Garden Theory

Thursday, March 31, 2011

I get the carpark caper

Well that's a lucky thing. Through the pushes and pulls of life it turns out that I get to be in Adelaide this weekend. My bud Steve Goodman is working in Singapore this weekend which is also a great thing to do. I must say, though, that if I did it this time around it would have been an amazing string of coincidences - me in Singapore on a weekend that really soul-nourishing stuff (for me) was happening here in Adelaide. It happened a few times last year as well.

So the ABC at Collinswood turns its carpark over to a gardening show and plant sale twice a year. Crusty old fuddy duddies (like me) go out there, listen to the gardening talkback radio on their headphones and buy cheap plants. Boring for everyone else I know, but I like it. And my kids are slowly getting infected.

So Steve I know the pepper crab will be great and Singapore is amazing - my favourite other country - and I'm happy here this weekend as well. See you next week.

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Rain water on fruit trees

Last season's rain. Now is a great time to get sweet fresh rain water into the root zone. I'm using up 3000l of drinking water that will get replenished in a month.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Cut your Basil back if you like

My friend Amber asked me what to do with Basil that looks long, leggy and flowery. I suppose like this:

Well, my answer - cut it as hard as you like, use the leaves, keep feeding it and keep it moist.

Also put it somewhere that it'll stay warm. You can keep Basil going as far as mid July, but the cold WILL finish it. It'll go woody and die. So keep it under plastic or against a warm (west facing) wall.

Magnolia "Little Gem"

Neat, and cute. Not a patch on those beautiful full size magnolias at Mt Vernon - George Washington's house I think in Virginia - where the flowers are the size of dinner plates.

But these are a nice little nod to it.

Your Parsley seed gift

If I give you a little bag of parsley seed it's pretty easy to know what to do with it. Scratch some soils where you want it to be growing, sprinkle the seed. Maybe sprinkle some water on it, or not.

Sometime you'll get little seedlings like these. Just don't kill them. Sooner or later they'll come up to be a full plant. Us it as you need. They'll keep growing throughout summer 2011/2012, then 2012/13 they'll go to seed.

Then you can collect that seed and start all over again. Whatever happens with the weather, get this parsley in and you'll have parsley in your garden for the rest of your life, with almost no effort.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Spray Black Spot while it's still just a black spot

With all this moisture around your roses need a friend. There's a whole autumn where the roses can bloom and put strength into their frame for next season, and you want to help them along.

I got black spot appearing this weekend. Left to it's own devices it will yellow up your leaves and the plant will lose them. It just makes life tough for the poor little things.

So get some triforine and spray with that. It's a reasonably benign chemical but it does stop black spot pretty quickly - most other fungicides don't.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Pasta Alla Panna - Amazing use for overripe small end of season tomatoes

Lots of tomatoes at the end of the season. And basil is still going strong. What to do with those tiny tomatoes?

Use them in an "Alla Panna" Like this:

Fry about 300g of bacon, throw some chopped garlic in on top. I use heaps, and just dried stuff (actually pre-fried from a Chinese grocer) but chopped fresh would be good.

While the fry-up is still pretty uncooked throw in a heap of roughly chopped overripe tomatoes, they'll give off lots of water, as they do throw in a heap of chopped basil, back off the heat, stirring and let it reduce to a paste with meat chunks.

Get some pasta cooked. I use two full packs to give me plenty of leftovers. Keep the pasta on the undercooked side.

I've never had a problem from taking the pasta out early. Overcooked is very bad and happens too easily.

So once that's done take the heat right back, pour a heap of cream into it and let the colours all mix. You end up with a rustic, creamy, yummy sauce that you just can't stop eating.

My kids call it "yummy pasta" - I make it on Sunday night and the leftovers give afterschool and whenever snacks well into the next week.

Perhaps it might not be considered healthy with all that cream but I seriously can't work out what people think is healthy or not.

I do a version for my wife where I put the pasta in a bowl, put lots of olive oil then the mix. Tonight I put chopped roast capsicum in there too with fresh basil. I think that's probably a great deal more healthy.

But the secret ingredient - super ripe tomatoes and some fresh basil

The good news - the tomatoes freeze for this with no problem at all. Just chop them roughly, freeze and use them as above. You could get away with not even thawing them if you're clever.