Carry on Corny Corn

Some said I was completely mental and most just muttered I was mildly deranged, but this year I decided to grow corn! In pots, on the balcony. Two pots to be precise, 4 stalks to a pot. Crowded ... well yes. This meant lots of watering and constant fertilising, particularly as they grew bigger. I followed their progress eagerly. They grew and grew.

and as a consequence provided some nice shade and privacy to my otherwise overly visible study.

Then the pollon bits on top formed.

and the jusky bits of goodness put out their tendrilly silks for pollination.

Even with the windy days and even with their intentionally close proximity, I thought I'd help out and hand pollinate too. Group pollination ... Ok I wont go there. :) But here is a pic for interests sake.

Now we are nearing the end stages, will I have a cob of tasty corn in the next few days? How long does it take from pollination to eatability? The silks are already starting to brown.

How fat do I need to let them get (they seem a little skinny at present?) How brown do the silks have to get? Anyone still think I am mad now? (I still think I am a bit potty, but in the harmless way.)

Harvest Monday

The harvests have been coming in thick and fast. They consist of quite a few things, zucchini, snowpeas, tomatoes, eggplants and more. Garlic is all out of the ground and drying on the window sill.

For fruits there are the last of the red currants and some strawberries, both wild strawberries and Kurawase strawberries.

and best of all the first tomatoes!

Zucchinis are a constant harvest and in two different colours. Eggplants are small but tasty and just as constant. Four different days, four different combos.

Snowpeas are at their end, as you can see these two got left on the bush a little too long.

For more harvests pop on over to Daphne's Dandelions for harvest Monday

Herbalicious - Rosemary

Whenever I think of rosemary I think of my friend Miss M-ski. No she wasn't set to be called Rosemary then her mother found out her father had a rather dishy ex called Rosemary and no she doesn't even have any friends called Rosemary or friends with babies called Rosemary. She's not even obsessed with Roman Polamski's film 'Rosemary's Baby'. But Miss M-ski, my lovely Miss M-ski had finally become Dr M-ski. Not a useful doctor who could save your life by doing a double heart lung transplant, but an even more useful doctor of psychology. It took her a while but she got there and I am so proud. But it is not her nearly Dr status that makes me think of her when I see rosemary, it is her love of potato and rosemary pizza! She introduced me to it, at a fine little place on Errol street and I've never looked back. While it is a carb avoider's nightmare, it tastes divine. And I think it is the Rosemary that does the trick.

Long has humanity known the wonders of putting rosemary and the potato together. They just work, simple as that. Pumpkin or sweet potato is an adequate replacement in the pairing but nothing beats the original. After Dr M-ski introduced me to this devilishly good combination I added it to my cooking repertoire (though usually substituting puff pastry for pizza base if short on time.) Problem was I liked it so much my single rosemary bush was getting overly depleted. There was the option of cutting down on my consumption of this herbalicious wonder, or, another solution, which was to procure a new one! Luckily I had a birthday around this time and my kindly relatives solved the rosemary conundrum.

So now I have two rosemary bushes. See one,

and two.

They live in different parts of the balcony garden, one gets less sun, the other full sun.

They both seem happy, though the second one is a little hidden behind the corn and tomatoes nowadays.

I use rosemary in risotto too, and sometimes put it on meat when I slow roast it. It is truly versatile and so delicious. You can even use large sticks of it as an aromatic skewer! Do you grow rosemary? If so what kind? Any tips or tricks for growing? My tip is grow as much as you can, and if you're lucky it could end up looking like this one growing in my Mum's backyard!

Eating the Garden

The balcony garden is not just for good looks or green cred, it is first and foremost for eating (and not just for the snails!) At the moment with constant harvests I usually get to eat something from the garden each day, and sometimes at night too! Double harvest fun, yum. Mostly, with the warmer weather on the way, I indulge in salads which can easily be sourced from the balcony.

There is the salad as a main. For this nutritional whopper just grab some bits from the balcony garden, don't forget the left over zucchini flowers,

Add whatever cans or other goods you have lying around

and hey presto, mega salad of goodness that tastes amazing too!

Or if you are more of a side salad person you could go the whole garden green goodness with your main meal. Baby zukes that weren't pollinated? No problemo, they taste crunchy and yummy in a green side salad.

Or go half green and then mix and match with whatever is in season at the markets.

There's no limit to the tasty treats the balcony garden can contribute to. Tonight I am cooking a curry, which will likely feature some of the zukes from the garden and maybe some greens. The other night the silvebeet went into some creamed garlic quinoa. Suffice to say no one ever goes hungry around here.

Imposter Broccoli

At last I've broken through the business of the final weeks of semester. Chapters are done (though a new one started), paper done and given and divisive as always and all my essays are marked! Now I finally have time to garden ... well at least I would be gardening if it didn't keep raining all the time! It is great that Melbourne is getting rain, but it is so much and all at once, and some trees have started wilting from getting water logged! I can't even get out there to clean up the leaves and things so it is all starting to get a little manky. I will just have to wait and hope.

Today's post is also about waiting. Waiting for Godot, ok not Godot but a little romanesco broccolli. I planted him as a seed so so so long ago in April with a few friends, all of whom got eaten by snails. He was, so to say, the last hope.

He wandered from pot to pot, often not liking the crowded conditions. It was only when he recieved his own pot that he started to grow. Now romanesco is no ordinary broccoli, actually to me it is more like a mutant cauliflower but we won't go there. It is fractally shaped, showing the beauty of nature's patterns in its tasty goodness. Usually they are also a pale green.

Turns out the wait wasn't really worth it. The head started out ok, albeit rather purple.

Then I left it a bit long and it started to grow. I was waiting for the geometric miracle that was never to be.

Now it is all purple and like little heads of broccolini. Each floret grew out instead of in a fractal pattern and it became woody. It is certainly not a romanesco broccoli and it tastes awful. It needs to come out to make way for the plants growing in the spring garden but it does look kind of pretty. Maybe I'll leave it in until the rain stops, my little imposter broccoli.

Have you ever been a little disapointed by a plant? Putting in the time and effort to grow it from seed and nurture it and tend to its every need only to find out it wasn't what the packet said?

Garden Bloggers Blooms Day

Well yes, I haven't posted much in the past two weeks and now it is 2 posts in one day, but then again that is what happens when it is garden bloggers blooms day and harvest monday on the same day. What is blooming in the garden at the moment? It has had to withstand some warm weather and some major downpours, and a slight amount of neglect from an overworked postgrad. Still there seems to be some lovely flowers out there at present.

There are some pretty annuals such as pansies and cornflowers and a white succulent

Perennial lanterns just keep on flowering as does the lemon scented geranium

Vegetables and herbs are unfolding in great numbers now too, pumpkins, zukes, purple bush beans, tomatoes and sage.

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And the piece de resistance - the orchid, is still blooming!

For more garden bloggers blooms days from around the world head on over to May Dreams Gardens.

Harvest Monday

Oh it has been a busy week or two, but the balcony garden waits for no postgrad. I've been harvesting quite a bit recently included in this is:

1. A bunch of oddly shaped purple carrots
2. 3 full sized zukes weighing in at over half a kilo and 3 small baby zukes which went in salad

3. lettuce almost every day (I love my salads)

4. Several strawberries of various kinds

5. Two little stems of red currants!
6. Sage for various pumpkin dishes
7. Three small eggplants which went into a curry

8. 1 head of garlic which went into a risotto (yes all of it) and 2 small heads of poorly formed garlic.

Harvest Monday looks set to be even better from here on in. Head on over to Daphne's Dandelions for mnore harvest monday madness.

Too blog to tired

Sorry folks, with a thesis chapter due Friday, a paper due Monday and 40 essays to mark by Wednesday I've been awol from this blog.

But when this manic uni mess boils down to a simmer, and I am not too tired to blog, I'll be back with more herb posts, a bumper harvest monday, flower pics from the Spring balcony and more.

Harvest Monday

It wasn't big, but it was there, in my garden, waiting to be devoured. It was, drum roll please, the first zuke of the season. Ok it was a baby zuke with flower, a female one and it seems I have a case of lesbian zucchinis again this year, but that should pass.

Add some lettuce (I harvest at least this amount of lettuce each day)

All I can say was that it was super tasty in my salad, flower, zuke and all! I added korean BBQ chicken later but forgot to take a photo. Oooooops.

And there are plenty more to come! Zukes for all this Spring/Summer.