Garlic

Growing garlic seemed a new thing for some when Jan and I were doing the course last year. I've recently ordered some garlic from Digger's, and with the garlic, came some planting instructions which I wondered if others might like. Diggers instructions were to check if the garlic was sprouting. If so, plant immediately. If the garlic is dormant, put it somewhere outside where it will be dry, so that the garlic can sense the outside temperature. Early to mid varieties will shoot from late March onwards. Mid to late varieties will want to shoot from May to June. Ideally the best time to plant garlic is just before it shoots. The garlic I ordered wasn't designated early/mid/late, so I was advised to slice a clove vertically looking for a green internal shoot. When that's evident, plant immediately. If not, wait a couple of weeks and try again. (I'm hoping that I don't use up all the cloves in trying to find that internal shoot). If garlic is planted too early it may rot.

I saw some garlic which was grown in Australia, in the local supermarket a week or so ago. Not having received Digger's instructions at that time, I broke up the cloves, planted them, and three are already sprouting. I guess that means they might be the early variety, or I'm just lucky.

Nourishing Traditions - the book

Hi folks

We whipped out this book during our garden tour; it's one that both Claudia and I enjoy reading snippets from to one another, as its full of really interesting information about traditional ways of preparing things from the garden and the bush.

You can get your own copy from John Patchet 0n 08 8365 1960.

I enclose some stuff from her website, but she will be here in Adelaide in ealy June (see info elsewhere on this blogger):

"Journalist, chef, nutrition researcher, homemaker and community activist, Sally Fallon is the author of Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats. This well-researched, though-provoking guide to traditional foods contains a startling message: Animal fats and cholesterol are not villains but vital factors in the diet, necessary for normal growth, proper function of the brain and nervous system, protection from disease and optimum energy levels.
Ms. Fallon's lifelong interest in the subject of nutrition began in the early 1970s when she read Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston A. Price. Called the “Charles Darwin of Nutrition,” Price traveled the world over studying healthy primitive populations and their diets. The unforgettable photographs contained in his book document the beautiful facial structure and superb physiques of isolated groups consuming only whole, natural foods. Price noted that all of these diets contained a source of good quality animal fat, which provided numerous factors necessary for the full expression of our genetic potential and optimum health. Ms. Fallon applied the principles of the Price research to the feeding of her own children, and proved for herself that a diet rich in animal fats, and containing the protective factors in old fashioned foodstuffs like cod liver oil, liver and eggs, make for sturdy cheerful children with a high immunity to illness. "

Cheers

Andrew

KITCHEN GARDENERS INTERNATIONAL

www.kitchengardeners.org
I have just found this lovely website and encourage you to look at it.I have put a link to it over with the other links. It aims to unite kitchen gardeners of the world but also to help people in disadvantaged areas set up a kitchen garden to provide for themselves. I have subscribed to it because I would like to help people help themselves and also would like to share recipes, gardening tips etc with people of other cultures.

I hope some of you will join too.

ps August 26th is their international kitchen garden day. Lets join in and celebrate too.

GREAT BOOKS TO SEEK OUT

Here is an extract from Barbara Damroche's column in the Washington Post, called 'A Cook's Garden'
The books I reach for often are slightly beat-up, time-tested ones, by growers who know their subjects deeply. The first garden book I ever consulted was J.I. Rodale's "How to Grow Vegetables & Fruits by the Organic Method" (1961), and I use it still. Much of it goes crop by crop, as does Yann Lovelock's "The Vegetable Book", published in 1972 and full of quirky lore. I even dive occasionally into Fearing Burr's "The Field and Garden Vegetables of America," reprinted from the 1865 edition in 1988 by the American Botanist in Chillicothe, Ill., -- great for obscure food plants such as samphire and snail trefoil. The 1885 English edition of M.M. Vilmorin-Andrieux's "The Vegetable Garden" has similar riches, beautifully illustrated with fine engravings.
E. Annie Proulx, better known for "The Shipping News," did cooks a great favor with "The Gourmet Gardener" in 1987, as did the English writer Joy Larkcom with "Oriental Vegetables" (1991), which sorts out all those confusing greens. And I'm always on the lookout for good books on individual crops, such as Ron L. Engeland's "Growing Great Garlic" (1991) or Lon Rombough's "The Grape Grower" (2002) or Michael Phillips's "The Apple Grower" (second revised edition, 2005). William Woys Weaver's "Heirloom Vegetable Gardening" (1997) is a fascinating reference I consult often.
For nitty-gritty data I turn to "Knott's Handbook for Vegetable Growers" (1980) by Oscar A. Lorenz and Donald N. Maynard, a treasury of lists and tables. For seed-starting, it's "Park's Success With Seeds" by Ann Reilly, newly revised in 2006. For seed-saving it's Suzanne Ashworth's "Seed to Seed," updated in 2002. To understand soil fertility, it's hard to beat "A Book About Soils for the Home Gardener" (1972) by H. Stuart Ortloff and Henry B. Raymore. Another wise book is Beatrice Trum Hunter's "Gardening Without Poisons" (1964). Among pest handbooks, "Pests of the Garden and Small Farm" (1998) by Mary Louise Flint is the most informative.
Often the best information, not to mention inspiration, is mined from old books aimed chiefly at farmers, from a day when the difference between gardening and farming was chiefly one of scale rather than between craft and industry. A home gardener could do a lot worse, on a rainy day, than to wander through Leonard Wickenden's "Make Friends With Your Land" (1949) or his "Gardening With Nature" (1955). Discover the great old British agriculture writers: H.J. Massingham's sage and accessible writings are collected in "A Mirror of England," edited by Edward Abelson in 1988 (Massingham died in 1952). Michael Graham's "Soil and Sense" (1941) and P.H. Hainsworth's "Agriculture: A New Approach" (1954) are other such treasures.
Many of these titles are out of print, but most are sure to be in the National Agricultural Library in Beltsville if not in your local library, and it's an adventure to collect them from used-book dealers. Simpler yet, go to an online used-book merchant such as http://www.abebooks.com/. They have nearly everything, and all it takes is a click.

BEANSCLIFF

A strange, new formation has appeared in my vegetable patch - probably set off by the earthquake in Japan (that our son Alex was in !). I have a 'cliff' face from which cascades a beanfall. Up and up climbed the beans - but not as high as Andrew's - on the new, sturdy (since it blew down last year) frame and then they all tumbled over in a beautiful arch from which now hangs a screen of beans, as if pouring down a waterfall. You can stand comfortably under it and there it is cool and shady (but impossible to photograph !) and reminds me of NZ where everything is cool and shady and green and dripping .

Eatin' and drinkin' and gardnin'

OK Folks,

Many thanks for your wonderful company during my garden tour last Sunday 25th March 2007, and the seeds and seedlings that have since all been planted out in those very beds. Kale from Kate, comfrey from Barb and lettuce AND flower seeds have I.
I scoffed most of Maggie's pumpkin dip while the rest of you were being distracted by Claudia's cakes.
Now I have to head back down there to clear room among the kikuyu for three more 3300 litre rainwater tanks arriving sometime next Saturday.
It was fun, and I'd have you all back anytime. Here's a photo of the eatin' part of the afternoon...
Cheers for now
Andrew

ITS THE VIBES...

Here is one of the Andrew's pictures of Barb's garden.
To view more of them click on the photos link.


Did you feel the vibes at Andrew's this afternoon ?
There we all were, as keen as anything to see Andrew's garden, and it was like something from a feel-good movie, that brought a smile to your face and you knew you could settle back for a good, old-fashioned, down to earth afternoon.
And what an extensive and interesting garden it is. Everything has been put to use a second or third time so that it is always evolving. Jack would have had a job to climb those beans and there are plenty of places for the fairies to hide ! I think everyone would have taken home some ideas for their own plot as almost every type of vegetable had a representative in Andrew's garden. I hope the chooks recover soon.
It was so lovely to meet Claudia and to accept such wonderful hospitality... and those cakes !! I have never eaten 3 different cakes before in one sitting but each was so different from the last and all full of the goodness of fruit. Maggie will put her recipe on the blog for the carrot and lentil dip which went so well with the thinly sliced rye bread.


(As the photos I took of Andrew's garden are on my old SLR (not digital) I will have to finish the film and get them put on a CD so I can add them to the photos gallery, hopefully quite soon.)