Make a Worm Tunnel

On the weekends I usually spend time reading gardening books, old magazines or surfing the net for gardening tips and ideas.  Months ago I saw a picture of a lady making worm tunnels for her garden out of plastic pipe offcuts.  At the time I thought it was a great idea, as my worm farm was not keeping up with the constant supply of food scraps that our household produces. This week I decided to try and make a couple, but do you think I could find the original instructions? Then I remembered.  I'm a man...I don't need instructions! The idea is to take a length of drainage piping, drill holes in it, put it in a hole in the ground, put your food scraps in the pipe so worms will enter through the holes and munch on the scraps. The worms help to break down the organic matter, adding nutrients to the soil, and also assist in aeration, which will help with air and water movement through the soil. Ultimately this will give your garden healthy soil for healthy growing plants. Once the worms have worked their magic the tunnels can easily be moved to other areas in the garden to repeat the process. Here is what I did.

Measure a 45cm length of PVC piping.  Drill random holes around the pipe.  I just used the largest drill bit I had.  Make sure you leave a 5 cm section at one end of the pipe hole-free, as this will be above ground.

This is what it looked like.  In hindsight I think it could have done with a few more holes.

Dig a 40cm hole in a spot where you want the tunnel to be. I chose to put mine in between the rows of broad beans I have growing.  The hole will need to be deep enough so that the 5cm "hole free" section of the pipe is just above ground level.

Give the pipe a gentle tap into the bottom of the hole (I used the flat of the spade) to secure it in place. Carefully back-fill the hole so that no soil goes into the pipe.

Put food scraps in the top and push down with a stick. I haven't totally filled mine yet. I want to see how quickly the worms are attracted to the tunnel. It's easy to add more scraps as they become available. The only scraps I wouldn't suggest putting in is onion peel and citrus.

I used old saucers turned upside down with a rock on top to cover the tunnels. Hopefully this will stop the rain filling them up and unwanted animals getting in. The tunnels can easily be pulled out and placed in other areas in the garden once the scraps have been broken down and there is no room left in the tunnel.

Photo Friday from the Garden: Tomato Seedlings

Decaying tomatoes in the glass house are sprouting this week.  It is a great reminder as to how many new plants you can get from a single tomato.

Photo Friday From the Garden: Sedum Spurium Fuldaglut

Sedum Spurium Fuldaglut

Purchased when I needed a few little ground covers to fill some gaps in one of my flower beds. This has to be one of my favourite perennials I have growing at the moment. I love the colour contrast of the red and green, perfectly arranged, leaves. It's common name is Dragon's Blood.

An End to the Season

Tomato, tomato, tomatoes!

Last weekend brought the end to the tomato growing season for the garden. It was a bittersweet end to be honest. Tomato soup, tomato salad, frozen tomato, tomato sauce, tomato relish, tomato in the casserole, tomato in the curry, tomato on toast, tomato in the kids lunches, tomato, tomato, tomatoes! Even my family were declining offers for bags of freshly picked tomatoes. There is a limit right? Room had to be made for my winter crops to go in anyway. What to do with the 3-5kgs of fruit still hanging on the vines Ahhhhhhhhhh. I really don’t like being wasteful and I know that in a couple of months tomatoes are going to be the price of gold in the supermarkets. I have been freezing tomatoes in small zip lock freezer bags as the season has progressed, which are going to be very useful as we head into winter. My wife made a comment as to how many tins of tomatoes we go through in our cooking during winter. Easily two or three a week.

As we don’t have our own canning set up, freezing was going to be the less time consuming method (yes, I have had enough of bottling for the time being). I decided to make single serve bags of ‘ready to use’ flavoured tomato mixes. Main ingredients were tomato, garlic, onion and a fresh herb (coriander or basil). Here is the method:

Dozen small tomatoes, half an onion, two garlic cloves, herbs

Add to a food processor and pulse

Pour into zip lock freezer bags and label

Looking forward to more fresh tomatoes next year.

Photo Friday From the Garden: Calendula Officinalis

This Friday's photo is of a Calendula Officinalis bloom.  I raised the seedlings from seeds I had sown in punnets in January (now April).  Most gardeners would agree that they are one of the easiest flowers to grow from seed and provide a beautiful display of flowers. 

HOT TIP OF THE WEEK: Getting rid of weeds

All puns aside this really is a hot tip.
I have been searching for a ‘spray free’ method of getting rid of the weeds that have been popping up through the cracks of my driveway and paths. Can something as simple as boiling hot water really do the job? Honestly, yes. I came across other suggestions: Vinegar, salt, soap solutions, baking powder, blowtorch (which sounded like fun), getting on your hands and knees and pulling them up (boo) etc. But something as simple (and cheap) as boiling water was the method I chose to give a go first. Can’t believe I had not done this before.  It’s as easy as: Make a cup of coffee, tip the rest of the boiling water from the jug on to any weeds, sit down, drink your coffee and watch those weeds die.  Other boiling water I have used this week has been the the water from steaming my vege for dinner.
Here’s the proof.

Before (ie prepare to die)

Pour on the boiling hot water

The next day (even better the day after that)

I have read that you may have to try a second dose if the weeds don’t die.  I have had to do this to the ones with tap roots (eg dandelion). JP

Chilli Sauce

On my walk home from work one summer’s evening I passed a store with a stall of organic seedling plants outside. I find it difficult to pass by such plant stalls without taking a look and this time I was tempted by a punnet of yellow chilli seedlings. Now my only other experience growing chillies was something of a disaster. It was difficult to tell if they were ripe, they were extremely bitter and had no heat whatsoever! Consequently they all ended up in the garden bin.

Being yellow I decided that at least this time I would have some idea of when they would be ripe. I planted three of the seedlings (gave three away) in the corner of my glass house, with nothing more than a dressing of fresh compost. I then watered them every five or six days. Three months later I harvested near on a kg of brilliant yellow, sweet smelling chillies. Biting the end off one confirmed they were indeed hot chillies.
So what to do with them? A tip from my friend Jenny had me freezing some of the chillies, so I could use one or two when required. The rest I turned into sweet chilli sauce.

This is my recipe.
-  300g chillies, 200g red capsicum (if you want it really hot substitute capsicum for chillies), 3 garlic cloves, 3 cups white vinegar, 3 cups sugar.
-  Halve half of the chillies and put in food processor (with seeds), remove seeds of remaining chillies and add to processor.
-  Add chopped capsicum, garlic and half the vinegar to the chillies. -  Process until finely chopped.
-  Put the chilli mix, sugar and rest of the vinegar in a pot and on a low heat. Stir until sugar is dissolved.
-  Turn up the heat until the mixture boils.
-  Turn down heat to simmer and stir every now and then for around 40mins (until sauce thickens). Don’t worry if it’s not totally thick as it will thicken more as it cools.
-  I poured the mixture into jars that had been heated in the oven to sterilise.
Enjoy!

As an aside, I remember as a kid my dad coming out of a public restroom laughing. He then told us about the graffiti he’d read. ‘If you feel like the bottom is falling out of your world, have a chilli curry and have the world fall out of your bottom’.

The Blooming Tales is back.

The Blooming Tales is resurfacing after a long hot hibernation! Since my last post (over four years ago) a lot has happened.

I finished my Certificate in Horticulture (NZ open polytechnic) and two weeks later packed up our life in Auckland and headed to Qatar for work and an overseas experience with the family.

Active gardening took a back seat but my love of learning about and exploring the plant kingdom did not. From watching my friends date palms produce fruit to admiring the beauty of desert plants, there were still little gardening memories to be made.

Now back in beautiful New Zealand, we have settled in Hawkes Bay to a property with a glasshouse, fruit trees, vegetable and flower gardens and a rekindled passion for all things gardening. My blog is also going to be kicked back into shape. It will be a place where I share garden activities, things I read, learn and my trials and errors. Things I grow, propagate and make from my produce. I’d love to hear about your gardening life too, so feel free to share your photos and experiences.

My most recent harvest was a colourful kg of very hot chilies. Find out more about this in my next post. JP

I'm Partial to Naked Ladies

I discovered the Auckland Botanical Gardens at the beginning of the year when completing an assignment for a horticulture certificate I have been working. What an amazing place to discover new plants and get some ideas for you own garden.  It was there that I saw her.

Erect, void of a cloak, showing off her beautiful blooms stood the first naked lady I had ever seen in a public place.  I held my breath and could not break my constant stare.  It was like one of those moments when you know you have been gazing at something that you knew you shouldn’t.  I took out my camera and took some shots so I could continue my admiration in the privacy of my own home.  At the time I didn’t have a clue what the plant was, I just knew that what I saw was truly enchanting. 

At the beginning of winter this year I returned to the gardens to try and find the flower again and hopefully someone who could identify it for me.  I couldn’t believe it!  She was gone, my first true flower love had vanished without a trace, and in it’s place grew a bush of strap-like leaves.  I found a lone gardener tending to the perennial plants in the garden and poured out my heart to him, describing her distinguishing features.

“Ahhhh yes, Amaryllis Belladonna”, he began.  “She is still there, but will not be as noticeable, she covers up during winter, you will have to come back in summer once her cloak of leaves have died away and from her bulbs spring forth her impressive blooms”, said the knowledgeable gardener  (I’m taking poetic licence here).  Relieved yet left with a sense of longing I thanked him and turned to walk away. 

“Excuse me sir”, he called out.  “You may like to remember her for her common name”, he suggested.  “OK”, I replied.  “I’ll just get out a pen”.

“Oh, no… you wont forget it”, he was sure.  “Naked ladies”, he smirked.   

So, with baited breath I will await the summer, when again I will see her in all her glory, Amaryllis Belladonna.  My naked lady.

If you have any photos of Amaryllis Belladonna growing in your garden I would love to post them.  Please feel free to send them to thebloomingtales@xtra.co.nz with your tale of naked ladies.

Cabbage! That's what's Growing.

Cabbage!  Boring?  Mmmm, maybe.  But it’s the only thing that has actually grown and ready for picking in my winter garden this week.  But boy is it packed full of all the good things my body needs.  Really high in vitamin K and C, great source of fibre (you may hear that coming from my bedroom later tonight), manganese, folate, vitamin B6, omega 3 fatty acids, calcium, potassium, vitamin A, protein, are you still reading?  Get my drift?   

I was inspired by a tweet (on twitter this week) when someone posted a picture of this fantastic looking cabbage grown in the Wairarapa, New Zealand, circa 1890s (http://mp.natlib.govt.nz/detail/?id=3190).  Ok, so my little one is nothing in comparison and I am suffering from size envy, but I’m still going to make really good coleslaw from it, even though it won’t be able to feed the whole town (and when I say “I”, I mean my lovely wife).  This is how she made it:

 STEP1  Finely slice cabbage (about 3 cups)

STEP2  Finely chop small onion (raw, don’t cook)

 STEP3  Grate two medium sized carrots

 

STEP4   Grate 1 cup of Edam cheese

STEP5  The dressing.  Combine in a bowl: ¾ cup natural yoghurt, 1 finely chopped gherkin, squeeze of lemon juice, 1/4tsp mustard powder, season with salt and pepper, parsley and thyme (these were growing in the garden so chuck in anything you have growing). 

STEP6  Mix the dressing through the chopped up vege and cheese and you are ready for dinner. 

I put a call out there on facebook for some cabbage recipes.  This is one I got from my friend Dave Dougherty. I’m a vegetarian so can’t vouch for the taste, but it does sound good for those carnivores out there.

Slice cabbage into roasting dish, sprinkle with finely diced bacon, sprinkle with celery seeds, salt and pepper, place a couple of knobs of butter over surface, cover with tinfoil, bake in oven for 10-15 minues, remove pan, remove tinfoil, toss everything together before immediately serving ...

What do you do with cabbage?

My Marvellous Meyer Lemon Tree

I chose this weeks plant of the week for no other reason than to show off.  I’m proud you see.  My little baby Meyer lemon tree is now all grown up with it’s first little tiny lemon shaped gem growing on it’s stem.  To be really honest my Meyer has brought me nothing but heart ache over the past few years, so I think it’s best to start it’s story from the very beginning.  

 

I decided early one spring morning, after waking with a head cold, that I needed to grow a lemon tree that would allow me to make fresh, hot, vitamin C rich lemon drinks when ever I had a hint of a runny nose and not just when I had lemons in the fruit bowl.  So off to my local garden centre I drove with the last $20 in my wallet until payday.  I was greeted by a cheerful lady who helped me choose the perfect Meyer lemon tree that I could grow in a pot in my courtyard.  The tree cost $19.95 (NZD) and I blame it on the head cold that I bought a $130 pot on the credit card to grow it in.  I became obsessed at trying to work out how many lemons I could have bought for $150!!  That was only the beginning of my lemon tree woes.  

The tree grew OK to start with and it wasn’t too long before it started to bloom.  I heard on a radio gardening show that it was a good idea to pull all the flowers and fruit off lemon trees in it’s first year of life (something to do with promoting growth first).  So with a sigh I decided it would be worth it in the long run and picked the tree bare of it’s baby making properties.  It was only two weeks after this that everything went wrong.  The tree looked terrible.  Yellow leaves, limp looking limbs and strange holes and marks on the bark appearing up the trunk and stems.  Was it punishing me for being so mean?  I googled, searched through plant books, asked relatives, what could be wrong with my $150 miracle tree?  I tracked the culprit down!!  My first encounter with Oemona hirta (lemon tree borer).  I managed to insert a fine wire into the holes and pull out the tiny enemies.  I got three of the little suckers!  My next plan was to nurse my Meyer back to health.

I remembered my grandfather telling me as a 10 year old that urinating under the lemon tree is really good for promoting growth.  He sure did have the best lemon tree I had ever seen.  So would this be the medicine?!  I began a weekly schedule of visiting the tree late in the evening to offer a warm golden tonic for it’s drinking.  It’s hard to have perfect aim when you are trying to make sure the neighbours aren’t looking!!

A month into the regime all (and I mean every last one) of its leaves fell off.  Death by urination? What a way to go.  I gave up.  I have no idea if my urine just didn’t have the goods or wether I was neglecting the tree of other vital necessities of life.  Growing lemons just wasn’t for me.  So, I left the tree, devoid of all life and focused on growing beans instead.

I feed it fertiliser every few months and watered whenever I remembered and low and behold, it began to grow.  I tried not to look at it in fear of putting it off it’s growing.  It began to blossom profusely.  Until one cold spring afternoon it began to hail hard.  The 10 minutes of hail shredded the tree of all of its flowers and many of its leaves. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.   

Just under a year later, today in fact, it’s looking amazing.  I stopped counting at 600 blossoms and there is one solitary, beautiful, dark green lemon growing.  Is this the year that I will be able to start getting some of my $150 back?  I feel a cold coming on.

How to grow plants from seed: Part III Home made seed raising pots

In part I we looked at seeds, part II seed raising mix and now part III a short video on how to make your own jiffy pots for growing the seeds in.  These are great for raising all varieties of plants especially beans, broccoli, eggplant and the list goes on.  The great things about them is they are made from recycled material, they can be put straight into the earth once you transplant out into the garden as they break down (just loosen the bottom of the pot so the roots can continue to grow down easily), they are made by you, and they are freeeeeeee.  Give it a go this weekend.

Plant of the Week: Heliotropium "Cherry Pie"

When my wife’s Aunt Lorena told me about a plant growing in her garden that smelt like cherry pie I was intrigued.  I was just starting out in flower gardening and she was encouraging me to take cuttings of plants from her garden to try and grow them in mine (for free).  As soon as I walked into the area of her garden with this “plant that smelt like Cherry Pie” the beautifully sweet, fruity smell of fresh from the oven home baking made home in my nostrils.  I took a cutting there and then and it has since become one of my favourite flowering shrubs in my garden.  This week’s plant of the week is Heliotropium ‘Cherry Pie’ from the Borage family, Boraginaceae.  

The plant has really attractive clusters of delicate violet-lavender coloured flowers that attract both bees and butterflies.  I have grown it in a pot near my front door fooling visitors that there is baking going on inside.  Heliotropium makes a great garden border and flowers mainly in summer however it is well into winter in my garden now and it is still flowering.  It does prefer a spot in your garden that has good sunlight for at least a few hours of the day and you need to keep watering it during the summer to encourage it to flower.  The dark green leaves are lanceolate in shape (shaped like a lance) and have a rough almost furry texture.  Being the great Greek scholar that I am (if you count 6^th form classical studies) I can tell you that ‘Helio’ means The Sun and ‘trope’ means to turn.  The leaves (and some say the flowers) turn towards the sun throughout the day. 

You can propagate this perennial from seed, taking tip cuttings or small plants can be bought from garden centres.  

Have I mentioned that they smell amazing? Actually I’m off to the garden for another hit now.  Mmmmmm Cherry Pie!!!

Fruits of my labour: Rhubarb Jam

It was raining today, so what better thing to do than make jam.  I took a rhizome from a rhubarb plant growing at my parents place two years ago and did nothing but put it in the soil in my garden.  Within 6 months I had enough rhubarb to stew to have on my muesli for breakfast.  Now the plant provides continues crop.  Today I made some sweet rhubarb jam.  This is how I made it:

1.  Chopped up 1 kg of rhubarb cut straight out of the garden.

FREE from my garden

2.  Sliced up two Fuji apples.

27cents (NZD)

3.  Heated up a cup of water with 2 cups of sugar and added the rhubarb and apple.  Once the syrup and fruit start boiling turn down the heat.

85cents (NZD)

4.  Add finely grated lemon rind and juice.

FREE (off my friend lemon tree)

5.  Boil on low until it reduces and is nice and thick (keep stirring so it doesn't stick to the bottom and burn).

6.  Chop up 5 pieces of preserved ginger and stir into the jam about 2 minutes before the end off cooking.

75cents (NZD)

7.  Pour into sterilised jam jars.  Filled five of my small jars.

Recycled

Total = $1.87 for five jars of yummy jam.

I had it on hot buttered toast with a cup of tea.

How to grow plants from seed: Part II Seedraising Mix

So, in part I we looked at buying seeds and now you need something to grow them in.  Some vegetable and flower varieties do not do well when transplanted from a punnet (like carrots) and need to be sown straight into your garden bed.  But if you choose to start the seedling off in a greenhouse or on your kitchen table then this is where, in my opinion, you need to invest either your energy in making your own or your money in buying a really good quality seed raising medium.  It’s not a good idea to use potting mix as these contain fertilises that will kill your seedlings (burn) and are too coarse for the seeds to break through. Soil from your garden mixed with a little river sand and peat moss can be OK but may contain micro-organisms or diseases that are harmful to the seed/seedling.

To give your seeds the best start in life choose a good seed raising mix that has good drainage yet is able to retain moisture, has good aeration, has some kind of food (fertiliser), a nice light, fine texture, and be free of any pests, disease causing pathogens and of course weeds.

I have recently changed the mix I use and recommend Tui Seed Raising Mix.  I really do think it is well worth the money.  It contains a fungicide, gypsum (for healthy root development) a saturaid wetting agent (retains moisture) and they claim on the bag it is 100% free of weeds (enough of them in my garden as it is).  It is such a good looking mix that it looks like you could add an egg and a cup of milk and you’ll have yourself a chocolate cake (not suggesting you do!!).

Just a note here:  Always wear gloves and a face mask when handling any seed raising mix (or potting mix) and follow the safety instructions on the bag.

My gardening goal for this year is to start making my own seed raising mix.  I’ve found a recipe that sounds good and wont break the bank. 

*  1/3 Coarse river sand (fine sand skins over making it very difficult for seeds to germinate through). For aeration, drainage and texture.

*  1/3 rich well composted compost. Body of mix.

*  1/3 worm castings from my worm farm. Food.

Part III of this series will examine containers for holding the seed raising mix.  Including a video of how to make your own seed raising pottles.