Accidentally making the lettuce last longer in the fridge

December 17, 2020October 1, 2020 / gardengoddess17 / 5 Comments

Some of the lovely greens in the trailer bed

The trailer bed is bursting with greens, it is so easy to stroll out and pick a salad base. Of course, I prefer to pick every few days and keep the leaves in the fridge. I’m lazy that way. The problem with keeping the leaves in the fridge is that they go slimy and bad by the second day, and then I need to pick more. That is a problem I may have accidentally found a solution for.

Let me explain… The lettuce and other greens are watered using washing water (the used water from the washing machine) and the remnants of the duck and chicken water pots when we refresh them. This means that the greens have a lot of unsavory bacteria on them (and silt), so the leaves need to be washed well and disinfected somehow.

I wash the leaves in a tub of water (which is then poured back onto the garden) to remove any dirt and silt. Then I soak them in a water and vinegar solution (1/2 cup vinegar to 5 litres of water). I use my home made vinegar for this, and it seems to work.

I use vinegar for all my cleaning; in a spray for kitchen surfaces, in the washing, as a floor spot cleaner, as an emergency bath addative (when I’m really smelly), as a medicinal additive in the animal waters, you name it. Using it to clean bacteria off food is a logical step.

Then I discovered that the vinegar rinse keeps the lettuce fresh in the fridge for a week. You have to be sure to dry as much water off the leaves as possible and line the bag or container with a paper towel though (I keep trying to think of a washable version of paper towels for this).

I am so happy with this little discovery that I wanted to pass on the tip. A vinegar soak not only makes sure the lettuce is safe to eat, it also makes it last much longer in the fridge, and it is another use for my home made vinegar.

Sort of gardening- growing potatoes

October 12, 2020October 11, 2020 / gardengoddess17 / 2 Comments

The potatoes are starting to come up! I have one peeking it’s head above the mulch.

I have been dragging triple used hay up to the potato patch for a month in an attempt to tidy up the sheep feeding area before fire season (not very successfully) and watching every day to see when the potatoes would pop up… and now one has.

The potatoes I planted in the yard garden have been up for ages and have just been mulched for a third time (and need more already). These potatoes get more water than the ones in the patch, and I think that has made a huge difference.

We will see if this experiment is a success.

Making bean brownies

September 30, 2019September 30, 2019 / gardengoddess17 / Leave a comment

In my quest to use more of our Madagascar beans I found a recipe for black bean muffins. I thought I would try them with half black beans and half Madagascar bean. In this recipe I used half a cup of Madagascar beans soaked then boiled for 20 minutes and one can of black beans. This added a bit of volume to the recipe, but didn’t change the texture at all.

Dried beans need a lot of cooking to get rid of the gas-making qualities and to minimise the ‘beaniness’ of the flavour. I really wish I had a wood stove so I could have legumes simmering away at the back of the stove without using gas.

Madagascar beans looking pretty in their jar.

Black Bean Muffins recipe (the original from the link)

Ingredients

1 (15 ounce) can of black beans, rinsed and drained
3 eggs*
1/2 cup pure maple syrup (or sub honey)
2 tablespoons coconut oil, melted and cooled
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon brewed coffee, optional to enhance chocolate flavor
1/2 cup high-quality unsweetened cocoa powder (or use cacao powder)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup dark chocolate chips, plus 2 tablespoons for sprinkling on top

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 12 cup muffin tin with baking liners and spray the inside of each liner with nonstick cooking spray.
Place black beans and 1 egg in food processor and process until beans are well blended. Add two other eggs, maple syrup, coconut oil, vanilla and coffee; process again until smooth. Next add in cocoa powder, baking powder and salt; process once more until smooth. Next fold in 1/3 cup of chocolate chips.
Divide batter evenly among muffin cups. Sprinkle remaining chocolate chips evenly among the tops of each muffin batter. Bake for 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted into the middle of a muffins comes out clean. Place on wire rack to cool for 10 minutes, then remove muffins from tin and transfer to wire rack to cool completely. Keep muffins for a day at room temperature, then transfer to fridge and place in an airtight container.

I decided to cook the brownies in a slice tray, because I didn’t have any muffin papers and I never follow instructions to the letter anyway.

All the ingredients except the Madagascar beans; they are boiling on the stove.

Of course I used more eggs than the recipe demands (my daughter is away, so I can use up eggs to my heart’s content).

This is what the beans look like blended with an egg

Don’t be alarmed (like I was) if you get to the pouring point and you have what appears to be a bean and chocolate shake. The liquid nature of the mix made me panic a bit, but it firmed up nicely once in the oven.

Well, this one is a hit. It tastes good, is full of fibre and protein, it uses some of my home grown food plants, it tips it’s hat at being healthy (sort of) and did I say it tastes good?

While I was searching, I also found these recipes to try…

Chickpea brownie mix

Bean fudge

Making vege burgers from Madagascar beans

August 23, 2019August 4, 2019 / gardengoddess17 / Leave a comment

The Madagascar bean plants have continued to grow and now it is Spring again, they have decided to bear a huge crop of beans (even though it is so very dry). I thought I would share a recipe for using the dried beans in vege burgers as a way of using my stash of last years crop in preparation for harvesting a new batch.

I didn’t use a particular recipe to make my burgers, just added things I had on hand, but I did manage to find a similar recipe here.

There is a mix of Madagascar beans and bush beans in this batch.

First; soak a cup of dried beans in hot water for a few hours (or overnight).

Then boil the beans for about two hours (or until they can be squashed to mush with a fork).

Blend the beans together with; 1 cup of grated carrot/raw beetroot, 1 onion, 1 cup red lentils (these can be boiled with the beans if they are dried), 1/2 cup boiled sweet potato, 1 chia egg (1 tspn chia seed in 1 tblespn hot water), garlic, soy sauce, salt and pepper.

Carrots, onion, garlic, capsicum (and a sneaky chilli)

Put the whole mess in a bowl and mix in bread crumbs or oat bran until you can form patties that stick together.

Shallow fry the patties and serve with vegetables or as a burger. Yum.

They can also be frozen before cooking to have a quick, easy meal ready to cook.

Aquaponics update- the system is cycled and ready for A*****e to move in.

May 23, 2019May 19, 2019 / gardengoddess17 / 1 Comment

It has taken many weeks for the system to go through it’s ammonia-nitrite-nitrate cycle, but it is finally ready to house A*****e. Today is the day we move him to his new pond.

The lettuce and spinach are growing really well; I have been harvesting them consistently.

This is the lettuce the day I planted it.

When I first turned the system on, the sound of running water outside sent me into a near panic every hour (the water cycles through for fifteen minutes every hour) when I heard the sound of our precious water running away. Drought does that to you. Now I am used to it, I find it relaxing and calming; splashing water is such a rich sound don’t you think? (drought does that to you too)

I have continued to add occasional fish food to the system to give the bacteria some ammonia to work with and I added a cap full of Seasol to the water to feed the plants.

Three weeks ago I tested the water to see if it was ready to accept fish in the system; it was not. Water testing is a big part of keeping an aquaponics system healthy (not to mention the fish). Fish can die very easily in high ammonia and nitrite water, so it is important to wait until the bacteria colonies are established before adding an ammonia generator (which is what fish are). Below are the results of the test from the first week;

The ammonia was 2.0…it should be 0.0 (or close to it)

The nitrite was 1.0…it should be 0.0 (or close to it)

The nitrate was 10….it can be quite high

The fact that there is a nitrate level to read shows that both the bacteria that turns ammonia to nitrite and the bacteria that turns nitrite to nitrate are there, living in their little clay ball cities. I just had to wait for the populations to grow enough to get the nitrite and ammonia levels down to almost nothing.

Two weeks ago I tested the water again;

Not ready just yet. We will wait another week.

This week I tested again and found a surprising result;

The pH is going in the wrong direction; it is 6.0 when it should be 7.3

To begin to change the pH I added 1 teaspoon of aglime to the water and retested after a few hours. I also began to acclimatize A*****e by getting my daughter to put him in a bucket about half full of his water then I poured water from the new pond into it at the rate of 1/4 cup every 15 minutes or so. After a full day of this he was ready to be poured into the pond.

My daughter also moved over some sand, weed and a floaty rock thing for him. He seems very happy in there so far. The water test after three days was encouraging, except the pH.

My next move is to add another grow bed. I am really enjoying the mad scientist element of aquaponics; test tubes, coloured chemicals, wild solutions.

Plants in the garden- Madagascar beans

June 10, 2018June 10, 2018 / gardengoddess17 / 6 Comments

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There are a lot of plants in my garden (not as many as my mother’s garden, but still, a lot), and these plants don’t often get to be noticed by anyone other than me. So I thought I would start a series of posts that introduce the plants I manage to grow in my garden, despite animal depredation, insect attack, serious neglect and outright attack with a mower or whipper snipper.

First in the line up is the Madagascar bean; a perennial , sub-tropical lima bean. I planted 5 seeds in toilet paper rolls in the Summer and planted out the sweet little seedlings about three weeks later. I chose a spot in the Hugelkultur garden that would let the beans climb on the fence and would eventually give shade to a couple of beds for planting lettuce and silverbeet in the hot summer months. Little did I know that the plants grow like Jack’s beanstalk and look likely to take over the whole vegetable garden roof area. I think that I will be doing a lot of pruning next Spring to keep some growing areas in the sun.

Somewhere in there are 5 little bean seeds

Planted out as young seedlings

I have created a monster

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Apparently the seeds can be eaten when young as a broad bean substitute (steamed or boiled) and the dried beans can be used anywhere dried beans can be used (soaked, cooked and put into soups, stews, burgers, casserole, etc). My vines have pods, and I am now waiting around impatiently (checking my watch, sighing, pacing a little) for them to form beans so I can try to trick my partner into believing I have grown broad beans for him (he doesn’t know what the plant looks like anyway). I am becoming a big fan of perennial vegetables, I think I will seek out a few more.

New Hugelkultur bed- final update

March 12, 2018 / gardengoddess17 / 1 Comment

It’s finished at last, the new bed is built, mulched and planted. Even the path is done. Now to wait for those yummy broccoli and Ceylon spinach plants to grow, and let’s not forget the broad beans I planted today.

Broccoli and Ceylon spinach growing madly

The dark line on the right of the picture is where the broad beans are planted

The gum leaf path over cardboard is in place.

I can’t wait until this bed is just a mass of green…it won’t take long. I also had another play with time lapse video, I did a quick video of my daughter (yes, she has pink hair this week) and I putting pig poop and mulch on our trailer bed and planting some snow peas. It is a bit far away from the action for me, I think I need a stand or something to hold the iPad at the right angle. This kind of video has a lot of potential I think, it is certainly fun to play with.

I have been dumping a good layer of pig poop on every bed I can find, covering it up with mulch and planting into a handful of potting mix in the bed to prevent too much nitrogen burn and give my plants something to get their roots into before they get into all that poopy goodness.

I also weeded, fertilised and mulched my poor little pomegranate tree while I was going.

Doesn’t she look a lot happier now.

What a relaxing and carefree day I’ve had in the garden. This is what we need to do to maintain sanity…or a close facsimile there of.

Making pots out of newspaper

March 5, 2018 / gardengoddess17 / 5 Comments

I have been doing this on and off for a while now. Up until recently I found the pots would encourage fungus and sprout all sorts of mushroom-y things. Then I found the ‘Under the Choko Tree’ You Tube channel and watched as Nevin made pots from newspaper. It turns out I was using too much paper; the walls were too thick so they were not able to dry out enough to keep fungus at bay.

This is how I used to make my pots. See how thick the walls are.

So I bought one of those cute little pot making things and off I went. These pots are working very well…no fungus and they hold together (which was why I made my pots thick to begin with). In fact the whole seed raising system has been working brilliantly, except that my seedling raising area was in the open and the trays kept filling up with water and drowning the seedlings. I fixed that by adding a little roof to the area which I will remove (it can just be lifted off) on less damp days.

Thinner walls and no fungus…they still get waterlogged though.

On another, but sort of related note; I have been learning how to use an iPad (for work) and have discovered that the camera on an iPad has a time-lapse setting (also a slo-mo setting, but I haven’t played with that yet), so I decided to make a time lapse clip of me making and using my little pots.

And here it is;

What do you think. Does it need to be a bit slower. I haven’t found that setting yet but I will.

Update on the new hugelkultur bed

March 5, 2018 / gardengoddess17 / 13 Comments

A0F7399B-80BE-4591-9590-B2A5E47DB16E I have finally had a chance to finish the new bed; thanks to some help from my daughters and a friend. After much carrying of wood chunks, shoveling of manure and frequent stops to rest, we have planted the first half of the bed with broccoli and ceylon spinach (which I just happened to have a lot of).

The grass on the path has been smothered with cardboard and I will rake up some gum leaves to cover it with soon. The pig poop (composted) was shoveled into an old bin and lifted into the bed over the period of about a week. Spread over the pile of sticks it has made a really rich bed, even though it is still composting and so is putting out a bit of heat. The broccoli seedlings seem to appreciate the extra heat, even though they are planted into a double handful of potting mix in the hole (because I was worried about the pig poop being too hot for them).

Our big pile of pig poop

Happy little seedlings

The newspaper and cardboard path

I am loving having some new space to plant and it promises to be as easy care as the other hugelkultur beds. I guess it’s on to the next project; the trailer bed needs some TLC.

The first Hugelkultur bed is powering on. I do love this style of gardening. The rest of this post is made up of photos of my powering garden….for inspiration…mine.

Seedlings all ready to be planted out. My seedling raising area is going well this year.

A late pumpkin vine….I might be lucky

Madagascar beans on their way up some well placed sticks

A riot of productivity

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The tamarillo is producing fruit….one at a time

Late corn….it’s flowering

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Sourdough chocolate zucchini muffins

January 11, 2018 / gardengoddess17 / 5 Comments

My zucchini patch

Having stated that I really don’t like to cook, I thought I would do another post on how I use left over sourdough starter. While I don’t enjoy cooking and spend a fair amount of time in the kitchen grumbling in a very unbecoming manner and wishing I was outside, I do like to eat and if I don’t make it I won’t eat. Also I hate to throw out that magic starter, it seems truly amazing to me that you can mix flour and water together and end up with bread (after a bit of neglect). I have a fair few zucchini plants busily producing the famed glut in the garden, so what better way to use up spare sourdough starter and too many zucchini than to turn them into chocolate.

I found the original recipe for these muffins here. I found a recipe for zucchini brownies while I was searching that looked good too.

Sourdough chocolate zucchini muffins (makes about 12)

3/4 cup honey

Sourdough starter

1/3 cup of vegetable oil (the original recipe calls for butter but I couldn’t find any)

2 eggs (or 4 bantam eggs in my case)

1 tablespoon of vanilla

a pinch of salt

1 1/3 cups of plain flour

1/3 cup cocoa

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 grated zucchini (it doesn’t matter too much whether it’s a big one or a little one)

Method

Mix all the liquids together until the sourdough starter is combined then add the dry ingredients slowly until they are combined. Add the zucchini and mix through well. Spoon into muffin cases or a tray then pop into the oven at 180-200 degrees Celsius for about 20 minutes.

The wet ingredients

Mixing the wet ingredients together

The dry ingredients

Mixing the dry ingredients in

The daily zucchini harvest

One grated zucchini

The mix ready to bake

When you run out of muffin papers half way through…just make some from baking paper and keep on spooning

They came out OK

Even the ones in make-shift papers

I am sure this cooking thing is just a passing phase born from having so much produce in the garden, bear with me, it will be over soon.

Chronicles of a humpy dweller

The adventures of someone who lives in the bush in a tin shed, is obsessed with fibre crafts and is a little bit mad.

vegetables

Accidentally making the lettuce last longer in the fridge

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Sort of gardening- growing potatoes

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Making bean brownies

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Making vege burgers from Madagascar beans

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Aquaponics update- the system is cycled and ready for A*****e to move in.

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Plants in the garden- Madagascar beans

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New Hugelkultur bed- final update

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Making pots out of newspaper

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Update on the new hugelkultur bed

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Sourdough chocolate zucchini muffins

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