Wombat News

Adults Only R Rated -Kids Do Not Read This Bit

Latest books

Awards

What's on this Year

October Garden

How to Start a Vegie Garden

A Few Jobs for October

How to Grow An Upside Down Carrot or Radish (ie fun for kids or adults who like a giggle)

How to Grow Luxuries

A Few Recipes

The Telstra Cookie

Better than Pizza

Wombat News

It's raining!!!!!

Real genuine soaking WET rain. We haven't had rain like this since the 14th of December last year, not that I am counting . . .

It is totally absolutely glorious. Clouds hanging so low down the mountain you can't see the end of the orchard, wet rosellas who have probably never even SEEN rain like this before and don't know they need to shelter. And the sound...not just rain on the roof, which is the best thing to sleep with in the world, but that steady drip drip sound of everything wet and even the creek is muttering plus that deep soaking sound, too low to really hear it but you can feel it in your bones.

And it's still raining . . .

Other news; five and a half wombats are lining up for dinner each evening. Well, not lining up so much as circling each other, biting each other's bum, yelling snarling and trying to pretend the others aren't there so they don't feel obliged to snarl and snap.

There's Mothball, of course, the stroppiest of them all, then Grunter, Pretty Face (Who has the sweetest whiskers) and Flat White- his fur is getting darker now he is losing her winter coat but he is still flat enough to rest a milkshake on- and Big Paws, plus Fuzztop, Mothball's second baby, who has stopped looking like a football with legs and a pink nose and now looks more like a square block of chocolate fudge and is chomping grass happily.

But after this rain there will be grass and more grass. Actually with the few showers in the past three weeks there has been a pretty good nibble of grass for the wombats, even if the soil has been like dust. But this will actually soak in. (You can probably tell I'm pretty happy about the rain.)

Other news: the first asparagus, hip hip hurray. I LOVE asparagus time; plus the avocadoes are fat and wonderful, the first roses are out and the indigophera and the macadamia is covered in flowers - must have been the mild winter.

Picked the last of the navel oranges last week before the bower birds gutsed them all, but there are still blood oranges mandarins cumquats calamondins- not many, the rosellas love them- maybe four kiwi fruit Seville oranges grapefruit tangelos and few tamarillos and a few macadamias and pecans left to pick up that I missed. Should have the first strawberry of the season too soon.

Adults Only R Rated -Kids, Do Not Read This Bit

The wombats are mating again. Big Paws and Flat White, to be precise.

Wombat courtship is a fairly noisy procedure- Flat White chases Big Paws around the garden - the same track every time- trying to bite her bum while she snarls at him , with a pause every time they pass the food bowls to see if there are any carrots there.

Conclusion: wombats are more interested in food than sex. They actually have mated once, under the bedroom where I could see them from my study. Then they went and ate carrots and wombat nuts again.

One new thing though- for the first time Flat White and Big

Paws are eating from the same bowl, even though there is a second bowl of food a metre away. Maybe they don't want want to let each other out of sniffing range. Not that it's likely- you can smell wombat mating season a LOOONG way away!

New books

Rocket Your Child into Reading is out now.

It's a subject I feel passionately about- I'm dyslexic and every time I speak to a school and see kids faces light up when I say I can't spell or write neatly I realise how much kids still suffer with learning difficulties. Yes, we know about dyslexia these days, but all too often helping them is still 'one size fits all' . You need to know WHY a kid has problems to help them. Plus many kids have undiagnosed problems. They may be doing okay at school but no where near as well as they should and are bored and misbehave..

This is the book I wished was around when I was at school, or that I had for that matter. It's also about the many ways to teach kids to read, to encourage reading, to find the right book for the right kid.

Phredde and the Vampire Footie Team and Pete the Sheep (with Bruce Whatley...and the rest of the team who brought you Diary of a Wombat) will be out soon. The first ten thousand or so who buy Pete the Sheep also get a sheep... don't panic, not a real sheep, but a very cute toy one with horns, just as Pete has. Or had...he was a real sheep, or rather is based on two sheep, but that is another story.

Otherwise the latest books are To the Moon and Back...with Bryan Sullivan, otherwise known as Him Who Mutters at the Wombat. This is the true story of Australia's role in the moon landings. And also Tom Appleby, Convict Boy and My Dad the Dragon and My Uncle Gus the Garden Gnome

Awards

The only one this month was a certificate for a Benjamin Franklin Award but (I'll whisper it) I'm not sure what it's for . . . or even who awards them.

Schedule for this year :

October 14 Talk to kids at Canberra Grammar Northside and talk on Six Ways to Make Kids hate Reading (and why wombats don't read books) in the evening.

17-19 October- talks at Bordertown, SA, and nearby towns, on everything from books to chooks

20 October: Bolinda School comes to visit! (watch out for a rampaging wombat)

26 October- kid's Expo Canberra and the showground talks from 11.00- 1.00 on wombats, helping kids learn to read, and lots of stories (and possibly a wombat song too)

November 1-5 Talks throughout New Zealand on Rocket into Reading and Pete the sheep

November: release of Pete the Sheep with Bruce Whatley, a picture book about a sheep who does things a little...differently

November 11-14 Ourimbah Campus Children's Literature Festival, Ourimbah NSW

Release of Phredde and the Vampire Footie Team- a story to eat with an orange at half time

November 21. Open Garden Workshops in our garden. Bookings are essential through the Open Garden Scheme.

November 25. Talk on herbs for the CWA Goulburn, NSW. 6.30- contact the Goulburn CWA for more details.

2005

So far I've accepted invitations to Hobart in January, Melville Festival in Perth in March, Conflux in Canberra in April, the Rural Women's Gathering in Bega in September and Book Week in Sydney and Melbourne.... if you'd like me to talk in your area do contact Lateral Learning (Lateral Learning, bookings@laterallearning.com)- often I can fit in other events when I'm in the area.

ps really want to get to Brisbane a few times next year too!

October Garden

How to Start a Vegie Garden

(written with grubby hands from pulling up the carrots)

One of the weird things about writing a column is that you've got no idea what I'm actually DOING as I write it. I could be luxuriating in a penthouse for all you know, while pretending I've been dallying with the dahlias.

Well actually, I'm not luxuriating in a penthouse. I've been picking veg, which is what I do most afternoons about this time.

The veg change with the season. At the moment we're eating the last of the winter veg -carrots, broccoli, bok choy, Brussel sprouts that haven't sprouted, so I'm stir frying the top leaves, parsley, parsnips, celery, burdock, rabbit ear lettuce, Chinese cabbage, a rather nice red and green Italian chicory, broad beans, a few red cabbages, snow peas, beetroot, turnip greens, English spinach, silverbeet, plus all the herbs of course.

Actually it''s a good looking list when you write it down. It means we can have veg soup most lunch times (I call it bottom of the garden' soup because it's based on whatever needs using up), and LOTS of veg for dinner too, and soon there'll be asparagus to munch on at any time of day (my favourite afternoon tea snack is about 2 kilos of asparagus) not to mention artichokes, and then the summer veg will start, zucchini, beans, corn, cucumbers, new potatoes, more lettuce.

If someone asked me WHY I grow all this, it would be hard to answer truthfully. Yes, it does mean we have fresh veg to hand (and sun ripened, just picked veg DO taste extraordinarily different, even if you do have to pick off the odd caterpillar). It does save us about $2000 a year, which is neither taxed nor GST'd. It is healthy, invigorating exercise.

None of those are really the answer though. I just LIKE growing veg. I love the generosity of soil and sunlight, sitting here bashing away at my computer and gazing out at the garden, where I can see the beans start to snake over the trellis and the onions (Did I mention the onions? Or the garlic? Radishes? Rhubarb? Lebanese cress? Bronze fennel?) swelling between the pansies. It reassures me that the world can be a kind and productive place, and that you don't really need $squillions to live well.

I've had my veg garden going so long now that it really takes very little work- apart from picking, and that's pleasure, not labour. Starting a garden IS hard work though. But one solid day's effort should get it going.

How to start

Raised veg gardens have fewer weeds and heat up faster. So:

1. Find a spot that has at least four hours sunlight a day

2. Build up walls at least 30cm high- or far higher of you don't want to bend down. Bricks, stones, concrete blocks or wooden sleepers are all good for this, and the garden centre may have some prefab 'garden walls' too.

3. Don't bother weeding and DON'T put down newspaper, which just makes an impermeable barrier between soil and garden. Just buy- or make- enough compost to put at least a 30cm layer your garden bed. (If it's a very high one, partially fill it with ordinary garden soil first, unless you feel extravagant)

4. Plant immediately, water, feed and pick

What to plant

If you are just starting, dash down to the garden centre and pick up some punnets of veg seedlings. Whatever you find there will probably be okay to plant now in your area. I'd stick to 'never fail' crops to begin with- a few rows of silver beet, half a dozen tomatoes, three zucchini plants and two bush pumpkins, the sort that grow in neat zucchini like plants and don't take over the garden. Plant them all about 60cm apart.

More advanced planting

For this you probably need information on what each veg actually likes, plus what can go wrong. If you're lucky you'll have an Aunt Ethel or a Grandma, well versed in garden lore to show you how.

Otherwise dash down to the library and borrow an all purpose garden book( ie Yates Garden Guide, though veg isn't its strong point, or the Best of Jackie French)

One of the great joys of growing your own is that you can grow the sort of veg your rarely find in supermarkets too- purple king beans or tiny white eggplant(which of course were the reason eggplant got called that in the first place), zucchini in half a dozen shapes and colours (my favourite are pale green and perfectly round) or spaghetti squash, yellow capsicums, long skinny snake beans or ribbed Armenian cucumbers, or even multicoloured corn, or gourds in a dozen different shapes to pile into bowls as ornaments or gifts.

How to feed your garden

1. Keep it mulched- you can buy excellent lucerne based mulches now at the garden centre. Mulch slowly feeds veg, as well as keeping weeds down and moisture in.

2. Buy any good organic garden tucker ie Dynamic Lifter, Charlie Carp and use according to directions ie a scatter a bit once a month while plants are growing strongly, and water in well.

Weeding

If you mulch you won't have to weed. If you don't mulch, don't blame me if you get back ache.

A Trellis Garden

Letting your garden clamber up a trellis saves space, and makes feeding and watering easier. I grow climbing beans, cucumbers, snow peas and pumpkins up trellises, and a rare yellow climbing pear tomato too.

My trellis is made of builder's mesh tied onto to steel 'star pickets', but even a wire fence can be used as a trellis, as long as it gets enough sun. (Trellises are also great for growing grapes, passionfruit and kiwi fruit, plus a few roses- to me a bare fence is a wasted one).

A Few Jobs for October

. PLANT trees and shrubs before it gets too hot.

. BE CAUTIOUS buying pots of flowers and flowering shrubs now. Many annual 'bloomers' will be on their last legs, and will die or go to seed in a few weeks, and shrubs which look stunning now may be once a year wonders and look dull and boring for the rest of the year. Spring is a great time to be inspired - but don't buy on impulse. Work out what you want before you go shopping.

. MOW at least once a week. No, I am not trying to break your back - regular mowing now will thicken the grass for summer and also get rid of lawn weed seed heads before they can ripen and spread.

. FEED your lawn, shrubs, flowers, veg, your dog and your budgie. Things GROW in spring, and a good dose of tucker now will mean they are stronger and hardier when they face summer's heat.

. MULCH, because my nose says this is going to be a hot, dry spring - and don't forget to mulch pots and hanging baskets too.

. REPOT pots and hanging baskets, as old soil can turn into concrete and concrete doesn't hold water very well. Repotting your plants every year or two will keep them growing well. (If water runs off when you hose them, or runs down the sides, it's definitely high time you repotted.)

. STUDY your fence and sheds and garage. Any boring bare bits? This is a great time to cover them with climbers. Some climbers need a lattice to hold on to, others are self-clinging. But do check the habits of your climber first! Carolina jasmine is very toxic and not a god idea with kids around; wisteria is stunning but can invade your roof, English ivy is a pest... Consider climbing hydrangea in cold areas or Chinese star jasmine or roses, roses, roses or the golden trumpet vine in hot areas. But there are hundreds of others to choose from.

BUY: A new gardening hat, with wide brim all the way around to really shade your face.

CHECK: Last year's gardening gloves for spiders... or just buy new ones!

How to Grow An Upside Down Carrot or Radish (ie fun for kids or adults who like a giggle)

Step 1. Choose a healthy carrot or radish ≠ not a wrinkly one.

Step 2. Cut the top off to about 7 cms

Step 3. Hollow it out carefully from the bottom, leaving about 2 cms at the top.

Step 4. Use a knife to make a small hole in each side and poke a toothpick through.

Step 5. Tie string to each side of the toothpick and hang your carrot or radish up by the window.

Step 6. Fill the hollow with water and watch the leaves grow again - upwards and over the carrot.

Step 7. Your carrot or radish should last for weeks, but keep checking it and take it down before it goes rotten and stains the carpet!

What to plant now

In all areas wait till you can comfortably sit on the ground before you plant spring veg. If it's too cold they'll go to seed as soon as it warms up, or you may stunt their growth.

Temperate and Subtropical Areas

Artichoke suckers, asparagus seeds and seedlings, beans, beetroot, carrots, cabbage, chillies, chokos, capsicum, Chinese cabbage, corn, celery, cucumber, cress, eggplant, endive, leeks, lettuce, parsnip, parsley, peas, pumpkin, radish, potatoes, salsify, silverbeet, shallot bulbs, tomato, turnips, Japanese turnips plus seeds of all herbs, watermelons, rock melons, okra, peanuts, rosellas (they make great jam), sweet potato/kumara, zucchini.

Tropical Areas

Chokos, beans, capsicum, carrots, celery, chicory, cress, Chinese cabbage, chillies, cucumber, eggplant, lettuce, melons, okra, parsnip, spring onions, peanuts, radish, rosellas, silverbeet, spring onions, sweet corn, sweet potato/kumara, tomato, zucchini if it will crop before the high humidity begins. Look for the perennial tropical Lima bean, that will last for years and years, or 'Darwin' lettuce, bred for warmer areas so it's less likely to go to seed, or hibiscus spinach, a short lived perennial shrub with large yellow flowers- the leaves and young shoots are eaten like a vegetable.

Cool to cold climates

Artichoke suckers, asparagus seeds and seedlings, beans, beetroot, carrots, cabbage, chokos, capsicum, chillies, Chinese cabbage, corn, celery, cucumber, cress, eggplant, endive, leeks, lettuce, parsnip, parsley, peas, pumpkin, radish, potatoes, salsify, silverbeet, shallot bulbs, tomato, turnips, Japanese turnips, zucchini, plus seeds of all herbs.

In very cool areas with long cold springs you can still plant English spinach, as well as broad beans, and snow peas...just remember they don't set fruit in hot weather. In warmer areas, you can plant watermelons, rock melons, okra, peanuts, rosellas (they make great jam), sweet potato/kumara.

How to Grow Luxuries

There are those (like me) who think that ANY home grown veg is a luxury, caterpillars and all. But even gourmets who turn up their noses at a nice salad of gone-to-seed lettuce and bird pecked tomatoes start dribbling when they visit our place in spring.

Six varieties of asparagus - fat stalks, purple stalks, white stalks, tiny tips - baby artichokes in green and purple, snow peas so crisp that they snap (not bend), eleven sorts of avocado ripened half as long again as the ones in the shops so they are the richest nuttiest things you ever ate, tiny red or yellow alpine strawberries that will spoil any commercial strawberry for you forever.

Spring is a time for garden luxuries, the sort you'd need to take out a third mortgage to afford if you had to buy them, and even then they wouldn't taste as good. And they are so incredibly easy to grow.

Asparagus

Good looking index: 7 - if you didn't know asparagus was delicious you'd plant it just for the red berries and ferny leaves. Asparagus dies down in winter except in hot climates.

Where to grow: Anywhere in Australia and NZ, but in hot climates they'll become exhausted after 3 - 5 years and you'll have to replace them. In cold climates they will live for decades and keep on producing crops of delicious spears for as long as you feed and water them. Asparagus needs full sun or light shade, good soil and regular watering for good crops.

Will it grow on my balcony? Yes. You can grow it in a big tub; when it dies down in winter add about 15 cm mulch or good potting mix, then plant alyssum or pansies over it. The asparagus spears will poke through the flowers in spring.

How long till you eat them? A well fed seedling of any of the new hybrid varieties will give you a few spears the next year; old varieties like Mary Washington grow more slowly and have to be harvested more conservatively.

How to grow: Do NOT buy asparagus crowns - they're so damaged they never do as well as seedlings. Plant seeds NOW, feed them every fortnight for the first year with liquid fertiliser so they race ahead and keep the soil moist. Then when they die down each winter give them a good mulch of compost or lucerne hay or well-rotted manure.

When to pick: In spring when the new shoots poke through the soil. Don't pick skinny stems though - if the shoots are skinny the plant needs to grow more before being picked. Leave skinny stems to get leafy and feed the roots for next year's crop.

Artichokes

Good looking index: 9 - lovely elegant plants with spear shaped grey green leaves - a real winner in dry times as they don't need much watering or in winter when everything else is drab. If you don't pick the chokes they turn into giant, blue, thistle-like flowers.

Where to grow: Full sun, good well-drained soil, anywhere in Australia except in areas with extreme frost.

Will it grow on my balcony? Definitely. Artichokes are great balcony plants; grow them with yuccas and succulents, or lavender and rosemary for a Mediterranean look.

How long till you eat them? About a year after planting, though some seedlings will crop after 5 - 6 months. Plants die down after fruiting and new suckers appear at their roots, so eventually you get a giant clump or need to thin them out.

How to grow: Plant the seeds NOW; transplant when they are the size of your hand, mulch well in dry times and give them a handful of Dynamic Lifter or similar every couple of months.

When to pick: Long stalks will appear in spring with the artichoke on top. I like my artichokes tiny and sweet; others like them fist size, as you see them in the shops. But if they get too big the hearts become fibrous, so pick them before the leaves spread out too much - you'll see what I mean as yours start to crop. One plant will give you 2 - 8 artichokes - the better fed they are, the more they'll feed you.

Wild Alpine Strawberries

Good looking index: 6 - not gorgeous in their own right, but a nice bit of greenery to grow around other plants' legs.

Where to grow: Anywhere in Australia/NZ, in full sun or semi-shade - the hotter the climate the more shade they'll tolerate.

Will it grow on my balcony? Yes. I grow my alpine strawberries in hanging baskets around fuchsias or geraniums or aloe vera. That's so the wallabies don't eat them - they love strawberry plants. It also means I can reach out and nibble a few every time I go out the door.

How long till you eat them? One year, though you may get a few the first autumn.

How to grow: Plant seeds now or find a nursery that sells the plants. (Alpine strawberries don't put out runners and do grow from seed, unlike most strawberries.) Feed them after they've fruited with mulch and complete fertiliser - unless the mulch is compost, in which case it's all they'll need.

When to pick: In spring. Some alpine strawberries' berries stay white; others turn red or yellow. Pick them as they turn softish, but remember, they won't grow large, they are meant to be tiny and desperately fragrant.

Giant Japanese strawberries

These taste great, even though they are giants. Grow them as above, but you'll need to buy the plants, as you can't grow them from seed. They'll put out runners and multiply each year.

Avocados

Good looking index: 5. You'd never choose them for their good looks alone, but they are nice enough trees with glossy green leaves and insignificant yellow flowers. Can look a bit droopy when blooming. Avocados make good highish hedges, and can be trimmed.

Where to grow: Won't tolerate heavy frosts - but see below. Avocados need full sun to light shade and very well-drained, well mulched fertile soil.

Will it grow on my balcony? Yep, as long as it's in a half barrel sized pot. You can also grow avocados by a sunny window indoors, though you won't get fruit indoors unless its in giant pot so it can get to fruiting size, and you take the tree outside during the day when it's flowering so the bees can pollinate the flowers. Obviously this will involve a trolley or three strong men on hand twice daily ≠ the trolley is probably easier. If you really want to get involved in your avocado tree's sex life, you can learn to pollinate the flowers with a paint brush.

How long till you eat them: Three years for grafted trees in warm climates or 5 - 6 years in cooler climates. Seedlings may take a year or two longer to fruit, though sometimes they are more vigorous and fruit earlier than grafted varieties.

How to grow: Plant a tree NOW before the weather gets too hot, mulch it well and mulch once or twice a year for the rest of its life.

When to pick: When the fruit looks big enough. Avocados don't soften on the tree, only after they've been picked. Even quite small fruit will ripen eventually, though it will taste a bit watery and the skin may shrivel. Have a look at the stem - it will turn yellowish when the fruit is ripe. Some varieties, like Hass, also turn colour. I leave the fruit on the tree for as long as possible, even when the next year's crop is ripening too - the bigger and older an avocado is before it's picked, the better the taste.

Snow Peas

Good looking index: 3 when grown on strings with ugly wooden stakes; 7 when grown with sweet peas hanging down from a hanging basket or up a trellis.

Where to grow: Full sun, fertile, moist soil.

Will they grow on my balcony? Yes. Plant them around the edge of a large hanging basket - they'll either dangle down or climb up the chain

How long till you eat them? 8 -10 weeks.

How to grow: Plant in autumn to winter in hot to temperate climates, or in spring in cool climates. Peas germinate best between 7 - 24 C, but prefer about 13 C. Avoid growing peas if the temperature will go above 24 C for more than two hours a day - in other words, they need cool but not cold weather.

When to pick: Every day as soon as the pods look big enough. If you leave them too long the pods fill up with peas and toughen.

Tahitian and Kaffir limes

Good looking index: 7 - glossy green leaves, Tahitian limes have yellow fruit all winter.

Where to grow: Cool to tropical climates, but not where there are heavy frosts ( both limes will tolerate frosts down to minus 4- and if anyone is planning to write in and say Kaffir limes are tropical only, don't - I have a five year old tree in my frosty garden). Limes require full sun, but will tolerate semi-shade in hotter climates, and moist, fertile soil.

Will they grow on my balcony? Yes, in a large pot. (Grow alpine strawberries around them)

How long till you eat them? Grafted trees may bear the first year, and Kaffir lime leaves can be picked as soon as the tree is knee high.

How to grow: Plant NOW before the weather gets too hot; mulch well, but not right up to the trunk or it may get collar rot. Mulch every spring after that and feed with citrus food or a manure based fertiliser.

When to pick: Pick Kaffir lime leaves as you need them - the fresher they are the more pungent their taste. Pick Tahitian limes when they are soft and yellow NOT when they are the hard green things sold in shops. (They're sold green so people won't think they are lemons, but they don't have much flavour or juice when they are green - if you want a decent lime you'll probably have to grow your own!)

A Few Recipes

The Telstra Cookie

Do not get me on to the subject of Telstra! Our phone has been on and off for three months, because Telstra thought they had fixed a faulty bit of line but actually hadn't; not quite sure if there is a more incompetent managerial system in the universe! And possibly because our phone is ALWAYS wonky no one bothered to investigate even when I kept reporting it.

Anyway, it's finally fixed now, but only after I gave this recipe on air. Long may it last...but it proably won't.

Telstra is the reason I don't give out my email address...if we get too much data on the line our system collapses, and being able to search the Internet is just a dream. If only they'd put money to solving problems instead of towards public relations to say that the problems don't exist!

Anyway, while our phone is still working and I can send this out, here is the Telstra cookie....

The Telstra Cookie is:

. sweet on the outside......and hollow inside, like Telstra's promises

. has cream and chocolate as a consolation for next time you are in a Telstra phone queue that drops out before you can even report your phone out...or find that NONE of your phone faults have been recorded or that Telstra doesn't arrive.again....

Place in pan:

75 gm butter

1 cup water

Bring to the boil. Take off heat.

Add

2 squares chocolate and 1 cup plain flour.

Stir till mixed.

Beat in 4 eggs, one by one.

Place teaspoons of mix on a greased tray. Bake at 225C for ten minutes or till pale brown and crisp.

Remove from oven. Cool. Store in a sealed container. When ready to eat them fill with:

1 cup cream whipped with 2 tb castor sugar

ps unlike Telstra they are pretty good. Reliable performers every time.

Better than Pizza

Ingredients

puff pastry

your choice of toppings (ie spread with tomato puree then grated cheese, chopped olives, chopped artichoke heart or whatever you like on a pizza)

Scatter topping in pastry. Roll up like a sausage. Cut into

thin slices. Bake in a very hot oven- maximum heat- till puffed and brown. Eat hot.