Carrots! Purple ones, orange ones, cream ones, yellow ones… they all make for rainbow salads, just at the point when the summer of colors coming out of the market garden is starting to wind down for winter…
So while we have a kind of anti-spring festival here in the southern hemisphere every Easter, we do have one thing that supposedly goes with bunnies, even if the hens have all decided to wrap it up for the year and stop laying…
I am a little bit in love with our new honey press. It is made from stainless steel and it can crush close to a whole box of natural honeycomb in one fell squish. What better way to get all that goodness of the pollen, propolis and of course the honey into the jar? Read More
Now that Autumn’s here, our woolshed is bedecked in produce and garlands… brown onions, red onions, preserves, pickles and all the rest. And it turns out (fortunately) that stringing onions into a garland is actually quite easy. Read More
It is with great excitement that Stephen recently calculated that we’ve officially grown over one tonne of nutrient dense, organic vegetables in our Market Garden! Whoohoo!
Which is not bad for the first six months of our organic market garden project, with about 500 sq m under cultivation, on crappy soils in non-ideal conditions, and learning as we go. Yay Stephen. Yay photosynthesis. Yay helpers and mentors. Yay compost! Here’s the tally… Read More
Drying fruit is one of my favorite things. I love the versatility of dried apples and pears – so simple and yummy to munch on their own, yet so much fun to use in all sorts of ways in recipes year round.
And this year we seem to have access to an unlimited supply of apples, pears and nashis, so we’re going for it! My aim to to really and truly dry enough fruit to last us through till next year. Here’s the method we’ve settled on… Read More
I can now proudly report that the beetroot and radish kimchi has been a success. And it tastes delightful. Kimchi is normally a spicy cabbage-based Korean ferment, but Rose decided to get a little radical, and use what we had in season.
Previously in Spring, Rose had tried making bok choi kimchi, which did work, but was, well, rather full of bok choi. But I knew from the start that beetroot and radish kim chi was going to rock. And it does. Here’s how Rose did it… Read More
Here come the potatoes! This is the first year we’ve grown them en-mass, and we are now (finally) starting to harvest. Duch creams, Ruby Lous, Nicloas…. mmm fresh organic potatoes roasted in our own olive oil and rosemary – om nom nom…
This story starts with an encounter with a potato nerd (self proclaimed). His name is Wade, and he showed up at our last Biofertilizer course. With sacks and sacks and sacks of seed potatoes. Yay! Read More
So it turns out that mushroom cultivation is really easy – once you wrap your head around all the intricacies, that is. And setting aside all the ‘wow’ moments you’ll have as you begin to delve into the wonderful world of fungi. But apart from that, it’s simple!
We just hosted a mushroom propagation course at Milkwood Farm, and it was a full-on two days. So much awesomeness! So many possibilities! Why don’t we all learn mushroom propagation in kindergarten? It’s a total fit. Read More
And I think all in all, it went pretty well. Ever since the gazillions of tomato plants (in numerous heritage varieties) were planted in the Milkwood Market Garden, we’ve been waiting for this great day. The inaugural squishing of the harvest.
And check out our new, fancy-pants passata machine! In the spirit of multi-function, it also transforms into a meat mincer and a juicer, so we can harvest every which way. And harvest we will…
It seems unbelievable that only 5 months ago our now abundant market garden was a scruffy bare creek flat. But it’s true! And now we’ve got produce coming out our ears, thanks to many fabulous folks coming together to make it so.
Up in the hills as we are, it’s a bit of a harsh climate for growing stuff. About 4 frost free months for growing only, poor soils, 600mm annual rainfall, crazy dry winds, etc and so on. We’re not complaining, but I’d just like to flag that this is a garden created in non-ideal conditions. Except for gumption. We’ve got plenty of that.
