Sunday, October 30, 2011

Confusing but fantastic lettuce

A recent family disagreement came about, mostly because the person I was talking to didn't know this lettuce. Amazing, because he's the one who gave me the seeds. But with any other lettuce, when they start to grow tall, they're going to seed. They're crap. But these are different. They grow, increasingly upwards, for about eight weeks. And you can simply peel the leaves off. They're high up off the ground and barely need washing.


The ones at the front are still productive, and the ones at the back are just starting to go to seed. The leaves will get a little leathery and bitter on this ones.



But by then, it makes sense to tie those stems up, and collect the seed as it matures. It truly is the best lettuce I've ever had.

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Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Tomato and _basil_? Mountain bread?

Not to be picky but I hope these tomato and basil wraps will be good. But the graphic on their pack has the green stuff looking more like parsley than basil. But maybe I don't know my basil.


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Sunday, October 23, 2011

A memory from about 2002

I was scanning some stuff recently and got this photo of myself and a few friends. It was the state meet, competitive sktdiving in 2002 over bordertown. See all that flowering canola below us?

It was where we learnt just how hard formation skydiving was, we only got one point, sometimes none, per round.

Black and yellow is me, white jumpsuit is Katrin Kjellberg, now back in Sweden, pink arms is Richard Jubb - I think still lives North of Adelaide.

And the blue helmet is great friend Robbie Hollis who sadly died in the sport in 2003. I don't want to get morose, but we lost a good guy that day.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Mr 7yo and the joy of spring

Jonah is onto it. He planted a single broad bean in August, and in in harvest mode


He also went to a health workshop and got this really cool little matchbook of lettuce seeds:






And we're getting our first strawberries


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Sunday, October 16, 2011

My daily gift at this time of the year

Each day I manage to pull a couple of handfuls of broad beans out of the garden and put them at Sylvia's place at the table.


This goes for about three or four weeks. Sylv tells me they get a little tough and unpalatable late in the season but they're good when there's plenty of moisture in the soil.

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Don't be afraid to re-pot if it's growing quickly

I took some cuttings, last season of these Cordyline Australis. They grow wild up in Cairns and the still do well here. And look at how one year's root growth has gone:


So one of the ticks to having nice plants is to not stick them in a pot or the ground and then leave them.


These plants in particular, love to be cut at the stem. They'll reshoot and what you take of the top will grow roots in water. How do you think I got these ones?


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Quietly sitting under a tree

I might just sit here


And reflect for a little while



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Saturday, October 15, 2011

Cutting back $2 daisies

What great value for money these have been!


I bought five of these, about three years ago and they come up to waist height each year.

I can cut them back in spring - as I'm doing here - and the keep coming back for more.

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Friday, October 14, 2011

L'Atelier, a great memory

Ah. Doing my expenses from that trip to France, and I found this beautiful, really cool logo at the top of one of my receipts.

Breaking Murphy's law with a box gutter

Effectively Murphy's law is about how we should not build systems that have the opportunity for catastrophic failure.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the box gutter:



So if ever you hear a builder complaining about box gutters, it's because a blockage would back up and release through the ceiling. Builders avoid them when they can, given enough time - and in this case lack of maintenance - something will go wrong.

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Monday, October 10, 2011

Monday, October 3, 2011

Alice Cooper: Great Memories

We all get old, but Alice Cooper is doing it well. And they loved his concert.


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Question for Malcolm Campbell: sunburn here?

These loquats are ripening but to my annoyance they're browning off where the sun's hitting them. I'm sure it's just sunburn, nothing too much. What do you think, Malcolm?






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IKEA boxes laid over the root run of fruit trees

The current wisdom is to not mulch your fruit trees. Whilst mulching retains moisture it also creates a humid meso-climate that encourages fungal diseases like brown rot, rust etc.

But the evap rates in Adelaide are huge. Now the answer I've found is to lay out those boxes I've got under the dripline. The dripper hose is under the cardboard. Makes sense.


My donut peach as well:


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