13 Nov 2016
by Debra Manskey
in Biography, Chickens, Cooking, Preserving, Produce, Rabbits, Tasmania, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening
Tags: Bernard Black Bunny, chestnuts, French Tarragon, fresh garlic, fresh strawberries for breakfast, growing chillies, growing tomatoes in Tasmania, NaBloPoMo 2016, self care, Tasmania, urban farming
I’ve been really struggling today, feeling physically unwell but also quite inexplicably sad since I woke this morning.
Perhaps it’s the weather. It’s been very wet and bleak almost all day, so I didn’t have much chance to be in the yard. I’ve become very aware of how sensitive I am to such things. So I decided to remain as positive as possible, do things that made me feel better and generally engage in some self-care.
I got out my uber-fabulous rain jacket, found a beanie and went to splash around, feeding the hungry hordes and finding little things to photograph – something that always makes me feel good.
First stop after feeding was to check the greenhouse. Usually by November I need to water fairly thoroughly in there but today it was so damp it wasn’t necessary. I did find breakfast though 😀
I only picked the one on the right and while it was lovely, we really haven’t had enough sunny days to encourage fructose production. I’m concerned the raspberries will be the same too but it’ll be at least a couple of weeks before they start producing significantly. And surely the sunshine will be back by then!
Of course, the best way to cheer me up is to see new things happening and I was very pleased to discover several flowers on the Cayenne chillies this morning. I really love these long, thin skinned chillies. They are great fresh but dry easily and they have a light and bright flavour, that lifts all manner of dishes.
Meanwhile, I decided to make a really hearty slow-roasted organic chicken for tonight’s dinner so I headed for the French Tarragon patch, which is booming at the moment.
This is my take on Tarragon Roast Chicken.
I had some chestnuts left in the freezer that I dry roasted and shelled back in autumn. They were chopped up finely with a couple of the small garlic heads and the Tarragon and thrown in a bowl. I beat in an egg and a little olive oil, and mixed in about half a cup of fine sourdough breadcrumbs to help bind it all together.
In the slow cooker I made a trivet of a halved onion, some small carrots, a few celery sticks from the garden that were too big for using in salads, a few more little garlic heads and the rest of the Tarragon. I put the stuffed chicken carefully on top of the vegetable trivet, seasoned it and poured over about a cup of white wine. Then I put it on low and forgot about it for a few hours.
After some quiet time reading, watching trashy Sunday afternoon television and a long luxurious shower, we prepared potatoes, parsnips and carrots for roasting. Now, this is totally decadent but it was a household decision to add some home made garlic butter to the roasting pan – because fresh garlic!
After the veggies were starting to brown, the chicken was carefully lifted and finished off in the oven with all those lovely vegetables. I decanted off about 3 cups of rich liquid from the slow cooker as a sauce base and made a cornflour roux. A tablespoon of homemade mushroom ketchup and a dash of cream finished off the sauce.
This was utterly fabulous. The Tarragon and garlic shone through without overwhelming, the chicken was succulent but cooked through, vegetables crisp on the outside and fluffy inside, and the stuffing was nutty and rich but not stodgy.
I’m now going into a food coma – but feeling much better than I was earlier in the day 😀
And to finish, here’s Bernard Black Bunny, telling me to “go away woman, can’t you see I’m eating?”
Take care friends, and don’t be shy about looking after yourselves ❤
12 Nov 2016
by Debra Manskey
in Baking, Biography, Chickens, Cooking, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening, Writing
Tags: baked custard recipe, chickens, gardening therapy, growing beans in Tasmania, growing tomatoes in Tasmania, NaBloPoMo 2016, Tasmania, too many eggs, urban farming, vegetable gardening
After yesterday’s foray into family history, today was a gardening day ❤
As many of you are aware, it’s been very wet in Tasmania the last half of this year and it’s taken a long time for soil temperatures to rise enough to ensure reasonable growth. Tonight, we’re expecting a big north easterly to come through, which is expected to bring flooding again to parts of the state. I think most farmers and gardeners are holding their breath, as it’s getting late to plant main crop vegetables. Here’s hoping it isn’t too devastating!
I’ve been holding off planting out tomatoes but once this wet passes, I’ll be putting out this year’s plants and hoping we get a long enough summer to produce a reasonable crop. But today I got stuck into preparing the beds in a method I call “lazy gardening”. Because of my spinal problems, I have to be careful about how much I do and how hard I work. It’s a constant trade off between maintaining (and slowly improving) core strength and not overdoing heavy tasks that involve a lot of bending. And today was perfect for me, still and warm but overcast.
I generally do yoga stretches before I start (which I’m sure the chickens find hilarious) and have become very conscious of not doing a heavy, repetitive task for too long, otherwise I stiffen and find it incredibly hard to walk properly for some time afterwards. Today I forked over a relatively new section of a bed that had become quite weed-ridden with all the wet weather. The soil was quite soft thankfully, and relatively easy going.
To break the job today, I planted out a few mixed zucchini in another bed, and some beans – an heirloom climbing Borlotti and a new variety (for me), a climbing Pea Bean that I grew from seed. This has a delightful, perfectly round red and white seed. I’ve no idea what the flavour is like but this slug thought the seedlings were pretty tasty!
I also had a wander around the garden and discovered loads of raspberries and a few Jostaberries, a complex cross between gooseberries and a black currant. I just hope we have enough sunny weather in the next few weeks for them to ripen and sweeten!
Lazy gardening involves very blinkered vision and really is a relative term. I try and ignore all the other jobs that need my attention and just focus on one small area, something that I find very difficult. It also involves a large bottle of water, somewhere to sit, my smartphone and a blue tooth speaker that I put on an upturned pot. This ensures I have to stop regularly, sit down, have a drink of water and listen to something interesting while I work. Today I had Tom Baker reading Doctor Who audio books – The Brain of Morbius by Terrance Dicks, while I variously weeded, looked for snails, fed the chickens the weeds and snails, watered the greenhouse and took some photos of things in the garden.
After a busy day, tonight I grilled Lamb Leg Chops which marinated most of the day in my version of Za’atar (garlic, preserved lemon, sumac, chillies, basil oil, Lebanese oregano and cumin seed) and served with Cous Cous and fresh vegetables from the garden. It was delicious!
And to finish, (because there’s so many eggs at the moment) I made a simple baked vanilla custard – so simple but so wonderful. The recipe couldn’t be easier. 6 eggs and 3/4 cups of sugar well beaten in a large bowl. Then add 2 cups of milk and 1/2 teaspoon of good vanilla essence. Pour into a greased souffle dish and place in a baking tray with some hot water. Bake in a moderate oven for about 40 minutes or until set through. This basic recipe serves four and can have nuts or lightly stewed fruit or fresh berries added.
10 Nov 2016
by Debra Manskey
in Biography, Chickens, Cooking, Music, Performance, Preserving, Produce, Rabbits, Tasmania, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening
Tags: Bernard Black Bunny, broad beans, building a garden, garlic harvest, gremolata, growing beans in Tasmania, Italian parsley, love my life, NaBloPoMo 2016, snow peas, Tasmanian original music
This will be a short post as I’ve got to get ready for an early set tonight as I mentioned here a couple of days ago and I’m still not absolutely certain what songs I’m going to play. Something short and vitriolic feels kinda right at the moment.
While the world seems to be coming to terms with the US election, I gardened hard this morning. I picked heaps of snow peas, and there’s loads of new flowers and peas coming on. It’s been a wonderful crop and hopefully with last another month or two.
I also ripped out a couple of giant Italian Parsley plants that are going to seed and stripped them for use in the kitchen over the next few days. Then I got stuck into the broad beans in the next bed and picked the largest pods I could find and shelled them into a bowl while the chickens looked on. Again, there’s still heaps of flowers and new beans forming, so this is going to be a good crop. All the parsley heads and bean husks got chopped up and fed straight to the chickens, who are giving us loads of eggs this year.
I’m the only one in the house that likes broad beans as a fresh vegetable but they dry very well, and we go through a lot of dried beans each year in curries and stews to make meat go further. I’ve laid out what I imagine would be a meal’s worth and I’m going to see how long it takes for them to dry out. It could end up being a dehydrator job but at least these will have a start.
Also, I gave up waiting and decided to lift the rest of the garlic. Some of it is a little small but it is what it is – and with the parsley, I want to make that other great Italian garnish – gremolata. I’m going to experiment with reconstituting some of my dried lemon zest and adding that instead of buying fresh lemons. My lemon tree is flowering but no fruit until next year.
And the big reason to harvest these plants is the amazing realisation that I’m running out of bed space! I really need the room to plant out more beans, tomatoes and zucchinis. It’s hard to imagine that I’d ever run out of space in this yard. When I arrived here (7 years ago next month) the back yard was a huge mess. Many of the fruit trees were diseased and some were dying. What is now the greenhouse was an overgrown shed that had suckers from a cherry tree growing inside and most of the yard was a jungle, with weeds almost as tall as me.
This year’s garlic was in the first bed I made. I remember the soil was impoverished, dry and hard, with little worm activity. After all my layers of compost, mulch and crop rotations, today it’s black, rich and alive. When I first started here it was easy to get overwhelmed by all the mess and everything that needed to be done, but over the years I’ve created 6 more beds plus the greenhouse and got it to the point of producing almost all our vegetable needs and some of our fruit year round. One is dedicated just to asparagus, another just to raspberries and one is in the permanent home of rhubarb and acid-loving berries.
Now I go down the yard and still get overwhelmed by everything that needs doing – and because of all the rain the weeds are out of hand again and the grass is tall – but that’s good for the rabbits and there’s food to pick while I consider my options 😉
Today’s cute bunny pic is a double feature. Bernard Black has undoubtedly grown
But this is my British Giant doe, Boudica. She is a lovely girl, very good tempered, but HUGE – especially when compared to BB!
I love the “one ear up” pose from both of them 😀
I’m off to get ready to play music. Go gently and be well friends ❤
09 Nov 2016
by Debra Manskey
in Biography, Cooking, Produce, Rabbits, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening
Tags: Bernard Black Bunny, growing beans in Tasmania, growing tomatoes in Tasmania, love my life, NaBloPoMo 2016, Perigord Truffles of Tasmania, Tasmania, Truffle Ravioli, urban farming, US election 2016
Well, that was unexpected.
Before I get to my usual blog topics (gardening and cute bunny pics) I may as well talk about the elephant in the room. Like many people in Australia, I thought Hilary Clinton would make it over the line, and Donald Trump would be remembered as a “what were they thinking” candidate. Mind you, Australia has a fairly mixed record when it comes to voting.
And if you think it isn’t going to impact Australia, too late – it’s already started. The ASX200 dropped something like $34 billion dollars today according to an ABC report. It remains to be seen what happens next but it appears that the US has certainly had their Brexit moment.
Meanwhile, I had a lovely morning in the garden, but with the dawning realisation that the weeds are definitely taking over. It’s been so wet and with a little bit of warmer weather everything is booming! So I spent some time clearing the way for more veggie planting. I’m trying out some different beans this year, I want to find the best for my conditions for both fresh green beans and for drying and storing. Today I planted some Italian Romano beans that I got through a seed swap. From what I can gather, this is an heirloom dual variety but I’m unsure if it’s a bush or climber, so I planted them fairly close to a north facing wall. So far, they look very strong and healthy.
Next will be a lot of weeding so I can plant out tomatoes. This year I’m planning San Marzano, Polish Giant and Principe Borghese bush varieties and Debarao climbing. My household don’t eat fresh tomato (I have difficulty digesting them raw) but use them cooked in curries and stews so I decided to try and grow enough to bottle for use throughout the year. It’s another great garden experiment – and I’ll keep you updated!
The cute bunny pic was pretty easy work today. After just over a week living here, I think Bernard Black Bunny has got used to the crazy lady who keeps intruding at meal times ❤
Tonight, I decided to have something a bit decadent for dinner. Back in August I treated my household to a fresh Tasmanian truffle and made ravioli and froze it in packets for just such a night. I cooked the ravioli quickly, drained it and put it in a bowl. Returning the empty pan to the heat, I added a little basil oil, a couple of tablespoons of pesto with shredded silverbeet and sliced snow peas. Then I tossed the ravioli in to coat it in the basil mix. It was at that point I realised that everything on the plate was home grown or home made. An incredibly satisfying revelation and a simple, totally delicious meal 😀
And finally, I looked out the kitchen window and saw this. It was too good not to photograph. Despite the state of the world, and the uncertainty many of us feel, I took a deep breath and a moment to appreciate the small things.
Take care friends, wherever you are ❤
08 Nov 2016
by Debra Manskey
in Biography, Music, Performance, Produce, Singing, Tasmania, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening, Writing
Tags: Cracked and Spineless New and Used Books, fresh strawberries for breakfast, growing chillies, hanging out with friends, Hobart, Meraki Management, NaBloPoMo 2016, original music, playing a gig, Rachel Carson, Robert Dickinson, seed raising, Silent Spring, Tasmania, Tasmanian bookshops, Tasmanian original music, The Tourist, UNLOCKED, urban farming, vegetable gardening
Today, I’ll start with an apology – there’s no gratuitous cute bunny pic in this post. In truth, I forgot to take one today. To Bernard Black Bunny’s fans, I promise I’ll make it up in tomorrow’s post!
I went into the city today for lunch, catching up for coffee with a dear friend and calling into my favourite bookshop, but this morning after I fed the animals, I had a little bit of fun in the greenhouse.
I grow strawberries in pots so I can move them around the yard throughout the year and I’ve been picking fruit steadily for the last few weeks. But one poor plant really wasn’t looking great a couple of weeks ago, so I took it into the greenhouse, fed it some of my home made worm juice fertiliser and promptly forgot about it. What a lovely surprise this morning when I discovered this luscious beauty and more on the way 😀
A few weeks ago, I planted my precious stash of chilli seeds for the coming summer. While I usually keep a few Cayenne and Rocoto in the greenhouse to overwinter, most get treated as annuals, so this is a big deal for a chilli-lover like me. I was thrilled to see the first of this year’s crop poking their heads up this morning. The weather has been downright cold at times in recent days, so I was worried that I wasn’t going to get any to germinate, not uncommon if temperatures are too low. I’ll post some pictures in the next couple of days.
This winter was so mild, there’s more chillies than usual held over from last summer, including a few Poblano Ancho and I’m really pleased the Cayenne are starting to flower already.
After, I went into the city and (not for the first time) I was quite astonished at the difference between my oasis here and being in town. All the more so that it’s a 10 minute drive or a 25 minute walk from here to central Hobart – it’s not like I like in the bush or even an outer suburb.
I had a great time with my friend but my last stop was the best – catching up with Richard and Mike at Cracked & Spineless New and Used Books. I love bookshops but this one is really something else. It’s not uncommon to bump into friends there, it can be hard to navigate around the shelves depending on how many boxes of books have arrived that day, sometimes you’ll even see the shop’s stick insects fornicating in their tank (I have photographic proof of this!) and for me it’s almost impossible to keep track of time once I set foot in the door.
And while I always come away poorer in monetary terms, I’m always enriched by the books I buy. Today I picked up a new sci-fi thriller, The Tourist by Robert Dickinson, and a very important book from my early adolescence, Silent Spring by Rachel Carson.
My father gave me a copy of this same printing when I was probably 11 or 12 and it quite literally changed my life. It caused me to think about making a smaller footprint on this fragile planet, something I still strive to do to this day but above all, it brought me even closer to my father. I’m looking forward to re-reading it and remembering my dad ❤
Finally, for those of you in southern Tasmania, I’m playing a short set Thursday night at the Waratah Hotel in Murray Street. I’m opening the wonderful UNLOCKED show that, now the days are getting longer (and sometimes warmer), is back to being a weekly event. I’m really looking forward to playing 😀
07 Nov 2016
by Debra Manskey
in Baking, Biography, Chickens, Cooking, Produce, Rabbits, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening, Writing
Tags: Bernard Black Bunny, chickens, creative writing, deadlines, gardening, Griffith University, love my life, NaBloPoMo 2016, Oak Tasmania, online learning, online study, organic gardening, pesto for breakfst, SBS The Feed, seed saving, simple pleasures, sourdough bread, spring, Tasmania, urban farming, vegetable gardening, Wild Island
This post came from an idea one of my friends gave me this afternoon. So here’s a day in my life……..
Today was Monday, and a day off from my usual work at Oak Tasmania. But there were all the usual jobs and dinner to prepare early because I also had a 1500 word essay to upload to my tutor for my current creative writing unit, Writing For Children and Young Adults.
First, feed the animals. There was squawking and jostling to get the best position, but the chickens all got their share of seed mix and there was an early egg from dear Hipster, the oldest girl in the flock. Then some quick weeding to gather greens for the rabbits and a big chicory leaf for each of them (because rabbits!) and the obligatory cute Bernard Black Bunny pic of the day……
I’m Cute – But I Will Not Share My Chicory!
Once everyone was fed, water checked, pats and cuddles given, I watered the greenhouse and picked veggies for tonight’s dinner, a slow cooked beef and veg curry. This involved picking celery, purple cabbage leaves, silverbeet and snow peas and (as always) more weeding around the plants and cutting back flower heads – all of which went straight to the ravenous chickens.
Finally, I managed to get back in the house and make some breakfast for me! This morning I felt like something savory on my toast. So, before I went to feed the animals I went searching through the freezer. I had the last of my current loaf of sourdough toasted with a very decadent and different kind of topping. I was quite thrilled to find a tub of basil pesto (sans pine nuts) from the autumn harvest tucked away. By the time I got back to the kitchen it was defrosted enough to spread thinly on my toast. It was intense, both garlic and basil flavours came shining through and utterly delicious!
Time then to knock a loaf of sourdough together and put dinner in the slow cooker. I replaced some of the bread flour with rye this time, which makes a nutty, slightly denser loaf. Wee Beastie the sourdough plant is really powering at the moment, so this is what it looked like after a few hours of proving under a damp tea towel in the kitchen.
I cannot begin to describe how lovely and yeasty these loaves smell at this stage – and without any added yeast! I’ll leave it to prove overnight and bake it first thing tomorrow morning so I’ll have fresh bread for breakfast ❤
Next on my list was getting dinner prepped and in the slow cooker. About 500g diced stewing steak and a couple of diced onions got seared in ghee and tossed into the pot with a jar of home-made tomato based chilli sauce from a couple of seasons ago and a tub of cooked chick peas. Lots of spices, herbs, red wine, plus celery, carrot, broad beans and mushrooms (thanks to the garden again!). All thrown in the slow cooker, switched on and forgotten about until later in the afternoon.
Then it was down to the nitty gritty – wrangling all my notes into a cohesive discussion about what I consider to be “an area of childhood that hasn’t been satisfactorily written about”. It’s a potentially huge subject and I only had 1500 words to work with. Chained to my laptop for the next few hours, I referenced, edited and pulled it all together – with Brahms in my headphones and the first cricket test against South Africa on the television. It was a bit mad for a few hours, I remember getting up and making a cup of tea at one point but apparently didn’t drink it, and some kind soul put food in front of me at lunchtime. But I managed to get it all done, correctly formatted and uploaded to my tutor who lives in a different time zone.
After a cuppa with a friend who called round, it was time for the afternoon feeding of the hungry hordes, more egg collecting – and bunny cuddles ❤
I also picked some snow peas that I’d missed that were way too far gone for the table but rather than waste them, I shelled them and set them to dry on my seed shelf. They’ll form the basis of the next crop and/or traded with other fellow gardeners.
Finally, I prepared the veggies to finish off the curry, silverbeet, purple cabbage and snow peas while some nice person cooked rice.
And now, dinner has been devoured (delicious!) and there’s plenty of leftovers to refill the freezer. I’m currently crashed on the couch with my laptop watching my favourite current affairs show, The Feed on SBS and once I publish this I might get back to reading my new book, Jennifer Livett’s Wild Island. Or maybe think some more about that song I’m starting to write. Or perhaps do a little work on my final assignment for this unit, a creative piece of writing and exegesis.
Or maybe go to bed early.
And this was a day off……
05 Nov 2016
by Debra Manskey
in Biography, Cooking, Produce, Rabbits, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening
Tags: Bernard Black Bunny, certified seed potatoes, cute bunny pics, growing potatoes, growing potatoes in pots, NaBloPoMo 2016, Tasmania, urban farming
Winter in southern Tasmania this year was a very mild affair (compared to 2015’s coldest winter in 50 years) and at the end of autumn I was given a present by a gardening friend. It was a Pink Fir Apple potato, considered by many to be the ultimate potato for salads.
Regular readers of my blog might remember that once this precious little beastie had started to sprout, I cut it up and planted it in a tub in the greenhouse to see if I could grow potatoes over winter here. You can see the original post here, which includes a link to Dan, who was my inspiration for this whole experiment. Though Pink Fir Apples aren’t without their problems, being quite susceptible to many common diseases, I thought it was worth a try.
Originally, my plan was to harvest them after roughly 100-120 days but I decided to let it go to about 140 days from planting. Space in the greenhouse is starting to tighten up and once I start potting up basil in the coming weeks, it will be at a premium so I decided today was the day!
Pink Fir Apple Potatoes in a Pot
The yield wasn’t fabulous but I learned a lot from the experience, most notably that I should try this again with different types of potatoes – and that I really do need a bigger greenhouse! Pink Fir Apple are a very late cropping variety and in hindsight, I probably should’ve waited longer before harvesting these or used a different variety. Oh well, next time 😀
I also had a couple of Pink Eye seed potatoes that I planted at the same time. Pink Eye is a delicious, determinate early variety, beloved throughout Tasmania. The pot wasn’t as big but it’s yielded a nice little feed of lovely, fresh spuds for tonight’s dinner. Now I’m feeling better a simple dinner of potatoes, salad (from the garden of course) and a little grilled meat sounds really delicious!
These aren’t the only potatoes I’ve got this year. There’s Pink Eyes and Nicola’s in the ground that are quite advanced and looking extremely healthy, and I recently planted a swag of seed potatoes that I bought from a local company Tasmanian Gourmet Potatoes. I’ve always had great results with their certified seed potatoes and they’re great to deal with. Also, they will post to anywhere in Australia, so worth checking out! This year I bought Red Norland, Pentland Dell, Patrones and Carlingford
My personal favourite is the Red Norland, a delicious potato with beautiful white flesh and gorgeous red skin. Lovely in salads, but equally good baked or boiled and they seem to keep quite well.
Red Norland Seed Potatoes
They’re all in the ground now and most have sprouted through their blanket of mulch. As you can see from the Red Norlands above, I allowed them to sprout or “chit” (I love that word!) in a brown paper bag before planting out. I’m hoping for a decent crop from all and determine which are the best varieties for storing over winter. Like the garlic crop, I’m trying to grow enough to cover my household’s needs through winter. This is reasonably demanding considering the amount of ground a crop of potatoes will tie up and the number of roasts we have through the colder months.
Not bad considering I wasn’t all that keen on potatoes when I was a kid! But as Sam said to Gollum in Lord of the Rings, “boil ’em, mash ’em, stick ’em in a stew”. In the years I’ve been living in Tasmania, I’ve become quite a convert to the charms of the humble spud ❤
And to finish, another completely unrelated cute bunny pic – because cute bunny 😀
04 Nov 2016
by Debra Manskey
in Biography, Produce, Rabbits, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening
Tags: British Giant Rabbits, Debarao Tomato, harvesting garlic, heirloom tomatoes, NaBloPoMo 2016, Tasmania, trying to function while sick, urban farming
It’s been a mixed week. I’m trying to finish a uni paper and keep up with spring planting in the garden. Meanwhile, gastro has stormed through my household and has left all of us feeling a little less than wonderful!
There have been lots of good things though.
The last couple of mornings, I’ve been lifting more heads and weeding the beds as I go. While this year’s garlic crop will be less than last year on average, the heads are undoubtedly bigger.
As soon as the garlic’s gone I’ll be planting advanced tomato seedlings. A few weeks ago, I found an out of date packet of Debarao (aka De Barao) tomato seed while I was planting out this year’s summer vegetables and decided to plant the packet as well as some fresh seed. Amazingly, the new packet did nothing but the out of date all came up. I’ll be pricking these out into cardboard grow tubes in the coming weeks and probably giving a lot away to friends!
And finally, Bernard Black the Bunny is settling in really well. He is playful and cute and like most rabbits at that age, has a voracious appetite and the cutest, biggest, fluffy paws ❤
02 Nov 2016
by Debra Manskey
in Biography, Produce, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening
Tags: curing garlic, growing garlic, harvesting garlic, NaBloPoMo 2016, organic gardening, organic produce, storing garlic, Tasmania
Hi everyone,
It’s been raining again, something I’ve been saying a lot this year! For November in the southern hemisphere however, this can sometimes be more of a curse than a blessing. Root crops can be susceptible to fungal diseases and I’ve seen potatoes rot in the ground from too much water. I noticed last weekend that a few of my garlic plants (the ones I could see through the weeds that keep coming back!) were sending up flower buds so this morning I took the time to check near the edge of the bed.
Usually, this involves removing the mulch and then gently (and patiently) scraping the soil away from the stem until I can see the shoulder or top of the bulb. But today the soil was so soft and damp it was very easy – a little bit too easy really! At this stage of the year, my garlic is usually just starting to swell and hasn’t as a rule formed a head yet.
Imagine my surprise when I pulled this monster out of the ground!
There was a little bit of mould on the outer layer but with careful curing I think the crop should be fine. Last year I lifted my main crop in mid November but I think I’m going to be looking seriously at getting most of it out of the ground this coming weekend.
Knowing when to harvest garlic is another one of those arcane arts, and there’s a lot of disagreement about it. Some people wait until the leaves are turning brown, but I find the heads have often separated and don’t store as well if I leave them in the ground that long. Usually, I look for any where flower heads (also called scapes) are forming and if the lower leaves are starting to die back, all the better!
Curing is another often overlooked necessity if you want to store your heads into winter. A friend in the UK lays his garlic out in a greenhouse for a couple of days until the outer skin starts to harden and any soil in the roots dries and falls off. If I did that (even here in Hobart) I’d have mushy baked garlic by sundown! I like to hang mine by the tops behind the laundry door for about a week. It’s warm and dry there but with good air flow and very importantly shaded from the fierce afternoon sun. After they’ve got a tough outer skin, I clean up the roots with a paring knife and roughly plait them for storage – again behind the laundry door. Last year my household ran out of home-grown garlic in August (a record for us!) but I’m hoping for September this time 🙂
For the sake of being logical and making a comparison, I checked another garlic plant further in the bed – and pulled out another fully formed monster. Do note, my hands are quite small but these heads are really big!
Ultimately, no one knows your garden better than you, all its microclimates and idiosynchrasies. What works for one gardener might not work for another. You have to make your own decision about when to harvest and be prepared to get it wrong sometimes, as I have some years. The key is to learn from it and not give up!
Let me know what your experiences are too – I’m always keen to hear from other gardeners 😀
01 Nov 2016
by Debra Manskey
in Biography, Chickens, Creative Writing, Produce, Rabbits, Tasmania, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening, Writing
Tags: Bernard Black, Black Books, British Giant Rabbits, creative writing, Griffith University, learning online, NaBloPoMo 2016, organic gardening, sick but recovering, staying positive, Tasmania, writing for children and young adults
Hey everyone,
It’s that time of year again! November means my annual writing challenge – a month of daily blog posts, otherwise known as NaBloPoMo. With the year I’ve had, it would be very easy to rehash the sadness and grief but I mean to focus on the many positives that surround me.
Having said that, I’ve recently been quite seriously ill, but with support from those closest and my GP providing the right medication I’m feeling much, much better.
Also, today has started out especially wonderful. Early this morning, our new (and rather dashing) black British Giant buck arrived. He’s only 8 weeks old and impossibly cute. Like most British Giants, he’s also very affectionate and loves being held and petted, but if he gets to the size of his parents he’s going to be a handful to cuddle! In keeping with the household tradition, we wanted a “B” name for him. And given our love of the iconic comedy series Black Books there was only one thing to do.
Meet Bernard Black ❤
Bernard B Bunny
There’s heaps of good things happening in the garden, a bumper crop of broad beans and snow peas as well as the the usual forest of kale, silverbeet and various salad greens that produced right through winter. This is despite a very wet spring that’s kept the soil temperature quite low and of course the chickens are in full laying mode at the moment. But at the moment I’m focusing on university and my current unit, Writing for Children and Young Adults.
Because I’ve been ill, I’ve fallen behind with the work but I have a fabulous tutor and I’ve been granted an extension on a major essay. It’s not an area I feel particularly comfortable with despite teaching music to young folks as well as adults. I think it’s because I’ve never specifically thought about writing for those audiences and I tend to read so voraciously that I make little or no distinctions about genres. For example, I think of novels such as Alice in Wonderland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Wind in the Willows or The Hobbit as great fiction rather than children’s books – and of course, all those titles fulfill both criteria. As a result I’ve learned a tremendous amount and found the unit quite interesting at many levels.
But I must get back to work, slaving over academic papers through the Griffith University online library and trying to make sense of my early notes. Then I can justify spending some quality time with Bernard, Boudica and Bella later this afternoon 😀
I’ll be back tomorrow, be well friends!
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Debra Manskey 