Month: February 2023
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Edible Ornamental Gardening
Let’s face it, vegetable patches aren’t always the most aesthetically pleasing. Yes, to a gardeners eye an abundant veggie patch is a thing of beauty, but the accompanying compost piles and dying annual plants can be decidedly less so, especially to a visiting relative or passer-by. For this reason, the humble veggie patch is often…
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Brazilian Spinach (Althernanthera sissoo).
Brazilian spinach is one of the most resilient backyard plants around. It can tolerate a wide range of sun and shade conditions along with drought, dying back only to resurge when the rain arrives. Well suited to planting in dense low garden borders and especially along paths to form a dense green attractive edging. The…
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Pumpkin Vinegar
Article by Dr Druce Batstone. Recovered 3060g blitzed pulp from 3233g deseeded JAP pumpkin. Overnight with tbs of pectinase at 40C. Blitzed OK without vinegar. Seeds were 109g. Next morning, used immersion blender to breakup pulp. Extracted 2067g juice, leaving 555g solids. Hand squeezing only. Some losses + evaporation of 448g. Added 500ml of mature…
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Ginger for Sushi
Article by Dr Druce Batstone. Now (late summer) is the time for making sushi ginger. Sushi Ginger 1300g sliced gingerBleached in boiling water for 1min.1l rice vinegar + salt + 400g sugar + 3 candied rosellas. Made 7 packs. Vinegar left over after packing.
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Ginger Shrub
Article by Dr Druce Batstone. I harvested about 3kg ginger. I wanted to make pickled ginger. I’m getting less big ginger rhizomes this year. I could only be bothered with bigger pieces for pickling. The smaller pieces were used to make shrub (cordial). Ginger Shrub1730g scraped and washed ginger.Blitzed with 0.5l rice wine vinegar. Added…
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Frangrance from Flowers
Lovely fragrant oils can be made from your garden flowers. If you are just after a fragrant oil, it’s pretty easy. Simply add the flower petals to your (low scent) oil, soak for 24 hours then drain. After that you’ve got steam distillation, other solvent extraction, expression, sieving, or enfleurage. This is more complex chemistry and…
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Jerusalem Artichoke
Jerusalem Artichokes (Helianthus tuberosus) is a species of sunflower native to central North America. Also sometimes called wild sunflower, sunroot or sunchoke. As a member of the sunflower family (Asteraceae) they make beautiful additions to the garden, producing lovely bright yellow, sunflower-like flowers throughout the summer months which attract an abundance of bees and butterflies. Unlike…
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Pawpaws, Papaya or Paw Paw
Pawpaws (or papaya or paw paw or the multitude of other names it goes by!). The general advice for growing pawpaws in South-East Queensland seems to be to make sure the soil is enriched with garden lime, plant in rich soil in a northerly facing location on gently sloping ground. Try varieties such as Aussie…
Brisbane Edible Gardening 