organic vegetable gardening courses, growing tips and homegrown recipes.
Pickings can get a bit thin in winter, even for free ranging chooks. Here a few treats for your chooks: 1 worms - high in protein, with that added 'thrill of the chase' element for bored chooks. If you've turned your kitchen waste into worms in your wormery, you'll be turning it into eggs and meat via your chooks. 2 silverbeet (swiss chard) … [Read more...]
There are some beautiful fresh New Zealand chestnuts in the markets and on roadside stalls. Buy them fresh, keep them in the fridge and use them as soon as possible after purchase. They're somewhat laborious to deal with if you're not just going to have a romantic evening, roasting them by the fire. Pierce each one with the point of a knife and … [Read more...]
My fig tree is very slow to grow and is some years away from producing a crop. Perhaps if I get an abundance of figs I'll grow tired of them, but until then, I delight in buying them and just a couple make a spectacular addition to some greek yoghurt and manuka honey for breakfast. The perfect lunch is a couple of figs on some wild rocket leaves, a … [Read more...]
I stuffed some mini pumpkins and baked them in the oven for dinner. The varieties were 'hooligan' (mottled), jack be little (flattened) and wee be little (dark orange, round). Delicious for breakfast too. Cut off the lid of the pumpkin. Cut a sliver off the base if necessary so it stands up straight. Scoop out the seeds with a knife … [Read more...]
I've come to the conclusion that a tunnel house or greenhouse is almost more useful in the winter than in the summer in Wellington. On a sunny day with a big southerly blowing, it is of course the perfect place to hide. I don't heat my tunnel house so I'm not about to produce summer crops throughout the year. It just means that winter crops grow … [Read more...]
