Eggplant and Further Rhubarb Adventures

I ate my second homegrown eggplant today.  It's a big deal because Tassie is not the best place to grow eggplant - it's often considered too cold.  I bought two puny seedlings last year from the bargain bin at my local nursery (perhaps not the best way to start life either). They somehow survived two snow falls over summer, and one of them has produced 5 small eggplants.  The other produced beautiful purple flowers, but no 'eggs'. I can't explain the difference.

I grilled the eggplant and ate it with Shakshuka Eggs and haloumi, which accommodated my homegrown garlic, a few of the late season tomatoes, and silverbeet.  Silverbeet has become a true staple for me - it's so easy to grow in any season, easily reseeds, and can be cooked in a wide variety of recipes.

I thought I'd also post this bizarre photo of me splitting and replanting the rhubarb along the new garden beds. My aunt knitted me a 'plant' beanie, which I think seals the deal.

a corny tale

Last night, I ate my first home grown cob of corn. I've been watching the strictly vertical stalks grow hairy bulges, not at all sure about when to pick and eat them. The first bulge's hairy top had dried up so I peeled back the layers to check its readiness. I found beautiful yellow tiles.

The corn was soft, subtle and sweet. It had not developed all the way up the stem, and I'm not sure why. Otherwise, it was perfect.



I've also become re-obsessed with tabbouleh. I've had parsley reseeding all over the garden, which has supplied me with lots of happy green plates. My tomatoes have finally started getting into the groove, and I add those to the parsley along with spring onions and mint, which I've also grown. I also add burghul, the juice of half a lemon, some panfried pinenuts and olive oil.

Flowering vegetables: the curiosity continues

A few months ago I blogged about letting my vegetables go to seed just out of curiosity, and I've now got quite an interesting collection of flowering vegies in my backyard.

My leeks have been in flower for quite awhile now, with their beautiful purple and white bulbous heads.  I'm thinking of planting them in the front garden as ornamentals next year, along with some artichokes.

flowering Leeks

I also had a good hack away at my purple artichoke thinking that it'd stopped producing for the season.  The green artichoke had just started so I'd moved on.  Apparently the purple artichoke loved the hacking back to the stem (it had grown to about 2m cubed) and immediately started producing buds again.  So there's a tip! To be honest, artichokes are a real treat, but I'm pretty sick of them now. I'm letting both the purple and green artichokes go to flower now for the season, just to see their big thisley flowers and compare the different varieties.

A large purple bud opening up

You wouldn't have thought I hacked this plant back a month ago. The artichoke's revenge

My green artichoke buds opening up

 This is just an observation, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that the green artichokes go purple on their tips when they're opening (and I suspect just past the point of edibility), and the purple artichokes go green on their tips.  If you look at the photos above of the purple and green artichokes respectively, you'll see what I mean.  When the buds are younger they're pretty much all purple or all green.

I've also let one of my green cabbages (actually one of my only cabbages that survived the great snail plague of 2010) go to seed.   It went from being a smooth round surface one day to having these curly flowering stalks exploding out the middle the next. I was thrilled!

the flowering cabbage with some broccoli seeds hanging overhead

 and now to the plants that I get to see flower AND still eat them...

My first tomatoes are starting to blush.  I loathe buying tomatoes at the shops when I have so many plants in the backyard, and so I've been hovering over these plants constantly, waiting for the first tomatoes to ripen.

Roma tomatoes

 

Cherry tomatoes

I also have my 'experimental' eggplants starting to grow spikey things.  I say experimental, because people keep telling me that Tasmania is too cold to grow eggplants. I thought I'd try anyway.

one of the spiky things growing on the eggplant.  I'm assuming it's the fruit.

more spiky things with some arty-looking water drops

one of my great successes last year were my lebanese cucumber plants, so I thought I'd relive the dream

I've never grown corn before, and I'm a bit concerned that my plants are a lot smaller than those at the community garden down the road.  Could it be because I planted them too late? Or perhaps that they had to grow over and over after snail attacks?  I'm not sure exactly what stage they're up to yet, or how the corn forms, but to be honest they're fulfilling quite an interesting role at the moment: garden sounds.

When I think of gardening and the senses, sight, touch, smell, and less so, taste, are all obviously engaged.  However, I think the sounds of the garden can get discounted. Obviously birds have a significant place in the sound landscape, but the sounds of plants are usually only activated when wind is involved.  Even with only a small breeze, corn makes an amazing sound.  It's more than rustling. I only really noticed it today for the first time (I've not been gardening much lately due to work commitments), and at first I couldn't work out where it was coming from.  I wasn't consciously searching for the sound, it was just something that was mulling around in my head. It pleased me that such a distinctive but soothing sound was produced by my largely ignored corn stalks.

I wrote recently about planting all these watermelon seeds.  I transferred the happy-looking seedlings to the garden once they got to about 4 cm in height.  From I think a total of 20 seedlings, this little one below is the only one left. Snails. Again. 

A happier story involves my pumpkins that are keeping my apricot tree company:

to the left of the tree are the turkish pumpkins, to the right, butternut. In the foreground, asparagus.

a butternut pumpkin mid-growth (when are they ready to eat?!)

I can't remember the full name of this pumpkin, but it has the word Turkish in the name.

Tomato sauce to a soundtrack

I made a second batch of tomato sauce today using another gigantic harvest from my slowly shrivelling, but still producing, plants.  I had a range of tomatoes growing this year:

 Some of the varieties I grew this year.  

Clockwise from top right: Roma, Cherry, Gardener's Delight (x2), Tigerella (x2)

I used all of the types pictured above in today's tomato sauce.  I used to peel and de-pip the tomatoes but I can't be bothered anymore. I don't mind the pips and skin, and besides, peeling individual tomatoes is a little more efficient when you have large buggers.

Firstly, I add a coarsely chopped onion, 3-4 cloves of chopped garlic and a couple of whole bay leaves to about a quarter of a cup of good quality olive oil in a big saucepan.  Stir until the onion becomes soft and translucent.

Then I add about 2 kilograms of tomatoes, coarsely chopped.  At this point you can peel the tomatoes by scalding them in boiling water first so that the skin comes away easily; and/or you can de-pip the tomatoes using a sieve.   As I wrote earlier, though, it's not necessary.

Mix 2 tablespoons of tomato paste with a cup of hot water and add that to the saucepan, along with two tablespoons of coarsely chopped fresh basil, and a couple of teaspoons of chopped fresh oregano.

Add salt and pepper to taste. I also add half a teaspoon of sugar.

Turn the stove down and simmer for 2-4 hours depending on how much is in the saucepan, stirring occasionally.  I like to let it boil down until it's thick and the excess liquid has disappeared.  Tonight it took 3 hours to reduce in half:

This batch is quite orange, and I think it has something to do with the type of tomatoes I'm using.

You can use the sauce for pasta, pizza, lasagne...  or add anchovies, mushrooms, olives to elaborate on the theme.  Tonight, for instance, I had the sauce on pasta with some (amazing) Tongola Goat's Curd:

The last but most important thing about this sauce, however, is that it must be made while listening to Verdi's La Traviata.  Turn it up loud, and the sauce will truly sing.

A walk around the vegie garden

I haven't posted any pictures lately, and yet I've had so much growing.  Here's an overall view:

top tier: pumpkins, leeks, spring onions

second tier: globe artichoke, fennel, tigerella tomatoes, bok choi, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, rocket, lebanese cucumbers, lettuce, mesculin

third tier: multiple types of tomatoes including Roma, cherry, Grower's Delight, Digger's [something], Lenah Valley market unidentified; basil, dying passionfruit, unidentified curcubit.

fourth tier: failed cauliflowers, dwarf beans, white beans.

 From another angle.  You can see the rhubarb in the top right corner.

Crazy pumpkin plant, stretching over two garden beds.  I had to build a 'bridge' between the two beds:

My lone artichoke. I thought I'd try one and see if it survived before trying more.  It's growing like a fiend, so I think I'll get another:

A few young fennel plants. Only four survived the snail feast:

The only cauliflower (out of 10 plants!) that has actually produced a flower: 

Rocket:

My two faithful cucumber plants.  They look a bit scungy now, but they're still growing and producing about four cucumbers a week between them:

Beans.  Also looking a wee bit scungy but they've got a second wind and are producing slowly:

tomatoes

 

My cute tigerellas (so stripey!). Still waiting for them to go beyond the green faze...

Rhubarb

Unidentified Curcubit:

Young broccoli seedlings, with my trial dog-proof snail poison box based on a suggestion by Hobart Kitchen Gardens.  I've never used snail bait because I don't like the idea of poisoning the soil or my dog, however I've lost so many seedlings to the damn creatures that I was willing to compromise

Bok Choi and Spinach plants:

Herbs including flat and curly leaf parsley, rosemary, basil (my better basil is cuddling with the tomatoes), coriander, chives, spring onions, dill, oregano, lemongrass thyme, and mint. Oh, and a scungy orchid:

Last but not least, my cute little fig tree who has more fruit than leaves. I know I should be taking the fruit off to encourage it to grow, but I feel mean because it's trying so hard!

at the mercy of nature

Maybe I'm being a wee bit dramatic, but for the first week in a few months I haven't had that many vegies.  Why this week? Well, Sod's law says that if I've got a market stall this week with the intention of selling some of my vegies, then the beans will dry up, the tomatoes remain green, the cucumbers are slightly too small, and the pumpkins, albeit massive, are not ready for picking.

Today was the second Lenah Links market, and the organisers were really keen to have some fresh produce at the markets.  I initially planned to sell only my pipecleaner creatures, but ended up selling a few of the produce I had that was sellable: rocket, rhubarb, the herbs rosemary, parsley, oregano, basil and thyme.

I also got up early, despite a hangover, and picked a massive bag of blackberries which I made into tiny blackberry pies for selling.

I stupidly didn't get a photo of today's stall or the pies, but here's the blackberry pie I made last week from the same lot of blackberry bushes along the rivulet in Lenah Valley:

Tomato envy

All my tomato-growing friends are waxing lyrical about their juicy friends, yet mine seem to be going through an extended childhood and/or teenage faze.  I have quite a range of tomatoes, all planted at different times, sourced from different places, all still yet to give me a red 'un for dinner.

Here's my flock:

sourced from New Town Station Nursery, it's the only seedling I bought from a shop this year:

A Roma tomato plant given to me by my neighbour Peter.  He's been passing seedlings over the fence for the last 4 months in everything from yoghurt containers to plastic cups.  He admitted that maybe he went a bit over the top last week.  It's great to have neighbours like that though, as I can also thank him for the cucumber, broad beans, a couple of cauliflowers, parsley (which you can see in front of the tomato), and only last week, 3 strawberry seedlings.  Mr Roma has the most green fruit on him so far.

Unidentifiable tomato plant bought as a seedling from Lenah Valley Primary school:

Gardener's Delight climbing tomato.  I have a row of these that I planted from seed a couple of months ago.  I've heard that I should thin them out, but I can't bear to kill plants that aren't 'performing' as well as others.

Another Lenah Valley Primary school plant.  I've had problems in the past with tomatoes doing this weird deforming thing.  It seems to affect all the fruit on those particular plants, but I'm not sure why it occurs.

A couple of tomatoes that my friends Tim and Mary gave me (Mary incidently has a great food/life blog called Utter Obsession with Foody Goodness).  It seems that a pumpkin or cucumber-looking plant has snuck in with it.  Tim and Mary also (deliberately) gave me a pumpkin plant that is going great guns.

Lastly, my precious 'Tigerellas'.  Like the Gardener's delight, I grew them from seed, and am having dilemmas about whether to thin them or not.  I really want to see the stripey tomatoes!