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I sincerely thank blogger.com for the opportunity to start blogging. I had no problems here, the rocket just looked greener on the other side! ...and I want to learn all I can, so I decided to broaden my horizons.
Thanks blogger.com

All about Basil & Toasted Almond Pesto - how to make it, how to store it.

Now that it's Autumn it's time to make pesto with all the basil, before Winter comes and finishes it off.

I've grown purple basil and green basil, but I tend not to make pesto from the purple variety because I've found it produces a grey coloured pesto which tastes fine but doesn't look very appetising!

I use toasted almonds in my pesto because they taste great and add texture, and because I can obtain them grown locally, & chemical-free.

I use a food processor, which I know to some more discerning mortar & pestle pesto advocates will seem like sacrilege, but it tastes great to me and I just don't enjoy pestling for ages (although I'm quite good at pestering).

So I just throw a couple of handfuls of toasted almonds in the food processor, and whizz them till they're still fairly coarse, so they'll add a nice substantial texture to the pesto. Next I add lots of basil leaves, pulled off a couple of big healthy bunches of basil. The basil flowers are also fine to use. I pour in some good virgin olive oil (the quality of your oil will really make a difference to the final taste), and process into a rough paste. Season with salt and pepper, mixing the seasoning through. I may add more basil leaves if the pesto doesn't seem strong, or green enough, or I may add more oil if it seems too stodgy. Just adust the mix as needed -this is down to personal taste, but bear in mind that the pesto always seems to harden when it's settled, so it's often better to make it a bit more runny at first.

But where's the garlic and the grated parmigiano?
Well, if I'm going to use the pesto within the next 2 weeks, I'll mix in some crushed garlic and very finely grated parmigiano, put the pesto in a glass jar with an extra layer of olive oil over the top to help keep it fresh, and store it in the fridge.

But I most want to use my pesto right in the middle of Winter, when there's no basil in the garden but I want that lovely, warm, sun-kissed, slightly crunchy flavour stirred through my hearty minestrone soup!

So in that case, I get a plastic, sealable, re-usable bag, fill it with the pesto, and flatten it all out so it freezes into a big thin square when I put it in the freezer. Then, whenever I need some pesto for a soup or some toast, I go to the freezer and just break the amount I need off the square. It defrosts very quickly in this small quantity, and then I can stir some freshly squeezed garlic and/or some grated parmigiano into it if I wish.

Why add the garlic and cheese after defrosting, and not while I'm making it intially?
Because I've read that garlic can become bitter, and can lose many of its health benefits when frozen. And because I have some friends I like to share pesto with who don't eat cheese. And its really nice without the parmigiano, anyway.

Getting creative....
I've used this basic technique to experiment with all kinds of pestos, including garlic chive pesto, rocket pesto, spinach pesto (you have to cook the spinach first), and even Coriander Pesto, depending on what's in the garden. I've also added sunflower seeds, which tastes lovely and is very nutritious, or used cashews instead of almonds for a rich, luxurious taste. A little mashed anchovy adds a great lift to coriander pesto.

There's also no end to the various ways you can use pesto: stirred through soups, on toast, on pizzas, stirred through fresh pasta or a rice salad, even placed in the middle of a home-cooked savoury muffin!

I would love to hear your favourite pesto recipe if you have one.

Update on the recyling tub.

Having sown some rocket & lettuce seeds in a thin layer of seed-raising mix on top of the rich worm-farm compost in my old recycling tub planter, and watched them germinate (see last post), we went away for a while to Tasmania. Luckily it rained while we were away, and the rich soil holds moisture like a sponge, so I returned to find a big juicy crop of rocket, ready for eating.

But I have a confession to make... snails/slugs ate the lettuce seedlings!

Those slimy, seedling eating critters have been prolific this year. I had their population well under control for a while, collecting them early in the morning and feeding them to the chooks, their favourite protein-packed snack. But I've been lazy, and lately I haven't seen many of the little lizards who used to gobble them up, either.

Luckily I know an easy trick for collecting slugs: leaving upside-down plant saucers on moist soil overnight. The slugs love to snuggle under them, and in the morning I can simply present the chooks with breakfast on a plate! As for the snails, it's a matter of an early morning stroll, collecting them in a bucket. Other gardeners use a range of tricks including beer traps, crushed eggshells, sawdust, and more, but the "Chook Brekky" technique works for me.

Why did the rocket survive?

Well apparently I have gourmet snails and slugs and they much prefer sweet green lettuce seedlings, and will often leave alone the slightly spicy or bitter greens, like rocket or red lettuces.

Anyway, the rocket was delicious tossed over homemade pizza last night, and thoroughly enjoyed by us and our friends.

More about growing vegies on a worm farm

In the last post I outlined how to build a worm farm.

Here you can see one of my recycled planting tubs, which is also a worm farm, now ready for seed planting. It's not a new worm farm, but one that has been growing summer crops, which I removed and replaced with extra mulch (dried clippings and straw).















On pulling the mulch aside, we can see some happy descendants of the original Red Wrigglers with which I started my first worm farm several years ago.

Note the richness of the compost, fertilised with nutritious, pH neutral worm poo. In their travels through the tub, the worms have also been keeping the soil well aerated and the drainage is still working well. If harvested, the drainage water from a worm farm makes excellent natural liquid fertiliser. A great way to re-harvest your kitchen rinse water!

I've gently pulled some trowel-fulls of soil aside to give the worms some extra kitchen scraps (no worms were harmed in the making of this blog!), and then added a layer of seed raising mix over the top, to plant my seeds: some rocket, a few lettuces, (quick crops) and silverbeet (which will be slower and stay in the tub while the quicker crops will be finished and replaced).

Rather than smothering the seeds with mulch, I cover the top of the tub with an old scrap of shadecloth to keep both the worms and the seeds cool, moist and shaded.













After watering daily for a few days with a watering can (no need to even pull the shadecloth aside, just water straight through), some seedlings are already starting to appear (see photo below, but you'll have to look closely!).
When they're big enough, I'll take the shadecloth away, put mulch around them, and take a photo so you can see how they're going.

Growing Vegies in Recyled Containers Or On a Worm Farm

Great for small courtyards or balconies!

Here are some Yellow Pear tomatoes, purple and green basil and lettuce growing in an old recycling tub, (thanks Paula for the tub, and thanks Abby for the tomato seedlings!). It's actually a worm farm at the same time.

This is very easy and cheap to do and you can use any large-sized container:

1) Drill some extra drainage holes in the bottom so water will drain through.

2) Put a layer of stones/broken crockery/anything similar in the bottom to further assist drainage (most vegies do not like wet feet!). It's also a good idea to have the bottom of the container raised up slightly on some bricks or stones so that extra water can easily escape and your worms won't drown.

3) Add some compost - I made my own but you can buy organic compost. In South Australia I supplement my own supply with SA Composters' compost.

4) Add a layer of "bedding" for the worms - I used shredded newspaper and some old straw, and some scrunched up used brown paper bags.

5) Add more compost, and also any food scraps you have from the kitchen, in small pieces. Anything that was once a plant is fine, although apparently worms don't like strong smelling things like onions or garlic too much (mine aren't that fussy!) Make your final layer just compost so that the food scraps won't be in your way for planting seedlings.

6) Water well and mulch with straw, or even newspaper. Check your drainage.

7) Once your compost/worm food mix is moist but not too soggy, you can add your worms. I initially bought a box of worms ("red wrigglers") from a garden centre a few years ago, but now if I'm starting a new tub I just take a few from an established tub, and they soon multiply! Better to add just a few at first, and they will then regulate their own numbers to suit the food supply.

8) Leave the tub for a week or more. The soil level may sink, so you can then pull aside the mulch and add more compost. Then you're ready to plant your vegie seedlings. Check the label for the amount of space required for each plant, but this is a nutrient-intensive way to grow them, so you can get away with a bit less space than is usually recommended.

Leave a space to occasionally add some more food (cut up kitchen scraps) under the mulch for your worms.

9) Watch your vegies grow as the worms eat the scraps and general debri in the compost, and as they feed the roots of the plants with their nutrient rich worm poo! Remember to keep the soil as evenly moist as possible. I often use clean rinse water from the household.

I've also grown cucumber, spring onions, chives, silverbeet and rocket in these tubs. If growing them from seed, I just move the mulch aside and add some seedraising mix to the top just before sowing. I keep the tubs under a lemon tree in Summer. In Adelaide I have an excess of UV light, and the tomatoes actually do better under some dappled shade!

Yoga Pose Favourite: Legs Up the Wall

Benefits:
- relieves tiredness in the legs
- refreshes the brain and heart
- improves circulation and releases tight hamstrings when done regularly
- thought to be helpful for relieving varicose veins

Contraindications:
High blood pressure, hypertension, glaucoma.

Sounds simple, and it is. If you feel tightness in the backs of your legs at first, you don't need to have your legs right on the wall to receive many of the benefits. Just be as close to the wall as you can, without feeling strain in the backs of the knees, and make sure your body is evenly placed, rather than crooked. Support your head with a thinly folded blanket or towel if you need so that you can rest your eyes downward easily.

Close your eyes or use an eye pillow, and quietly observe your natural way of breathing, allowing the breath to slow down if that happens naturally. Stay for 10 minutes to feel wonderfully rested and refreshed, or come out earlier at first if your feet tingle and build up the duration slowly.

If you do this pose regularly, not only will it become easier to get your legs right up to the wall, you'll also strengthen the relaxation response that comes with the pose.

With the extra height of a bolster placed precisely under the hips, the inversion increases and this pose becomes the classic yoga pose Viparita Karani. I suggest you ask your local yoga teacher or visit http://www.yogajournal.com/ for a more in-depth description of Viparita Karani and its benefits and contraindications.
Viparita Karani is one of my favourite poses because it's so effective when I'm feeling physically or mentally tired.

Tomatoes that stand out from the crowd

Supermarket tomatoes have been grown with transport and packaging in mind. They're tough, picked fairly green, and you can rest a brick on them and they won't get squashed. Taste has not been a priority. Looking at those sad, pale, tasteless things, you could easily forget there's a whole world of flavours and colours waiting to be discovered, including many "heirloom" varieties that were left behind as the unsquashable supermarket tomatoes took over.

This season I'm growing Green Zebras (green stripes with a subtle orange flush, very refreshing taste), Yellow Pears (firm texture, citrusy taste), Tommy Toes (fantastically prolific & flavoursome golf-ball sized red tomatoes), and my favourite... a small orange cherry so sweet it's like bursting an especially intense grape in your mouth. Above is a photo of these varieties.

Last year I also grew Black Krims, which when sliced, provide darkly beautiful and intricate food mandalas for the salad plate.

You can get seeds for these, and many more varieties of tomatoes, from seed companies that work to keep these old varieties alive.

Digger's Seeds: http://www.diggers.com.au/

Eden Seeds: http://www.edenseeds.com.au/

Greenpatch Seeds: http://www.greenpatchseeds.com.au/

These companies also have selections of certified organic seeds (Greenpatch are completely organic). These open-pollinated seeds give us back control over our own food supply, because you can save the seeds from your harvest and grow them again next season.

If you've never tried a just-picked tomato, warmed and juiced up by the afternoon sun, perhaps sliced open with a little sprinkling of sea salt, then quick put it on your list of things to do before you die.

Or slice them all up together for an insanely colourful bruschetta....mmmm. I have converted tomato haters to tomato lovers with some of these tomatoes! And kids love the little coloured ones.

In future posts I'll share hints for growing tomatoes in containers or on worm farms, with minimum space requirement.