Take a look at this photo:

See how I’ve pinched out the tip of the plant? The tip (about 4 good sized leaves went into my scrambled eggs – yum) has been removed a little above two new side shoots. This helps keep your plant nice and bushy, rather than letting it become sparce and leggy.

Another tip I want to share is that if you see your basil plants starting to flower (cute little white flowers) and you want to encourage your basil to last long into autumn – even winter in some climates – pinch out any flower spikes. Your plant will want to grow a bit more to send out more flowers, so it will last longer.

Of course, if you want to save your own seed for next spring, then allow some of the flowers to stay and let them go on to product seed. Harvest the seeds when they are dry, usually late autumn.

Happy Organic Gardening, Healthy Living…

Aren’t they pretty. They look great amongst the other herbs in my garden. Of course you could grow them in a flower bed too.

Some other herbs that are flowering (or have just been) are my tansy, curry plant, chives, pink rosemary, some of my lavenders and golden oregano.

My tip for today: plant some herbs

They give in so, so many ways and most are quite easy to grow.

Happy Organic Gardening, Healthy Living…

It’s quite an easy plant to grow. If you use a lot of parsley then it pays to have several plants. I grow both curley parsley and the flat leaf (Italian) parsley.

Here’s a photo of some young curley plants I’ve got growing.

Parsley will grow from seed, but it takes a long time to germinate – between 5 & 6 weeks (plant in spring). So don’t give up, just keep those seeds moist! You can save your own seed if you let some of your plants flower. They get quite straggly, but I don’t mind that.

Also, parsley are biennial, which means they go to seed in their second season. So if you plant some every season, you’ll always have oodles of parsley at your fingertips.

They are not really demanding plants. If you’re picking regularly like I do, then you’ll need to fertilize (organic fertilizer of course) every month or so and just keep the water up to them – especially in really hot weather.

I believe parsley is good for helping reduce high blood pressure, so if you have this problem you might want to ask your naturopath about it.

Happy Organic Gardening, Healthy Living…

One lesser known herb that I’m really getting into now (and wanted to share) is Lebanese Cress. There’s some debate over the botanical name, but take a look at my website plant profile to see what it looks like if you don’t already know.

I love using it in salads. It’s so pretty, not to mention unusual looking for a salad herb. And it tastes just like juicy, fresh carrots! Bonus!

Anyway, take a look at it here, then try and get a plant from somewhere. I love them so much that it’s my plant of the week at my market stall tomorrow at the Barossa Farmer’s Market. So if you live close, come and grab one.

Happy Organic Gardening, Healthy Living…

Not only am I spending time in my veggie garden, but I’m constantly potting up my herbs to sell at the Barossa Farmer’s Market each Saturday morning.
Not to mention the other propagating I do – division of some of my larger plants, growing from seed and then there’s the cuttings that need to be done! In the picture below there are lavender cuttings on the left hand side, rosemary cuttings in the middle and several types of sages to the right hand side.

It all takes time, but I LOVE it! (Don’t they look great?) Oh, just looking at the photo now I see that the cuttings to the far right are my variegated lavender.

Just in case you’re wondering, the cutting tray is sitting on a heat bed and under two fluorescent lights. There’s aluminium foil behind the tray to reflect as much light onto the plants as possible. I took the plastic tray cover off to take the photo.

If you’ve had a go at getting cuttings to strike, I’d love to hear about it – so please share by leaving a comment.

If you’re new to organic gardening, you might like to learn about it from my website.

Happy Organic Gardening, Healthy Living…

They have their own website (not sure how often it’s updated though) so you can have a sneak preview here, but I must say it really doesn’t do the garden justice.

I’ll be there myself after I’ve been to the Barossa Farmer’s Market where I have a stall every Saturday. I should be there after 1pm on Saturday and all day Sunday. I’ll have my stand of organically grown herbs and other edible plants available for sale. Please say hello if you’ve read my blog! (sometimes I think I’m writing to myself)

OK, so to find Jacobs Creek Retreat take a look at the map on their website, try Nitschke Rd, Barossa Valley on Google Earth (it’s at the end of Nitschke Rd) or give them a call for details on 08 8563-1123.

Maybe I’ll see you there   

Happy Organic Gardening, Healthy Living…

Not to mention the fact that I’m producing potted herbs to sell at the market every week and of course they’re selling like hot-cakes now that the temperature’s warmed up. Everyone wants to get their herb and vegetable gardens into full swing now.

So just what have I been doing in my veggie garden lately?

I’ve planted tomatoes (and staked them), basil, flat and curley parsley, beetroot seeds, perrenial beans, several varieties of pumpkin, zucchinis and cucumbers, globe artichokes, spinach….  I’m sure there’s other things that haven’t come to mind just now too.

I’ve even got hubby out in the veggie patch too. He’s planted more tomatoes, capsicum, chillies, basil, leeks, watermelon and eggplant. Plus he’s set up a hydroponic system so that we can grow a heap of unusual herbs and strawberries. Any strawberries we grow in the soil here are devoured by millipedes before they are really ripe – little buggars!

Then there’s the other very satisfying task of harvesting some things. Take a look below at how tall my broad beans grew this year! And I’m 5′7″.

This is my second picking (about 3kg). I picked about the same a week ago. The beans are tender enough at this stage to eat the pods too. I’ve sold most of them at the market, keep enough for ourselves of course. And they’ll keep producing good size pods for at least a few more weeks yet.

I’ve also been harvesting parsley (see it next to me in the photo going to seed) and leeks and numerous herbs for market, oh and snow peas too. People love the fresh produce.

And we now have 23 hens and 2 roosters. So we have eggs for market too. Can you tell I’ve been a little busy? And because it doesn’t get dark now til after 8pm… well it doesn’t leave time for much else once I’ve made dinner and cleaned up a little. Not complaining though. I love being in my garden.

If you want to share what’s happening in your garden, please, please, please leave a comment.  

Happy Organic Gardening, Healthy Living…

For starters, it grows all year round in temperate climates. So you can have a celery type flavour whenever you want – unlike celery, which takes about 5 months to grow, you harvest it and it’s gone forever. With lovage you just pull off a stem or three for your soup, casserole or even salad. You can use the stem as well as the pretty leaves and seeds.

Lovage can grow quite tall – up to 2 metres, so it’s best along a fence or the back of a border. It is also quite happy growing in partial shade. It prefers fertile soil and not to dry out, but is quite hardy.

In summer it will produce small, yellow flowers and then seed. You can also use the seed in cooking, replacing celery seed.

Lovage is also an excellent companion plant. It’s one of those fantastic plants that improves the health of other plants living close by. It is also used medicinally as a tea.

So you see it really is an amazing plant….  and very easy to grow. All in all, a great herb to add to your collection.

Happy Organic Gardening, Healthy Living…

It is quite an easy plant to grow and propagate. It loves warm, humid conditions – so you’ll need to keep the water up to it. If you were to grow it outside, look for a damp and shady spot.

It propagates very easily, even producing arial roots which can be cut off with a 10cm section of the plant and put into a good potting mix, with a small amount of organic fertilizer and kept moist.

Use the leaves in your asian cooking for a flavour similar to coriander, with a spicy difference. A great addition to curries, rice and hot soups.

Give it a go – it’s so easy to grow. You’ll be so glad you did.

Happy Organic Gardening, Healthy Living…

P.S. If you’re not sure how to get started organic gardening, take a look at my e-manual - Organic Food Gardening Beginner’s Manual to get you headed in the right direction!

Here’s a photo of my Stevia plant. Stevia’s the sweetner herb. You dry the leaves and use them as a sugar substitute. This is when I first bought the plant and it was in vigorous growth.

Below are photos of how it suffers from the cold (left) and what to do about it (right).

Just take your snips and trim off all the old and withered wood, leaving a little of the old wood. When the basal leaves grow larger you can trim it down lower if you want to.

So don’t despair if some of your herbs seem to die over winter. Many herbs actually need the cold to rejuvenate themselves for the following growing season.

Happy Organic Gardening, Healthy Living…

Julie