Pidgeon Peas, the cycle starts again

Last year one of my neighbours was showing me some of their unusual garden plants, one of which was a pidgeon pea and gave me some seeds. I wasted no time in planting them, but with little success. Some germinated, but were weedy, sickly looking plants that died off before I could even get around to transplanting them out.

Picture of the green pods from last season. While I ate a few standing at the bushes, I never really got around to harvesting them in any quantity.

Luckily I was able to buy more seeds from Green Harvest. and these came with their own little bag of peat which had been inoculated with a bacteria called Rhizobium. The seeds were coated with milk and this mix, allowing the plant to better produce it's own nitrogen through a symbiotic relationship.
Needless to say, these grew well and I planted them out last summer, but late in the season.They went on to flower and produce pods, but I didn't get around to harvesting many while they were green and they dried on the bushes. Up until recently they were still hanging around and new flowers were starting to appear so I figured I should chop all the old pods off to give the newly sprouting ends and flowers a better chance.

New flowers forming. After seeing the prolific and pretty flowers last season, I'd almost be happy just to grow these for  the flowers alone.

Now I know that some people grow pidgeon peas like an annual crop, but my neighbours tree, is a tree, and quite a solid one. He told me that he chops it back hard at the end of every season and it just grows back. So I figured it wouldn't hurt to just chop off chunks of the end growth that held the dried out peas and it would also help to give the asparagus bed some more sunlight at the same time. So hack away I did.

After a while I realised I wouldn't fit much in my bucket, I hadn't realized how many pods were on the bushes, so I started clipping the pods off of the branches, and making a pile of the branches and leaves to add to the compost beds.
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I trimmed off the bunches of dried pods, threw them in a bucket and took them inside to shell later.

My bucket of ends ready to shell.

After dinner, I sat down at the table and happily went ahead with the task of shelling the pile.

The tip of what was the flowering end, with dried out pods attached.

I realised at some point during my pruning rush that I wasn't going to get everything to fit in the bucket, so I started roughly chopping just the pods off and leaving the branches in a pile to be added to the compost. 

Part way through shelling the pile.It is a bit of a messy job.

I think that next time I do this I'll do the job outside. As you can see from the picture above, I had bits of shell and branches etc all over the place even though I tried to keep it to the table top, it still got on the floor as well. Again all the shells, twigs and bits were kept to add to the compost heap (waste not, want not)

Pidgeon Peas in the bowl up close.

Now I have a nice little bowl of pidgeon peas awaiting culinary inspiration. According to Green Harvest, these little peas are power packed with around 25% protein and around 5 times more vitamin A and C than normal green peas.

My neighbour told me that almost every family in India has one of these trees growing . The dried peas are used to make dahl, but he said that he usually likes to just pull off a bunch of the green pods and snack on them fresh. Green Harvest also suggests that the leaves and  young shoots can be eaten too, and that the plants make great fodder crop for animals.

Me, I planted them as a bit of a windbreak to stop the wind coming down the hill and knocking around plants in my garden beds, and for the peas. As much as the dried peas look promising, this coming season I intend to use the fresh peas as much as possible as an addition to other fresh vegies.

Now I'm on the lookout for a simple Dalh recipe, if you have any suggestions (please bear in mind, I'm not a particularly accomplished cook) please let me know.

A-Z of the little blue shack's garden - a little more "A"

Asparagus

Asparagus can be grown from seed or from crowns. Seed however requires a lot more patience and work, as you need to wait at least 2-3 years to start harvesting from them, whereas crowns can be purchased to avoid that wait. A crown is just the rootset which stores nutrients during winter ready for the plant to burst forth again in spring. You can get 1, 2 and even 3 year old crowns If you grow from seeds, then the seedlings need to be checked the first year and you are best to go with male plants rather than females which produce an abundance of red berries and skinnier stems. When you plant asparagus you want to ensure you pick a place they can remain undisturbed for the next 20 years as they will produce for many years to come. Unwanted seedlings from berry fall can 'choke' your garden bed. Crowns are more expensive, especially when you are trying to establish enough of them to make a good feed. I raised mine as bought seedlings and planted them into larger pots each year until after their third year. This has been handy as I didn't have a set place for where they would be located in the first years I had them, and it's allowed me to ensure they have had enough food and water to thrive. What I would suggest is that they need plenty of root depth, I've read they can have roots growing up to 1 metre down. To  help give them more depth I planted them into 20 litre food grade buckets that I had been using to store chicken food. I drilled holes around the sides about 5 cm up and filled to this height with gravel  to allow a water reservoir in the bottom to help offset our hot summers.

Asparagus growing in 20 litre buckets, this photo was taken late in the season when the plants had been left go to fronds.

 By the time I transplanted the first lot into their permanent beds last winter ready for spring their root systems were well developed and able to produce a great crop. During their first harvest year, normally the fourth year from seed/seedling, or the first year from crown, it's recommended to only harvest for about the first 6 weeks and then let them grow fern ready to build up the crown for the following season. After that I've found you can stretch the harvest by allowing tiny thin stems to frond, while still picking any thick stems. But you must ensure you leave them some time to replenish the crown during the last half of summer. When fronds start browning off (in my subtropical climate  this often doesn't happen so I normally limit any watering to force them to have a "dormant" period in late June/early July) you cut back the fronds and top dress the garden bed with good organic compost, manure and mulch well ready for the growing season as asparagus are heavy feeders.

Smaller pots being used for very young seedlings. This photo taken almost at the end of the season when they were due to be cut down and transplanted into the bigger 20 litre buckets.

I recently top dressed the Asparagus gardens with a mix of compost and composted manure and added some "Rooster Booster" chicken manure pellets as once they start growing again they are heavy feeders. In this image you can see some Asparagus starting to come up early.

More Asparagus coming up. Since these shots I've also heavily mulched the beds with sugar cane mulch. This helps keep the moisture in and gives the Asparagus some cover as it starts to come up. I've found the more depth the shoots need to grow through the more the stems seem to thicken up.

Ok, so I think that covers the last of my "A's". Do you have any plants starting with "A" that I've missed?

Coming up next in our alphabet we'll proceed to"B"... 

Catch up begins

Work has begun in earnest on the August to do list.

The Murrayas planted last summer to form a hedge to screen the garden beds have been weeded, top dressed with compost and then mulched.

Murrayas with their new top dressing of compost. 

A thick layer of sugar cane mulch was then placed on top to help prevent moisture loss as it heats up going into the warm weather, plus there's the added benefit of helping to keep the weeds down.

As too have the planter boxes.

Even though these planters are a wicking design like the garden beds, the mulch helps to minimise moisture loss.

This top dressing and mulching helps to get the plants ready for spring growth, and coming summer heat.

The chinese Artichokes were dug up, but I'm sure there's been heaps of small ones missed, and no doubt we'll see them come up in this bed again closer to Summer.

These look like some sort of grub, and they are even about that size, but they are actually Chinese Artichoke.

The turmeric and ginger were also dug up.

A muddy looking clump of roots will hose off to reveal fresh Turmeric and Ginger.

This garden bed is starting to look a little more empty, at least in one half. On the other the tomatoes and sweet potato has taken over. It may take a little longer to get that sorted and tidied.

Now you can see at least one half of this wicking garden. The large upright pipe is used to fill the base layer which holds a bladder of water. The other were an experiment to see if worms could be integrated into the system.

We've still got a long way to go to finish preparing the garden for the start of spring, but at least the first steps have been taken.

What are you doing in your garden to prepare for the coming season?

August to do in our subtropical garden

Well the pond is done, and it was definitely overdue. The water chestnut harvest normally happens before now. The few water chestnuts we got out of the mass of roots were planted out in a new area, separate to the other water plants and that should make for an easier and much lusher harvest next year. But for now as I look around the garden, there is just so very much to do, and with me not having spent much time in the garden last month I need some serious catch up time.

My to do list this month is epic, more than a little overwhelming and the month is almost half gone. Some things have truly gotten out of control, a bit like the pond.

The asparagus in the garden beds has been cut back already (in our climate it doesn't die back completely), I'd managed to top up the beds with some compost and composted manure, but I haven't yet put on it's warm weather sugar cane mulch protective layer. I've found this is essential, even with wicking beds, it helps to stop the soil drying out like concrete. I still have to make a decision on the asparagus in the 20 litre buckets, do I make them wicking garden beds this season and plant them out as was the original plan, at three years old now they are well and truly ready, but I still don't have it straight in my head where their long term place will go. Worst case scenario, they need cutting back, topping up and mulching, along with being moved to a sunnier position then where they were dumped while we put up  the side fence.

One of the wicking Asparagus beds, topped up with compost, but still waiting to be mulched and I'm running out of time as it's already put up it's first fronds while I wasn't looking.

Asparagus still in 20 litre buckets. It was on this winter's to do list to get a long term wicking bed ready for them. That hasn't happened yet and I don't know whether it will now. We can still harvest from the buckets, but they aren't as productive and I doubt there's much growing room left there.

The soil level in the wicking planters has dropped, they all need a top up with great compost, as my own home made stuff still isn't exactly producing any great quantity it will have to be bought in. I normally mix a combination of composted cow manure and standard compost. This then gets topped with a good couple of inches of sugar cane mulch (it's amazing how this just disappears into the soil) and at the start of spring growth a feed of organic chook pellets. We planted new hedges last summer, and although they are in the ground rather than a wicking bed, the poor quality of our island soil means that to thrive, these plants will also need a good feed, added compost and mulch, after a really good weed!

And talking of compost, I feel it's time we built another chook compost bed. These beds are the same size as our wicking beds, and the chook pen fits over them in the same way. The idea is we put all the garden waste, kitchen scraps etc in them and allow it to build up, the chickens while roaming have the occassional dig and turn it over a bit, then when getting fuller, we top it with some soil, seed with green manure, and then when a good bit of growth is reached, move the chook pen onto it for them to dig it all over.We have two beds now, started last summer. The chook pen has been residing on one across winter, and the remnants are now a fine compost, but what started as a layer of more than a foot in height has dropped to just a couple of inches. Apart from a little sugar cane mulch, we don't add anything to the bed while the chickens are there, so the other bed is right to the brim with garden waste and ready to be topped with soil and green manure cropped.And another pile of garden waste is sitting on our driveway waiting for a place to go. While I intend to rotate the chickens across the garden beds in the coming month or two, I still feel an additional compost bed is required to make the rotation timing better in the long run.

The wicking beds need to have all the remaining Jerusalem artichoke, ginger, turmeric, indian arrowroot and possibly the chinese artichoke (not sure if it's ready yet) harvested, then if time permits a rotation of a green manure crop as mentioned above, followed up by the chook pen to work it all in.

Turmeric, some ginger and Chinese Artichoke in this wicking bed awaiting digging up so that the bed can be prepared ready for new spring crops.

Add to this that almost all of my potted plants need repotting into bigger pots ready for spring growth, my potting bench area and accompanying stacks of pots is completely covered in leaves (no seriously, it's buried under a layer of leaves), and I haven't even begun to think about spring crops, let alone get seedlings underway! The list could just keep going, but for now, this will keep me occupied enough until September when we'll bring on Spring proper.

What's on your garden to do list this month?

New additions to the garden

You know when you've been sick for what feels like forever, not seriously sick, but  ridden with colds, virus and just rundown, sick of looking at your own four walls, sick of your own uselessness, and just feel like you've got to change something or it's never going to change, I reached that point a couple of weeks ago. Desperately craving normality, I just had to get out of bed, get some fresh air and be surrounded by plants for a while. It may sound crazy, but I just feel better when I'm around plants, it never fails to lift my spirits, to get me inspired and motivated all at once. So I encouraged hubby to take me to the nursery. One of my local favourites is Neilsen's Native nursery. I like their great selection of fruit trees, I love that there are always little birds zooming around their plants, and even last spring, nesting in amongst them. Add to that their amazing selection of native Australian plants which I know almost nothing about and I'm in heaven.

I always get inspired by a visit to a plant nursery, and especially a visit to this one. I see so many plants that I'd like to add to our garden and get ideas I'd like to incorporate. This visit was no exception.

Amongst the things that excited me this time was a large tree house bird feeder. It stood about 6 foot tall, on a fairly solid base, had a little house with doorways sat on a tray to hold feed. It was probably a little over 2 foot square. I've always loved the idea of looking across the garden to a Victorian inspired bird house, and these while not overly ornate, looked really practical. I would have loved one, but at just over $200 for the most basic one they had, it's not really in the budget, plus I'm sure with a little encouragement hubby could build me one that would be a little more solidly constructed and I'd get to decorate it which would be even better.

What I did weaken and buy to add to our garden included two strawberry plants (not that exciting for some, but for me they are one of those plants, you know, the ones you really want to grow when you first think about gardening, but never manage to have any luck with), I've given up counting the number of times I've tried to grow strawberries, but never say never. I read somewhere they are good to plant with asparagus, so that's what I've tried this time.

As well as the strawberries, I bought a thornless blackberry, this was rash on my part. After having had many close escapes in buying or trying things that don't or won't grow in our climate, I normally research each new possibility thoroughly before buying now. Clearly it was my foggy brain that got the better of me this time. With increased clarity and a Google search I know it wasn't a good decision, but now I have it, we'll give it a try. At least I know where it can go in the garden and it would give me another type of berry,

And lastly, a big commitment, well not big yet, but hopefully over the coming years, a Davidson plum. I fell in love with them earlier this year after buying some at the local organic market and making a delicious jam from them. I planted the seeds. Of the six only two came up, one fried during the summer heat when I wasn't keeping watch, the other is still only about three inches high, and has never looked a promising specimen. So for about $23 I now have one that is 3 foot high. After cleaning the pond out, I've planted it out in the bottom garden right near the newly cleaned out pond and bananas.This should give it a little bit of a rainforest feel once everything is back and thriving.

Our new Davidson Plum tree, in the background you can see a blue kids shell sand pit which we've used to plant out the water chestnut corms. It was previously a wicking test garden, but in a bad spot. Now filled with soil and covered with about an inch of water it should be ideal to grow water chestnuts and any water overflow will go into the canoe pond. You can see some clumps of water plants, well mainly their roots near the plums base, I'm hoping that these will help hold water and moisture around the tree to help simulate it's rainforest environment until other plants around it fill out for spring.

I'm excited to welcome this tree. I don't have many Australian natives, especially not food source ones. Do you grow any Australian native fruits or food plants in your garden and what do you do with them?

Clearing the pond

One of my biggest and messiest jobs I try to do each winter is to harvest the water chestnuts and give the ponds a clean out. Last year I harvested only some of the water chestnuts and ran out of time to do much more before the new shoots started appearing, so I chose to just leave it for that season. It was a big mistake, a big heavy, muddy, messy mistake that I've had to pay for in extra work this year.

The roots of the different water plants had grown so dense that they completely filled the pond, so completely they formed a perfectly shaped canoe (my pond is a recycled canoe mould). They had grown so much that when the pond was filled it only left about an inch of water free on the top surface. They were so dense that it was almost impossible to harvest any water chestnuts as they were  tightly bound up in the roots and difficult to find.

During summer the canoe pond was buried under all that green. 

I couldn't actually pull the roots out or separate them by hand they were packed so tightly.They formed a solid mass and I couldn't lift them. Hubby came to the rescue by suggesting using some timber off cuts to form a fulcrum lift point, putting the length of the timber under the front edge and lifting it up enough to put another piece across under it to hold it up. We then got a large serrated kitchen knife and had to cut our way through, bit by bit. We worked on it across two days until finally the pond was cleared.

Large clumps of the matted roots and the odd plant it was just too hard to pull apart and save.

After lots of cutting and lifting I almost had the canoe pond clear

I've kept a lot of water plants, vietnamese rice paddy herb, pickerel rush, vietnamese mint and taro to repot and replenish the pond, just enough though so that the local green frogs have some protection, but now will have plenty of water for laying their eggs. The water chestnuts have been moved to a new pond where they will grow on their own, hopefully making it much easier to harvest next year, and giving me a bumper crop now that they will have some space to grow again.

Do you have a pond? What water plants do you grow?

Mandarin, pistachio and chickpea cake

My Imperial Mandarin tree has it's first fruit on it this year. Correction, it's first fruit that has stayed on  to the point of being edible. We ate the second one yesterday. The second was a bigger celebration because the first fell off too early and it was so bitter I pulled faces like eating a lemon. This time it was sweet and juicy, the thick skin peeled away easily, and even all the stringy pith seemed to just come away with it.

Now, as with any eager gardener I envisage an optimistic future where this tree will be loaded down with so many of these beautiful mandarins that I will be struggling to use them all up, the glut would be so bad that I'd be looking for different things to do with them. So, in preparation for this, I've been dreaming about what I could possibly do with them, and being a sweet tooth, cake is always high on the options list.

Add to the dream a new cookbook, Super legumes by Chrissy Freer, (bought justifiably because we should be eating more legumes, and here's the website recipe if you want to check the recipe out for yourself, chrissyfreer.com.au/superlegumes-recipe-mandarin-chickpea-cake/  ) and the perfect recipe presented itself, Mandarin, pistachio and chickpea cake.

So tonight I whipped one up, well actually two, well actually one normal one which won't fit into any of my tiny cake tins, so it became two. Making the cake was straight forward and pretty fast, except for having to bring the mandarins to a boil, not once, but twice, and then simmer for 45 minutes. Not that it was hard, it's just that when I want to cook something, I want to do it right now and waiting for the boiling part was frustrating. But moving on from that the rest of the mixing was really straight forward.

Then came the cooking part...
Now please don't think this has anything to do with the recipe, this is all about how I can manage to make what should be the simplest part painfully hard. You see, I don't have a normal oven, this house came with a very old gas upright, most of the top cookers work, but nothing below that. As we had originally planned to rip out the old kitchen and replace it with something all new and sparkly (lets save that whole story for another time), I temporarily bought a glass oven. I'm a glass oven advocate, I find them easy to use, perfect for roasts, and I normally do my cakes in them. It's just that it's a little too small to fit some cake tins in, or if you manage to get them in, you can't easily get them out, so I bought tiny cake tins. So, tiny cake tins mean you need to adjust the cooking time, also the oven cooks slightly different to time than a normal oven anyway, normally shorter as it has a fan going, so I figured, smaller tin, half the mix, and a faster oven, 35 minutes instead of 50 would probably be the go.

To say my estimation was out would be an understatement. It looked well cooked from the top, it had even cracked across the top and was slightly crunchy, and sprung back beautifully when poked. I waited for it to cool down (actually I forced myself to do the washing up because I knew once I sat down with a cup of tea and my cake I wouldn't feel like getting up to a pile of dishes) and then cut a sample slice. Disappointment, it was all gooey in the centre, and most disappointing of all, because I wanted to save my wonderful home grown mandarins (after all there's only about 10 of them in total) to eat fresh, I used store bought ones, and these weren't as bitter as that first unripe one of mine, but nowhere near as sweet as the one we savoured yesterday. So unfortunately the cake has a slightly bitter twang which I don't think would be there with a sweeter mandarin.

Right now, the cakes are back in the glass oven, (note to self, next time try using tiny bundt tins as I think being able to have the heat through the centre will make the cooking more even). I'll give them a little longer and that should dry out the overly moist centre and I'm sure we'll all enjoy it for morning tea tomorrow, dusted with a little icing sugar, sprinkled with a smattering of crushed pistachios and served with a little cream on the side. I'm even thinking of a drizzle of mandarin syrup...Yum!

What have you been baking lately and how did it go?