A gardener’s weekend

This is what I got up to at the weekend.

On Saturday morning I found this bush growing beside the road. I’d love to know what it is.

I picked up this marvellous cabbage from my local greengrocer at Merthyr Village. It was beautifully solid, and weighted four kilos. Perfect for making sauerkraut. So I crossed his palm with silver, hoisted it up under my arm and took it home.

I started off with the idea of photographing the process as I went along, but there are only so many ways you can photograph a cabbage and still keep your readers!

And in any case, the process using the Nourishing Traditions recipe that I followed has already been beautifully covered by The Family Homestead blog under this link.

You may be wondering about the blue ceramic crock sitting on the kitchen table ready to take the sauerkraut. I splashed out a year or two ago and bought this one specially made for fermenting vegetables from Green Living Australia. It’s my pride and joy but you can also use glass jars which are easy to come by (and a lot cheaper).

The recipe suggests using whey to start the sauerkraut off. I made some cottage cheese that morning from some organic whole fat milk that needed to be used up and used the whey from that, but you can just as easily get it by draining some yoghurt. It’s explained in the Family Homestead link.

It was a hot day on Saturday so I waited until the cool of the afternoon before I visited the allotment. I harvested a lettuce and a selection of green leaves for a frittata. Finished with a good hosing as the ground was bone dry. Then I got bitten all over with some little midges so I went home and had a good scratch.

Then I made a delicious frittata for tea with my green harvest, a potato, and a couple of special eggs from my friend Tatiana’s chickens. Just look at the colour of that yolk – now THAT’s a free-range egg.

My home grown frittata

To top off my Saturday nicely I watched “Gardening Australia” on the tele.

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Sunday morning dawned with the promise of another hot day. I was going to spoil myself with spending the day at BOGI Fair. (Brisbane Organic Growers). The place was packed with eager gardeners and plenty to entertain us with heaps of stalls selling seedlings and just about everything a gardener needs or dreams about.

Clair Levander was the key note speaker at the Fair and I was lucky enough to bag a seat near the front, I learned plenty.

Then I did the rounds of the stalls and took a few pics.

This was a tiered planter they were selling at one stall, absolutely packed with healthy herbs.

They were selling these healthy looking seedlings at one stall. Unfortunately my pic doesn’t do them justice.

I liked the way this stall holder had used old tins and milk cartons as containers. Again, my photography let me down because I had to ‘lighten’ this pic – but I just wanted to show you that we don’t have to go out and buy expensive pots just to start off our seedlings.

Too much excitement for one day – I went home and had a good lie down.

Happy gardening.