Society Garlic (Tulbaghia violacea)

 Hello everyone its been awhile. November has been a really busy month and it is almost a month I have not done any postings. The reason being is we moved house. We are now officially not gardening in a dry Mediterranean climate garden but a wet tropical garden. Yes we have safely returned back to Malaysia since 15th of November. We were so exhausted the last week we were in Adelaide so busy with packing and cleaning our rented house. Moreover, a lot of other things needed to be organised and we have a 2 months old baby to care between me and my husband. The garden needed to be cleared and the agent wanted us to get rid most of the plants. So I decided to save or transport the plants that can be easily brought along back with me to Malaysia. It was another separate task we had to do because it will be heartbreaking to chuck the plants into the green compost bin. Most of my container garden polystyrene boxes were given away to friends, made me happy that they have an "instant garden" and a good way to spark gardening interest to friends. We managed to bring back 2 big boxes full of bare-rooted plants safely back . Well actually more than 2 boxes since I add in some plants into our luggage as well. We only brought back plants and Abbiyana stuff back with us by flight, the rest will be sent by sea shipment. I am one very crazy gardener, took me more than a week to transplant all the plants we transported back from our once upon a time Adelaide garden.

 I bought 8 bare-rooted society garlic from online and it was really cheap than buying a pot of plant from the nursery. I was also very satisfied as it was a very healthy bulbous root. The bulbous roots that I bought online came only wrap in a wet newspaper. Society garlic can tolerate a wide range of soil and it is also a drought and frost tolerant plant. The main purpose of me buying this plant is to deter unwanted creature to a certain area as many animals don't like the strong smell of this plant. An organic safe repellent plant. I was reading a forum that even big animal like deer dislike very much to come closer to this plant. If you bruised the leaves, a very nasty stinky smell will waft through your nose so be prepared. I think this work much better to repel vampire compare to garlic. Society garlic flowers are dainty star-shaped mauve in colour .

 The leaves of society garlic are edible so you can use them in cooking- stir-fry or soup or as a garnish whichever dishes you are fond of. Because I bought the bare-rooted bulbous society garlic 3 weeks before we depart, re-potted them until the day before we say farewell to Adelaide.

 I wrapped them bare-rooted again in wet tissues and it stayed more than 7 days in box before I had time to plant them. By that time new roots were growing in the wet tissues and surprise surprise some were producing flower bud! Very cool plant not temperamental plant, they are very hardy.

The plants are about 30cm tall when flowering. Society garlic has a long blooming season. When I planted one bare-rooted society garlic on this site, there were many ants around. After a few days, ants has disappeared from that spot. Hopefully this plant will multiply quickly so I can make new division of plants and allocate to other spots in the garden especially the new veggie patch project not being trampled by turkey and his friends at the backyard. The reason why we have wires around this spot to prevent turkey  or chicken from digging the newly made small veggie patch. We are living at my parents house now near Malaysia capital city as caretakers because my parents at the moment are staying in Borneo island due to my father new working place. We have at least half an acre now to grow food, plenty of space compared to our very very very small Adelaide garden. I have not been reunited yet with my 2 boys Ilhan and Rayyan hopefully early next month. Now that 5 years old Ilhan knew we are back, he wants to fly back here with us but it was so cute hearing him on Skype said "I can't board the aeroplane because I have no money and ticket". I have not finished my studies, hopefully I can focus on finishing up my thesis writing soon.

Back to School and Harvesting

 I have returned to school from maternity leave almost 2 weeks now and Abby is 2 months old. Hence, disappearing for a short while again from the blogsphere. I have not come in early to school yet probably around noon as it is hard to leave Abby. But then I stay at least until 7PM. I think that is an excuse I am never a morning person (another excuse low blood pressure). The Medela freestyle breastpump has been a savior as I can do 3 things at a time breastfeed, expressing and browsing the net. 

I missed Daphne's Dandelions Harvest Monday last week so these are the harvest summaries for the first half month of October.

 The month of October will be continuously harvesting Western Red Carrot, Boltardy Beetroot and Golden Nugget Cape Gooseberry.

 We still have some fresh lemon grass stalks to harvest after the plants stayed dormant during cold season. Peas are reducing as the weather gets warm. Harvest the last black round Spanish radish last week. Need to start harvesting Florence Fennel regularly before they flower. We kept on finding some potatoes whenever we do some weeding in the garden.

We harvested our first small red cabbage last week. No more Bloomsdale spinach in the garden as I harvested them all as some of the plants starts to form flower stalk. The last 2 touchstone gold beetroot were harvested and I left one to flower to collect seeds.

 The harvest in the photo above were growing at the back of our backyard fence on reserve land. They got trampled by the council cleaning team. My husband was shocked when one morning he wanted to harvest some veggies at the back all the veggies were almost gone and even big plants were mowed. We managed to harvest leeks that had hair cuts because the stem were planted deep into the ground and only the top were mowed.Same with the florence fennel were severed from its roots and the leaves cut , lucky that the bulb stayed intact. For 3 years, I grew veggies back there but this is the first time happened. The spring onion flowers were left drying on the plant but it got chopped so brought them in to dry.

The previous post I mentioned that I am giving-away Australian Brown Onion and Spring Onion seeds.

Winners, please send me your address so I can post it to you (kebunkmg@gmail.com).

Aussie Brown Onion and Spring Onion Seeds Winners:

> Gardenglut author of Glut: a year in my patch

> KitsapFG (Laura) author of The Modern Victory Garden

>Joyfulhomemaker author of Fhat Farmer Chick

>Ummuaidan author of Our Simple Garden

>Malar author of My Little Garden

Lesson from Onion (Seeds Give-Away)

 The Australian Brown onion and spring onion plant in our garden taught us something new about them this spring. Onions are biennial plants which flowers/seeds on their second year. After the plant has produce seeds, it will leave us as the plant has spent it last energy producing seeds for new progenies. Same goes for biennial flower like foxglove or hollyhock. Last spring, we left one plant growing in a polystyrene box after cutting out all the dried seed pods. I sowed some water spinach seeds in the same box after adding new compost, thinking while the onion plant spend it last days will helped deter some pest away from the young water spinach seedlings. Another spring came again for the onion plants, those water spinach plants long gone since autumn as they don't do well in cold season but those onion plants remain evergreen and produces seeds again this spring. I was really amazed that those onions kept on growing and produces new buds each time we cut the drying pods. These onion plants can be short live perennial with our mild winter. 

I discovered that growing Australian brown onion and spring onion for seeds once well-established in the garden:

~Require minimal care.

~Good companion for young plants.

~Does not require much space to keep as you can plant some plants in between.

~Require minimal watering

~Withstand scorching summer heat.

~One plant each is enough to give plenty of seeds or share for next season planting and save money from buying seeds.

 We have very small space to grow plants but I don't think saving seeds from these plants will take much space. Australian Brown Onion is a long-day variety and a long keeper. Sometime you find it in catalogue sometime you don't. I don't find the seeds available from the seeds company I got it first now this year, Digger has it in its catalogue at the moment.  I have experience several times of heirloom seeds that I like to obtain once again is not readily available anymore. Therefore, saving seeds of rare varieties are the only way to ensure I can continue growing the variety I like and suits my garden.

 I am giving-away Spring Onion and Aussie Brown Onion seeds for 3 seeds sowers of this post. The winner will be pick by the old-fashioned way of writing the name in the piece of paper, roll, shake and let see which paper will be pick randomly. I will announce the lucky recipients on my next posting perhaps tomorrow.

 Abby first passport photo. It was not easy to take as she keeps on turning the head side-ways rather than looking up at me. The photos were taken outside in the garden as I like to use natural light. 

Spring Onion Life Cycle

  Spring onion or the salad onion taste milder than other onion. Its hollow leaves finely chop and top on fried rice/noodles, porridge or other dishes making it more appealing. Not just making dishes appealing or decorative but add more nutrition good for the health no doubt. My children and I prefer spring onion that does not produce bulb unlike onions or shallots leaves for toppings because it has mild taste and not hot.

 Last year autumn, we transplanted some spring onion seedling under sunflower plants to make the garden more productive. Those spring onion does not seem to mind sitting under the sunflower because it still received direct light from the sun in the morning. We also had a row of carrots growing in front of the spring onion plants.

Spring onion does not need to be harvest whole, can be treated as come and cut again plant. My husband uses a lot of spring onion to cook especially when he makes misoshiru (miso soup). He is the Japanese chef in the family. My sons like prawn and spring onion toast. We had surplus spring onion and when spring came last year our spring onion goes to produce seeds. Bees really like the spring onion flower, there are always hovering around the plant at the moment.

Spring onion is surprisingly drought-hardy when well-established. We left them growing with neglect on the patch and the plants still live till today forgotten. Interestingly, this spring those spring onion plants starts to flower again producing seeds. Furthermore, the flower are much bigger compared to previous year when it flowers for the first time. Spring onion are biennial plant. So I thought when the plant has produce seeds on its second year (last year spring), it will eventually dies. But spring onion continue evergreen growing and surprisingly producing seeds again this year. The spring onion flowers in its second spring are more well pollinated as we harvest more seeds this year and the quality of the seeds looks much better compared to last spring.

This is how our flowering spring onion plants in its second spring season looks at the moment. Last spring, we planted a chilli plant in between these spring onion plants and we had no encounter or problem with pest on this chilli plant. This over-wintered chilli plant survived and will need a little bit of hair cut getting rid of old-leaves as it has already start to sprout new baby leaves and looks really disheveled at the moment.

The dried pods opening up and pop goes the seeds.

Have a nice weekend gardening!

Creamgold Onion

The year 2011 was the second year for us growing brown onions. The result was a bit better than our first time but we still have a lot to learn. I still can't get the right pace at the stage of near harvesting and storing them well (I was on my first trimester-yucky phase so did not keep an eye of it-excuses). What I observed in our micro-climate here in Adelaide plain is that by end spring the weather warm pretty fast here so I have to sow the seeds and transplant them much earlier. I should have finished sowing the seeds by mid-April (mid-autumn). Because I was learning last year I did succession sowing until end-May which cause some to be transplanted late. Due to this the younger plants produce smaller bulbs when harvest time. Onion seedlings transplanting also should be completed by mid-June (early winter) in our garden here (space has always been an issue causing transplant delay). Now I learn one thing that long-day variety brown onion does not bolt easily in our garden (FYI, I never sow seeds indoors, all outdoors expose to the changing weather). We tried growing Cream gold onion (Eden Seeds) last year.

Cream gold onion seeds just sprouted and poking out from the soil.

I always wonder why the single allium leaf seedlings folds like that first.

Seeds coats attached.

Still very tiny look so fragile after few days transplanting seedlings in winter.

Onion do grow very slowly and makes you wonder when will the plant starts to bulb.

I presumed that this is mid-late spring because volunteer pink larkspur is blooming at the back.

Still no bulb just big leaves after 4-5months from transplanting.

Bulbs begin to develop.

Dried fallen leaves from my neighbour tree help with mulching.

The leaves shoots up straight when the bulbs develop?

No photos near harvest since the photographer was not feeling well.

Our official onion harvest is January-February (mid-late summer).

Growing onion makes you wait a long time before you can enjoy it.

For us the onion growing process starts from April and ends in February.

Although it end in February, it does take sometime to cure harvested onions for them to store well.

We don't encounter any problem growing onion here with pest or disease.

Its just the extreme warm weather at onion harvest season can be challenging.

If I water them near harvest season the papery onion skin won't be good.

If I don't water them at all , the plants will die.

Dilemma.

Any suggestion for future reference?

We did managed to harvest probably more than 70 brown onions in our small garden this year.

But not much left now, probably finish by end of this month.

Home-grown brown onion is so sweet different from the one selling in supermarkets.

Growing them took up space, but we still grow some because its different from what you get from the commercial ones.

Potato Onion

Growing potato onion for beginner is easy.

It does very well in mild weather.

Just push in the onion bulb into the soil and wait for some leaves to sprout.

We grew potato onion for the first time last year.

We did not pampered them at all.

Just some watering and leave them to grow on their own.

I think we planted them around April~May.

Perhaps can be planted earlier in March, but we usually don't have space in that month.

This is our note of potato onion growing stages.

We grew 3 bulbs of potato onion last year.

The leaves look like spring onions, tempting to cut.

Starting to form separate stalk for new bulbs formation.

More potato onion bulbs forming from a plant.

You can harvest a bulb and let others grow.

The plants will keep multiply bulbs.

Don't need to harvest all the plants, just harvest what you need and let them grow more for you.

Maybe this is a good onion for gardeners with limited space.

We wanted to let our potato onion plant to keep on growing.

But alas the summer weather here did not permit us.

So harvest them all I have to.

Most of the leaves have dried out, by the time we pull out the plants.

Another thing I have to learn and gain more experience of growing onion is the watering part.

How to control the amount water so we have some good number of skin layers.

So that the onions can be stored well.

From those 3 potato onion plants, we got more than 25 bulbs.

Have a nice weekend!

Happy Gardening!

2012 End Summer Harvest Finale

Summer ending for us here.

I am sure many gardeners living in Northern hemisphere are happy greeting spring.

Did not take many photo lately.

But here some what we had been harvesting at the end of summer.

Sorted some of our brown onions that are left curing in the shed, brought in some onion for the kitchen use which does not going to store well.

Pak choi grown in container and miraculously survive the extreme summer heat.

We harvested our first batch of kang kong/water spinach bamboo leaves, second summer broccoli and bonica eggplants.

Mice have been nibbling on the top of our root vegetables, so we harvested carrots and beetroots.

Beans, cherry tomatoes, brown onions and shallots.

Carrots and self-sowed amaranth (bayam).

We harvested our first banana capsicum that we grown from seeds this warm season. 

Pak choi, hon tsai tai, daikon, baby beetroot and cherry tomatoes.

The weather has cool down a bit now.

Hoping that our summer veggies will set fruit well now.

It was too hot before for them to set fruit, although they have blooms.

Wishing for more cucurbit and solanum family harvest at the moment.

Visit Daphne's Dandellion for harvest monday and see what other gardeners doing with their harvest.

Till Valentine End Summer Harvest

The cherry tomatoes did much better than the other tomato varieties this summer season. We were lucky to  be able to harvested some round eggplants last week.

We harvested our first time home-grown potato onions. Should have reduced the watering when it was ready to be harvested. But I was relying on dear hubby with the watering so I let him do whatever he wants as long as the plants were watered during peak summer.

Brought in some garlic into the kitchen that we left curing in the shed.

Challenger tomato variety but it got scorched badly by the sun. 

I was cleaning up some part of the garden last weekend because it look so shabby after the scorching weather cause during mid-summer and I was surprised to find some cucumbers. It looks misshapen but I never expected to get any cucumbers this summer. First time we harvested a broccoli in end summer that was grown/sowed from last autumn. Another unexpected surprise that the broccoli plant manage to form a curd and not bolt in hot weather. Possibly the cool weather we had a few weeks helped. We also harvested a few root vegetables; carrots, turnip, beetroots and volunteer  potatoes. Some hot red sexy chillies for valentine were harvested as well. Will be making some sambal sauce stock this afternoon with mama after we buy some lemon/lime this afternoon.

With the love valentine theme, some red harvest; strawberries, chillies, tigerella tomato, challenger and cherry tomato.

Visit Daphne's Dandelions to share and enjoy together what other gardeners has been harvesting all over the world.

Growing shallots in container

We tried to grow shallot the first time this year and planted the shallot sets in May. The shallot sets that we ordered came in between medium to very small size sets. To get bigger shallots it is important to plant big size sets to ensure you get good size of shallot harvest. So when you harvest them remember to keep the big ones for next planting and use the rest for your cooking. Other than growing them in the ground soil, we also tried to grow them in container and see whether it grows well or not. We don't find any difference in growing them in container or on the ground soil. It is all much depend on the size of the sets were planted. Big sets bigger bulbs and small sets will resulted on small bulbs. So if you don't have much space, you can try growing them in containers since it takes almost 9 months to harvest them depending on your climate and location. The shallot variety we grow is matador.

Push in the shallot sets roughly this much into the soil and waited for it to sprout.

They sprout easily when the weather has cool down in fall.

Maybe leaving it in the fridge for few days can help it sprout?

After a few weeks later...

For more productivity in the garden since shallot will fill in that precious spot for sometime, don't forget to inter-plant with quick crop. For example we sowed some small globe radish type around the shallot and sowed some carrot seeds near the edge of the container. This vegetables is said to be good companion . Can you see some tiny carrot seedlings and some has not sprouted when the photo were taken.

How deep was our containers for growing shallot?

About 20cm deep.

Dragon carrots growing nicely together with shallot in the same container.

Shallots just starting to produce some bulbs.

Producing more shallot bulbs.

All the photos are from the same container to follow the shallot growing progress.

The right shallot plants are almost ready to be harvested and cured.

I am quite satisfied with my first time growing shallots. If I live in a suitable place to grow them I will certainly make sure I plant them every year. Big shallots harvest were from the right side shallot plants from photo above. There are more than 10 bulbs harvested from that plant. The small shallots were from small shallot sets planted on the ground soil. South-East Asian cooking uses shallots most frequently and that amount will probably only last me for 2~3weeks.

Shallots are commonly thinly sliced and fried crisply for garnishing dishes in Malaysia. You can easily find the ready-made fried shallots sold in shops in Malaysia. Shallot is one of the ingredient commonly use to make sambal belachan or dipping sauces for grilled fish. Shallot has very little calories that make it good for a person in diet by making his or her meal more appetising by using it as marinade. From my childhood memories, we rarely eat outside so it will be a special treat when we did that so satay was usually served accompanied with peanut sauce, rice cakes, cucumber slices and raw shallot slices.

What is your favourite shallot variety?

Spring Onions and Prawn toasts

Thanks to Mad Gnomes for sharing some of their self-sowed spring onions last fall from their garden we have many to harvest this spring. We usually don't allocate specific patch to grow spring onions as we always plant them in between with other plants. With these seedlings, we planted it under sunflower that were growing last fall.

Those spring onions are starting to flower now.

I found this interesting recipe to enjoy those spring onions. Ilhan like prawns and bread very much, so I thought it will be something he will enjoyed very much. It is also a good way to finished slice bread quickly before it come to waste when it need to be finished soon. Lenay made this for Ilhan since she is much better at frying coated prawns than me.

Prawn toast (from The Australian Women's Weekly~World Table recipe book)

Ingredients:

16 uncooked large prawns (750gram)

2 eggs, beaten lightly

1/4 cup (35gram) cornflour/cornstarch

8 thick slices white bread

1 green onion (spring onions), chopped finely (personally I think it will be much better if those spring onions not finely slice, maybe1~2cm)

vegetable oil, for deep frying

Sweet chilli dipping sauce (combine ingredients in small bowl)

1/4 cup (60ml) sweet chilli sauce

1/4 cup (60ml) chicken stock

2 teaspoons soy sauce

~Shell and devein prawns, leaving tail intact (I don't keep the tail to make easier for my kids to eat). Cut lenthways along backs of prawns, without separating halves. Toss flattened prawns in medium bowl with combined egg and cornflour; mix well.

~Remove and discard crusts from bread, cut each slice in half. Place one prawn, cut-side down, on each piece of bread; gently flatten prawn onto bread. Sprinkle prawns with onion; press on firmly.

~Heat oil in large wok; carefully lower toast; in batches, into hot oil.

~Deep fry until browned lightly and cooked through; drain on absorbent paper.

~Meanwhile, make sweet chilli diping sauce.

~Serve prawn with dipping sauce.

This can be good to bring for picnic as well.