Innehållsförteckning för Issue #12.1 - 2021 från Good Organic Gardening

CHLOE THOMSON A horticulturist, writer and passionate organic gardener, Chloe is co-owner and presenter of the web-based series The Gardenettes and has been a regular presenter on The Garden Gurus. The mother of two little boys, she has a great following of Australian gardeners on her social media profile Bean There Dug That. IT’S NOT TOO LATE TO PLANT GARLIC! There’s still time to get some garlic in. Artichoke and Creole varieties can be planted right up to the shortest day of the year and Diggers Club has a few great varieties that will work across multiple climates, as long as humidity is not too high. Their new ‘California Late’ garlic is a popular breed highly prized for its culinary qualities and many Australian cultivars were derived from this late-season…

No matter what anyone says, the flavour of frozen peas simply doesn’t compare with that of fresh peas, newly picked and eaten raw, preferably while still standing in my garden. Primitive peas have been found in the teeth of Neanderthals, from a time when peas would have been a wild forage crop. But whiz forward some tens of thousands of years and there is evidence of their cultivation around 11,000 years ago in the Middle East. The humble pea can also claim credit as the plant that Gregor Johann Mendel used to establish the principles of plant genetics and breeding. His experiments in the 1850s paved the way for our understanding of hybridisation and dominant and recessive genes. Mendel chose to study peas because they’re an easy crop to grow.…

When I was a child I was always intrigued by the nursery rhyme Little Nut Tree that featured the lines, “I had a little nut tree and nothing would it bear / But a silver nutmeg and a golden pear.” Even back then it didn’t make sense and a quick Google search today didn’t shed any light, either. My horticultural training suggests that a nut tree that doesn’t bear is probably lacking a pollinator. Nuts are highly nutritious and part of a healthy diet but they are also expensive — so, if you can grow your own nut tree, you’re on a winner. There are many delicious nuts with selections that grow in every part of Australia. Most take a few years to start bearing fruit and most need a…

Nature and art are synonymous with creativity and health benefits. So what better than a piece of living art that will grow on you (or for you)! It takes few tools, little effort and not many dollars to produce an aesthetically and emotionally pleasing result. I made my first piece of living wall art with a friend; you might also consider enlisting someone to share the experience. You can obtain all the materials you need from a hardware store and nursery or you can use found objects such as old fence palings for the frame and plants from your own garden to create a living tapestry. There’s no right way or wrong way to undertake this project and any outcome is a good outcome. You can follow the steps I…

It’s easy to fall for peafowl. They’re often colourful and exotic additions to the grounds of historic houses or public gardens, the hens sitting around indolently while the males shimmer and shake to all and sundry. How gorgeous! Stop! Put the wallet away. Peafowl are not oversized chooks, nor are they workers like turkeys. Peafowl are free spirits: independent, narcissistic, lazy and capable of perverse, mean behaviour. They also need plenty of room and lots of well-established trees to perch in. Oops, nearly forgot — a glass French door or two would be high on their priority list so they can spend hours admiring the fine-looking bird reflected on the glass. My experience with peafowl is far from unique. I purchased a Blue trio, but within weeks the male walked…

SERVES 6 INGREDIENTS • 2 tbsp olive oil• 30g butter• ½ onion, finely chopped• 225g mixed mushrooms• 2 tbsp marjoram or lemon thyme leaves• 200g (4 cups) cubed, day-old sourdough (crusts on)• 150g (2 cups) chopped cavolo nero• 6 eggs• 250mL (1 cup) full-cream (whole) milk• 250mL (1 cup) pouring (single/light) cream• 75g (½ cup) grated mozzarella• 75g (½ cup) grated Swiss cheese• 1 tsp Dijon mustard TO SERVE • Flash-fried saltbush leaves (optional) This is, essentially, your omelette on toast without having to get your frying pan to the perfect temperature, and the cooked mushrooms make for a wonderful surprise. It’s ideal for feeding a crowd, or you can simply halve the recipe below and make it a rather generous serving for two. Cooking the eggs like this gives…

EATRITE Warming and soothing Chai is a centuries-old beverage and an important part of everyday Indian life. Black tea and pepper boost the immune and digestive systems, while Ceylon cinnamon and cloves help retain good mental health and boost immunity. Chai is best served with an added sweetener such as organic sugar or honey, which helps to release and bring out the full exotic spice flavours. Nature’s Cuppa Organic Chai Spice Tea uses only real organic spices, so you can be assured that your experience is truly authentic. naturescuppa.com EARTHLIFE All-in-one clay breakers, soil conditioners & plant food Earthlife 100 per cent natural Microbial Rock Mineral products are Certified Allowed Inputs for organic farms and gardens. Containing natural minerals, microbes and humates, they are contaminant-free with no chemicals, no manures…

There are more than 30 species of paper wasps in Australia but the native paper wasp is the only one that builds its nest in plain sight. And what a grand design it is: a combo of plant fibres mixed with saliva and chewed to the consistency of papier-mâché, usually in the shape of a small inverted crumpet, and fixed in place via a single attachment point. Paper wasps are distributed all around the southern mainland coast from Queensland to Western Australia and are generally not aggressive, though they can deliver a painful sting if their nests are disturbed. In fact, they are beneficial insects, important for pollination and pest control as they feed on nectar and caterpillars. Just don’t assume they want you anywhere near their nest. Look but…

Arnica is one of those well-known remedies that many keep in the medicine cupboard. If you sustain a bad bruise, you might reach for a tube of arnica — but have you ever stopped to wonder just what it is? Before it gets into that useful tube of ointment, arnica is a plant and a very clever plant at that. Part of the large daisy family, it forms a green leafy rosette punctuated with stout stems of golden daisy flowers. The leaves are soft and slightly furry. Arnica grows naturally in the mountain regions of Europe and has long been known as a medicinal plant. It is now considered rare even in its natural habitat. All parts of the plant are used medicinally. Extracts from the flowers and leaves are…

Collards are the oldest members of the brassica family. Often thought to have originated in the eastern Mediterranean, they’re more likely to have descended from Asian wild cabbages before recorded history. The greens made their way to Africa where they became a staple. So how did these leafy brassicas find their place among the iconic dishes of the American south, along with black-eyed peas and turnip greens? They were one of the few crops the African slaves were allowed to grow and cook for themselves. The slaves applied their impressive culinary skills to make them not just palatable but delicious. The name comes from the word colewort, a medieval term for nonheading brassica crops. Collard greens have been documented as being eaten by humans for over 2000 years and evidence…

COOL & HIGHLANDS MAY Artichoke, broad beans, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, chives, coriander, daikon, dill, endive, eschalot, garlic, Jerusalen artichoke, kohlrabi, lettuce, mibuna, mizuna, mustard greens, onion, radish, rocket, snow peas, spinach, sugar snap peas, turnip JUNE Artichoke, asparagus, broad beans, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, endive, garlic, Jerusalem artichoke, lettuce, mustard greens, onion, radish, snow peas, spinach, sugar snap peas TEMPERATE Artichoke, Asian greens, asparagus, broad beans, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrot, cauliflower, chives, coriander, corn salad, daikon, dill, endive, eschalot, fennel, garlic, Jerusalem artichoke, kale, kohlrabi, leek, lettuce, mint, mizuna, mustard greens, onion, peas, radish, rocket, silverbeet, snow peas, spring onion, sugar snap peas, spinach, turnip Artichoke, asparagus, broad beans, broccoli, cabbage, chives, coriander, endive, garlic, Jerusalem artichoke, kale, lettuce, mint, mustard greens, onion, peas, radish, snow peas,…

Breathtaking photographs of row upon row of purple flowers have helped lavender capture the public imagination. These are commercial crops of English lavender grown and harvested for oil as well as for their fragrant flowers and many such farms are now tourist attractions, especially in midsummer when in full bloom. English lavender grows best in climates with cold winters and long, hot and mostly dry summers. It doesn’t tolerate humidity. If this doesn’t describe your climate, don’t despair as there are many other species of lavender, some of which tolerate the humid subtropics. As well as English lavender there are French lavender, Italian lavender, Canary Island lavender, woolly lavender and many others. There are also hybrids between some of these species and many named varieties that vary in colour and…

ome of our wildlife species have learned to adapt to urban areas and outer fringes and some have even thrived there. Many, unfortunately, have not. With knowledge, careful planning, understanding and consideration, every person in every backyard can do their bit to create a safe haven for a variety of our native fauna. Providing habitat within our inner suburbs and outer bushland blocks is the key to the preservation of many species. Creating nature corridors is vital for transient populations during breeding seasons, as is access to food and water. Let’s take a look at some of our more familiar and less commonly seen marsupials — plus our two monotremes (egg-laying mammals) — to learn a little more about them and what we can do to improve their habitats. MARSUPIALS…

INGREDIENTS • 1½ tbsp olive oil• 1 onion, finely chopped• 1 leek, washed, white part only, finely sliced• 1 celery stalk, finely chopped• 200g mild sobrasada (cured pork sausage), finely chopped• 1kg boneless pork shoulder, cut into pieces• 200mL white wine• 2 × 400g tins chopped tomatoes• 200g black Ligurian olives, pitted• 3 tbsp marjoram leaves, finely chopped TO SERVE • Rigatoni, pappardelle or gnocchi• Pecorino, grated• Marjoram or basil leaves SERVES 6–8 For this recipe, you will need to roughly cut the pork into chunks. This is so you can sear it (sort of) in the slow cooker, and so the pieces fit a little more snugly in the bowl. You can serve this with pasta or gnocchi — either works a treat. METHOD 1. Set the slow cooker…

PLANET SCHOOLING By Lucy Legan, Planet Schooling Press, $45 Lucy Legan has spent 20 years working with children and young adults at Epocentro IPEC, a permaculture learning facility in Brazil. Conceived during lockdown and crowdfunded online, Planet Schooling is an English-language compendium of what she’s learned, “a book to support every conscious green parent, community educator and aspiring eco-kid”. It covers 120 step-by-step activities for kids to try in the community garden, the backyard or even the schoolyard and covers such subjects as permaculture, food security, recycling, water, energy and technology. Lucy’s method is to integrate all learning — mathematics, science, language arts and other subjects — into these nature-based projects. It’s important work and there’s no time to lose; in the fight for the health of our planet, children…

JO IMMIG Jo is an environmental scientist, photographer and writer. She has worked in the environment movement for decades and is co-ordinator of the National Toxics Network, an organisation dedicated to creating a toxic-free future. She has written many articles for magazines and is the author of two books: Toxic Playground and Safer Solutions. NATIVE EDIBLES CAN FEED THE WORLD There is so much we don’t know about nutritious edible native plants that we could literally starve with food all around us. Tasmanian agricultural scientist Bruce French is on a mission to address this situation for the millions of people who are malnourished and go hungry. For decades, French has been cataloguing edible plants from around the world, creating a database of over 30,000 entries, which includes plant identification and…

I blame Popeye. He was the one who popularised spinach as a superfood, creating ongoing confusion for Australian gardeners because here silverbeet is commonly called spinach and spinach is less well known. Gardeners can be forgiven for the confusion as the two plants are closely related as members of the amaranth family, which also includes beetroot. They grow differently but there’s room in most vegetable gardens for both of these green, leafy, nutritious plants. Spinach (usually called English spinach, opposite page), is best grown in a cool climate or in the coolest part of the year. Silverbeet is a more adaptable, long-lived leafy green, likely to be productive for most of the year. While silverbeet is often called spinach, its large puckered leaves and stiffstems are more robust than the…

BANKSIAS WORK WELL IN CONTAINERS BECAUSE THEY GENERALLY PREFER EXCELLENT DRAINAGE. Australian flora is unusual among ornamentals in that it’s almost exclusively evergreen, meaning of course that our plants do not go dormant in winter — indeed, there are a number that flower profusely through the coldest season. Not only does this provide welcome colour through a normally drab season; it also brings biodiversity to the garden in the form of the many nectar-feeding birds attracted by these flowers. Growing a variety of Australian plants that bloom successively through the seasons will provide a constant source of food for wildlife in the garden. There are many varieties to choose from and here are some that provide splashes of colour and nectar for birds and insects through the cooler months. BANKSIAS…

SERVES 6 The addition of pumpkin is a win here, sort of like it has always belonged. And if ever there was a versatile brunch dish, this is it. If you need to bulk it out, try stirring through some Israeli couscous and some roughly torn cavolo nero. INGREDIENTS • 60mL (¼ cup) olive oil• 1 red onion, finely sliced• 3 garlic cloves, crushed• 800g jap or kent pumpkin (squash), peeled, cut into medium–large chunks• 220g (1 cup) finely sliced piquillo peppers (roasted peppers)• 1 bay leaf• 1 tsp cumin seeds, toasted & roughly crushed• ½ tsp rose harissa• 400g tin cherry tomatoes• 200mL vegetable stock• 140g tomato paste TO SERVE • 6 eggs• 120g (½ cup) Persian feta• mint leaves, coriander leaves, chopped• ½ tbsp urfa biber (Turkish red…

SERVES 4-6 A little bit of a spin on the old-school lemon pud. Such a spectacular favourite and, here, the punch of yuzu adds a depth and complexity of flavour. I absolutely adore yuzu. It can be a little hard to source, so I have made this dish both with and without — just substitute with more lemon juice if yuzu is unavailable. INGREDIENTS • 150g butter, plus extra for greasing• 260g caster (superfine) sugar• Zest 1 lemon• 3 eggs• 150g (1 cup) self-raising flour• 100mL full-cream (whole) milk• 60mL (¼ cup) each of yuzu juice and lemon juice• 60mL (¼ cup) boiling water Crumble • 110g (¾ cup) plain (all-purpose) flour• 55g (¾ cup) caster (superfine) sugar• 50g butter• 2 tsp lemon zest• ¼ tsp baking powder TO SERVE…