing about computers and had never heard of a blog. Alex is a wonderful lad who always makes you feel good, no matter how little you know. He turned on the computer and took me to blogland..... and I thought "Wow! Why didn't I know about all this before? Where have I been all my life?" And so the Hills and Plains Seedsavers blog was formed, there and then, by an ordinary mother and extraordinary son, in a very messy study in a very messy house with a very messy garden.

And the rest, as they say, is history. These days it is even easier to get started with a blog as Google has made things much simpler and more user-friendly over the years. Now you can do amazing things with feeds and ads and links and videos and maps and you can even blog from your phone. Moreover its all free.

It has introduced us all to each other and I have even been and stayed with some of you in 6 different countries.... something I would very much like to do again, and include some of you who I could not get to last time. Times change and membership grows but I hope this blog will stand the test of time and that we will all grow old together in blogland, so happy that each of us has found this wonderful use for technology.... ironically, the same root technology that we often complain is ruining the earth, unless we run our computers or homes on alternative energy.

Three cheers for blogs!

Search Engine- for our blog- a new toy to play with!

I just realized a search engine has been added to this blog and it works beautifully.

Now you can read all about Cath's capsicum's growing at Kate's or find my article about the bee attracting plant -Agastache Foeniculum ( anise hyssop), chillies, our visits to Nirvana or The Adelaide Botanic Gardens.

WOW it is so cool, thank you Alex or Kate who ever added this.

No longer will our words and images disappear into blog land and take ages to find.

So if you are a new reader of our blog go back in time and see how much fun and learning and sharing we have experienced together.

MORE ABOUT THE CUCUMBER VISIT

Maggie asked what the cucumbers were like. Silvio led me into the kitchen and we sat at the table. There in front of me he placed a plate with 2 of the cucumbers on it and he said "Eat it, like an apple". He and Maria watched me take a bite. It was very crisp and fleshy - not at all watery - and quite sweet. No need to peel. An excellent cucumber. He said a friend of his cuts them up and puts them in fruit salad. Maria often uses them in cooking, when they get to be past their best stage for eating raw and they are then treated like a zuccini because they hold together well when cooked.

Another thing Silvio told me was about cornflakes. He explained that, as a child, they grew a lot of corn and ate a lot of polenta, even for breakfast. On the top of a wood stove they would fill in all the rings so there was just one big, flat surface. This would be oiled and thin slices of polenta would be fried to a crisp all over it. They put these in a bowl, hot, and poured over cold milk ! The original cornflakes !

Laura from Mas du Diable kindly sent me the template she made for making nice seed packets that you can fold up and seal, so I thought I would put Maria on the front of these cucumber seed packets, since they are from her family. Now we can easily make seed packets with any info we like on them...like this.

While I am writing this I am eating more of that toast with fried olives, for breakfast - it is my new favourite thing. I am nearly out of olives now and soon it will be just another memory, until we get some cuttings of that tree. Silvio has found it difficult to propagate but all we need is 1 success at first to keep the variety going. So much to do, how does anybody find time to work? Or am I just hopelessly addicted to blogging? (Don't answer that!!)

SOME GOOD ADVICE AND GOOD TIMES

Do you remeber this ? Barb toasting the start of the Hills and Plains Seedsavers with a foam cup full of... a tomato seedling she had grown herself!

I put the post below on when our blog was very new, in December 2006 and it is good advice, even if I did write it myself. Tomorrow morning , in my watering time-slot I am going to follow my own advice again. Since then I have tried using a watering can to apply seasol but I lifted it up to get it onto the leaves of my lemon tree and managed to pour it out of the back of the watering right down inside my shirt. I smelt like decomposed fish bait all day, even after a shower! Spraying it on is the best way, believe me.

HEAT SURVIVAL FOR YOUR GARDEN
"How did your garden go during the recent hot weather? One day last week I sprayed the whole garden with one of those hose-on packs of seasol, mixed with a liquid called 'WormWorks', that my sister-in-law had given me months ago for my birthday. We (the garden and I) smelt pretty organic for a few hours and I did wonder if it was really any use. Then the hot weather came and I went into total hibernation inside, with my friend the airconditioner (evap, of course). I barely emerged for 48 hours until this morning (Sunday). I will tell you what I found - everything blooming happily, even the little lettuce seedlings (not that they were blooming with flowers, just with life!). So amazing is this that I thought I should share it with you. Now I am on the lookout for something to spray on me to make me flourish when its 40 degrees."

Have a look back at some of the things that have been happening on the blog over the last year and notice the gradual increase in the number of posts per month and everybody's improvements at getting things to go right, like the photos. Writing has become less formal as we have got to know each other and our horizons have broadened with the discovery of Pattie, KGI and lots of other great stuff on the internet. I feel like that little girl in the real-estate ad when I say "Thank you Mr Google!" and thank you to all of the Hills and Plains Seedsavers for joining up to the blog and making it such fun.

Bringing Back Deb's Article 'Made for Each Other'

I sometimes remember during the day a mental picture of an image one of you have created and put on the blog. So I have taken the liberty to retrieve this post before it drops of into previous post land.
I love Deb's pot and have never seen an Edelweiss plant before. I read that they are a protected plant now in some areas as so many people picked and dried all the flowers , there were no seeds left to germinate as wild flowers.
The song from the sound of music has left the Edelweiss embedded in the memories of billions of people.
A scarlet robin, more memories.
Another image I carried with me was Bret's ginkgo leaf with the sky juice. So it will probably appear again as a mental refreshment as we head into hot summer days and water restrictions.
Remember Kath's silverbeet umbrella, keep cool everyone.

Made for each other

Several years ago I came across an article about hypertuta – a type of pot made from a mix of cement, sand and peat moss. These pots were used by collectors of alpine and rock plants.
Being a sucker for a new project and keen to make some pots of my own, I made a few including a bird bath. I also experimented using small shells I brought back from Smokey Bay instead of peat. I even covered an old bath to make a pond. OH what fun I had .
They have developed with age and they have been useful as pots, housing various plants
But at Herb Day I found an alpine plant, the plant that symbolizes the Alpine regions of Europe- Edelweiss.
So it has a new home in one of my hypertuta pots.

Today I managed to photograph my favorite small bird a Scarlet Robin

Seedy Sunday 2006

October the 1st last year was when we first sliced the pumpkin .
From then on we have saved the seeds, grown the seeds, and eaten the pumpkins.
So I think we will be 1 year old.
We have gathered members, seeds, plants, a blog (thanks to Kate).
We have shared garden chats, recipes, photos and now we are sharing skills we have.
We have made contact with Pattie from Foodshed and enjoy her daily articles.
We have celebrated International Kitchen garden Day with the world.
We have made contact with other bloggers and gardening links.
We have been on some great outings together.
We have had some unbelievable food feasts together.
But most importantly we have saved seeds and shared seeds.
We have experienced generosity of spirit, fun, laughter and frustration over lack of rain.
We have also shared friendship and connectedness with each other and with nature.
So thank you all for your contributions and many, many happy memories.
PS. We have also had a baby, (well not really!) and we are happy to make baby Peter a life long member of the Hills and Plains Seedsavers group.

KGI International Kitchen Garden Day

Good morning all, this is the first time we will celebrate IKG Day as our blog is not even one year old yet .
Last year I did not have any idea that this rich and colourful tapestry of seedsaving groups, KGI , blogs like Foodshed and much, much more was waiting for us.
So it is with gratitude today that I will remember all Kitchen gardeners from around the world.
People who while I write this will be busy in there gardens and busy preparing good healthy home grown foods for their families and friends.

If you have time click on What is a Kitchen Gardener

Sometimes we need to slow down and remember the fragility of life.

For me I would like to plan (as the gardener does) to try to cultivate other things that can be learnt while gardening.
Things like patience, compassion, gratitude and generosity of spirit.
Well that's the plan !!!
Gardens are great places to be.

So have a great day today and every day.

Veggie Gardeners in a World Gone Crazy

Yesterday I was tidying my book shelves. Regrouping my books back to there various categories - herbs, Indian, health, etc.
I found one copy of The Living Soil not with the others. As I put it in its home I was trying to remember when this journey of ours started.
We were invited along to the Soil Association meeting which was held within walking distance of our home.
Well what a pleasant surprise. Andrew was talking about "Feeding the family from the backyard veggie patch "(it must work they are all still alive).
Diana was selling seedlings, there were Eden Seeds to buy and some veggies from someones garden.
And there were more surprises Pat and Peter had provided delicious homemade soup and other goodies.
From this we did Diana's gardening course twice and met all you wonderful folk.
Now we head off to the Rare Fruit society (this week is fruit tree grafting I think) They have a rare fruit supper feast.
We go to the Natural Health Society, the Herb Society and I've been going to the Friends of the Botanic gardens talks. I have been to the succulent Plant Society and might go to the Native Plant Society. I also go to all the talks at Cancer Care they always good.
There is always so much to learn and I am always inspired by different speaker's passion for there particular interest.
I think it was Viv who suggested we save seeds. So we have Hills and Plains Seedsavers.
Now Kate has set up this wonderful blog.
With its links like Food Shed we are taken all around the world to hear about organics, buying locally, kitchen gardeners and backyard veggie patches.