Africanaussie

Last week I attended a two hour course on making kimchi - what fun.  I tried a couple of times before to make fermented vegetables and really was not that confident. It was nice to do a course.  This is done in the jar, so small quantities, which I like the idea of - I cant imagine how long it would take me to go through the amount of sauerkraut that one head of cabbage would make. When I came home I found I had a few cucumbers in the fridge so set up some lacto fermented cucumbers. Here is my kimchi: Yesterday was five days, so I gingerly opened the jar and took out the cabbage leaf plug, still held very securely underneath the liquid.  It has very nice flavor and crunch.  It is hot here, so fermentation is maybe faster than it would be in colder climates. I make water kefir and it is ready in two or three days.   The cucumber was tasty and about as crisp as other pickles I have tasted.  We cannot get grape or oak leaves here, so I put in a black...

I know I have mentioned in the past that I really love to order seeds from The Seed Collection .  I just placed another order to get ready for my growing season.  They have a great selection and all their seeds seem to come up and grow into healthy plants.  They also have some great articles, a couple written by yours truly. . Disclaimer - I did receive credit for some articles I wrote. This is one on   Wicking boxes   and the other one is one of my favourite subjects  Composting.   This is what I ordered - some old favourites and some new ones. I packet of five assorted leafy Asian greens Mibuna - this looks like an interesting one - quite mustardy so I plan to pick when young. Choi San - similar to bok choy which grows well in my climate Mizuna - I love this in my mixed salad greens that I buy but have never tried growing it Garland - an edible leaved chrysanthemum  Tatsoi - love this - one of my all time favourites. ...

When I planted the dragonfruit I really wondered if I was doing the right thing.  They can get very large, and they are quite prickly.  During the week one of the branches started to flop out towards the carport, so I tied it back, wondering if this plant was really such a great idea.  Glancing down I noticed some flowers started to form.  Well, that could be a game changer. Heading out for my morning walk during the week my eye was drawn to the most awesome HUGE flowers.  Ohmigosh!  Two flowers! There were some native bees buzzing around and by the end of the day the flowers had flopped down and closed.  Now I wait and see whether the bees did their job.