Cabbage

So this is what it is all about; my first cabbage! It is so beautiful that I am not sure if I want to do a painting or eat it.

Tuscan Kale

Tuscan Kale (Cavolo nero) is an easy vegetable to grow and I believe it is very nutritious. This week I began to harvest from my own three young plants. It tastes much better than I expected. I  fried a few shredded leaves (with the central stems removed) in some olive oil, garlic and chili flakes. Also tasty when drizzled with olive oil and crisped in the oven. 
Website with a recipe for kale chips: http://localfoods.about.com/od/chipsfriedsomebaked/r/Kale-Chips.htm

Green Harvest

Bok Choi

Ruby chard, Silver- beet, radishes and celery.

Over the past week everyone's vegetable plots put on tremendous growth. It has certainly been very cold and quite rainy but I wonder if some other factor is the cause; gradually lengthening days, the phase of the moon, time since germination?  I found an enormous caterpillar on one of the Bok Choi plants; looked like a cut worm. it had done considerable damage. We have made several delicious meals with this produce; quiche, stir fry and accompaniment to sausages. 

Hi there! As you can see, I am rugged up against the cold.

Mid-winter and the veggie garden is flourishing.The sprouting broccoli is starting to head, bok-choi, celery, cos lettuce and silver beet are all ready to pick. Carrots and garlic show signs of growth. Peas have failed, though. I have read that they do better planted late in the season in Victoria. I don't really have room in this garden for a pea crop anyway. This week there is not a lot to do except thin the carrots and plant some spinach seedlings.

Anita lends a hand

Anita has the plot next to mine and I have learned a lot from her French down-to-earth approach to growing, harvesting and eating vegetables. It's straight from plot to table: vegetables go directly into the soup pot or salad bowl when she goes home for lunch after a morning in the garden. I've learned lots from Anita, for instance to appreciate the humble radish: grow the milder French breakfast variety, eat the root sliced lengthways with a dip and  use the tops in a soup or stir fry-discarding the tops is a sin! In France turnips (navets) are picked small  and fried in butter or olive oil or baked. They are delicious eaten this way and the turnip tops are not wasted; eat them as you would spinach.
Anita has a different approach to recycling her spent plants:  instead of carrying them off to the compost heap, she digs a trench and buries them  mixed with with horse manure to feed the earthworms in her plot. She plants the next season's crops straight on top. Anita is full of energy and zest for living- a truly generous spirit and all-round great companion in the community garden. The picture shows Anita watering my garden, which she often does. 

Celery three weeks later

After two weeks of blanching with paper and plastic I inspected the celery and found several small snails and evidence of chewing. I released the plants but the following week the celery had flopped so I have now tied the stalks loosely with kitchen string. Time to harvest the weakest stalks to include in vegetable stock. As you can see, the celery stalks are too thin and green to pass muster in a shop or market but the taste and nutrients are probably better. Perhaps shop-bought celery is grown under more artificial conditions. 

Vegetable Soup: Add stock to lightly fried, finely chopped onion, celery, carrots and garlic then add a couple of handfuls of risoni (pasta the size of grains of rice). Simmer until the vegetables and risoni are soft to make a  quick, simple and nutritious soup.

Celery tied to stop it flopping

Over-zealous fertilizing brings unexpected result

Pride comes before a fall in this case, is true. I had two boxes of lovely healthy seedlings ready to give to friends. Why not add a little blood & bone to each pot to help them on their way? It was a lovely sunny day and one of the boxes was in the shade so I put it on the ground in a patch of sun and went inside to add a photo to this blog. 

Ten minutes later I stepped outside to a scene of havoc.I potted the seedlings up again. Most were saved but bent and battered, they were well and truly set back a week or two. It's liquid feeds (organic, of course) from now on.