Organically Grown Broad Beans Cope With Frost

I walked past my organic veggie garden a day or two ago on my way to feed the chooks, and to my horror my 30cm tall (12 inches) broad beans were all bent over. I was mortified! Then I took in the surrounding landscape…. misty, very cold, crunching sound as I walked… yes, there was [...]

Plants that just will not die!

This doesn’t have anything to do with organic gardening, but I just had to show you the tenacity of some plants. Take a look at this photo below of a really old geranium plant “growing” (more like hanging on by a thread) in a very decrepit half wine barrel. This is how we found it [...]

Lettuce Growing Well In Our Poly Tunnel

Here’s an updated photo of the lettuce we’re growing in our poly tunnel, taken late this afternoon. They’re looking great, even though they are growing quite slowly for lettuce grown by this method (nutrient film technology). I’ve read that some commercial growers can have lettuce grow to saleable size within 4 to 5 weeks. Pretty [...]

Using Herbs From My Organic Garden

If you’ve read a few of my posts, you’ll have already worked out that I really love herbs. I mean, they are just such wonderful and versatile plants. They have so many gorgeous scents and flavours and there’s one for just about everything that ails you. But it’s not just people that can benefit from [...]

Does Your Organic Garden Soil Look Like This?

When you’ve been organic gardening for a few seasons or more your soil will become more and more nutrient rich and teeming with micro organisms. That is providing you keep adding organic material to you vegetable garden. Otherwise you will quickly deplete your soil of it’s goodness and create nutrient deficiencies. You can see in [...]

Herbs Growing In My Organic Garden Over Winter

If you’re new to organic gardening, you may start to panic as winter sets in and you see some of your herbs starting to dissappear! But please don’t worry too much. You see, some herbs die back during winter. The leaves may wither and die, but the bulk of the plant which is underground will [...]

1stop Organic Gardening’s 1st Barossa Farmer’s Market

Well, OK – this was my second Saturday at the Barossa Farmer’s Market, but I forgot the camera last week in all the excitement. So it’s been two weekends now and I’m really enjoying the buzzing atmosphere, the delicious smell of coffee and hot breakfasts and the vast array of produce from the other stall [...]

Organic Gardening Through Winter

Well it’s winter here now in the Barossa Valley. Today it rained most of the day and it was very cold – very cold for us that is. It was 6°C in hubby’s shed this afternoon. This is a photo I snapped out of the window of the car the other day. It’s a vineyard [...]

30 Top Fat Blocker Foods

I’ve just been reading about foods that block fat absorpsion. And do you know what? Most of them are found in the veggie garden and orchard. Of course if you grow your own grains, you’ve got pretty much all of them covered. So do you want to see the list (alphabetically listed)?   Apples Cereals [...]

Propagating Herbs From My Organic Garden

I’ve been propagating herbs from my organic garden for the past four months or so, leading up to my first market day at the Barossa Farmer’s Market – which is this Saturday, July 5th. Here’s a photo of some of the herbs I’ll have available on a regular basis. I have grown them on in [...]