Grains of truth

On the 25th-27th April, just outside of Goulburn, NSW, my partner and I attended a 'Designing Water into Landscape Earthworks' course, taught by Geoff Lawton and Darren Doherty. Together with about 60 other participants, we learnt the theory behind swales and dams, keyline design and dam and swale construction. Under the direction of Darren, Geoff and Nick Ritar of Milkwood Permaculture, we used surveying equipment and surveyed and pegged out a swale, then watched it being built by an earthmover.

Darren Doherty teaching inside the newly built swale

Earthmover in action, building the swale

Use of a keyline plough in the construction and planting of a swale

Also on the agenda at the course was a session with a keyline plough, which ripped the downslope of the swale to accelerate water infiltration and promote aeration and biological activity.

Close-up of one of the tines on the keyline plough: coulter in front

The shape of the tine on the keyline plough is designed to minimise soil inversion so that the inert subsurface soil is not brought to the surface. The shape of the tine is also designed to minimise compaction, both vertically (shear) and horizontally. The depth of the furrow in our case was no more than 12 inches. The furrow cavity created by the plough coulter and tine, combined with the roller that follows (not shown in the photo above) makes a small amount of topsoil fall back in the cavity. If you're seeding (seeding boxes are available) this assists seed germination.

Darren Doherty recommended two passes of the keyline in the context of planning and building a swale. Before the swale is built, a first pass should be done in Autumn over what will be the upslope and downslope of the swale. In the case of the downslope, the keyline ploughed area should include the area immediately adjacent to the swale, which will become the swale mound. Then, in spring, after the swale is built and organic matter development has accelerated since the last keyline, another pass should be done. This second pass can be run at an offset to the original path. Approx hire cost for a keyline plough: 2 hectares per hour @ $50 per hectare.

With the second pass, a compost tea application should be done. Compost and compost tea was covered briefly in the workshop, and since then I've been reading up on large-scale home-built brewing kits built using second-hand spa parts.

Immediately after the swale has been built, sow a cover crop on both sides of the swale. Start with a scatter mulch of 1 bale straw to 40 m. Scatter mulch should be thin enough to just not see the ground, but not too thick as to supress germination. Just before the cover crop flowers, flatten it (Darren suggested dragging reo behind a three-while bike). Plant trees directly in the mulch.

My partner and I took our contour map and draft swale and dam plan for the peninsula property to the course and managed to get a few minutes of Darren's time to discuss it. We got some valuable feedback on our plan, including good hints on setting up a header tank and drip irrigation system. We now feel much more confident about moving ahead. I'm working on a planting design for the swale and area below and my partner is shopping for surveying equipment on eBay.

Against the grain

Back in the city, I enjoyed reading 'Against the grain', John Lethlean's fine rant against 'rice in a bag' in the the Age's Epicure section. Railing against ads for pre-packaged foods ads is a favourite pastime at my house. It seems like ads for these kinds of products address their audiences with a knowing, commonsense wink that says "you and I know that cooking fresh tasty meals is all very well for some (other) people but it's something we don't need to make time for, or invest time in learning". Looking at the bigger picture, pre-packaged foods are big on food miles and packaging, and therfore embodied energy. Our reliance on them corrodes the social fabric and distances us from the source of our food. Sounds like a big call, but think about it - cooking for friends and family is part of the social glue that holds families and communities together. Knowing how to shop and cook fresh ingredients ties us to the seasons, and to the land and the way it sustains us.

The peninsula story

With Winter setting in, I've invested in new gardening footwear. If I could wear these inside too I would. How perfect are they - eminently slip-onnable and stylish to boot (pun intended). Purchased from a Rivers clearance store for a bargain $30.

Growth is slowing right down on the peninsula patches, but potatoes planted earlier in the year are kicking on, as is the indestructible rhubarb.

Luna in the potatoe patch: perhaps she is catching the future scent of roast kipflers

Rhubarb after division

I divided the rhubarb, somewhat inexpertly, having never done it before, and planted another plant on the opposite side of the patch. With the rhubarb harvest I made a rhubarb and apple tart (recipe from Stephanie Alexander), which went down very well (two helpings each) with veggieman and the cross-country king.

Rhubarb and apple tart, just out of the oven

Under the trees in my father's orchard I've been putting out the chookpoo-and-chips mixture that we have so much of, and sowing with nitrogen-fixing groundcovers. Towards the beginning of Autumn I tried pinto's peanut (Arachis pintoi), a perennial legume that is often used as an orchard groundcover. Unfortunately it didn't take - I don't think there was enough rain to get it going. In late Autumn after we had some rain, I tried again with red clover (Trifolium pratense), a biennial legume also used as an orchard groundcover. Looks like I've had more luck with that. The borage planted early last year has also self seeded under one of the apple trees.

After a really dry summer, it's lovely to see the small dam on the property full again, and so pretty . . .

Inner-city patch

The beans kept soldiering on till late May and I put them into a quinoa dish with mint and lemon from the garden.

Quinoa with beans and mint-honey dressing

Quinoa with bean and mint-honey dressing

Makes 2 servings

Chopped beans (I've also made this dish with zuchinnis and cauliflower instead of beans)
½ tsp finely grated fresh lemon zest
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 tsp mild honey
salt
pepper
3/4 cup quinoa
2 spring onions, chopped (can substitute chives)
sprig chopped fresh mint

Wash quinoa well in a fine-grained metal sieve. Cook quinoa in boiling salted water (enough to cover quinoa generously, but not as much as rice), uncovered, until almost tender, about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, whisk together lemon zest and juice, butter, honey, salt, and pepper in a large bowl until combined. Drain quinoa in sieve, then set sieve over same pot with 1 inch of simmering water (water should not touch bottom of sieve). Cover quinoa with a folded kitchen towel, then cover sieve with a lid (don't worry if lid doesn't fit tightly) and steam until quinoa is tender, fluffy, and dry, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand (still covered) 5 minutes. Add dressing and toss until dressing is absorbed, then stir in corn, spring onions, mint, and salt and pepper to taste.

*************

I cleared one of the beds, put out compost from the tumbler and some chook-poo-with-chips from the peninsula property on one of the patches and planted it out with broad beans and parsley on one side, and red cover on the other (spare seed).


Herbage is kicking on, including chervil (Anthriscus cerefolium) and watercress. Chervil is great in potatoe salad, with sage, chives, parsley and any other sympatico herbs you've got kicking around. With the watercress, I made a watercress and sour-cream sauce for a steak and teamed it with the last of the beans.

Chervil

Steak with watercress sauce, beans and potatoe roesti

I've also been seedsaving, mainly dill, parsley and rocket, but also beans and tomatoes.

I leave you with an image of Luna on the peninsula property, tail in curlicued readiness.

Marie Antoinette

Helianthus tuberosus

Jerusalem artichokes (sunchokes) rock my world. Fast growing, prolific, pretty in flower, good to eat with a sweet, nutty flavour. What more could you ask of a tuber? Aside from the fact that friends and family have dubbed them jerusalem fartichokes, I'm impressed.

Advice was to snip flower buds off before they bloomed, and I tried, but they'd grown so high that it was hard. Because I didn't get to carry this out, I thought I'd have a poor yield. Boy was I wrong. In late April, I pulled out three plants and harvested at least 4 kilos.


Turns out I had two varietes, a knobbly one that looked like ginger, and another longer variety that I think is called 'Fuseau'. Both make tasty soup. You can make the soup with the artichoke as the main ingredient, or you can include potatoes or/and leeks. The soup has a lovely velvety texture, whether you make it with straight chicken stock or add milk. Apparently Helianthus tuberosus are good roasted too, like a parsnip, with other veggies. They freeze well (like ginger). I might try this Jerusalem artichoke and green pea tart with some defrosted ones.

Relishious

With the bumper tomatoe crop from the peninsula patch, my partner made relish, from a recipe in Stephanie Alexander's, Cook's Companion. Five kilos were turned into 5 jars, which didn't seem like much reward for a lot of effort, but there's a lot of taste packed into those small vessels. A friend vowed to eat her relish every day for a week, and took photos to prove it. Relish with pizza was one of the more unusual combinations.





Herbage
We're enjoying all the herbs from the garden at the moment. From left to right below are sage, mint and oregano, chilli (I know, not a herb, but good colour contrast), perennial basil, thyme and rosemary. Watercress is also thriving in a sunny spot on the balcony, and we are getting some lovely pepperminty feathery chervil to go with our fish.

Birds begone

My partner has built walls for the patches, so they're now a series of (slightly raised) beds. Wood was gleaned from a neighbour who had just pulled out all his skirting boards. Combined with my not-so-well constructed nets, plantings are pretty much birdproof. Now what do we do about our jack russell who has developed a taste for obsessive rat hunting in the garden . . . .?

Plantings
Seedlings: broccoli, beetroot, cos lettuce, sweet pea (massey gem)
Seeds: direct seeding of mustard, parsley, dill, rocket, poppy seeds
Also planted some Russian garlic, and early purple garlic for harvest in December.

On my balcony in the sun, I have seedlings of coriander, cauliflower (mini), and broad beans (coles dwarf)

Harvest news
Other than the jerusalem artichokes, I've had a late harvest of french beans, probably brought on by the heat spell in March. Made a polpete pie with them, which is really just a fancy label for bean and potatoe mash with parmesan, cooked in the oven in a pie dish for about 40 mins until a cheesy crust forms.


Spinach and chard are also staples at the moment.


A few small strawberries came out of the hanging pots, pretty disappointing really.


Eggplants were few and far between - planted too late I think.

Education
A stint of earthworks education at Goulburn will be the subject of the next post. Swales, dams, tractors, keyline ploughs, surveying equipment. Most entertaining.


Marie Antoinette

The big dry

Oh. Oh. So Dry. Where is the water? Autumn is underway, and now that I've started clearing garden beds in preparation for autumn plantings, the low soil moisture level is apparent.

The rain deficit has been exacerbated by a March chock full of higher than normal temperatures, a situation described by the Bureau of Meterology as "an exceptional and prolonged heatwave in southern Australia".

Late summer harvest

Pepinos

Five pepinos came off the potted pepino (Solanum muricatum). The taste is like a kind of bland rockmelon - pleasant but nothing to write home about. They're a relative of the cucumber and I note that they are susceptible to something called cucumber mosaic virus. I've come across the mosaic virus while volunteering at Mock's Biodynamic Orchard on the Mornington Peninsula. Mosaic virus also affects cherries and apples.

The chinese snake cucumbers are now finished, with the leaves having succumbed to a late summer mildew. The harvest was bountiful and included some strangely shaped specimens.
The tommy toe tomatoe harvest got larger and larger, so that by mid Feb, I was running out of freezer space for homemade tomatoe sauce and frozen whole tomatoes. Stephanie Alexander's method for making tomatoe sauce is a cracker - just mix the seeded tomatoes with herbs and olive oil and onions and bake for 15 minutes (or until the tomatoes skins are soft and coming off the tomatoes). Then mouli the lot. As I don't have any fresh basil this year, I've been using my perennial basil (Ocimum gratissimum - I wrongly called this Ocimum obovatum in the last post) in the sauce, which is stronger but just as tasty.

While tomatoes in the inner-city patch are nearly finished, on the peninsula they are still going strong, and on much less water. Tomatoe relish is next on the agenda. Anyone got any good recipes for that? I've saved some seed from the peninsula tomatoes, and am trying the seed fermentation method recommend by Jude and Michael Fanton in their Seed Savers Handbook.
Zucchinis are now finished and the freezer is full of zucchini soup for winter. Like the cucumbers, they all finally succumbed to mildew leaves, but I think I prolonged their lives by cutting off affected leaves.

The climbing beans (Frederico) reached the pergola and produced a big harvest, but not for very long. We enjoyed the small ones in salad and the older ones mostly went into an Indian tomatoe-based bean dish, which is a firm favourite with a certain young visitor (sometimes known as Veggieman). It's also a way to use the chillis proliferating on my chilli bush (not sure of the variety but it is prolific) and the lemons from the tree on the peninsula property. Thankfully chillis freeze well. Here is the recipe, curiously called "Fried Beans' in my cookbook, but for no apparent reason as it's not a fried dish.

FRIED (NOT) BEANS

Ingredients: 500g green beans, 2 small onions (minced), 1 tsp grated fresh ginger, 1tbsp olive oil, half tsp garam masala, half tsp ground turmeric, half a fresh chilli, 1 tsp salt (or leave out if you're not a big salt fan), two thirds of a cup of chopped tomatoes, 2 tsp lemon juice.

String the beans if necessary and cut into one-inch pieces. Saute the onions and ginger in the oil until golden brown. Stir in garam masala, turmeric, chilli and salt, and cook for a few minutes. Add tomatoes and beans and cook about 20 minutes, or longer if you have time. I reckon this dish tastes best cooked for ages, and then reheated. Stir in lemon juice and serve. It's extra tasty served with yoghurt.
Plantings
I've planted the following seedlings, raised from seed in polystyrene boxes:

broccoli
swiss chard
sweet pea (Massey Gem)
sunflowers
potatoes (peninsula patch)
sweet corn (peninsula patch)
garlic (peninsula patch)
In one of the new beds, I scattered lots of parsley and rocket seeds, as well as the seedlings, for eating and groundcover. The broccoli is in a sunny spot, with the soil covered in sugar cane mulch to conserve soil moisture and reduce evaporation.

On the balcony are many polystyrene boxes (surely I'm bringing the tone of the neighbourhood down - one can only hope) of beetroot (chioggia), onion (barletta), watercress, more sweet pea (massey gem) and lettuce (goldrush).

The sunflowers are already flowering after only 4 or 5 weeks, and will hopefully be pollinator and beneficial insect attractors, along with some calendulas (seed sown direct). Nastursiums planted last year are reactivating again.

Garden maintenance

Compost tea brewing

Another batch of compost-tumbler compost has gone out on the beds, and I made two batches of compost tea out of it as well. Australia's expert on compost tea is Elaine Ingham. I use Cam Wilson's recipe. Cam is a permaculture teacher, and all round excellent bloke.

CAM'S COMPOST TEA RECIPE (makes 20 litres)

2 handfuls good compost mixed in with handful worm castings from your worm farm
fish bubbler (buy this from an aquariaum/pet shop - it is the device that is used to oxygenate water in a fish tank - will set you back about $20)
a 20-litre bucket
1/8 cup organic molasses
2 tbsp oatmeal
2 capfuls Seasol

Put the compost and wormcastings in a mesh bag (I use an old delicates washing bag). Place the bag in a bucket and add water. Add remaining ingredients and stir gently. Insert the fish bubbler and turn on. Leave for 24 hours, stirring occasionally.

*******

I've been progressively clearing the beds of spent plants. The jerusalem artichokes are in flower so I've been heading some of the buds to encourage the plant to put its energy into tuber growth. As they have grown very high (up to neighbour's roof), I haven't been able to get to all the buds. Tubers should be ready for harvest in about 4 weeks. Looking forward to Jerusalem artichoke soup and having Dad make his skordalia with them.

On the peninsula patch I've progressively harvested the seeds off the two grain amaranth plants (Amaranthus hypochondriacus) so that I now have four batches of seed, each batch harvested one week apart. Gathering the seed has been a lesson in grain harvesting, including winnowing the chaff from the grain, a process which I find relaxing and meditative. Basically, once you have separated the larger chaff from the grain by pushing it through a garden sieve, you can further separate the grain by winnowing it, which means pouring the chaff-grain from one bucket to another in a breeze. The breeze blows the chaff away, and the (heavier) grain falls into the bucket. It takes a bit of practice, and you have to wait till there is a reasonable breeze, but it works.

Fully grown grain amaranth plant, ready for harvest.

First step in harvesting grain from grain amaranth - separate seed and chaff from head by grabbing the stalk and running your hand down it.

After some winnowing the much of the chaff has been removed

Grain on the left, chaff on the right - winnowing is nearly finished.

I'll leave you with some images of the amazing edible garden of Mark Dymiotis, which was part of the Victorian Open Garden scheme this year. The crowd on the open day was huge - so much so that it took me an hour to inch around his suburban backyard. The centrepiece of Mark's garden is a covered compost shed where he makes hot compost. He teaches gardening and cooking at Melbourne's CAE and not only does he grow most of his own veggies and fruit, but he's also an expert at bread making, and olive preserving. What a dude!

Grapes in Mark Dymiotis's garden

The crowd in Mark Dymiotis's garden on Open Garden day.

Go well in your garden.

Marie Antoinette

Summer of the Cucumis - 26 January 2008

Summer has well and truly set in and even though we have two 2100-litre tanks in the inner city patch, we've come close to running out of water for the garden. Some plants are also suffering from the heat: kiwi fruit leaves have burnt, as have some of the leaves of the zucchinis and comfrey plants. Watching the zucchinis suffer makes me think I should plant one or two more smaller deciduous trees that might provide some dappled shade in the summer. That's the idea behind having the lemon tree in the middle of one of the patches. Although it is still establishing, it is providing a good climbing structure for a Chinese Snake cucumber (Cucumis melo var utilissimus).
Climbing action
There are a few interesting climbing synergies happening, most unintentional. The unplanned nature of these is fun and educational. It makes me realise the truth of the gardening writers who say that gardening is as much about observation as activity. The Purple King beans (Phaseolus vulgaris, Purple King) have climbed all over a sunflower. Other climbing beans (Phaseolous vulgaris, Frederico) have climbed all over the tomatoes, which are themselves staked to a wire structure. The squash (I don’t know the variety because they’re volunteers) climb vigorously anywhere they can and I’m constantly cutting them back to allow other plants sun. Tomatoes are climbing everywhere – the Tommy Toes (Solanum lycopersicum var. cerasiforme) don’t need much by way of ties. I just weave them around any nearby structure.



My partner tied up some string supports for seedlings of the climbing beans (Frederico) that I planted in early December and they have almost reached the pergola.


Harvest

Much to my delight, we’re now eating most of our veggies and fruit out of the inner city garden and peninsula patches. It makes for a lean fridge – the garden is the pantry. My anxiety about the tomatoes not ripening has proved unfounded – we’re getting a good harvest with some to spare for family and friends. The zucchinis are absolutely rocking on. As well as the ubiquitous zucchini soup, my partner has made a delicious zucchini tart out of Jamie Oliver’s new cookbook, Jamie at Home.




A fair sweet corn (Golden Bantam) harvest came out of the Merricks patch.



However, although the the plants all produced ears, the taste wasn’t so good (kind of starchy) and the kernels themselves were unevenly ripe. I’m not sure why – might be inconsistent moisture levels: lack of rain, once-a-week watering.



We’ve also been eating potatoes from the Merricks patch, planted back in July 2007, in the Bill Mollison method.

But the vegetable I am loving most is the Chinese Snake Cucumbers (Cucumis melo var utilissimus), which took off in mid January and are now climbing all over the trellis on the neighbour’s wall and producing the tartest, most delicious cucucmbers. The taste is like a Lebanese cucumber, but with more oomph, and they can grow really big, although I like to pick them small so they are still tender and sweet. This is the first time I’ve had success growing cucumbers and I’m hooked!



Plantings

Direct seedings: lettuce (Green Oakleaf), chervil, parsley, rocket

Seeds sown in containers (recycled polystyrene boxes that used to hold vegetables): sweet corn (Balinese), silverbeet (Swiss rainbow chard), chervil

Seedlings planted out (raised from seed): eggplant, capsicum, mung beans

Seedlings planted out (purchased): Cape Gooseberry (aka goldenberry), Perennial Basil (Ocimum obovatum), French Sorrel (Rumex scutatus), Cardamon (Elettaria specie),

Seeds collected: running postman (Kennedia prostrata), dill, poppy

Dried poppies, ready for harvest of seeds. Dried poppies are like shakers of seed: you just take that petal-like top off the poppy and hundreds of seeds come tumbling out.

Composting update
The first batch of compost from the whizbang new compost tumbler has arrived.

Time from loading to compost: three weeks
Effort: 1.7 hours (two minutes a day to turn, plus initial collection of material and load into bin)
Verdict: Excellent. Check it out.

The barrel is really easy to turn as it has a chain-driven handle. You are supposed to turn it at least 5 rotations every day, but it doesn’t matter if you miss a few days here and there. Loading it is fairly straightforward – you have to load it all at once though (you can’t keep adding to it). We’ve been storing materials in the old bay that my partner built for me when I was turning it by hand.

The barrel produced two and half wheelbarrows of compost. Emptying the barrel is dead easy – you just rotate the barrel so the opening is over the wheelbarrow, and presto.


Continuing education
On the study front, I made it through soil science, the first subject in my agricultural science degree. Emboldened I’ve upped the stakes and am going to try two subjects this semester: botany and basic chemistry.

Am also doing a lot of reading around pasture cropping and the use of native grasses in farming. This is part of an interest in small-scale speciality grain raising on the peninsula property. I’ve been researching specialty gluten-free grains such as Amaranth.

Grain Amaranth (Amaranthus hypochondriacus), Peninsula patch

Rain is falling as I write, an all too rare occurrence these days.