Intro | Wombat News | Book News | Awards | Schedule for this Year
The July Garden- what to do, plant, eat and harvest, plus topiary
Some recipes for fast FAST food: Pea Soup, Apple Pancakes, Chicken Noodle Soup
The air is full of flying chokoes (that wind is fierce) and I’ve been shovelling gravel on to our road.
I’ve shovelled a lot of gravel in the past 40 years. Roughly a 100 tonnes? 1,000? Enough to build the stone bits of this house, large parts of a friend’s house, plus repair our entrance road... 100 times? More?
When people think about living in the bush they mostly think about a garden (I‘ve spent many years declaring that you really can plant a garden to feed and delight you that needs only a day’s work or less a year). But I’ve just realised that what I don’t say is that there’ll be a heck of a lot of other heavy work you’ve never thought of. Deep furrows in the driveway that get bigger so gradually you don’t notice them till you hit your sump - or more likely a friend hits their sump… or even more likely, tells you tactfully that they’d rather come for lunch not dinner so they can see the potholes…Trees that fall over the driveway just as you’re heading to the airport (never travel after a high wind without a chainsaw). Bogged tourists who don’t know how to drive out of the mud trap. Potholes…
Which means it’s time to get out the shovel. Again. (Yes, you can get a guy and a grader… in six months or so. And the garden will leave a mess of clay unless they spread gravel too. Which means it’s easier just to do a bit of shovelling now and then.
Shovelling is a good RSI break in the middle of book writing, a time to clear the head and ease the muscles. Plus there is something enormously satisfying in looking back at a neatly gravelled stretch of once muddy track. A bit like seeing the woodshed full of neatly stacked wood. Okay, not so neatly stacked, in my case. Bryan can do a wood stack that visitors stand back and admire. My heaps of wood are… functional. In the shed, out of the rain and they won’t fall on your foot even if a possum leaps on them.
We’ve had the fire going all day lately – it’s not just the wind but also the high clear blue skies, without a breath of cloud to keep in the warmth. The navel oranges have turned that deep brilliant colour that you only ever see in genuine cold ripened citrus (They need to cold to soften) or in artificially cooled fruit in supermarkets. The limes are juicy, even the kaffir limes which aren’t supposed to be. And the rosellas accidentally left half a dozen blood oranges. We’re too cold here really for blood oranges - the tree has only ever grown waist high, with about a dozen fruit. Which means it’s a competition between me and the rosellas. So far, honours even.
As Bryan said last night, it’s good to live in a place that has four seasons - though if I had my druthers we’d have a four-month spring and autumn and a two-month summer, just long enough for the late peaches and early melons to ripen. I’ll be sick of winter by the end of August. But just now - well the rosellas are pecking at the windows to say they want more seed (rosellas aren’t subtle either). Last year’s fallen trees are glowing in the fire, there’s potato and leek soup for lunch and the sweetest oranges you have ever tasted waiting to be picked for afternoon tea. The very best of winter.
Wombat News
Wombats are no fools. I haven’t seen a wombat since the high winds began - they’re fat enough to have spent the past few nights sleeping, with no need to stick their noses out into the wind. (I saw the roos bounding down the mountain a few days ago, just before the wind reached us. I suspect they are grazing up by the walnut grove, the most sheltered spot in the district).
There have been some tiny wombat droppings about lately, which means that a young wombat has declared its independence from mum and is leaving its droppings on the steps instead of discreetly hidden under a bush. Haven’t seen it yet, and I’m not sure whose youngster it is - it may have wandered in from elsewhere. Just hope Mothball doesn’t decide to bite it – I’m waiting for the wombat yells at 2 am which will mean that Mothball is defending her territory. But not while the winds last, I think…
Book News
‘How High Can a Kangaroo Hop?’ came out last month. Why does Australia have animals that are so different from others anywhere else in the world?
Why do ‘roos and wallabies have such big tummies?
Who were the kangaroos with fangs that lived 10 million years ago?
What’s the best way to become invisible (to kangaroos, at any rate)?
Which wallaby is a ‘living fossil’ - the same as the wallabies that grazed 10 million years ago?
Why do joeys eat their mother’s droppings?
And how high CAN a kangaroo jump?
This book also tells the stories of Rosie the wallaby, and her passion for flowers (eating them, that is), the Apricot Guzzler wallaby clan, and of course Fuschia, the real-life dancing kangaroo who became Josephine in ‘Josephine Wants to Dance’.
How High Can a Kangaroo Hop?
Author: Jackie French
Book Format: BPB
ISBN: 9780732285449
Price (Aust RRP): $14.99
Publication Date: July 2008
Many letters have started arriving about ‘A Rose for the Anzac Boys’. It is wonderful to get them and I am incredibly touched by what the book has meant to so many. But if I don’t reply for month or two please understand - there are often just too many letters to answer.
The next book, ‘The Camel Who Crossed Australia’, will be out in August. It’s the story of the Burke and Wills expedition from the point of view of the camel, He Who Spits Further Than the Storm, who has no great opinion of humans – or horses - and an even lower opinion of all those in the expedition apart from his handler, Dost Mohamed. It is Dost Mohamed’s story too. Who were these men - or boys - who came from what was then the North West Province, and is now Afghanistan? It is also the story of John king, the only human survivor of that tragic dash to the Gulf.
In November there is a treat for any ‘Diary of a Wombat’ lovers - a special pocket-size new edition, along with a toy wombat who looks just like Mothball, the wombat in the book - with a carrot, of course! That’ll be followed by the Christmas picture book, again with the magic Bruce Whatley: ‘Emily and the Big Bad Bunyip’. Just what CAN you give a bunyip for Christmas? The wombat offers carrots, Josephine offers an even larger pair of ballet shoes. But Emily Emu has other ideas…
Awards
No new awards or short-listings this month. ‘Pharaoh, the Boy who Conquered the Nile’ and ‘The Shaggy Gully Times’ are still short-listed for the CBC Awards – results in August. And ‘Hitler’s Daughter’ and ‘The Goat who Sailed the World’ are short-listed for the Yabba Awards, Koala Awards, Croc Awards and Cool Awards – all the kid’s choice awards. Thank you enormously everyone who nominated them – and many, many, MANY thanks to everyone who might vote for them in the next month!
Schedule for this Year
I’m afraid I won’t be able to manage much more than the list below. (It doesn’t include trips away for things like dental appointments, family affairs, etc.) I usually receive at least one invitation to give talks or workshops each day, sometimes several. Much as I’d love to, I just can’t do them all – or even most of them. I really am limited to one trip away from home a month - I just don’t have the stamina for more. Mostly I choose events with the biggest audience, and ones that don’t need more than four hours’ travel to get to.
Please forgive me if I can’t come to your town, school or event – it doesn’t mean I don’t want to. I wish I were superwoman and could do them all, and respond to every request for help or mentoring too.
July 25-29: 2008 Byron Bay Writers’ Festival
August 17-19: 2008 Book Week talks, Adelaide
August 25-27: Melbourne Writers’ Festival
September 16-20: Brisbane Writers’ Festival and CU Later Alligator
14 October: Ceremony for the winners of the ACT Chief Minister’s Reading Challenge at the National Library (I’m the Ambassador this year).
October 28, 29, 30: Talks at schools in the Southern Highlands (Contact Lateral Learning for details).
November 16: Open Garden workshops at our place – contact the Open Garden Scheme (they take all the bookings and do all the arranging).
The July Garden
What to do in July
Plant: Trees, trees, trees - if you don't have fruit trees now is the time to put one (or three) in. Also roses, in pots or bare-rooted, asparagus crowns (but seedlings in spring will grow faster), rhubarb crowns, artichoke suckers, thornless blackberries and raspberries and loganberries
Prune: Leafless trees, shrubs and roses.
Don't prune: Banksia and other roses that only bloom in spring - wait till they've flowered. Don't prune roses or other shrubs in very frosty areas either - wait till next month.
Spray: Fruit trees and roses with Bordeaux - this will kill the fungal spores that will give them black spot and other leaf and fruit disease next season.
Repot: Hanging baskets and pot plants. Potting mix starts to repel water after a year or two, or turns into concrete - which is why pot plants stop growing and flowering so much as they get older. Repot each winter and they'll keep on looking lush.
Water: Everything! Cold weather dries out plants - and water penetrates best into slightly damp soil. If you wait till the ground is dry most will run off or not penetrate to root depth.
Think herbs: Plant drought-tolerant lavender, rosemary, sage, thyme, santolina or curry plant in sunny spots; Corsican mint, creeping thymes and prostrate savoury in sun between paving stones; woodruff and comfrey in light shade.
Eat: Fruit
Apples (Lady Williams, Stumer Pippin), navel oranges, blood oranges, citrons, cumquats, calamoondins, kiwi fruit, limes, mandarins, grapefruit, bananas, avocados, tangelos, medlars, alpine strawberries, winter rhubarb, tamarilloes, and cape gooseberries grown in a pot or sheltered spot.
Flowers
Jonquils and other winter bulbs, winter rose, and natives (especially grevilleas), daisies, euryops, camellias, some lavenders, pansies and violets. We have masses of winter blooming sages, bright red, deep gold and rich purple, as well as winter blooming red hot pokers flowering now - the air is hazy there are so many eastern spinebills and honeyeaters hovering around them.
Veg: Root veg, lime parsnips. Carrots taste great now and so do all the brassicas - broccolli, brussel sprouts, cabbage etc lose their vaguely sulphorous taste in winter. Spinach is crisp and so is celery, Italian parsley is magic chopped into salads, and Italian red ribbed chicory is sweet too, without the hint of bitterness it gets in the heat. And this is the perfect season to be eating spuds. Potato cakes, baked potatoes in their jackets…
What to propagate
Take rose cuttings and thrust them deep into semi-shaded soil under a tree.
Divide perennial clumps like shasta daisies and hollyhocks.
Take chrysanthemum cuttings and thrust them into moist sand.
Transplant the new dahlia bulbs, which grew last season, in other parts of the garden to increase next year’s display.
What to plant
Flowers:
Cold – warm: Seedlings of pansies, primulas, polyanthus, alyssum, calendulas, dianthus, hollyhock, foxgloves and poppies.
Subtropical - tropical: As above plus any annual seedlings in the nursery.
Vegetables
Cold - temperate: Onions.
Subtropical - tropical: Just about anything.
In Training
When I was a kid the only good thing about being dragged off to race meetings with my dad - apart from galloping horses and a bottle of lemonade - was the shrub shaped like a duck (or maybe it was an emu) out the front of our nearest country racetrack.
I loved that leafy duck desperately, till one year I dashed out of the car and discovered that the duck was no more - it had been abandoned and grown all out of shape, so you could only dimly discern where the duck had been.
I don't think I ever saw anything so magical till I drove down the Midlands Highway in Tasmania and saw the fabulous topiary beasts along the road. (It's been years since I've been along there – I hope they're still there.)
Topiary - shaping plants - is an ancient art. Topiaried plants can be beautifully elegant, with ball, cone or pyramid shaped shrubs on either side of a front door. Or they can be funny and whimsical and an enormous joy to any kid, or adults like me, who drive past.
I have to admit here that I have never created my own shrubbery duck (or emu). But I have trimmed up ball shapes, cone shapes, one small, slightly lopsided fish and a heart covered in ivy... and any day now I really will start work on my next grand project - a whole row of ducks in descending sizes, heading down to the creek.
Just don't expect to see those ducks any time soon. While you can get simple topiary shapes in six months to a year, creating a line of ducks - or emus or even wombats - is a long-term project. But it is also surprisingly easy.
Which plants?
So what plants can you shape? Well, it depends how complicated that shape is going to be.
If you just want a cone or cylinder or, even simpler, a long bare stem with a neat ball on top, you can topiary all sorts of plants - geraniums/pelargoniums, rosemary, fuchsias, dwarf lillipillies, cumquats, holly and many more. The faster they grow the sooner you'll have your topiary - and the more often you'll have to trim them too.
But if you want a more complex shape (ie, a duck or emu) then you need evergreen shrubs that have small leaves and are slow growing, like box, bay trees or yew. If your topiary emu grows too fast it might turn into a shapeless green giant while you’re down at the beach at Christmas. You also need to choose dense plants with lots of leaf cover.
Other topiary possibilities are lillipillies and cypresses (both are quite fast growing when young so you get a good result quickly, but they slow down after a few years so they don't get too impossibly shaggy overnight), photinia (high maintenance as they also grow fast and the large leaves do not lend themselves to a high degree of detail), olives and bay trees.
By and large just look for those three characteristics: slow growing, at least when mature, small leaves, and a thick, close growing shape, and you'll be right. Oh, and also make sure that whatever you choose has a long life expectancy – you don't want your topiary to go into an early senile decline just when you thought you had mastered that equine statue look.
How to do it
If you want to sculpt a rabbit out of a block of stone, you just cut away anything that doesn't look like a rabbit - and there you are! (Okay, I have all the artistic instincts of a cane toad).
With topiary you do exactly the opposite - you start with a small shrub and wait for it to grow into a rabbit - or wombat, duck, heart or emu - shape. Do NOT try to cut a full-grown shrub into a duck, emu etc. You'll probably just kill the shrub, or at best you'll have a strange moth-eaten collection of sticks and twigs.
Step 1.
Plant your baby shrub. Don't try to trim it yet - let it establish itself for a few months or even a year or two if it's very small.
Step 2.
Unless you have the eye of Michelangelo, you'll probably need a frame or wire 'shape' to guide your hand as you trim your shrub.
There are many shapes on the market, from simple ball shapes to horses and dinosaurs. All the ones that I've seen are for small potted shrubs for either side of the front door so if you want a life-size emu or galloping horse you'll have to make your own.
This is not as difficult as it seems (says she who has never made a frame any more complicated than a fish). The more artistic skill you have the more adventurous you can be. But remember that very simple shapes with long sweeping curves, like horses, birds, fish, giraffes and dinosaurs, look best. If you want a bust of Queen Victoria or a pair of clasped hands in your front garden, take up sculpture.
A cone or tepee is perhaps the simplest shape - take three bamboo or tomato stakes (depending on the scale of your finished piece), tie them at the top so you have a tepee, then wrap wire around them at intervals from top to bottom - and you have your cone.
Other simple shapes include hearts and tall, straight-sided cones.
Step 3.
Place the shape over the young shrub. Note: the shape needs to be bigger than the shrub, as the essence of good training is to trim off small shoots not hack in to branches.
The only exception to this is shapes like my fish, where you want the branches to go out before they go up. In this case tie the branches to the shape - I used bits of old stocking that stretch and don't cut into the stems, 'ringbarking' and killing them. Don't try to force a branch to grow downwards though - they'll die unless your shrub is a natural weeper.
Step 4.
Feed, water and, as the shoots peep through the frame, trim them off.
Step 5.
Keep trimming and feeding and watering as the shrub slowly gets leafier around the wire 'shape'.
Step 6
Keep trimming.
Step 7
After two, three, or ten years, depending on the size of the shrub, how complex the shape is and how fast it's all growing, you can step back and admire your brontosaurus.
Once the shape is achieved let the leaves grow over the wire shape. Don't try to remove it - you may haul away valuable branches eg, the emu’s head.
Step 8.
Keep trimming!
Keeping topiary in shape
The fastest way to get topiary shrubs for either side of your front door is to buy them. These little darlings will be expensive – and, even worse, if you don't keep them in shape you'll have wasted your money.
Shaggy topiary doesn't just look messy - if topiary gets too overgrown you may kill some of those carefully shaped branches when you finally hack them back.
The secret is to trim LITTLE AND OFTEN. Most branches die back if you cut them down past the leaves, so if any shoot gets too big you'll have to cut that branch off right at the trunk of the plant otherwise you'll have a brown patch of dead twigs. Hopefully another branch will shoot where that one has been cut off. Better still though, trim your pots often so that only a few leaves need removing, not bits of wood.
Droopers and drapers
These are climbers - usually ivies - that are trained up and over a stake or wire support, either in the shape of, say, a heart for Valentines's Day or, more commonly, just to make an attractive mound.
Again, these too must be pruned OFTEN to encourage new leafy shoots. You don't need secateurs for this, just scissors. Choosing one of the dwarf or variegated ivies means that it will be a slow grower and that means that when you get it into a heart shape it will obediently stay like that, with just a little coaxing and trimming occasionally.
A garden arch
Writing this has reminded me of how much I want one of these. As soon as I've finished this I'm going to coax Bryan into building an arch for me. I think I'll choose fast-growing photinia to plant on either side, trim the sides into neat walls and train the branches over the arch.
It's also possible to train and trim windows into thick hedges – something I've never tried and suspect takes dedication, but it looks stunning.
Shaping trees
Tall cypresses or photiniia on footpaths look great neatly trimmed. Again, the simplest way to do this is to put a wire frame around them - three or four stakes around the tree with wire looped around them.
Wire loops outside the tree can make it look as though you're trying to cram the poor thing into a corset or at least cage it in so that it doesn’t do a runner. In this case have the wire loops just inside the leaves, so you can't see them, and trim a few centimetres out from them instead of right on the line of the wire.
Hedge trimming
Again, little and often is the key here - if you cut too deeply into a hedge the branches may die. Whether you use electric hedge trimmers or garden shears, always hold the blades parallel with the line of the hedge. A piece of string tied between two garden stakes will help you keep a straight, even line.
Never try to cut above shoulder height: it's a good way to dislocate your shoulder, cut yourself badly and have a really messy hedge! Use a stepladder instead and gloves, goggles and (with electric trimmers) ear defenders!
Espaliers
These are trees or shrubs like sasanqua camellias or fruit trees trimmed so that their branches lie flat against a wall. The original espaliers were developed so that fruit in cold climates could ripen against the wall. An espalier is the best way to grow apricots in many parts of Britain, for example.
But espaliers are also a great way to cover up a boring wall, to get more flowers or fruit in a small space - and simply because the shapes just look attractive!
Choose a shrub with shoots or branches on opposing sides - one that isn't going to invade your drains! (ie, not an apple tree) - plant it about 30 centimetres out from the wall and trim off any shoot or branch that points in the wrong direction.
Now while it's thinking about putting out more shoots, sit down and sort out what you want it to look like. One straight trunk with branches radiating straight out? Straight trunk and curving branches? Central trunk ending at the first branch and the other branches curving out from them? All the branches curving to the right or left? Go down to the library and borrow some books on growing fruit and espaliering, and see which pattern you fall in love with. There are some great examples that crisscross the branches into a diamond pattern that is rather medieval-looking and pleasingly geometric.
If you want an exact shape, with the same curve in every branch, you'll need to put up a wire frame and attach the branches to it, to shape them as they grow. But more informal espaliers also look good, where the branches just radiate out along the wall at will.
A Few Recipes
FAST Fast Food
Ingredients
1 hunk protein (fillet of fish, thin turkey steak, thin slab of tofu, chicken breast, thick slice of haloumi cheese, or a boiled egg)
1 thick slice of lightly toasted bread OR 3 Kipfler potatoes, skewered together and bunged in the oven on the highest setting for ten minutes
1 handful salad greens or steamed/boiled broccoli, asparagus, spinach, silverbeet or bok choi (or all of them if you're greedy)
6 tb dressing of choice.
Dressings
Combine the ingredients for each of these in a jar and keep in the fridge for up to two weeks.
Ginger Dressing
3 tb soy sauce
2 tb rice wine or white wine vinegar
1 tb olive oil
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 tb finely chopped fresh ginger
Optional extras: toasted sesame seeds, 1 tb honey
Tomato Vinaigrette
1 cup crushed tomatoes (from a can or use chopped home-grown roasted tomatoes)
1 cup olive oil
1/4 cup balsamic or red wine vinegar (you may prefer to use much less: try 1 tb then add to taste)
salt to taste: you probably won’t need any if you use salted canned tomatoes
chopped basil if you have any on hand
1-4 chopped cloves of garlic
Mustard Sauce
6 tb grainy French mustard
1 cup olive oil
1/3 cup lemon juice
1 tb salt (optional- I don't use it)
Walnut Sauce
You need a blender for this
1 cup walnuts
2/3 cup chicken stock
2 slices white bread, crusts removed
2 cloves garlic
2 tb lemon juice
Oregano Dressing
1 handful oregano leaves, fresh from the garden, chopped
1 cup olive oil
1/3 cup white wine vinegar or lemon juice
1 tb salt, optional
Thai Dressing
2 tb soy sauce
6 tb fish sauce
6 tb lime juice (or lemon at a pinch)
6 tb brown sugar or palm sugar - palm sugar is best
Optional: half a cup chopped fresh coriander leaves
Method
Bung spuds in the oven or bread under the grill. (Not the toaster - grilled bread is far superior)
Put the veg on to boil/steam.
Grill protein till lightly browned on both sides, unless it's the egg, in which case don't try it.
By now the bread will be toasted or the spuds cooked.
Place toast or spuds on plate. Place protein on top. Drain greens and bung them on top or beside.
Splosh on the dressing of choice.
Time taken: 10 minutes from walking into the kitchen.
Ease of preparation: the secret is in the confidence… once you've seen how easily it alls comes together it's very, very simple. But kids need to be shown how to do it before they try it themselves.
Serves: 1 person. Multiply according to the number in your household, but beware: your grill will probably only make toast and grill the protein for three people max.
Pea Soup
Ingredients
250 gm ham or bacon bones, OR 500 gm chicken wings or carcasses
6 large carrots
3 large onions, chopped
2 large spuds
1 cup split green peas
Enough water to cover it all, plus another 4 cups of water.
Method
Bung everything is a saucepan; cover with water; put the lid on and simmer for 2 hours or so. Add more water if it starts to get dry. Remove bones and large shreds of meat. Mash or blend veg. Put back meat. Give the bones to the chooks or the kids. Keep in the fridge for up to ten days, and reheat a few ladlesful for lunch with toast, or dinner with even more toast and a salad.
Apple Pancakes
For some reason windy days make me dream of pancakes
Ingredients
1 cup grated apple
1 tb lemon juice (optional - sprinkle it on the apple so it doesn't go brown if not using right away)
Half cup SR flour (you can use buckwheat flour in this recipe, or add a third rolled oats or cracked wheat or other grains. The buckwheat version is superb. Add 1 tsp baking powder to the buckwheat flour if it isn’t labeled ‘self raising’. Rye flour can also be used -excellent with dark cherry jam and cream, or lemon and brown sugar)
2 tb castor sugar
1 egg
Half cup milk (You my prefer to add another half cup to rye and buckwheat flours, to make thinner pancakes).
Method
Mix dry ingredients; add apple then milk; stir till smooth. Drop spoonfuls onto a hot, greased pan; cook till bubbles appear; turn; cook other side till golden brown. Serve hot with butter, or maple syrup and ice cream, or lemon juice and sugar or hot or cold with jam.
Chicken Noodle Soup
Warming, sustaining, loved by kids. Serve with a hunk of good bread.
Seves: 6- 10 meals, depending how hungry you are and how many extras you stuff into it.
Ease of making: very, very simple
Time taken: 10 minutes for you, 2 hours for the stove.
Ingredients
2 kilos of chicken bones. These can be chicken wings from the butcher, or chicken carcasses, or they can be the bones left from your happy home-raised chooks after you've swiftly consigned them to the roasting pan. You can also use a ' boiling chicken' ie, one that is too old and tough to do much else with.
6 onions, not peeled, just chopped in half
2 cups uncooked noodles - your choice. I like 'risoni' - tiny rice shaped noddles. Rice noddles are fine too.
Optional: hunk of celery, with leaves, bunch of parsley, a chopped unpeeled parsnip, 6 chopped unpeeled carrots (but wash them)
Extra veg: 3 cups chopped or grated carrots
Optional extra veg 2: 2 chopped peeled parsnips, 3 chopped sticks celery, 6 chopped leeks, 6 peeled chopped tomatoes, 1 chopped peeled choko, 6 chopped or grated zucchini, chopped pumpkin - depends what's in the vegie garden or cheap for you to buy. But don't add cabbage, broccoli or brussel sprouts or it'll taste like leftover volcano, or beetroot unless you want pink soup.
Lots of water
Method
Cover bones and onions and first lot of optional veg with lots of water. Simmer ie, cook on a low heat for two hours. Strain or fish out the bones and globs of onion.
Now add everything else. Simmer for about ten minutes till the veg are just cooked.
Keep in a sealed container in the fridge for up to a week. Reheats well, but only reheat what you're going to eat - don't reheat it a second time.
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