Autumn Harvest

A lovely workshop last weekend. Everyone worked really hard, cooked, cleaned, laughed a lot and ate well. I had my rangehood and a nasty kitchen cupboard cleaned by the girls trying out the cleaning properties of lemon...maybe they would do windows this week, or is that pushing my luck?

This weekend we are into a bit more hubble bubble for the second half. An all girls group this time, we will be heating the cauldrons to create hand cream and other treats. There will be more food too.

Here’s a recipe that everyone loved:

Five Minute Lemonade

1 Lemons or 2 limes

50g Sugar

Chop the whole lemon into 1 cm cubes and place in a heatproof jug.

To each lemon add 50g of sugar / rice syrup or honey, adjusting to suit your taste.

Add boiling water to cover, put a plate on top of the jug and leave for 5 minutes.

Process with a blender.

Add  500ml cold water.

Strain through a sieve into a jug half full of ice.

Drink immediately.
 In winter, make this with honey and add hot water and drink while hot.

There is rarely time to take a rest in the garden. In the gap between the workshops the quinces have been thumping to the ground. Massive things that would brain one of the chickens that so generously fertilises it all year, demanding to be rescued from the parrots. Four crates ready for sale and three basketfuls for us...and the figs are coming on too.

Better get back to the kitchen!

Growing green chickens

There is a lull in the garden at this time of year. As the summer breathes her last sigh, the beds are chaotic with lanky half dead tomatoes, basil going to seed and the last few brave flowers on the zucchini and capsicum. It seems there is little to eat at the moment but with the recent rains, my ‘chicken’ bed has sprouted madly. Two weeks ago I planted (if you can call banging seed heads together over the garden bed ‘planting’) the bed with coriander, mustard greens, rocket, parsley and Chinese spinach.

My chickens lead a penned life and so can’t forage for fresh greens. I try to address this by planting forage plants along the fences. They nibble on comfrey, red clover, silver beet and fennel. They get handfed other greens that grow wildly such as upland cress, nasturtium and dandelion and other useful ‘weeds.’

In summer when extra green feed is scarce I grow oat or wheatgrass in trays and in autumn fatten the roosters on sprouted lupins. The wheatgrass is grown from wheat soaked overnight then sown in seed trays in a commercial potting mix. When it reaches 10cm high, I put the tray into the pen and watch them graze. Before they begin to scratch and dig the seed out, I take it away. The wheatgrass will regrow in a few days. Two trays rotated allow ten chickens to graze every second day. I have a friend who grows his in half circle hanging baskets which he hangs on their fence, which prevents the scratch attack from happening.

To make the lupin sprouts, the lupins are soaked overnight and laid on kitchen paper which is kept moist until the first leaves are seen in 3 or 4 days. The sprouts are then vitamised with bran, bread scraps or stale biscuits. For some reason, they won’t eat them without putting them through the blender. Just too spoilt, I guess. Sprouting the lupins increases the protein content as well as giving them tasty greens.

I have just raided the chicken bed for our dinner, using the thinnings of mustard greens, coriander, baby nasturtium leaves and upland cress. They will make an ever so trendy green salad. In posh shops they are known as ‘micro herbs’ and command a massive price per kilo. They are not hard to grow so I guess it’s the fussy washing you pay for. The chickens won’t mind, they are all busy picking over the newly pulled sweet corn!
go well,
nirala

Scarlet - a bean for all seasons

A bee enjoying the nectar

An arbor of Scarlet Runners

The whole month’s rain falling in half an hour heralded the first day of autumn here, leaving everything refreshed and sparkling. The season of ‘mists and mellow fruitfulness’ is my favourite and often one of the busiest as I squirrel food away by drying, bottling, preserving and freezing the summer’s crops.

The cooler nights have seen the end of the zucchinis, the tomatoes are now past their best and the peacharine, the very last of the stone fruits, is ready for picking. As most of the garden retreats from the cold and shortening days, the scarlet runners have perked up no end. Washed by the rain they are a bright spot of colour on these gloomy days.

Scarlet Runner Beans originated in South America, in Guatemala and Mexico. These rapid climbers were popular in England until the late 19th century when people began to choose the dwarf varieties of beans to grow in their smaller garden plots.

In frost free areas Scarlet Runners will develop tuberous roots much like a dahlia and will reshoot every year. This gives them their other popular name: Seven Year Beans. They grow vigorously when they receive regular watering. This year in my garden they have excelled themselves, traveling beyond their seven foot high (sorry, I’ve never got metric measurements right and Nerys will probably edit this when she sees it!) chicken wire trellis and have climbed into the plum tree where I need a ladder to harvest them!

They are best picked every day but don’t fret if you miss a day. They are delicious eaten young, raw or steamed, whole or sliced. Once they reach 10- 12 inches (!) they develop a tough ‘string’ as the beans inside start to form. These can be stripped out of their pods and cooked as fresh whole beans. The surprise is their colour. My 1905 vegetable book describes it as ‘liver overlaid with red wine’ – mine are much nicer and more modern every shade from a sassy hot pink to lilac streaked with a deep purple. Unfortunately, the colour fades with cooking. They can be used to make fabulous minestrone soup.

Once they stop flowering and begin to die back, you will discover fat, mouldy looking pods hanging everywhere. Bring them in, pod the beans and spread them on a paper covered tray in a single layer and leave them in a warm spot until they are hard and dry. You now have a supply of dried beans for the winter similar in taste and texture to borlotti beans that are fabulous in Mexican and Italian dishes.

My permaculture mates tell me that the tuber is also edible but I couldn’t bear to dig mine up to try. Has anyone tried this?

Our 12 bean plants feed us for nearly six months of the year and are a visual delight too. Next year we are planning to build them an arbor to climb upon from the trellis to the shed. With a little training we should be able to have beans hanging down like wisteria so we can pick at head height in a green bean tunnel.

I am happy to share seed if people in W.A. would like some. Seed Savers should be able to provide it for Eastern staters.

Wishing rain to all of you who need it, happy gardening.