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Jackie's October message continued . . .
Phredde
and the Leopardskin Librarian is out and there are tiny wombat droppings on the
back steps!
To
deal with the most important news first- it looks like Mothball must have had a
baby in her pouch- the droppings are real baby wombat scats, all brown and
tiny. There's no sign of either Mothball or her baby though- Mothball moved
down to the hole under the giant avocado tree a few months ago- I think the
hammering above her hole for our new room disturbed her sleep.
She
probably just brought her baby up to point out the back door: see, that's where
carrots come from as long as you bash up the garbage bin for long enough. Oh,
and make sure you keep the back doormat under control too. Meanwhile
Bryan had made a nice cement path to her old hole, and a neat stone wall
leading away from it. Actually it's for us to, but as we had to leave a gap in
the wall for her hole, and a detour in the path for the same reason, it looks
like she has the fanciest wombat hhole entrance in the universe. Baby
wombats spend a month or so sometimes in the pouch and sometimes out- some
babies stay there for so long their legs and head won't both fit in at the same
time, and the pouch drags along
the ground. I think Mothball's baby is too small yet to spend much time
outside, except in their hole- it may well be mostly out of the pouch there,
but still sleeping close to Mothball- on her head or back or side- Mum wombats
make good mattresses. Books And
yes, Phredde is out! Phredde number 5 anyway, with a new look and a fanastic
cover. All the other Phredde books are going to be redone next year, with new
covers by Mitch, who draws the most perfect Phredde's. Bruce is pretty
incredible too. If you've ever wondered what a prince looks like after he's
decided to be a frog instead, take a look at Mitch's drawings! Diary
of a Wombat will be out on the 1st of November. I've finally seen a copy and
it's even funnier than the proofs. (And yes, that is me and Bryan on a couple of pages! And Rory and Emily
too!) I've
spent the last month finishing Valley of Gold- a history of this valley and
it's gold, which sounds boring, I know, but it's really stories about gold
and..nope, you'll just have to trust me. it ISN"t boring! The book will be
out in March next year..I think. maybe it's April..the first half of the year,
anyway! In the Garden The
asparagus is late this year because of the drought- tthe ground is a bit like
concrete and asparagus doesn't grow well in concrete. But
there are still oranges mandarins lemons limes avocadoes cumquats calamondins
grapefruit macadmia nuts pecans and the first tiny white Alpine strawberry,
which looked like dirty cotton wool and tasted 1,000 times more strawberry like
than any berry in the supermarket! At
least the trees and garden are thicky mulched, so with luck they'll survive
till it rains again...sometime. It's
very difficult not to spend all day just planting at this time of year- Spring
really does seem to sing 'plant plant plant' at you. But i've just sown small
amounts this year, of the things we like most- 3 types of corn, celery,
parsley, and a few tomatoes (seven
varieties) and cucumbers and four types of carrots and beetroot and silver beet
and many coloured chard and three sorts of lettuce and three varieties of
zuchinni, and eight varieties of beans and...well, it's not much compared to
what I usually plant anyway. And
it means I can still mooch around the garden before breakfast seeing what's
come up..no beans yet- maybe tomorrow- but the burdock and amaranth are doing
well, and the zuchinni have new leaves every morning and there is even a flower
on one of the tomatoes. What to plant
Cold:
potatoes, spring onions, peas, snow peas, spinach, silver beet, turnips,
lettuce, beetroot, rhubarb, potatoes, Chinese cabbage, bok choi, celery,
artichoke, asparagus, burdock,
cabbage, collards,
celeriac, kale, parsnip, mustard, radish, salsify, swede.
Temperate and sub-tropical: artichoke, asparagus
beans, basil, beetroot, carrots, celery, Chinese cabbage, celeriac, cucumber,
eggplant, gourds, corn, lettuce, silver beet, spring onions, rhubarb, parsnips,
tomatoes, zucchini, capsicum, chilli, radish, pumpkin, rosellas, salsify, sweet
potato, parsnip, mustard, melons.
Tropical: artichoke, asparagus, basil, beans, climbing snake bean,
corn, chia, capsicum, rosellas, sweet potato in well drained areas,
radish, zucchini, pumpkin, gourds
and melons where they'll mature before summer humidity zaps them.
Flowers: Just about everything! I prefer flowers that will bloom all
summer through, like petunias, pansies, impatiens, alyssum with a few giant
sunflowers just to show off and some not so giant ones for picking. A Pick
It and Leave It Garden Bed Of
course he reckons it takes him approx 50 days work to make that $100. But what
the heck...he enjoys it. The
same goes for vegie gardening, but with knobs on. That tatty slug eaten lettuce
you so proudly haul out of the mulch probably costs you about $10 if you count
all the work that goes into it, plus the sixteen punnets that turned into slime
or were bitter before you got a successful crop. But what the heck...it's
fun..if you're that way inclined. Gardens
are like washing up. if you do it after very meal, it's child's play. If you
leave it till every saucepan has a crust tough enough to build an average ten
story apartment block out of, it's easier just to buy new saucepans. If
you crave a vegie garden, but know you won't be able to water it, weed it,
cosset it and mulch it every week, consider hiring someone to do it. IF the
garden is looked after regularly , that lettuce will turn out to be reasonably
cost effective..and you'll also have the thrill of growing your own, even if
you didn't actually grow it., a bit like Lord Whosemewhatis's ancestral
asparagus bed...good crop this year, eh what Jeeves. If you direct the growing,
of course it's yours.. For
those who can't afford the garden version of a Jeeves for a couple of hours a
week, try the following. They are plants that bear and bear and bear. All
you have to do (but you actually have to DO it) is mulch them with either
lucerne hay or one of those nice
compressed mulches you an buy at the garden centre as soon as you plant
them..and apply more mulch when it's getting thin. These
will all survive without regular watering, but bunging on a few handfuls of
something good once a year or so will help their general happiness enormously. Sorrel. Sorrel is a weed if
it's growing in the cracks in your paving. If it's growing in your garden it's
called French sorrel, and the leaves will be bigger and not as bitter. you can
make a sorrel soup (see below), which isn't bad at all..and even better, it's
one of those last minmute jobs so you can actually dash down to the garden when
your visitors arrive, and return brandishing actual real home grown produce,
which can be very satisfying. leaf
amaranth. Pick
the young leaves; bung them in the salad. They're not actually good, but
they're okay..and home grown Garlic
chives.
these really are good...plant three punnets; the clumps will get bigger and
bigger every year and may even throw out a few seedlings. I
use garlic chives chopped into everything, with the possible exception of
sponge cakes and icecream.....
omlettes, stews, on top of soup or pizza...and they don't die down in
winter or disappear down snail's gullets as often as normal chives do either. Spring
onions.
plant; pick, and watch them multiply. Use them very finely chopped instead of
onions. Lovage. this is a herb, a sort of
ancestral celery, but perennial, and you use the leaves instead of the stems. Dandelions. No, not the skinny
leafed weeds- the improved large leafed form, which with any luck your garden
centre can sell you. Toss the leaves in salads. If you pick them often, you'll
need to throw them a handful of food every month or so, and water at least once
a week, to keep the leaves sweet and tender Salad
burnet.
This is a tiny bush with hardy leaves that taste a bit like cucumber; chop them
finely into a salad. Chokoes. Okay, the choko is no
longer a fashionable veg..but have you ever had tiny steamed chokes, no bigger
than your thumb? They are exquisite..... Artichokes. These grow like thistles,
and are as hard to kill, because basically they ARE a thistle. Even if you
don't like artichokes they look good. Pick the tiny 'choke' when it's the size
of a small fist- they become tough
and prickly inside as they get older. if you forget to pick them they'll open
to a blue thistle flower. Plant thenm in a sunny spot. they'll die down in
winter and there'll be an even bigger clump next spring. Jerusalem
artickoes.
These are almost impossible to get rid of, but at least you'll never starve,
and the flowers look like tiny sunflowers. Buy some from the fruit shop; plant
them at the back of the garden where they won't invade your garden beds; dig up
the roots when the tops die down in autumn and bake them with their skins on.
they are delicious, but don't eat too many or you'll fart for the next two days
and if you REALLY pig out you won't need laxatives either. No
matter how many you dig up there will always be tiny ones you miss- and they
will grow next season. Sorrel
soup Ingredients:
6 cups of chicken stock, 1 handful of sorrel, splash of cream optional: 2
poatoes
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