The Greening of Gavin

Wholesome Home Grown Dinners

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We’ve been eating simple fare of late, all unprocessed, wholesome, and mostly home grown dinners.

Due to the crazy heat we’re having in March (which is actually supposed to be autumn), we have been serving salads from the newly repaired Vegtrug, with organic or free-range meats.

However, last night was a special treat.

During a lovely day trip showing our friend Cheryl around, we stopped off at the Pastry King Bakery in Daylesford and picked up some delicious wholemeal rolls.  We then swung by Ballan to visit Jessie (aka Rabid Little Hippy) to drop off some wooden picture frames and to collect a bag of tomatoes.

As we were travelling home to Melton, we stopped off in Bacchus Marsh (Fruits of Life) to collect some BioDynamic milk ( I can feel a cheese coming on).

I had an abundance of home-grown Basil, so I picked a bunch and with Cheryl’s assistance began to prepare dinner.

Firstly I made quick Mozzarella with the milk.  If you want to learn how to make that, then check out my Quick Mozzarella video tutorial.


Then we sliced up the ripest tomatoes, washed all the basil leaves, and cut the bread into slices.  The Mozzarella was left to chill in the fridge for a few hours before I cut it up.

Fresh Mozzarella

Fresh Bio-Dynamic Mozzarella

This was the basis of our dinner.

Home grown dinners - Fresh Mozzarella, Basil, and Tomato

Fresh Mozzarella, Basil, and Tomato

All this was served with the wholemeal bread, basil infused extra virgin olive oil, and freshly cracked black pepper and sea salt.  Oh, and with a little drizzle of balsamic vinegar on top to add a little sharpness.

It was delicious.  Cheryl had never tasted such amazing flavours, especially heirloom tomatoes and fresh Mozzarella.  No pictures of the final serving, because we ate it so fast!

We also washed it down with a bottle or two of delicious cider from Daylesford Cider Company.

Local Map - 160 km radius

Local Map – 160 km radius

And just to think that all these ingredients came from within 160 km (100 miles) of where we live!  Not only does locally grown produce taste great, but it also has a lot less food miles, which means less carbon emissions.

Who can argue with that!

Learning to Grow Mushrooms

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After my dismal failure of growing white button mushrooms last year, I decided to seek some expert advice.  Expert advice on learning to grow mushrooms without too many issues.

Luckily, my friend Amanda Woods had just started teaching a Grow Your Own Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms for Beginners at Goonawarra Neighbourhood House in Sunbury, Victoria.

Learning to Grow Mushrooms - Mushroom Workshop

The class was well attended, and we were given a choice of mushroom kits to take home.  Ben chose Grey Oyster, and I chose Swordbelt mushrooms.  Neither of us knew what these looked liked at this stage so we just went with the flow.  I wasn’t really fussed on what we grew as long as we were successful!

Amanda Symonds

Amanda Woods

During the class Amanda demonstrated how to set up a simple mushroom terrarium using a 50L plastic storage tub.

The lid has a few 20mm holes drilled in it, and the tub also has a few holes about 7 cm above the floor to ensure the mushrooms get enough oxygen.

Mushroom Terrarium

Mushroom Terrarium

There is also a layer of moistened perlite laid across the bottom on to which you place your bag of inoculated mycelium.  Mycelium is the white spider web like fibres that are the basis of all mushrooms.  When it has the right conditions (warmth and moisture), it starts producing buttons, which in turn becomes the mushrooms.

Gavin & Ben with their mushroom kits

Gavin & Ben with their mushroom kits

Amazing stuff.  Amanda took us through the process of setting up our own terrariums at home, providing us with the mycelium kits, a spray bottle, and a bag of perlite.  The only bit of feedback that would have been to actually set up the kits during the workshop, however the only issue may have been transporting the setup back home without disturbing everything.

Gavin & Ben inspecting Shiitake plugs

Gavin & Ben inspecting Shiitake plugs

Besides the terrarium and grow bag method, you can use wooden plugs that have been inoculated with spores that can be pushed into a log of deciduous wood like Birch.  Holes have to be drilled into the log which needs to be a decent diameter.

Shiitake Log

Shiitake Log in Birch

The plugs are then pushed into the holes and then sealed over with soy or beeswax.  The mycelium starts to grow throughout the log to consume the rotting moist wood, then twice a year you get a flush of mushrooms on the log.

Swordbelt Mushrooms

Swordbelt Mushrooms

Here is the bag of Swordbelt mushrooms that Amanda brought along for the demo.  They look amazing, and even more so, because she told us that they taste like bacon!  That’s enough to turn me into a full vegetarian!

So why are they called Swordbelt?

Swordbelt Mushrooms side view

Swordbelt Mushrooms side view

Well, looking from the side view you can see that these mushrooms have a little belt around the stem a couple of centimetres below the gills.  Very cute.

We were told that we should get three good flushes of mushrooms per bag and that we could reactivate them if we added the mycelium to more sterile medium like boiled straw or sugar cane mulch.

Grey Oyster Mushroom

Grey Oyster Mushroom

This is what the Grey Oyster mushrooms should look like once we set the grow bags up.  Apparently they can be eaten raw but better eaten cooked quickly on a high heat.  Perfect for stir fries.

I must say that it was an informative course and the documentation provided during the class will ensure that we are successful.  If you want to connect with Amanda, you can check out her Facebook page, Emu Creek Farm.  I am sure she will be running another course in the new year if there is enough interest.  Take it from me that learning to grow mushrooms by attending a class takes all the guesswork out of the process.

Update: Amanda has another mushroom workshop in February 2016 at the Sunbury Library.

Ben and I intend on setting up our terrarium on Wednesday and placing it in the bathtub as that room has the most humidity and is a constant temperature during day and night.  We will also need to mist them with water twice daily.

I will keep you updated with our progress.  Wish us luck!

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Suburban Food Bowl – Growing Food in Raised Beds

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Unless you are blessed with fertile soil in your neck of the woods, I have found that most Australian suburban developments are built in areas that have been stripped of precious topsoil and left barren or covered over with a thick blanket of builders rubble.

The remaining substrate may be sand or clay, each having its own issues. Sand doesn’t hold water very long and lacks essential nutrients, and clay either dries as hard as concrete or is so dense when it’s wet that tender roots find it difficult to penetrate.

So what is the suburban gardener to do? Well for those lacking space, we’ve already covered growing in tight spaces, but what about all of you who have a decent amount of open area in which to plant?

Growing food in raised beds

Growing my food in raised beds

Well the long-term solution would be to build up the soil with a mountain of organic matter in the form of compost to increase or decrease the water retention capacity of your soil, but there is an easier way to start growing quickly.

Growing Food in Raised Beds

The easiest way to get food on the table when you have poor soil is to build up your soil by growing food in raised beds. The good thing is that there are many cost-effective ways to do this, but in the end the simple fact is that you have to import good soil or compost in to get started.

Over the years, you can make your own soil using the efforts of your chickens, or uses as much garden waste as possible to turn into humus from compost and at the same time adding essential nutrients back into your growing areas.

So here are a few ideas that I have used or seen to create amazingly fertile garden beds.

Hard Wood

The majority of raised garden beds around my home are made from reclaimed or sustainably harvested red gum hardwood. This type of building material is long-lasting and rots very slowly over time. The only drawback is that if you live in a termite prone area, then they serve as food for them and last half as long.

When building your beds, make sure that they are wide enough to reach across, and if you are prone to back issues, then build them up using reclaimed brick first to add some height. I built ours 2.4 x 1.2 x .5 metres in size. I find it a practical growing space for a couple of varieties of vegetable.

Raised garden beds

Our raised garden beds circa 2007.  Source: Kim Webber

Corrugated Iron

Many of the newer raised garden beds that you can purchase are made from corrugated iron or Colorbond. Most are an elliptical shape to remove any sharp edges and stand about 80 – 100 cm tall. These are ideal for people with mobility problems and can be maintained without too much bending.

They are easy to construct and usually only require a couple of spanners and are long-lasting. As these beds are so tall, they are easy to set up as wicking beds, however if not uses as wicking beds, you may need to throw in about 30 cm (1 ft) of rubble into the bottom to save the requirement to add so much topsoil or compost.

Colorbond garden beds. Source: http://gippslandtanks.com.au/garden_beds

Colorbond garden beds. Source: http://gippslandtanks.com.au/garden_beds

 

Wooden Pallets

With a little extra wood fastened around all the edges, wooden shipping pallets can be utilised as a raised garden bed. You may think that they are not tall enough, but you will be surprised to know that most vegetables only put down roots that are less than 20 cm in length. This makes a wooden pallet ideal when the spaces are filled with salad greens, tomato plants, or even sweet corn. Root vegetables are not suited for this shallow type of raised bed.

Wooden pallet vegetable garden

Wooden pallet vegetable garden. Source: Flea Market Gardening

Reclaimed Brick

If you have or can get your hands on old brick, large or small, then you can put them to good use as the boundary of your garden bed. You may have to fasten them using a bit of mortar before adding the soil, however if you have large besa bricks or cinder blocks, then these, when filled with dirt, will support the soil in your raised garden beds without issue. The great thing about brick is that you can form just about any shaped bed you like to accommodate the space you have unlike wood which would need multiple cuts to achieve the same outcome.

Brick raised garden bed

Reclaimed brick raised garden bed.  Source; Creative Commons.

Large Tyres

Large truck or tractor tyres made a good raised garden bed, as they hold a lot of soil. You don’t need any construction skills to quickly get this type of garden bed started.  When I have used tyres, I just cut off the rim with a jigsaw to provide more growing space.  You will need to drill a large hole first so as to insert your jigsaw blade to start off.

Most crops can be grown safely in tyres as long as the edible part of the vegetable is above the ground. This excludes potatoes as research has suggested that growing potatoes in tyres risks chemical contamination of the edible tubers.

Truck tyre raised garden beds

Truck tyre raised garden beds. Source: Flickr creative commons

Building The Soil

Once your bed is constructed with whatever material you choose, the next step is to build up the growing medium.

Here is how we initially built up each bed then added more home-made compost on top over the years.  I filled the beds in the following order.

  1. The first layer was a thick cover of cardboard and newspaper about 5 sheets deep. This ground cover was to kill the weeds, grass and provide food for the earthworms.
  2. Next was a 10 cm layer of either Lucerne hay or pea straw. I chose pea straw and the added bonus was a quick crop of field peas!
  3. The third layer was a 2 cm layer of Dynamic Lifter (you can use well-rotted sheep or chicken manure). For the four beds I finished off an entire 25Kg bag of very smelly Dynamic Lifter.
  4. I then covered the manure with another 5 cm layer of pea straw and then a layer 20 cm thick of mushroom compost garden mix.  It was a 50-50 mix of mushroom compost and a loam type soil that was filled with organic matter and very suitable for the purpose of growing vegetables.
  5. Lastly, I topped it off with a 5cm layer of sugar cane mulch, to help conserve water by stopping evaporation.
Growing Food in Raised Beds

Garden Bed Layers. Drawing by Kim Webber

Over time the organic matter rots down and build up the soil.  The vegetables thrive in the first couple of years, but you have to add more compost and manure to keep the nutrients flowing.

Get Building and Growing!

So there are a few ways you can grow veggies in your own suburban food bowl even if you have the poorest soil in the country!

There should be no obstacles for growing food and making your backyard a suburban food bowl.

Go on.  Get growing!