The Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus), also called the sunroot or sunchoke or earth apple or topinamburI reckon that every garden should have Jerusalem artichokes (Helianthus tuberosus). It’s like an insurance policy – you’ll always have food growing in your yard. Because once you plant them, it’s almost certain you’ll always have them. And you won’t have to lift a finger to help them grow.

Don’t get your Jerusalems confused with your globes. The Jerusalem artichoke is a brown-coloured, knobbly, white-fleshed tuber root vegetable, much like a yam. It has quite a nutty flavour. Cook them like you would any other root vegetable.

Jerusalem artichokes grow in almost any soil type or shade condition, but do best in a light but rich soil. Pick your patch with these things in mind – 1 – the tops grow to about 2 metres and can easily shade out other plants – 2 – any small amount of the root left in the ground will produce another plan. Best time to harvest is in autumn when the sunflower-like heads die off.

Nutritionally, these tubers rock with plenty of potassium, iron, vitamin C, protein, niacin, thiamine and fibre. They contain about 57 calories per half cup. Margaret Lynch provides really good information on preparing Jerusalem artichokes for eating.

The tubers are also a wonderful source of biomass for ethanol production, good source of fructose and a great forage crop for livestock, especially pigs.

Jerusalem artichoke links and recipes after the jump. Read more

olive_treeI’ve just tasted some beautiful olives a friend’s mum grew in her back yard and then pickled. Most generously, I was given a recipe to post here. I’ll have to wait to find a tree I can raid. I’ve spotted a few olive trees growing on properties around Kapiti. We’ve certainly have that salt-laden wind of the Mediterranean. Olive trees have incredibly long tap roots so they can survive in very dry coastal situations. There are some commercial growers a bit further north.

Jill, the aforementioned pickler, has two Mission olive trees. Mission is a cultivar that’s been popular in NZ for quite some time, with a reputation as a reliable cropper. Her husband crops the trees every year keeping the fruit within reach. Harvest time is carefully chosen – just before the olives turn black, the birds will swoop in pretty quickly then.

Facts for the homesteaders, a tree producing 30-40 kilos of olives at year nine, with an oil content of 20% yields 8 litres of oil.  Recipe after the jump Read more

Homegrown organic cherry tomato yumminessI think that’s the last of my cherry tomatoes. Just as well really, I was getting totally sick of them. We had sooooo many. It was a bad year for tomatoes in the Wellington region and nearly all mine ended up being cherry-sized.

I even had to buy a couple of kilos to produce the year’s supply of tomato chutney. Neither us nor our friends, can live without the all-time famed Anna & Richard’s Tomato Chutney. (Recipe not forth-coming – you can have anything else, just not my tomato chutney recipe. It’s the sauce of my popularity. I shall not share!)

We’ve made a gallant effort with our bite-sized crop but I’m fed up with the rest and I’ve been jarring them. Here’s how. Bottled cherry tomato recipe after the jump…

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Kowhai ngutu kaka, kaka beak, Clianthus puniceusSpotted in Saturday’s DomPost, the stunning kowhai ngutu kaka, a.k.a kaka beak or Clianthus puniceus. The article was a little questionable (kaka beak has been nearly extinct in the wild since the 1940s, so there’s hardly any point trying to blame cows or grapes). But it’s nice to see the incredible scarlet flowers get a showing.

It is true however, that the wild population is down to one known plant, on an island in the Kaipara Harbour (which, btw, has no cows or grapes on it). The Maori did their best to move it around the country centuries ago, cultivating it in areas where they lived. Not only was it visually arresting, but the scent was used in body oils. The nectar would have attracted tui, and as a legume it would have contributed to the fertility of the soil.

If it weren’t for its incredible looks, the kowhai ngutu kaka would have died out a long time ago. Luckily, gardener’s have kept this species alive  internationally. Like most pretty things, kowhai ngutu kaka is a bit sensitive – weeds, insects, snails, drought, browsing and wind all do damage – and needs the loving hand of a gardener to help it along. The plant is a beautiful reminder of just how important gardeners can be.

Beautiful image courtesy of, and copyright to David Wall Photography.
More stunning photos of kaka beak at Arkive.

As yet unidentified evil bean-sucking bugLast December I noticed a lot of what looked like little black ladybugs on my beans. I did lots of research, asked lots of questions but without handy visual references I couldn’t work out what they were. Dear internet content people, please supply more pictures! (Are there any entomologists out there who can please tell me exactly what this thing is?)

Anyway, they had seemed pretty harmless in their small little shiny baby form – until they monstrously transformed into life-sucking bean-devouring plagues of evil. Garlic spray by this time was incapable of warding off their vampiric tendencies and my carefully arranged companion plants just kind of shrugged their shoulders and like insolent teenagers proclaimed “Whateva, I’m not bovvered!” I’ve never wanted to smack a marigold around before, but it needed a wake-up clip.

Advice on how to organically deal to shield bugs and other such painful pests after the jump.
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Willow branches I’ve just found a great article from an old Soil and Health magazine about willow water, and thought I just had to share. I don’t take a lot of cuttings from plants because quite frankly they’re tricky and they just haven’t worked well for me in the past. I might just have to give this one a try though – especially as it won’t cost me a thing.

Willow water promotes rooting better then than any known substance. This probably comes as little surprise to anyone who has dealt with the invasive roots of a willow before. It also may explain why it’s effective putting an aspirin (originally from the bark of willow) into the water for cut flowers to keep them fresh.

Instructions on how to make your own rooting compound for free with willow, how to use it and some useful links after the jump.
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Borlotti beans: wonderfully tasty and homegrownGrow your own food! But be patient – this is how long it will take. The chart looks at how long you can expect to wait for your vegetables to grow from seed. These are estimated times – climate, soil conditions, water supply, different cultivars, farming methods can all give different results.

There’s no time like the present to start growing food, especially when you see how long it takes for veges to grow. The economy is going insane, nobody knows what’s going to happen… you need a little security in your life. Being able to grow food to feed your family is really the best security you can get. Then you know that if you lose your job, or the supermarkets run out, or your country goes bankrupt you can eat.

It’s a baseline to work from – you need to eat. If you grow your own food (or even just some of it) :

—  it will save you money;
—  it will give you mana, strength, self-worth;
—  it will give you better health, keep you active, help you lose weight.

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white-jasmine-lrg_1_3I may have just found my new favourite drink. Irony being, it’s unlikely to ever pass my lips. New Zealand’s age-old problem with the tyranny of distance is taunting me with the internet waivering delectable treats in front of my eyes.

I’m a huge fan of tea – particularly white tea and especially jasmine-infused. I’m also extremely fond of bubbly alcoholic beverages. These forces combined should make the absolutely bestest Tiki drink! And Golden Star Tea’s White Jasmine Sparkling Tea seems to be it. And…. they have a pretty website! Perfect!

White tea is from the same plant Camellia sinensis as the more popular green or black tea. The very young leaves are picked before opening and have little silvery, downy hairs attached to them. White tea is lower in caffeine but particularly high in anti-oxidants and has a whole raft of health benefits. One study showed white tea to have more anti-viral and anti-bacterial qualities then the highly-publicised green tea.

It would be inconceivably extravagant of me to import a case of White Jasmine Sparkling Tea way over to NZ. So, if you are in the States, try a bottle and taunt me with just how good it is.

Read a whole lot about white tea at the White Tea Guide, and if you like what you see check out my favourite supplier at TLeaf.

cloverIf clover starts growing in your vege patch, I’ve been told it’s a sure sign of nitrogen deficiency. I’m picking that’s right given the space that used to be occupied by my under-achieving heavy-feeding brussels sprouts now has a lovely patch of clover, coming up through the pea straw. I’ll be adding lots more organic matter into this little spot before I plant anything else here. In the meantime, it just lies sleeping under it’s little blanket of mulch.

I’ve just added epsom salts to water (rate = 1 Tablespoon to 3 litres of water) and watered that area of the garden. Will I see results? I have no idea. Is this a conclusive, rigorously scientific test? Oh no. But I shall wait and watch and hopefully learn a little.

Zucchini Blossom End RotSo I was wondering why the zucchini plants growing in one bed were half the size of the ones growing in another. The answer became apparent as the zucchs set. The soil in one bed is lacking in calcium. The signs being a nasty little problem called Blossom End Rot.

I’m ok with it as I’m drowning in zucchini at the moment and I’m choosing to see this as a valuable garden lesson. Still, I don’t like to see unhappy plants. I’ll be laying them to rest in the compost and adding lime and crushed egg shells to the soil, reapplying mulch and hoping for better healthier plants next time around. I’ll do a soil test in the future to see if I got it right.

Zucchini Blossom End Rot is not your friend! Make sure you look after your soil and avoid these problems!