Can I Get a Kale Yeah!

Kale has been one of the easiest and most satisfying things I have grown in the veggie garden.  Just throw in a few seeds and stand back!  Like most things that I have an abundance of it is now a case of finding things to do with all of this kale.  Just the other night at our book club gathering one of my friends was espousing the delights of home made kale chips, so I went on line and found a bunch of instructions, recipes and tips for making the perfect kale chip.

 So while the oven was heating up to fan force 170 degrees I went out to the garden with my scissors and chopped off a bunch of the biggest leaves.  They had all been recently washed by the big rain storm we had last night so I thought I would just go about removing the stems which can be bitter and woody, and cutting the leaves into chip sized pieces.  There was lots of little green bits all over the tea towel and my hands which on closer inspection were moving!  So another good reason to wash your kale leaves it seems is to avoid having extra protein on your chips in the form of cooked aphids.

Not having a salad spinner I laid the leaves out on a tea towel and blotted them dry, which was time consuming to say the least.  I then tried laying the tea towel on the open door of the oven to finish off the drying process, which seemed to be effective.

Then into the bowl with a tablespoon of olive oil or your oil of preference and massage the leaves until all the little ridges and valleys are coated.   I then spread them out on some baking paper on my very old reliable baking tray and put them into the oven for about ten minutes. Timing will vary dependant on your oven so watch them carefully as they can burn quite quickly. 

Once out of the oven allow them to rest for about three minutes as they continue to crisp up.  Sprinkle with sea salt and sweet paprika or another topping of choice like Parmesan, Dukkah, chilli etc.  There is always enough for a couple of batches so try a couple of different flavours. Most people I have heard from find these little morsels of goodness very addictive but I have to be honest and say I am not a fan!

No, they do not taste like chips, no, they are not as good as a packet of Smiths Salt & Vinegar and quite frankly it was laborious to make a handful of chips that were gone in three seconds.  Particularly as I had to wash them about four times to get rid of the aphids!

So give it a try and see what you think, as I said many, many people enjoy these crispy little things, but me, I say - Kale No!

A Worm Called Neeble.

We have a real opportunity now that we have consolidated into one home, to do more of the sustainable stuff that I have been wanting to do.  I am always conscious of the waste that we produce, be it the left over half a sandwich from our son’s school lunch, or the paper bag the mushrooms came home in, all the egg shells that we have each day and tea bags, left over rice and pasta and the list goes on and on and on.  When we were living in two homes I would sometimes make the decision to take the waste from the resort and bring it to the chooks or compost heap at the house, but so often my trip was not that straight forward resulting in watermelon skins souring in the heat of my car while I attend a meeting or banana skins permeating every nook and cranny of the upholstery with their pungent smell, YUK!

Containers for the Worm Food and Chook Food.

So now I have two plastic containers surreptitiously placed on the kitchen bench, labeled for either worms/compost or chicken feed.  This is working quite well too now that we have half a dozen chookies they are always up for a treat as they graze in the backyard of an afternoon, and the worm farm is teaming with slithery little fertiliser factory workers who previously I couldn't keep enough food up to.

A couple of Christmases ago I ask for a worm farm as a present and happily set it up in a shady corner of the veggie garden.  I then had to go and buy worms, which was quite expensive I might add, but I hadn't realised that just any type of worms wouldn't do the trick, you had to have specific composting worms.  I named the worms Neeble, after the talking variety on Men In Black the movie, so each day when I talk to them I picture them lazing back on a carrot top smoking, drinking coffee and talking back to me.  

The Neebles from the Men in Black Movie.

So each day I go and feed my Neebles with the left over peelings, scraps, paper, tea bags and egg shells, being careful not to give them citrus and onion skins as apparently they aren't good for them.  The worm pee is harvested constantly as the tap is left open and an old ice cream container collects the nutrient rich liquid which I mix 1:10 with water and spray on the plants every so often to give them a kick along.  Every couple of weeks I flush the system with five litres of water to help keep the environment moist and reduce ants setting up home in there.  The residual liquid is also watered down and given to the plants.  

This weekend I noticed that the old worm blanket (one of the many components of the worm farm that I thought I had to buy) was disintegrating and so I googled what else could be used to cover them, to avoid having to go back to Bunnings and spend more money.  Thankfully I know a Resort GM who has a box of damaged bath mats and face washers that are 100% cotton lurking in a special corner of his Man Cave, so I asked to steal a couple to make a nice new blankie for my Neebles.

This is the result and now they are snug as a bug in a rug, literally!

A cozy worm blanket made from two bathmats.

Worm farming is easy to do and knowing that most families create way too much waste it is an efficient method of reducing and reusing what would have gone into the bin and become landfill.  My sister in Sydney set up hers very cheaply using a couple of broccoli boxes, wads of wet newspaper and poking a drainage hole close to the bottom which can be fitted with a tap fitting from the hardware store, so there is really no need to go to a lot of expense to get free fertiliser for ever.  So give it a go!

A SENSE FOR GARDENING

To think I spent years and years avoiding gardening.  In fact I think back in history  as I watched my Mother in the garden spending all those hours on her hands and knees, in the blazing sun, pulling weeds, digging, cultivating, and sore and sorry for herself at the end of the day and secretly thought she was a bit of a loon!  But now I get it!  I totally understand the passion of gardening, its become my solace, a place to spend five minutes a day just to chill, and a weekend’s adventure.  My garden fills me daily with contentment, a true gift to all my senses.

Baby beetroot plants.

The obvious sense that pervades is the calming sight of my garden.  Its location just outside the window of the place where I spend most of my week working in our business.  The view a palette of various green and yellow hues, calming, cool colours which seem to bring a sense of peace to my mood.  When I am at my most hectic and chance to glance out to glimpse a peewee swoop on an unsuspecting insect, a breeze ruffling the lettuce leaves, or a brand new mauve flower the promise of an eggplant to come somehow the frazzle becomes slightly less frazzling.

On certain days a waft of the heady scent of rosemary drifts in on a breeze while I am working.  My sense of smell is indulged as I walk through the garden.  When I venture out I run my hand over each herb in turn, scrunching the leaves and burying my nose in my palm to breathe in the fragrance of Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme (sing with me…), Oregano and Lemongrass.  When I dig, the fresh earth smells rich and dare I say “earthy”.  When my husband mows around the crop circles the grass smells fresh and makes me sneeze.

Climbing beans

I lift the lid on the worm farm and I hear the squirming of hundreds of slithering creatures squelching through the decaying fruit, veg and paper.  Birds chirping, Scruffy barking at birds chirping and me yelling at Scruffy to stop barking at birds chirping.  Sitting at my cute green table, nicknamed the “beer garden” by our neighbour, quiet overtakes me and peace reigns supreme.

The Beer Garden!

Hands in the earth, its cool and soft, the rough bark on the tree stump where my weather station sits catching and measuring rainfall, gauging the temperature and showing which way the wind is blowing. 

The Weather Station zip clipped to a tree stump.

A feast for the senses, a garden of joy, a place of peace, my happy place.  Don't live your life without planting a seed, watering it and watching it burst up through the soil, produce two leaves then four, a flower, a fruit, pick it, smell it and eat it.  Nothing like it.  Now I get it.

Nothing like planting something from seed and watching it sprout.