The miracle bulb

We grew a year supply of garlic in just over 30sq m of ground. Our quarter acre equates to just over a 1000sq m, and as this is one of our most significant crops – medicinal and flavour punching – it really isn't much ground to use for half the year. The 30sq m of garlic was spread over 4 separate patches.

In our house if we feel a cold or flu coming on we munch on a raw clove of garlic before bed. 49 times out of 50 this treatment works. We rarely if ever get sick and we never have to take pharmaceuticals. 

Our 12 Months of Garlic

Today I harvested our garlic and bundled them into twelve portions, or monthly rations for the year ahead.

Then strung them up to dry in the 'cellar'.

My first home-brew of beer, a heritage lager, has been cellared for two weeks now. You can just see some of the caps of the 60 stubbies behind the drum of local olive oil.

Here's the cellar from the outside, which is still just one quarter complete.

Under the soil where the gods will grow

Meg's been making more preserves. The cumquat marmalade she made is awesome. My quince jelly, however, didn't set despite using several green quince which apparently have more pectin in them than ripe ones. Still it tastes great and we will drizzle it over our morning porridge throughout the winter. We're not fans of 'gourmet' preserves, especially ones that use so much sugar and are therefore reliant upon monoculture cane farming. We're going to stick to stewing and poaching using local honey as a sweetener next year. To choose between big agribusiness or the local apiarist is a no brainer.

We had some friends come to stay over the weekend and to celebrate we picked our first-for-the-season pumpkin. It was a little under ripe, but still made an excellent soup. Come on Jack Frost, I know you're lurking, but please hold off a few more weeks!

Zeph and I worked up a sweat today turning the soil and breaking the clods in the north wall patch before planting 100 leek seedlings and 100 garlic cloves. We finished on dark just as the heavens opened and dumped a good fall. A gardener's wish come true.

As we turned and aerated the soil we found big juicy worms, so Zeph marched them down to the chooks to gobble. We're spoiling them more than usual at the moment as we're only getting one egg a day from five hens. The two new chooks are still settling and the pecking order has been interrupted, so it's no wonder they're at odds with their usual laying habits. Meg's been keen to make a zucchini cake, but until the girls start to lay again we can put that delicious ideal on hold.

Self-seeding, quick growing, sewing and storing

The zucchinis have been prolific giving us daily pickings for the past several weeks. Food that is this easy and quick to grow is a blessing. It's odd that something that is this much of a gift is scorned at this time of year. It's also odd that I have so much respect for this fruit when during my childhood I loathed them.

The eggplants are still providing and we have enjoyed making chips with them on the BBQ. With better soil next year we will be sure to increase the crop.

We have five small avocados that have self-seeded next to the self-seeded pumpkin patch. We'll see what the frost does to them. At least 5 pumpkins are ready now, but if we don't have a frost for a few more weeks we may have as many as 30 Queensland blues to store. We have an Avocado Bacon on order from the local nursery. They, along with the Hass, are supposed to be best in a cold climate, although we haven't had much luck with our Hass to date.

Meg's been making cumquat marmalade. Our store of food for the winter is growing with over 40 jars of preserved fruit – grown, gleaned or gifted. We had almost a year's supply of garlic stored from last year's crop and I have been preparing the new garlic bed for this year's planting. Everyone around here has been saying early April is the best time to plant garlic, and not later on the conventional shortest day of the year. The soil is still warm and they seem to kick on until the depth of winter if they're planted now. Garlic and leek will be planted in this patch and possibly some bare-rooted fruit and nut trees later in the winter.

Summer Solstice Produce

This is what we are currently eating from the garden.


And these are what we are currently drying for replanting.


Broad beans are delicious, but they're also good as a soil improver (nitrogen). After I harvested all these beans I pulled up the plants and lay them across the garden bed. Then I raked wood chips over them (carbon). With this as one of our methods our soils are gradually improving season by season, making our garden increasingly productive.

A very merry solstice to you all.