Heartsease

Our heartsease plants have begun to flower. What is heartsease? THIS is heartsease:

I wanted to grow heartsease in the herb garden to add some interest and colour. Not only that, but the flowers and leaves are edible so they fit with my self-imposed rule of only planting edible plants in the herb garden.

Apparently heartsease has some health benefits too. However, the health benefits vary depending on what you read. Some places say it is good for remedying lung complaints (asthma etc). Others say that heartsease tea (made from dried and ground heartsease flowers and leaves) is great for sinusitis. Still others say the plant contains “cytotoxic characteristics” which apparently treats cancer.

Nevermind, I thought I’d try some heartsease tea made with fresh flowers to see if I would survive. The tea tasted like rocket. I am still alive, but not sure whether I’m feeling any better than I did prior to taking the tea! Anyway it’s an interesting experiment.

Oh, and finally I’ve read the flowers are a colourful addition to salads, so I think we’ll stick to that

This is how many beans we’re harvesting

The bean plants are really coming into their own! This is how many beans we’re harvesting each day or two, and we’re already creating a backlog in the fridge. We need to eat more beans!

Council gives Guerilla Gardeners a green light

Yarra Council in Melbourne has recently come out in support of Guerilla gardens in their municipality. This will set a precedent for other councils. Are you listening, Marrickville Council?

In the meantime:

As Rebecca Solnit, the inspiring San Francisco-based activist, concludes in her book Hope in the Dark: the Untold History of People Power, there is no point waiting for governments, be they local or otherwise, to initiate change.

She insists that it’s from the margins that new and radical ideas always emerge and get translated into action. And the margins are certainly where you’ll find guerilla gardeners.

Hat tip: New Matilda

Three colours bean

Our first beans, in three glorious colours

We’ve eaten our first beans tonight, in three colours: green, yellow and purple. The bean bushes are just ramping up at the moment, so plenty more to come!

I blanched these, and served them with olive oil, lemon juice, mint, feta and pine nuts. Yum.

Carrot jam

A small jar of lovely carrot jam

After pulling out the pile of carrots recently, we’ve been working hard to get through them. This included a carrot cake (yum!), and an Indian carrot salad (thanks Jamie Oliver!). The highlight, though, has to be carrot jam.

Yes, carrot jam.

When my grandmother came by, she extolled the virtues of this jam, declaring it to be remarkably delicious. We were doubtful, but keen to get rid of some more carrots. So we traded some carrots for a few jars of home-made jam.

I must say, we were surprised. The jam is great. It looks and tastes like orange marmalade, and couldn’t be easier to make. These are the ingredients (in imperial measurements, due to the age of the recipe):

• 4 carrots (grated)
• 3 pounds sugar
• 3 pints water
• 2 lemons (finely sliced)

Cook for one hour, and then bottle. Voila!

When our next carrot glut comes along, I’ll definitely give this a try. Carrot jam, who would’ve thought!

Plenty of rain, but to no avail

It’s very frustrating. It’s absolutely pouring down at the moment, flooding the street and the garden, but the water tank is barely filling up.

So we’ve spent the money, and put in a great tank. What it now highlights  is the problems with the existing house.

In particular:

• The side gutter is hanging off the house at a funny angle, and is full of holes. So more water goes off the edge of the gutter than into the tank.
• At the back of the house, the gutter consistently fills up with leaves, due to the poor design.
• Some madman also put in two right-angle joints to the downpipe, which almost immediately block with leaves.

We’ll have to tackle this in two stages. The first step is to replace the side gutter with a new Smartflo gutter, must get this done in the next few weeks.

I have fewer options at the back. With a planned extension in the pipeline, it doesn’t make financial sense to replace the gutter. So I think I’ll:

• get some cheap leaf guards
• get our handyman to bodge some new downpipes, getting rid of the crazy right-angles

It all seems so simple in the brochure, just another thing to be aware of when retrofitting a water tank…

Harvesting carrots

The last harvest of carrots, quite a pile!

The great thing about carrots is that you can leave them in the ground until you need them. Although as you can see from the photo above, they can become monsters!

But with spring planting underway, we just needed the space, so the carrots had to go! Out they come in one big harvest. A few strange looking ones, or ones that split, but the majority are glorious. (They were all planted in autumn, and were in the ground over winter.)

We’ll give some to the neighbours, cook up carrot cake, and store the rest in the fridge.

A very early Christmas

A veritable cornucopia from the garden

On Monday I cooked Christmas lunch for my team from work, as is the tradition. (Yes Christmas! The price to pay for having two of the team going on maternity leave late this year.)

For the meal, the garden provided:

• masses of silverbeet
• carrots
• spring onions
• salad greens
• herbs, including mint and dill

From this, and a a few store-bought ingredients, we had:

• spanakopita (cheese and spinach pie)
• roast chicken with baked potatoes
• indian carrot salad
• green salad

There’s still heaps of silverbeet left in the ground, and the spring crop is just coming into its own. It’s amazing how little has to be bought when the majority of ingredients can be pulled straight out of the ground an hour before the meal.

Chippendale Food for the Future Fair 2009

It’s that time of year again, and tomorrow (Saturday October 24) is  the Chippendale Food for the Future Fair 2009. While we don’t live in Chippo anymore, I still work there, and continue to feel a close attachment to the little suburb.

This is a great day to visit, with plenty happening:

• launch of local food co-op
• open air bookshop
• gallery tours
• on the day cooking
• no dig gardens
• water tanks and grey water systems

See you there!

Water sustainable urban development: tour through Marrickville

I spent an enjoyable morning today, visiting local houses who are saving water in interesting ways, as well as looking at some “rain gardens” in the street. (Our house was also the last stop on the tour, showing off what we’d done in the garden.)

The Water Sustainable Urban Development (WSUD) tour was organised by the “water revolution” staff at Marrickville Council. Not knowing what to expect, I was pleasantly surprised. It was hard to tell who were more passionate, the householders installing the water tanks, or the folks on the tour!

A few highlights:

A pair of 5,000 litre water tanks

The first stop was Graeme’s house in Marrickville. This showcases a significant project (8 months in length) to install a pair of 5,000L water tanks at the bottom of their large, and heavily sloping, garden. The tanks were then plumbed into the house, for absolutely everything other than drinking water. The cost was actually pretty reasonable, and the duration of the work was I think due to Graeme doing a lot of the work himself, presumably on weekends.

Pressure accumulator tank

Something I hadn’t seen before was the pressure accumulator tank. About the size of a gas bottle, this holds water at pressure. This means that if a small amount of water is required in the house (washing hands, etc), the water is drawn from this holding tank, without the pump having to come on. This reduces the electricity required, and presumably helps to prolong the life of the pump. I’ll definitely have to look into this for our house.

Hill Street rain garden

The Hill Street rain garden was extremely interesting. This takes the normal storm water that runs of the street, and passes it through this mini wetland. The goal is not to store the water, but to filter it through the plants, which are grown on top of several layers of sub-surface material.

Where the gutter is diverted into the rain garden

The end result is cleaner water going into the waterways, with a lot of the sediment, rubbish and nitrogen stripped out. I think it also makes for an interesting take on street-side gardens. Would love to see more of these go in throughout the Inner West.

Communal garden in the laneway

John Caley, who ran the water course I attended some months back, had a house that certainly met expectations. Plenty of careful design of water tanks, and a nice use of water off next door’s roof (with their permission!). What took my fancy, however, was their lovely little communal garden in the small laneway beside the house. Plenty of produce to share amongst the neighbouring houses.

A small garden, lush and verdant

Mike and Jen’s house had everything that an inner-city greenie would want. Water tanks, careful management of water runoff, and chooks. Oh, and a nice vegetable garden squeezed into their small back garden.

Thanks to Maggie for organising the day! Visit the Marrickville Council water pages to find out more on future events, and how to get involved.