The Not-So-Grim Reaper

Whenever I'm gardening I'm always conscious of the wise teachings of that great philosopher, Neil the Hippy. Not just things like oh wow, heavy heavy heavy and you hate me don't you? but more we sow the seed, nature grows the seed, then we eat the seed.

Readers following my amateur gardening in 2009 would have seen that whilst sowing was undertaken with relish and childlike enthusiasm, nature tended to be less forthcoming on the growing bit. Whilst there was no famine, our feast was more Lilliputian than hoped. Perhaps this was penance for only taking up gardening based on drunken spite towards Jamie Oliver for pretending that he actually tends his own garden on Jamie at Home.

This year we seem to be reaping the rewards of the toil establishing the patch back at the start of summer, and from getting up ridiculously early on allocated watering days desperately trying to keep everything alive. The photos I posted in January contained nothing to suggest the magic that a Melbourne February was to deliver, especially not everything doubling in size in just four weeks.

Anyway, for those interested parties here are some pleasant summer garden photos to make you hungry and also maybe show you that literally any muppet can grown their own veggies.

the first of a thousand zucchinis...

a comically perfect beetroot, ready for illustration by Beatrix Potter

perhaps the most delicious corn I've ever tasted, still in it's hula skirt

some carrots... not as tasty as the corn but size wise greatly improved on last year (see embarrassing photographic evidence here)

vegie platter madame? eat your heart out Oliver...

Of course everyone loves gardening in early autumn because it's the one time when the garden gives back more than it takes. In the interests of balance I'll continue to provide updates through the year. We'll see how smug I am in the depths of winter... still for now I am the Lord of the Veg.

In a Pickle

Scenes of disbelief in our house this week at the frankly astonishing news that after almost ten years looking Mrs Custard finally found someone who sells pickled eggs in Australia. She's been laughed out of more delis and markets than I care to mention for trying to find me something to go with my fish and chips, so it seems appropriate that I publicly recognise her efforts and also provide some clearly much-needed publicity to Elfred's (their apostrophe, not mine) of the Peninsula, the brave souls selling Australia's only pickled egg. I'm pleased to report that they are delicious so if you're in Victoria and want to get hold of some try visiting their website here. If you're in some other egg-free corner of the globe you can try your hand at my recipe here.

Whilst we're on the topic of pickling, a quick mention of Emelia's of Kyneton in Victoria who claim to have created "the World's Greatest Pickled Onion." Whilst their onions are very tasty, with some nice bitey peppercorn and chilli tang, they don't beat my Grandpa's whose pickled onions were strong enough to clear out your ears. Keep going Emelia's; everyone loves a tryer.

If You Ever Step on My Patch, I'll Bring You Down

It's almost three months since we moved into our little house and I thought I'd mark the occasion by posting some pictures of the veggie garden that I've had on my camera all summer. As I said back in November, it was pretty tough getting the patch started but things are moving along quite nicely now, even with the lack of rain and me being (reasonably) obedient of our council's draconian watering conditions. Anyway, let's make like they do on all those reality shows and have a look back at the journey...

Day 1: we inherit one weed-strewn former car park from the previous owners. It's fair to say that gardening was not one of their priorities.

Top soil on Day 1; fine dusty grit with a texture like freshly ground peppercorns

Day 2: Measuring up. Following the word of our gardening lord, Peter Cundall I set up a crop rotation system with six beds (1.5m x 1m each) in a 3m x 3m square. I also mapped out another 2m x 1m bed for herbs. So I don't waste any time I plant a few seeds and seedlings in tubs in the back yard.

Days 3 - 10: digging in a drought. After several days attacking the ground with a spade and a fork someone at work suggested I buy a mattock ("my mother is 83 and swears by her mattock.") The mattock allowed me to scalp the weeds from the surface but still I could only get down to about 15cms depth - halfway to the 30 cms recommended by Gardening Australia. Note the pile of weeds and old tree roots found during my excavation. Not quite as exciting as Raiders of the Lost Ark...

Day 14: When the rain comes... one weekend of pouring rain makes light work for Mint Custard. With the topsoil turned the rain soaked into the stubborn hard soil underneath and softened everything nicely. In one day I was able to turn all the soil to 30 cms, mix in two bags of cow poo, many handfuls of chicken poo and a sprinkling of blood and bone. The worms went mental...

Day 28: with the beds marked out and the gospel according to Saint Peter strictly obeyed the first seeds are planted. Broadly I have one bed for carrots and beets; one for potatoes; one for corn and zucchini, one for onions, leeks and tomatoes; one for lettuce and pakchoi and one more that should be for beans but December is a bit late to get started so I leave it bare...

Day 42: hot vegetable action. I become amazed at how easy it is to grow lettuce and pak choi. I remain frustrated that everything else is painfully slow and needs more water than I have at my disposal.

Day 49: New Year's downpour followed by heatwave causes garden to spring into life. I'm tempted to give up my job and sell lettuce for a living. I start giving away pak choi to everyone I know.

Day 49: Mr Fishhands, our Hitler Tache-sporting scarecrow device is dwarfed by the Children of the Corn

Day 70: Mint Custard v the Drought. As you can see there is much activity in the patch these days. Things are going mostly OK, and the marigolds look pretty too. However we're probably still a few weeks away from real excitement. Several days of 40+ heat and very little rain has caught up with my delayed start to summer planting and the growth spurts of many of the veggies has slowed down to a trot. Still most things are still alive, and I've bought mulch to try and keep some of the moisture in...

Day 77: Mr Fishhands, King of the Corn Children amongst his giant offspring. Don't worry, I'm sure he'll be fine...

Now we're up to date I'll try and keep you posted on the latest comings and goings in the patch. If you have any advice or tips for a junior gardener I'd be happy to hear them. And hey, if you need any Pak Choi...

(with thanks to the lovely Jim Noir for today's title. Check out Jim's work on Myspace or watch the video to My Patch here)

Roast Veggies

It’s almost 9am and with the temperature already 23 degrees on a day tipped to reach 44 across Melbourne and much of southern Australia I’d just like to send out some love to my veggie patch. Take care kids* - especially you lettuce – you know what you’re like in the heat. Slip, slop, slap; hats and sunglasses; drink lots of water - Daddy will be home soon.

* Victoria Police please note this is allegorical – there aren’t any actual children in my garden. And even if there were, $2 an hour is quite a good rate for under sevens for such simple manual labour. Besides, what else are they going to do during summer holidays in the 'burbs?

Here Be Spuds!

I know that I'm probably a little old to be excited by the fact that when you plant seeds, things tend to grow, but honestly, look at this picture and tell me that it's not ace that you can put four potatoes in the ground and get this many back. Beats the return on the pokies, I tells ya.

Some baby potatoes, aged three hours. Aw bless.

Cine-mattock Orchestra

Me and Mrs Custard have bought a house. As huge and difficult and scary and interesting as this has been I’ve refrained from writing about it here because I don’t wish to add one word to the culture of property porn that has insidiously wormed its way into every aspect of our society. I’m not about to start now just because we got lucky. On a personal note I am grateful not to have to deal with fuckwit real estate agents anymore, and to anyone experiencing what we’ve just been through my thoughts are with you. As Les McQueen would say, it’s a shit business.

My favourite thing about our little place so far is having a garden. We have no back garden to speak of but we do have a big space out the front that the previous owners have been using as a car park for the past two years. Regular readers will know that my gardening abilities are mostly limited to growing very small vegetables in pots but from the first time we visited the house I’ve been dreaming about how to turn that corner of dry, compacted soil and squashed weeds into a proper doing-Grandpa-proud type garden.

So, with great delusions of horticultural adequacy I eagerly turned up at Bunnings two days after we moved in and bought myself a proper spade, a garden fork, a trowel and several bags of organic poo. Game on. Or rather it would have been had our move not coincided with Melbourne’s hottest start to a November since records began. Two weeks of temperatures in the thirties with not a single drop of rain rendered our erstwhile car park dry, dusty and mostly impenetrable. Not that it stopped me trying.

Each evening after work I took to the front yard in shorts and a highly unattractive grey singlet top, trying to get my garden fork more than three inches into the soil. This was far more fun than it sounds. When you’ve been sat on your arse all day shuffling papers at ‘work’ doing a bit of work-work is actually quite invigorating. It’s also the first time since I was at school that I’ve been properly dirty and had to wash proper mud off in the shower. Things got even more fun when, on the recommendations of a sympathetic colleague, I bought a mattock. It’s a kind of flat headed pick axe perfectly suited to scalping vicious weeds from their roots and cleaving huge chunks of earth with relatively little effort. I now love my mattock as much as my laptop.

I suspect my labours were also highly entertaining for our new neighbours, each and every one of whom took turns to peak out of their curtains to watch the only madman in the street with a veggie patch in his front yard. As the days progressed and the rains stayed away I began to feel like Gerard Depardieu in Jean de Florette – toiling in the sun under the suspicious eye of the locals. Midway through the second week of heat and without a cloud in sight I felt like standing on my newly hewn pile of dry dirt and yelling ‘Je suis bossu’” at the sky, just to see what would happen.

The neighbours, yesterday

Thankfully, what did eventually happen was the heavens opened. I mean really opened; in a handy month’s-rainfall-in-24-hours type way. Pools of water gathered in the unploughed bits of our lawn; a trench I’d dug in readiness for some planting turned into a moat. I filled two buckets, half a dustbin and a huge plastic laundry box with rainwater. Taking to it with a fork, the loosened soil came apart easily and I was able to dig about 40 centimetres down into the ground.

From that point on I was away. I staked out a veggie patch and a bed for herbs into which I mixed a 'generous helping' (a technical term favoured by real gardeners on telly which I have decided to adopt to make myself appear more knowledgeable) of manure, chicken poo, blood and bone, seaweed and mulch. A day later I found our first worm... which, frankly, is about as rock and roll as life gets. Even the neighbours have started leaning on the fence for a chat which just goes to show the power of vegetables.

Here be worms!

I'll try and articulate my failures and occasional successes in the garden on these here pages, so if you're a fan of amateurism both journalistic and horticultural, you know where to find me.