1stop Organic Gardening

Here I go ranting about herbs again! Parsley has to be one of my all time favourites. And it’s a herb that most people like and it looks good on your plate or in a sandwich or on your scrambled eggs. Do you grow it in your organic garden?

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…

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yes, I love herbs. I must admit, I’m hooked. Just imagine how dull life might be without them!

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…

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Kale is a member of the brassica family – along with cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, rocket and others. It’s a vegetable I’ve overlooked til this year. Not sure why. But don’t you just find that there’s always another vegetable or herb that you’ve never grown before? Somehow you just weren’t aware of it?

I must say, I’m really impressed with this under-valued vegetable. It is really easy to grow and seems to laugh at our 40 degree C days. It really loves the heat. And it seems the more we pick it, the healthier and faster it grows.

I mean, just look at those healthy leaves! I can’t believe it really – everything else (except the basil, which is also loving the heat) has either suffered massively with the heat or turned up it’s toes and died. Not the Kale – it’s gorgeous.

The only problem we had was with aphids, but we kept squirting them off with the hose and they have been aphid-free for some time now. Besides, they don’t do that much damage and you can wash them off when you’re preparing it to cook or pull off the small part of the leaf that they were growing on.

Kale is delicious quickly fried in a little olive oil with onion, or included in a stir-fry.

Happy Organic Gardening, Healthy Living…

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Last year in February I transplanted three tiny raspberry divisions (take a look at the original post) along a fence in quite sandy soil. I just wanted to update the original post to show how much they’ve grown in just one year.

It has really surpassed all my expectations for it – other than we didn’t get much fruit this year as we had a really hot spell and it suffered a little….  again, sandy soil.       Plus the chickens are allowed to free range in the area to the back of this fence from mid afternoon each day and they tend to dig into the sand to make dust baths right where the raspberry’s growing.

The main thing to remember with raspberry plants is to cut off the canes from the previous growing season, as the it only fruits on the current seasons canes.

It’s lovely to have some berries growing along a fence in your organic garden. While you’re wandering around admiring your efforts, you can pick a few berries to delight your taste buds.

As well as raspberries, you could try loganberries, thornless blackberries, marion berries, youngberries or boysenberries. They all grow in a similar fashion.

Happy Organic Gardening, Healthy Living…

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Have you tried growing eggplant in your organic garden? They are just as easy to grow as tomatoes…  maybe easier. They enjoy the same conditions as tomatoes, capsicum and chillis, because they’re all in the same family.

You can see here that we’re growing in quite sandy soil. They are OK with that as long as the water is kept up to them – especially on hot days – and you fertilize (organically, of course)  regularly.
Unfortunately with sandy soils, when you water it leaches the nutrients from the soil, so you need to replace them regularly to keep your plants growing healthily and producing fruit.

Again, they are another vegetable that benefit from a long growing season and won’t tolerate frosts. So plant them in your organic garden as soon as the frosts have passed and the ground has warmed. They’ll reward you with glorious dark fruits for several months.

Happy Organic Gardening, Healthy Living…

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I just love growing perennial vegetables. Once you’ve got them into their permanent position (after making sure it’s rich with organic matter and fertile) they take very little work and provide you with lovely produce every year – some, like asparagus, for many years.

Here’s a photo of one of my artichoke plants with several developing heads – taken a couple of weeks ago – mid summer here.

You have to learn when to harvest the succulent heads, cause if you leave them too long you’ll end up with a beautiful thistle flower – pretty, but not edible.  

Once you’ve harvested all on the stalk, cut it off near the base. New side-shoots will grow next season, which will produce your new heads.

Give them a go – they’re really easy to grow, make a beautiful, contrasting architectural plant and they’re yummy.

Happy Organic Gardening, Healthy Living…

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Yes, it’s still hot here. But that can be a good thing when you’re organic gardening. Some things need quite a few months of steady heat to mature. Watermelons are one of those fruits that needs a long growing season.

You want to get your seeds in the ground in mid spring (after all frosts and once the ground has warmed). They need to grow steadily for about four months before you’ll see the fruit starting to swell.

Then before you know it, they’re soon ready to harvest. You can tell when they’re ripe by looking at the side that’s sitting on the ground. It should be ready when there’s a yellow patch where it’s lying on the ground. You can also hold it off the ground and tap it. If it sounds hollow, it should be ready.

Just by the way, the fruit in the bottom right hand corner of the photo is a rockmelon (canteloupe). No…. not growing on the same vine – I’m not that clever yet!     So you can’t save the seed from either of these fruits and expect it to grow true to type. There’s a good possibility that they have cross pollinated.

In fact, mine may have cross pollinated with zucchini (courgette), cucumber or even pumpkins as I have them all growing too close to be sure that they haven’t.

I have details of seed saving and a chart with distances to be sure of no cross pollination available as a bonus when you purchase my e-book, Organic Food Gardening Beginner’s Manual.

Seed saving is a great hobby and it can save you quite a lot of money if you usually purchase seedlings. Worth a try at least.

Happy Organic Gardening, Healthy Living…

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OK, as promised….  I’m posting again!!!  

I just had to share my little babies with you. This is a photo of them at 2 days old. Their feathers have fluffed up and they’re alert and absolutely gorgeous.

Aren’t they ever so cute? We bought an incubator just before Christmas and these little ones are are first to be hatched, so we’re all pretty excited  

Not sure how many roosters and hens we have, but we’re just happy they’re healthy. It’s really amazing how quickly they get up and walk around. But just like human babies, they take a lot of naps.

If you’re interested in keeping some chickens (they are a great addition to every organic garden), take a look at this great book.

Happy Organic Gardening, Healthy Living…

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I’ve been so busy this season in my organic garden and with my herb nursery that again I must apologise for taking so long to get a current post up….   very sorry. But it’s been so hot this past week that I’ve had to get any gardening and watering done in the cool of the early morning or evening, which has given me some time to catch up on a few indoor activities where it’s air conditioned.

And when I say hot, I mean heat wave. I think we’ve had a week of temperatures over or around 40 degrees C. One day it got to 45.7, now that’s 114 degrees fahrenheit if you’re wondering. And we’ve still got a week of 35 – 40 degrees to look forward to!

Seeing as it’s so hot here, I thought I’d share some seed saving tips. You need to wait until your seeds or pods have completely dried. If it has rained at all, or you have any dew at all you’ll need to wait until it has evaporated. Late in the day is usually a good time to collect your seed.

I usually pick off the pods (if it’s peas or beans), or little umbrellas (for all in the parsley family), or stalks for a lot of herbs, then leave them a few more days or a week – then clean them up further.

Once you’ve got the seeds out of their capsules or in their ‘naked’ state, it’s a really good idea to label them with what seed they are, when (and maybe where) they were collected. This way when you come to use them next season, you’ll know exactly what they are and how old they are.

These are my broad beans growing through winter. They got to at least twice this height, about 1.5 metres tall. Just by the way, I harvested enough beans from this small plot to sell about 3kg at our Farmer’s Market each week, for about 6 weeks.

This is what beans need to look like before you save the seeds for next season. Yes….  I know it’s really messy and it does tie up the space for a while, but if you want to be self sufficient this really is a great way to go.

Personally I don’t mind how it looks – what I see is next years potential beans!!! I mean really, how cool is that?

OK, that’s all I’ve got for now, but I’ll will absolutely be posting again in the next few days.

Happy Organic Gardening, Healthy Living…

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Well, as promised, here are some more photos of veggies from my organic garden. The photo on the left is of our snow peas. I’ve sold quite a few at market – people just love them. And there’s been plenty for us. But they’re just about finished now, so I’m leaving these last few pods on the vine to dry and save for next spring.
I really should have got more in by now, but trellis space is of a bit of a premium at the moment.
Maybe hubby could put up another trellis for me??? You know…. if I ask really nice  Maybe he’ll read my blog and I’ll just walk out to the garden one day real soon and it will just be there  

The right hand photo is of one of the zucchini (courgette) plants we’re growing. This variety is “romanesque” – a pale green vegetable with ribbed sides.
I’ve also got “lebanese” zucchini growing and must get some “black jack” in soon. Zucchini is such a wonderful producer. I get so many that if I didn’t have the farmer’s market to sell the excess to, I’d have a real problem.

I’ll have more updates in another few days.

Happy Organic Gardening, Healthy Living…

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