My filtered drinking water solution

Coffee filter into a spring water bottle. Set the iPhone timer at 25 minutes, come back and get my water.

My wife Sylvia hasn't been drinking my rainwater for some time now. I think it's because she didn't like the floaties.

I think she's cool with the rainwater now.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Self seeded something: perhaps mulberry?

I hope so. This thing sprung up on a very convenient place. Next door has a mulberry tree and I wouldn't be surprised if this is a "bird distributed volunteer seedling".

So can anyone tell me if they think it looks like a mulberry to them? And will it give true fruit?

Below or @cullenofadelaid on Twitter.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Laying a path as a hobby

I got these pavers 10 months ago as they were demolishing the place across the road.


I like a garden with paths. I had some paving sand delivered three weeks ago and it's been an albatross since then:


I finally got the sand off the lawn and into the garden and built my little "fairy paths.


Those Correas I've just cut back hard and even in this tiny plot there's also a Cape Wattle, Olive, three Daisies, Agapanthus and some Marigolds.

And they come off of some older existing paths I laid down over 15 years ago.


Walking in my front garden is even an adventure for me.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Scare Cat: The Most Thoughtful Ever KK Present

Given that I spent six hours on Christmas eve putting the nets on and there's another four to go, this secret Santa present was very thoughtful.


Keeping the birds off the nashis, plums and figs needs to be a multipronged attack.

Many thanks to Chris Graves.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

A Case of Mexican Beer and Emergency Chill Down

The power of suggestion. The car that passed me as I walked out of Bunnings had a case of Mexcan beer in the boot. What a great idea. Hot home and it was a little warm, no ice in the freezer.

So I'll use a convenient method involving some frozen stock and a deep saucepan. Emergency chill down.

And apparently this new Blogger+ app works ok too.

Milk appears to kill downy dead

I put a post in the other day where I sprayed with milk. I've done it a few times recently because the weather is shocking for downy mildew.

I think Juliet Henderson was right. Milk 10-20% kills downy mildew dead. When it's growing it looks fluffy and a little white on the back of the leaf. And a berry hit with downy looks like a furrball.

But with this milk spraying the grapes have got some grey on them, but not that rampant mildew growth. That grey I only ever saw at the end of the season, thick and ugly and the grapes were beyond redemption.

So perhaps milk works. It's gentle and organic I suppose (whatever that means). And the best thing for me, when I spray they smell reminds me of the days I'd work in a National Foods cheese plant.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Carrots: Apparently I can grow something else

It needs a sandy loam soil and not too much fertiliser as well as a long time unharried to mature. Amazing it got all that with the chooks scratching around them.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Artichoke a pretty flower

I got a little unexpected luck here. Somebody gave me a tiny artichoke plant a year and a half ago, got three flowers in the first year then took some bad advice.


At the end of last spring after their flowering, I was told to cut the plants down to the ground. It went against everything I know about gardening but the person advising was very sure of themselves. It was bad advice. The whole plant languished through summer, then winter and was slow to move in spring. I got a flower a month ago and thought that was it.

But then we got a flower just then. Nice. So my plan is to let the artichoke run through summer, build strength up and then cut it down to the ground in early autumn.

That's how I hear to do it with asparagus, too.

Live and learn. The person who told me to cut early had a bad season too. I'm sure my way will work better.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Milk: Last line of defence against downy mildew

As the forecast is for some serious rain and warm temperatures I want to put up some defence against downy mildew on the grapes.

But the poor vines have had a lot of spray already this spring. Cupric hydroxide, copper oxychloride, sulphur, lime sulphur. "three sprays before Christmas" is the wine industry standard. I am seeing some funcicids damage


More about my dosing than number of sprays. But for a gentle option this timeI've gone for milk (10-20% in water). John Lamb has been talking about it for years but I was convinced when Juliet Henderson, winemaker and Uni of Adelaide MBA graduate suggested milk - unprompted when I was talking about it last year.

I'm at Edan's tennis now


And the rain has started. The kids'll have to stop soon I think. And I hope the milk is doing its job.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Vichyssoise: yes leeks, deliberately

I put leeks in about four months ago. Playing golf on Wed with an Englishman I told him I was growing leeks and his answer was "what, deliberately?". I've only come to notice the Wales / England antipathy.

But they're ready:


And perfect timing for our three good family friends - Hillier/Harris/Habel to come together tonight and start with Vichyssoise. So I toook all those leeks and two onions, gently sweated them off with a lot of butter for about 20mins, without browning. Added a lot of pepper and will test for salt sometime.


Finely sliced some potatoes, sweated them down a little and then added two cups of stock. Hilariously ham stock mad from last Christmas's ham bone and frozen.


It's just bubbling now and will be ready to hit with the stick mixer soon. Then I'll chill it and tonight stir in some cream. But of course there'll need to be a non-dairy version.

Now, my freezer has no more stock in it and my garden is free of leeks. You shall be spared leek stories for at least nine months.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Garlic Harvest Time

Now I can just let it dry gently


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

December rain: the pluses and minuses

Urge, the downside will be the way that all my vines will be covered in downy mildew by Tuesday. I have sprayed three times already and will spray again this weekend, but the Red Globes and Sauvignon Blanc will be little clusters of grey mould.



But I have three garden tanks each about 1000l. The 3kl drinking tank is filled with clean winter water and closed off.

But the three were down to 60% and by end of today will be full and flowing out to the lawn. The lawn is already a little fresher. I'll get some fertiliser onto it before tomorrow's showers and that'll green it up for summer.

Generally this bit of rain is a good thing.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Serendipities: Self seeded snapdragons

In a bed of Dutch iris bulbs I'm due to pull up this Sunday:


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Wire over the butternuts

This will be interesting. I planted butternut pumpkin into freshly tilled soil. The problem with freshly tilled soil is the way the chooks love to make dust baths in it. So the wire over the top has solved that, and it will be an interesting little experiment.


I expect the vines will grow up through the wire and the pumpkins will sit on the top. And the eggplants will probably grow up through it too, as long as the mites don't get them.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Clean, fresh and from the garden

We managed to get an artichoke this year


Which I boiled with my garlic and a bay leaf


And the same garlic was use with fresh cut parsley and oregano


And mixed in with some oil and pasta for a great, quick dinner. It was even vegetarian.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone