Prawn Pad Di

I had 300g of prawns in the freezer when I fancied some Pad Thai. I didn't have the proper fat noodles so I improvised with Rice Vermicelli. I walked about the garden and gathered a stick of lemon grass and lots of herbs to go with some brocolli, a few carrots and some bok choy leaves (still bolting even in the middle of winter!).
I dug out my small grinder attachment for my Stick Mixer and
1. Roughly chopped a handful of unsalted roasted peants, put aside
2. Finely minced the lemon grass, 4 cloves garlic and thumb-sized knob of ginger all chopped roughly first. Meanwhile:
3. Soak the noodles in Boiling water till just flexible (5-10 mins). Cut up into manageable lengths
4. Make a sauce with 1 tlbs hot chilli sauce, 2 tlbs sweet chilli sauce, 1 tbls tamarind puree, 1 tlbs fish sauce and 1 tsp brown sugar
Then:
5. Stirfry Prawns, brocolli and carrot with 2/3 of the garlic/ginger/lemongrass mixture until nearly done.
Add drained noodles, roughly chopped bok choy and all the sauce. Toss about well for a few minutes and
Add:
6: The last 1/3 of garlic mix and about a cup of herbs - I used corriander, mint and garlic chives. Toss in all through till nice and hot. Serve into a deep bowl and top with the reserved chopped peanuts.
This was delicous and made all the easier as Glen stirfried while I chopped and poured the wine.

Mr G Caterpillar

I was not really suprised by my new visitors, Mr Green Caterpillar and his many green friends. They seem to appear where ever brassicas thrive. Can you see him there (on the top right) with his many dark green prodigy(eggs below left)? Unparalleled satisfaction is to be had by squishing these fellas between your fingers. I've read of some squeemish gardeners who baulk at this practice, so you can always drop them onto the ground and well, ground them to mush.
Trick is to get onto them quickly before they are in plague proportions, which seems to happen almost overnight. Check them each day if you can, as they are very good at hidding and the babies are hard to spot. Dipel is the only organic, safe spray I know of for this pest. It's expensive and I can't help but wonder if it harms Mrs Brown Earthworm.
My patch is quite a managable size for manual removal so I persevere with this method. I have picked a few large brocolli heads but want the plants to remain healthy for the side shoots that are already starting to appear.

Also picking beautifully now are these baby carrots...

Spot the Difference

I hate to crow about the 'potato-off' but look at the difference in these specimens. Need I point out that mine are at the back!
I have been giving them plenty of TLC in the form of liquid 'Harvest', a top up of a little manure and a layer of the left over soil conditioner. I haven't been watering them though and we really havn't had any rain to speak of. I just hope they aren't all about the foliage.
Funny, if after all this, there are no actual potatoes.
I planted some sugar-snap peas and sweet peas a couple of weeks ago. There is no sign of them yet. We finally had some rain last night so maybe they will be along shortly...

Orange Mushrooms

I have these gorgeous mushrooms growing out on my front driveway. It is such a lovely time of year. The Autumn colour is splendiferous! Topped up my potato barrels today with some more soil condtioner. They are doing well. Sadly, Glen's don't seem to have moved at all. I guess I'm winning...

Potato Progress

Here are the results of the potatoes a few weeks on. Those are mine on the left and Glen's on the right!
Glen's were going moldy because of all the pea straw on top of them I guess, so he made the decision to tip the whole lot out and replant them.
I don't think they liked that much as they are struggling now. Just a few stray shoots wondering which way is up...





I love the look of large shoots surfacing. The energy it takes to break through the earth and emerge towards the sun. Especially, when as you can see, the soil I used isn't anywhere like potting mix. It has quite large chunks of wood in it.

Glen was handy to have around when he discovered 'white ants' were moving in on our wine barrels! He sprayed the ground beneath them with some low toxic insecticide (is there such a thing?) and put the barrels up on bricks.

It still isn't really raining here yet - so I just keep watering.

Eating lots of Leaves!

The greenery is going OFF! Have absolutely heaps of salad happening at the mo. I just love the kale which feels like its doing you good as you eat it! I have it raw, shredded in salad and thrown into stir-fry or use where I would normally use spinach or silverbeet. I pick bits off along with beans and just eat them while I'm gardening. The cos in the other bed is most productive and I have started to give it away, but here you can see those French raddish in the forground and behind them the beetroots (Golden and Striped) I planted weeks ago. They are doing well and I have been thinning them as I go.

Last weekend I had another go with carrot seeds -- mixed variety from Cornucopia Seeds. Along with some Spring Onion seed tape sown into the last 'laying box'. I finally put the borax on all the beetroot so I'm expecting big, bulbous beets.

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Now that it's finally raining and feeling more like Autumn, I have been lighting my kitchen woodstove (1962 Australian Everhot) and that means BREAD! So I dug around in the freezer and found my sourdough starter from April last year and tried to get it going again. It seemed to be going OK. It was origianlly a Rye starter from a sourdough class I did so I kept on with adding Rye and filtered water. Meanwhile I got a Spelt one going just in case.
I made a loaf using the rye starter and method I was taught by Yoke Mardweni . I made a mistake putting it in a loaf tin at the final stage, then changing my mind and tipping in onto the baking stone. It mustn't have liked this and the extreme heat of the wood oven becuase it came out like a rock.
So seeing that the Spelt starter was frothing a treat, I used that to make a sourdough recipe I found online that required NO Kneading. I've heard of this before so I gave it a go. You mix your cup starter, cup of water, 3 cups flour (I used Organic white bakers flour) and 2 tsp salt. Then wack it into a covered bowl (ceramic with a plate on top) into an oven you have preheated for 3 mins.
I went out for the day and then got talking on the phone so it was in too long and had dried out on top by 8 o'clock when it went in at 7am. But you then just tip it out onto a well floured bench and fold each 4 sides into the middle. Turn it over (raw edges down) and into an ovenproof preheated pot (I used an enamelled cast iron one) and cook for 20 mins with the lid on and without lid for 20 mins at about 225c.

You must preheat your oven up to 250c for 20mins or so to really get your pot and lid      HOT !       be fore hand.  Then turn it down to whatever is your usual oven bread cooking temp in my case 225c. I reckon it could have been cooked another 5-10mins.
I'm anxious to try again when I am home so I can keep an eye on the prooving by turning the oven on every now and then. Original recipe says to leave it overnight 8-12 hours but surely that depends on the ambient temp. It's getting cold here now so I think the idea of having it in a warm oven or near wood stove is great.

All 4 Vegie Beds Going

We have finally finished filling the last two beds and have planted them out. About THREE WEEKS AGO I put in the larger seedlings (that come in a tray of 6 with a handle) - 6 broccoli, 6 caulies, 6 cabbage. Also some fennel that I hope will be the bulbing, Italian type (ssp. piperitum).
Wild fennel lacks the swollen base and must have been the variety I have grown before. Its leaves are used as a herb but I find the root is very invasive and even the smallest part left behind regrows with even more verosity. I am still confused with the naming of the three main different types, even after reading an explaination on  http://www.innvista.com/. I thought Florence fennel was the vegetable...but no, this is the wild type var. dulce (sweet).
Glen and I also started our potato growing competition. After much disagreement on the way to cover them we decided to have two half wine barrels each to grow our own. I lucked out from the outset as Glen decided to plant his out that day - I'd had them sitting in the dark shed for about a week or so. The eye-shoots were just starting and he chose his half (the best ones I'm sure LOL). Then covered them in cut up pea straw. He then arrange the barrels so that his recieve the most sun!
I have left mine until today to plant them out. I hope it helps that it is waxing moon, the best time to plant root veg. The shoots are about 1cm now and the spuds are starting to go soft. I put them in and covered them in a bag of soil conditioner and some trace elements. Soil is the traditional covering down here along with 'potato E' which I'm not using because I don't think its organic.  Wish me luck!