I recently returned from a lovely holiday in New Zealand. I stayed with my Aunt for some of the time and travelled the glorious East and West coast of the North Island – I was really overcome at times at the amazing beauty of the place. What I wanted to share from my journey was, […]
Posted in Organic Gardening | Tags: container gardening, flowers, herbs, vegetables | 2 Comments
I’ve got several pre-fabricated raised beds in my garden – the ‘tank’ type – and having used them for a few years, have got an idea of the good and bad points of this type of gardening. Here they are! Pros Saves your back: A 70 cm high raised bed brings the growing medium’s surface […]
Posted in Organic Gardening | Tags: container gardening, herbs, organic, pest control, vegetables | 16 Comments
I can’t remember where my first plant of Warrigal Greens. It spread wide in a mat, self-sowed, was unfazed by the hottest summer and always seemed to be available. Moving north to the subtropics I discovered it really disliked humidity and even though it self-sows, the niche it occupies is much smaller. It tends to […]
Posted in Kitchen, Organic Gardening | Tags: recipe, vegetables, vegetarian | 13 Comments
There’s a popular garden myth that states that native plants don’t like fertiliser. That’s really not true – most plants will benefit from fertiliser, there are just a few types of natives that don’t like being hit with a large amount of some nutrients, phosphorous in particular. These plants – including Grevillea, Banksia, Casuarina, Protea […]
Posted in Organic Gardening | Tags: fertiliser, natives, roots | No Comments
Once again I’ve read in a magazine on organic gardening that it is good practice to use crop rotation. There are lots of reasons for this, particularly as it helps prevent a build-up of soil-borne diseases. Usually though, somewhere in the article it will say ‘your beans and peas are able to provide extra nitrogen […]
Posted in Organic Gardening | Tags: green manure, organic, roots | 3 Comments
Often, when people find out I’m interested in fungi, they’ll ask me to identify something weird, disgusting or horrible in their garden. If the thing in question is also described as looking like scrambled eggs or something the dog threw up, and that it seems to be moving around the yard, then I can be […]
Posted in Organic Gardening | Tags: fungi | 5 Comments
I can’t resist having eggplants in the garden, with their glossy, plump, dark purple fruit and soft, grey-green foliage – they make me feel like a such a successful gardener! I reckon these plants can give most cottage garden flowers a run for their money when it comes to splashes of colour. To me they […]
Posted in Kitchen, Organic Gardening | Tags: eggplant, gluten-free, recipe, vegan, vegetarian | No Comments
The Asian Hand Cultivator (also known as a Ho Mi) is probably my favourite tool of the trade. Being a self-confessed Lazy Gardener I have found this tool to be invaluable. It takes the place of a trowel, transplanter, fork, cultivator and pointy stick! I use it for hacking and lifting weeds, turning the soil […]
Posted in Organic Gardening | Tags: cultivator, tool, weeder | 2 Comments
I grow a selection of flowers in my garden that I can add to salads, stuff with cheese, rice and herbs or use as a colourful decoration on fruit, cheese or salad platters. The vivid blues of borage, bright reds and oranges of nasturtium and the golden and lime hues of the zucchini flowers are […]
Posted in Kitchen, Organic Gardening | Tags: flowers, recipe, salad | 7 Comments
I love mushrooms; amongst my favourites are shiitake and oyster mushrooms. Their robust flavours are perfect in stir fries but work well in many other dishes too. They can be quite expensive to buy fresh, but are very easy and satisfying to grow. Your home mushroom farm needs very little space and could be set […]
Posted in Kitchen | Tags: fungi, mushrooms, oyster, shiitake | 3 Comments