Garden Bloggers Blooms Day in May

Garden Bloggers Blooms Day over at May Dreams Gardens nearly came and went while I was avidly posting for the blog carnival for Life on the Balcony. It just means you get two posts in one day! Here is what is blooming on the balcony garden, well actually it was what was blooming a couple of days ago. I forgot to get out into the garden today so hopefully these will do: black cornflowers, A sunflower still unfolding, a geranium, violas, potential snowpeas (aka snow pea flower) and a blurry picture of the snapdragons.

The Birds and the Bumbling

Living in the inner city, usually the only wildlife I see on a regular basis are intoxicated stilletto wearing young girls, and equally intoxicated male companions. Their habitat is all around me, college kid bars, cheap souvlaki joints and a plethora of even cheaper Asian noodle shops. This is not the wildlife I wish to attract to the balcony garden and they are fairly easily shooed away.

I did want to attract other wildlife, a few birds, in particular some lovely and brightly coloured ones. I one saw rainbow lorikeets in the trees in the middle of the road and wanted to bring them closer.

Um, well. I do read blogs for research guidelines and for ideas on how to attract such birds. I fully intended on following these. And then I completely ignored everything and went with an impulse buy of a little baby bird house.

I fully intended to put something native birds would like to eat in it. Do you think I ever put anything edible or attractive in it? Um nope. But it HAS attracted wildlife, at least in the form of generations of spiders and now I'm certainly not going anywhere near it, and nor are the birds.

Prue and bird time loveliness 0 Creepy Wildlife 1

Birds love water, or so learned people tell me. I haven't money for bird baths and am too lazy to go out and purchase one anyway and then have to bring it home, set it up, maintain it, etc, etc. Also in Melbourne we have a water crisis, or so I conveniently say and use this as an excuse. Once I put a little icecream container of water out to attract the lorikeets but no such luck. All that happened was that it got grimy with tyre dust and leaf litter. It also attracted wierd little creepy crawlies. Total grossness.

Prue and bird time loveliness 0 Creepy Wildlife 2

The plastic fanstastic icecream tub bird bath eventually got thrown away and the impulse buy bird/spider home now sits next to an ashtray. I keep the ashtray on the balcony for my few smoker friends at parties. I hasn't been used in a while and on rainy days it fills up with water.
Birds are fickle creatures, they didn't like the icecream tub bathing facilities but they did like the ashtray filled with water. Maybe they are nicotine freaks!?! While this ersatz bird drug den didn't entice the lorikeets over, I did get a whole lot of happily paddling sparrows. They may not be brightly coloured but they are cute.

(Ok yes, I admit the ashtray is empty in that photo, but you get the gist.) What's more, the sparrows stayed all spring, when the tomato crops were infected with cabbage moth caterpillars.

They would eat five or six caterpillars in a few minutes and then play in the water. It was an accidental paradise for the sparrows. Still no lorikeets but more and more birdy action.

Prue and bird time loveliness 1 Creepy Wildlife 2 (minus one from the eating) = 1

Harmony and balance and birdy goodness! Now I am not completely silly and I know there is much more I could do. I could plant more native vegetation to attract the lorikeets, but this would mean reducing the fruit and vegetable space. Balancing what you want out of a balcony garden where space is at a premium can be a tricky business. So for now I am leaving the lorikeets to their own devices. I have sparrows and they have an impromptu birdbath and autumn crops such as broccoli to keep them filled with green caterpillars. Seems to be working well so far.

So in short - if you are going to be so foolish as to ignore hard researched ideas for attracting animals and go for the cheap flashy option be warned, you will attract the wrong wildlife. However, if some flukish accidents help bring the wildlife to your balcony anyway then all the better.

B is for Barefooted Snailicide at Midnight

Poor balcony garden. Up until now snails have done this,

and this,

and this.

Turns out old Sid had a lot of babies. And they all seem extra keen to devour plants beginning with the letter B. So tonight, at midnight, when it was lightly drizzling, I put a stop to it all. Well a stop to about .05% of it. With whatever was at hand, which turned out to be my trusty tea mug, clad in my pyjamas and dressing gown but bare footed, I committed balcony garden snailicide. I put the tally at about 2 extra large, 1 large, 5 medium and a few little'uns all squished. Oddly satisfying even if my feet are wet and frozen.

Cooking with Garden: The World's Yummiest Sandwich

Ok so that is a pretty big claim, the world's yummiest sandwich, actually it is a monstrously exaggerated claim, but to me it is true for this point in time. The fig, proscuitto and balcony garden greens sandwich has been keeping me sustained of a lunchtime for several days a week now. Alas it is the end of the fig season and without a fig tree on the balcony I can't even call them home grown, but the greens are. Now I hope I don't need to tell people how to make a sandwich. But incase you need a helping hand here is a photo essay to give you the aid you require.

Figs

Chop

Layer 1 on dark rye

Layer 2 (buy extra proscuitto and eat some along the way, sandwich making is tiring work)

Lettuce, wash it first!

Layer 3

mmmmmmm, sandwich.

Note that other versions have included other tasty ingredients such as brie, avocado and cucumber ,but the simplest version seems to be the best.

Cooking with Garden: Wild Mushroom Pasta

This post needs to start with a disclaimer. I would love to say that these mushrooms were homegrown, but they weren't even home foraged. I'd have no idea of the difference between a safe mushroom and an inedible one, so it'd be expiration via death cap all the way. These mushrooms I sourced at the Vic markets, slippery jacks and pine mushrooms. They are only on sale for a few weeks of the year and they are totally divine. Not cheap, but as I didn't need too many they came in under my student budget. I added them to a linguine for a very decadent pasta. Also in this pasta ... rocket and almost rocket (random green that tastes the same) from the balcony garden, chilli from the balcony garden, and store bought other mushrooms, onion, garlic and lemon. I wish the lemon came from the garden but there are only four lemons on the tree, and they are as green as the greens in this dish.

First step wash the greens, rip them a little and leave them aside. Apparently I should also have cleaned the bench of red pasta sauce which I was making at the same time. Ooops.

Second step, admire the mushrooms. Seriously who could not want to just stare at these things - they are amazing. After breaking gaze prepare them so they are of relatively equal size. I chopped each different variety a different way so they would be even easier to recognise in the final dish. I added in some button mushrooms and some larger white mushrooms to give it a variety of flavour, and some enoki, (only add the enoki after cooking off the large mushrooms first, otherwise they become too msushy.) Once they are cut put them in a fry pan and cook for a few minutes. Only when the moisture begins to evaporate do you add any oil and season (in this case I added oil and butter, mushrooms are great in butter and a balance of both means the butter doesn't burn.)

I cooked this off for a bit then took it out, butter, oil, mushrooms and all. Don't drain anything, otherwise the taste goes down the sink. Step three is then to cook off the garlic and the chilli.

Then add the mushies back to the pan along with previously cooked linguine. Only at the very last second do you add the greens, alongside a squeeze of lemon.

et voila - Linguine with Wild (and slightly less wild) Mushrooms with rocket, chilli, lemon and buttery, garlicky oil. Yum, and despite the oil and butter, still within my calorie count!

Harvest Monday

Yayayay I finally have something to add to harvest Monday (and the time to add it.) Green veg, carrots, eggplants and even the last of the tomatoes were harvested and used - it is a total mixed bag this week.

I have been using a load of greens. Basil in a yummy pesto pasta

Rocket and a pseudo-rocket lettuce thingo in my wild mushroom pasta.

And lettuce, lettuce, lettuce, yet it still seems like there is loads in the garden. Some are a little bitter as they are slowly going to seed but overall a mixture of leaves is just delicious in a sandwich (such as this fig and prosciutto one)

or in a salad. Also in salads were the last of the tomatoes, some little yellow cherry ones and some carrots, purple and yellow.

This lovely little eggplant went into a rather exotic vegetarian lasagne.

Layers of homemade napolitana sauce, with carrots and mushrooms for extra goodness, mixed with layers of pasta, in amongst layers of rainbow silverbeet, broccoli and low fat riccota, with other layers of pumpkin and eggplant cubes, lightly cooked and blitzed, with shredded yellow carrot and paprika and a dash of cheddar on top. The best bit? I have leftovers to last days! Yay.

I also harvested one of the daikon radishes and used it in some chicken, chilli and radish dumplings. Totally yum. So yum I forgot to photograph it until after I grated it!

As promised in an earlier post, I should, in the coming weeks, include a few posts on these lovely recipes that use home grown produce. For more harvest posts head on over to Daphne's Dandelions and share in the spoils.

New Directions: The Tahitian Lime Wears White Stockings

The lemon tree has a new citrus friend in the garden. Everyone, please meet Mr Tahitian Lime (pictured above.) He ventured into the balcony garden the other week (in the midst of my icky bout with the flu) and settled in nicely. He has a few issues. I did buy him from Bunnings (with my last voucher) which for those who don't know is a bit of a generic hardware store with a reasonable(ish) garden collection. There were only two limes to chose from and he was the better looking. I just hope he is good quality. He looked well enough, healthy waxy leaves and a firm upright growth habit. That, and I wasn't going to come back another day in hope of there being more. I wanted a lime then and there, and he was it. Problem number two was getting him home. He fit into my car fine, with a little bit of his top smushing against of the top of the car. Still seemed happy enough - until I turned a corner and he toppled over sideways. Apart from some dirt spillage on the back floor (which I only realise now is still not cleaned up!!!) he seemed unharmed. No broken limbs or falling leaves. Hardy fellow I hope.

Step two was fitting him into the garden. Space is limited and I have some trouble adding new pots. This mean I needed to reuse an existing pot. Problem was this plant was full with a mix of things; old, half dead sunflowers and basil, and also young, newish seedlings of broccoli and cornflowers. The cornflower from this pot was moved to its own little pot.

So too was the broccoli, though with this one I got a little arty, using a round pot within a square pot (mostly to help with drainage.)

The sunflowers were binned (except for the two remaining flower heads, one being a bud, which are sitting inside the house and making one lovely posy)

The basil was turned into a yummy pesto and the seeds saved.

Meanwhile, I soaked the base of the lime tree in seaweed solution while I cleaned the pot and added good quality potting mix. In went the tree, a backfill of potting mix and hey presto, a new fruit tree joins the lemon and nectarine already in the balcony garden. Seems to fit well into his spot next to the eggplant, beans and more

It gets pretty windy here, and last week was no exception. The lime tree needed serious staking to help it settle in for its first few months. Given the lack of twine in my house, or within a 25 million km radius he is currently making do with my impromptu staking, complete with sparkly white stocking leftovers.

I'll change it for twine when I remember to buy some.

My overall plan is to subtract some of the annuals and add some more fruit trees to the balcony garden. This will help make looking after the place a little easier, particularly when it comes to waters, but also means I will save a bit on potting mix (three plantings in a year or so means three times the potting mix versus a fruit tree which needs an initial load and a change every two years.) Fruit trees take a few years to establish and produce fruit properly though hopefully I will get blossoms on this lime tree at some point in the next year, even if they don't fruit. Now to save up for the next fruit tree venture but what will it be? A fig? A blood orange? Two apples (one a golden or a granny smith, the other a pollinator)? A cherry? Or something completely different!?!

Potty Combinations

Fern at Life on the Balcony often comes up with some awesome pot combos like this one, and this one. In my last post where I waxed lyrical about carrots I mentioned my own impropmtu pot combo of carrots, sunflowers and cornflowers. Sorry Chandramouli, I have no idea how big the pot is - I'll measure it when I get time - but it seems as deep as it is wide and about twice to three times in length. Needs to be deep enough to let the carrots grow well.

It is not the only odd, spur of the moment pot combo in my garden. When I went to pull the zucchini out and replace it with a broccoli I noticed a few violas (johnny jump ups) around the edge of the pot. Not wanting to lose them and their lovely colour I kept them in the pot combo. Add one broccoli seedling , three types of lettuce seedlings, some dwarf snow pea seeds and voila, a lovely if wierd combination. Here are two pictures of it a month on.

The purple of the violas and the white of the snow pea flowers are lovely together. The trellising keeps everything in place without crowding the broccoli like last time.

You have to be careful with combos. One of my new ones will be doomed to failure. Yes, I dared to do the taboo, I put alliums and peas together. It was more an oops and a lax moment in failing to look at my companion plant list; leeks and peas were planted in the same container, along with lettuce, broccoli (including one romanesco broccoli seedling.) I can't bring myself to remove either so I'll let them battle it out, maybe one will win, maybe they'll both die, but oh well.

Any other good ideas for random combos?

Contemplating Carrots

I began this post two weeks ago and it is only now seeing the light of day. I've been playing catch up with my thesis work while resting off the last dregs of this horrible illness (seems it has been doing the rounds of the postgrads at uni, we are all in varying degrees of sickness and recovery.) Alongside this I gathered my first round of essay marking so unfortunately blog posts have seemed to go by the wayside. I wanted to talk about carrots. In fact I want to make a few points about carrots.

1. The balcony garden has plenty of carrots, and I've proved in the past that it is certainly easy to grow carrots in pots. I am careful not to over fertilise (indeed apart from whatever is in the potting mix I don't add anything else at all unless I get accidentally watering-can-friendly on the days I fertilise the rest of the garden, well we all make mistakes, particularly between 6-8 on watering days, that's just way to early for me.) However, this means that most of my carrots are a little on the small side, and perfectly, if a little twistily straight. I never get bifurcation, no rude style leg carrots or mangled looking knobbly wrecks that taste good but would never win second place in a beauty contest unless they were playing monopoly. Yet wait long enough, and you will see everything. Low and behold, my lady's legs yellow carrot!

The giggles I got when I pulled this carrot out of the pot reminded me of a book my dad was given one year as a joke. The book was a series of pictures, with cut outs, where you could place your fingers and they would resemble, arms, legs, and more risque things like bottoms and cleavage. Silly, but respectable because of the beautiful Victorian drawings. Same with the carrot. Silly giggles abound about the inferred rude nature of the yummy root vegetable, then add to that an admiring of its delicious taste.

2. I can't grow purple carrots like the farmers can. No matter what variety I grow, the purple never really gets super purple and it is mostly superficial, a ring of purple around the orange centre. No complaints about taste but when I grow purple carrots I want purpleness, kind of like the yellow ones are yellow all the way through. I sourced the purple carrots pictured below from one of the organic stalls at the Vic markets, and as luck would have it they were purple the whole way through! Absolutely delicious. Most went in salads though the remaining few that got a little soft and wilty ended up in a big pot of spaghetti sauce.

3. Coloured carrots make surprisingly good gifts. I have an academic friend who did not believe my claims of carrots other than orange. I took him one home grown yellow carrot and one of the purple carrots and he was amazed, and later told me they were delicious. Ahhhh for educating the educated.

4. I am trialling a new system with carrots. I planted a pot full of carrot seeds and in each corner added one sunflower seed. Inbetween each sunflower seed I planted a cornflower seed. Seems I havent' taken many photos of it, but from this one below I think you get the gist of it.

Now this meant I sacrificed a few carrots but it has so many benefits. These benefits were:

a) Pretty blue, white, black and hopefully pink (none have flowered pink yet) cornflowers bloom about a month or so into the growing process. This is a good signal to do the first, early, thinning of the carrot seedlings.

b) Stunning sunflowers grow up, adding height and lovely rich golden and red flowers to the mix. All mine are multiheaded and flower repeatedly for a span of over 2 months. Once they are flowering it means it is usually two months in, and time to do another thinning. This time the carrots were bigger and with the thinnings I could have a dainty pixie-sized salad.

c) We haven't hit this stage yet but once the sunflowers are finished, usually about three and a half to four months after planting, the carrots too will be ready for harvest.

d) It is companion planting at its most experimental. Yes I think the roots might affect the carrots on the edges a little but the joy I get from this combination outweighs the loss of one or two carrots. Maybe better still it might make them bifurcate and give me more victorian style giggles.

Anyway I think I might pop to the markets later and get a little fillet of salmon. Mix it with some julienned carrots from the garden and some equally julienned daikon from the garden and there you have one yummy meal. Speaking of meals, I've been taking photos of recent creations lately so I might run a small series on harvests and the kitchen. Each meal has something in it from the balcony garden. Some are basic, like fig, rocket and proscuitto sandwiches, others more complex (i.e. involve more than slapping two bits of bread together!)