Another one of our recipes is featured in “Share – The Northey Street City Farm Cookbook”.

It’s a well-designed cookbook with full colour pages. There is a distinct Australian influence and the recipes feature unusual fruit and vegetables typically found in a permaculture garden. The majority of the recipes are vegetarian and I’m looking forward to trying the stir-fried bush greens with lemon myrtle dressing, macadamia plum cookies and wattleseed scones.

Share retails for $20 plus $3 per copy postage and handling. You can also buy your books  at the Northey Street City Farm (NSCF) Nursery to save postage costs. Or pick one up at the weekly Sunday organic markets. Alternatively, download an order form and send or fax it to Kym at NSCF, or email: cookbook@nscf.org.au.

We have just received Matt Skinner’s latest guide to wine – The Juice 2010. We reviewed the book back in in 2008 and most of our comments still stand. I am starting to wonder about the naming of wines – is there too much drinking going on or too much watching of horse races? Some of the sites contain tasting notes, if you are that way inclined. Here’s the Australian wines in the $10-$20 price range to print out take to local bottlo. Grab the book for further information and many more recommendations, including wines from overseas.

d’Arenberg, The Stump Jump – Shiraz 2008 – Skinner’s bargain of the year – and – The Noble Wrinkled Riesling 2008

Balnaves of Coonawarra, The Blend 2007

Banrock Station, Sparkling Chardonnay/Pinot Noir

Brown Bothers, Moscato 2009 – and -  Orange Muscat & Flora 2009

De Bortoli, Sero Merlot/Sangiovese 2009

Forester Estate, Semillon/Sauvignon Blanc 2009

Four Sisters, Sauvignon Blanc/Semillon 2009

Henschke Tilly’s Vineyard 2008

Jacob’s Creek, Riesling 2009 – and - Three Vines Rose 2008

Kaesler, Stonehorse GSM 2007

Kangarilla Road, Primitivo 2009

Majella, The Musician 2008

Michelton, Blackwood Park, Botrytis Riesling 2008

Montgomery’s Hill, Cabernet Sauvignon 2005

Morris Wines, Sparkling Shiraz Durif NV

Penfolds, Koonunga Hill, Shiraz/Cabernet 2008

Peter Lehmann, Clancy’s Red 2006

Rolf Binder, Shiraz 2008

Seppelt, Victorian, Shiraz 2006

Tatachilla Winery Semillon  Sauvignon Blanc 2008

Turkey Flat, Rose 2009

Wirra Wirra, Scrubby Rise Shiraz/Cabernet/Petit Verdot 2008

Yalumba Y Series Merlot 2008

Vasse Felix, Classic Dry White 2009

Plenty of ideas for presents or to stock up the home cellar.

Here’s a one-page-per-month calendar for next year.  Each month is illustrated with a photo of a pretty garden flower and that’s it. No advertising, no politicans and nothing extra added. Keeping it simple.

Download and print off your free 2010 Calendar [PDF 1MB].

We had some persistent mould in our house, and finally got a professional to have a look at it. We received the following advice:

1. Vacuum the area with a HEPA filter vacuum cleaner, using the small brush.

2. Wash the area using a mixture of 80% Anchor white vinegar and 20% water. Use three buckets, two filled with clean water to rinse your cloth in-between.

The off the shelf products on the market contain mostly bleach, so it will appear as if the mould is gone, but the spores may still be present. Try not to wipe in big strokes – otherwise you’ll just spread the spores. It’s best to use a micro-fibre cloth over a board and do a small area at a time.

The ants have started trekking through our house and the letterbox.

A small shower of rain passed through yesterday. One of only two rainfalls in the last two months. Mind the gap between the soil and the pots. The red dust storms with their iron rich topsoil from down south have kept us out of the garden. At least that’s our excuse, the weather has been very erratic lately.

I’m trying to appreciate the bindi patches and yellow dandelions. Thankfully it’s nearly the end of swooping season.

But sometimes you just need to get back out there. Yesterday between light showers and predicting the optimum wet clothes hanging on the washing line time, we did a few odd chores. We topped up another bed and pulled off all the old canes of the passionfruit vines.

Our grass is beyond yellow and now mostly dust sticks. Our legs grew itchy as we sorted out our baby cherry tomatoes into bags of unripe greens and healthy reds for chutney making.

Big M dug up the remaining potatoes and proudly filled another shoe box.

Only the parsley and silverbeet are thriving.

I have recently been reading books on longevity and incidentally discovered that organic gardening plays a large part in their secrets.

The Blue Zones book covered centenarians from Nicoya, Sardinia and Okinawa. These people ate what they produced in their home garden, supplemented by staples. They avoided processed food, and ate a predominately lean semi-vegetarian plant-based diet.

The Okinawans’ from Japan eat lots of turmeric, garlic and mugwort and fresh, organic vegetables. Food that is packed full of nutrients and antioxidants. Every day they spend some time outdoors and therefore receive a good level of Vitamin D. They were found to be active walkers and gardeners.

Costa Ricans over 100 follow a low calorie, low fat, plant-based diet, with huge quantities of fresh tropical fruit.

Healthy at 100 book follows in a similar vein. The Abkhasians eat a large quantity of fresh fruit and vegetables form their home garden. While in Vilcabamba, they eat a mostly vegetarian diet based on whole grains, seeds, beans and nuts along with fresh fruit and vegetables.

Gardening can help to relieve stress and involves frequent low-intensity movement with a full-range of motions. To top it off you get fresh organic fruit and vegetables which may lead to a longer life.

	The Blue Zones By Dan Buettener – Good introduction and easy reading, although recommendations are on the conservative side. Blue Zones website.
	Healthy at 100by John Robbins – A well researched look at four cultures with the healthiest and longest living people. (He is the son of one of the Baskin-Robbins founders). Typically promotes a plant-based vegan diet. Healthy at 100 website.
	The Okinawa Program and The Okinawa Diet Plan by Bradley Wilcox and co - The original book on centenarians, diet and lifestyle, based on the Okinawa Centenarian Study.

Confusion in the garden. All the broccoli bolted straight to flower. Things aren’t going to plan and it has been frustrating us.

The heat has been uncharacteristically prickly for winter, and we’re still hanging out for some rain.

Perhaps we’re being too hard on ourselves trying to work full time and become self-sufficient in only a year. We’ve made so much progress already and learnt how to grow a variety of different produce, such as: beans, cabbage, capsicum, choko, corn, eggplant, jam melon, kumquart, lemon, lettuce, passionfruit, pumpkin, rhubarb, rockmelon, shallots, squash, strawberries, tomato, and watermelon.

We sat down and discussed how we were going to get past our little hurdle (which at the moment seems monumentous). It’s just a blimp as we are nearing the pointy end of our self-sufficiency challenge.

Note: For those forward-thinkers out there (the ones who have probably already bought most of their Christmas presents) the gorgeous full-colour 2010 Permaculture Diary and Permaculture Calendar have just been released.

Everyone keeps commenting that we skipped spring and went straight to summer with 30 degree days and a heatwave in Brisbane. I’m hoping that all this hot air will be followed by some decent refreshing rain.

The ever faithful passionfruit and choko have stopped bearing. 

We pulled out all the onion and shallots as they were covered in black bugs. The neighbours sprayed their weeds and grass (probably with Roundup) a few weeks ago, and ever since we’ve had a lack of ladybugs.

Buds and flowers are starting to appear. We have four ruby red flush roses and all the citrus are flowering. We also have some figs forming.

We harvested the remaining cabbages (5.3kg). They were starting to get ravaged, by what I though was hungry possums, but ended up being just a collection of caterpillars.

It was very exciting to finally pull up the first row of potatoes. They filled up a shoebox and weighed in at a healthy 4.5kg.

It turns out the unknown greeny-yellow citrus was a lime. So the other tree must be the mandarin.

Don Burke has come out swinging at the humble parsnip after Donna Hay (Australian’s Martha Stewart) published some recipes in the local rag. Yesterday legendary Margaret Fulton came out defending them. We love them roasted, but probably not every week.

I know many people dislike Brussels sprouts. I agree, they taste terrible when they are boiled to a soggy death in water (as do most vegetables). I can eat them roasted or stir-fried in soy sauce. Don also has a distaste for chokos, which I can sympathise more with. I’ve never liked mushrooms – they taste like dirt to me, and sometime they make my throat all tickley. I suspect I’m intolerant to them. I didn’t like olives growing up, but I love them now. Although there is a world of difference between the salty black ones on a cheap pizza and good quality plump olives. I know broccoli and cauliflower are disliked by many people, but because these vegetables are sprayed 16 times I wonder if it’s not the pesticide taste they don’t like. Organic ones tastes a thousands times better.

Why do we develop these prejudices against such a harmless vegetable?

My grandmother had an extensive garden around her house. She grew most of the fruit and vegetables she needed, without any fancy equipment or fertilizers. At her place, I have my first memory of eating fresh peas straight off the climbing bushes. She also grew beautiful old-school cottage cutting flowers, including chrysanthemums, freesias, daisies and daffodils. Whenever my dad would visit, he’d bring home a generous bunch of flowers for mum.

My dad had a vegetable patch for awhile while we were growing up. I don’t recall helping out, but I do remember having to begrudgingly top and tail the home-grown green beans. At least I was better at that job, than when I was in charge of cutting up the strawberries for dessert. Dad used to joke, “One for the bowl, and one for the mouth.”  

Some other resources for gardening with kids:

• Oudoor Kids, A Practical Guide for Kids in the Garden by Jamie Durie
• Kitchen Garden Cooking for Kids by Stephanie Alexander who began the Kitchen Garden Foundation
• Outdoor classrooms - a handbook for school gardens