We learn something new every day…
Last year we planted garlic for the first time. We grew it outdoors in an old concrete laundry tub, and were only able to produce small one-inch bulbs with tiny cloves.
This year, thanks to a tip from Gardening Australia, we stored the cloves in the fridge for a month before planting. In addition, we fed the plants with blood and bone, and this time most of them grew much larger…
Here’s one bulb, broken up and peeled. Just three huge cloves…
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We’ve been short on time lately for preserving, so instead of making our usual passata, we’ve been slow roasting tomatoes in the oven instead.
We drizzle halved Roma tomatoes with oil and a scattering of salt, then pop them into a low oven for a couple of hours, until they just start to burn at the edges. Halfway through the cooking time, we squish them with a potato masher to flatten them out.
These store beautifully in the fridge for about a week, but also freeze really well in ziplock bags, ready to be taken out and added to the pot whenever a concentrated burst of roasted tomato flavour is needed.
They also make a wonderful addition to dishes like Pete’s vegetarian paella…
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We’ve discovered that sometimes weeds help with pest control, like this one which seems to have attracted all the aphids in the patch, leaving the mint and garlic bug-free…
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Finally, we’ll never throw out a sprouting onion again! We planted an old Italian sweet onion in the hopes of collecting seed, but had to move the chook dome before the plant had time to flower. So we pulled it out and found it had grown into quite a lot of edible onion…
So now, whenever an onion starts to sprout, we plant it in the garden and ignore it. If we need spring onions, I go out and break off some green shoots, and when it’s time to move the chickens again, we pull out whatever is there and use it in a stir fry!
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Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 