Growing – Page 13 – MakeCookGrow.com

Making, Cooking, Growing

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MAKING heart patterned giftwrap.

I’ve printed some giftwrap to decorate the table next week. We don’t really do anything special on St Valentine’s Day but like to do special things together during the year.

This paper is so easy to make. You need a cardboard tube, red acrylic paint, a folded sheet of paper towel, a saucer and a sheet of paper to print on. I used litho paper but most paper would be suitable.

Pour some paint into a saucer after you’ve squeezed/deformed your cardboard roll into a heart shape. ( It’s very easy!)

Dip it into the paint. If it seems too thick just dab it on the paper towel once, then print onto the paper. I printed in a pattern but randomly placing the hearts looks good, too.

MAKING cucumber agua fresca ( Spanish for “cool water”) a light, cool, non-alcoholic drink popular in Mexico and America. I had some in a cafe during the week and loved it so looked up the recipe.

Infuse one medium thinly sliced cucumber, a sliced lemon (lots of recipes use lime), 12 mint leaves and one litre of filtered water overnight in a jug in the fridge, stir the next day and enjoy. Different recipes add sugar and some blend all the ingredients to make a thicker, stronger drink.

I felt “as cool as a cucumber” on a hot and humid day!

COOKING ginger cake. This recipe made a very big cake.

The dry ingredients were mixed into the cooled, wet ingredients then cooked. Smelled good cooking!

A very big cake. ( recipe Womans’ Weekly Cookbook)

Topped with ginger icing, then some red grapes scattered with chopped, crystallized ginger. I prefer the ginger flavoured icing more than the lemon one in the recipe.

GROWING baby spinach which we eat all year round and also coriander to use as micro greens on salads. The coriander will bolt and go to seed in this hot weather if left to grow, but immature leaves scattered on salads taste very good.

This is my 86 year old computer competent mother scrolling through my blog. She has been staying for a few days.

Today is Toothache Day which is really about educating people to avoid toothaches and promote good dental routines. The focus is on good dental hygiene and suggests you have a yearly checkup as well as the usual daily care to prevent toothaches.

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How to Make a Living Ivy Topiary Wreath

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Easy to do, great looking and a lovely gift, its time to start growing an ivy topiary wreath if you want to give it as a Mothers’ Day gift or just as a pretty addition to your courtyard or garden. They are attractive and need little care except watering and twisting the growth around the wire frame. Well established wreaths need clipping back about twice a year.

You need:

* four or five ivy cuttings

* vase or jar with water

* potting mix

* pot

* clothes hanger

Select the size ivy depending on the wreath you want to make. This is a small leaf variety. I have two made with bigger ivy leaves which are much bigger wreaths.

Put four or five cuttings in water until small, thread like roots appear. I leave the vase out of sunlight in the kitchen until the roots appear.

Plant out the ivy and leave it for about six weeks to get established. I only use a fish emulsion on the new plant, but water regularly and keep it in dappled shade.

Now shape a coat hanger and bend the hook to a right angle to secure in the pot. I’ve made the circular frame from wire before but now just use coat hangers. I’ve also secured the base in a cut out circle of polystyrene in the past but now just embed the hanger in the soil.

Transfer the ivy to its final pot or embed the hanger in the existing pot. Gently twist the ivy around the frame. You’ll need to keep doing this every month. Soon you’ll have a pretty Ivy Topiary Wreath.

Today is Australia Day, the day Austalians reflect on what it means to be Australian, to celebrate contemporary Australia and to acknowledge our history. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, and people from nearly every country in the would have created a dynamic society in an amazingly beautiful country. Today many Australians will enjoy a barbecue with friends and family and then, tonight, the wonderful fireworks all around the country.

Happy Australia Day!

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Eating From The Garden

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Several sorts of chillis growing in the garden. Above are Numex Twilight Rainbow. They are so pretty but quite feisty!

Gathering cayenne peppers to make chilli jam.

Our son split the peppers and scraped out the seeds, then put the chillis into the food processor.

Processed to a pulp.

Then cooked with apple cider vinegar, sugar, water and pectin, following Nigella’s Chilli Jam recipe.

Pouring the jam into sterilised jars. Strong chilli aroma!

The finished chilli jam. Very pretty, very strong.

Our son adds the jam to “pep up” lots of dishes.

Picked spinach which I chopped and steamed for dinner, adding it to baby beans and diced bacon. Stirred in a jar of pasta sauce and poured it over tortellini.

Picked some baby beetroot, then oven roasted them for salad.

The roasted beetroot with roasted kumara (sweet potato), cos lettuce, thin slices of Camembert, sage from my Mother’s garden and traditional oil and vinegar dressing. A delicious salad and worth getting stained fingers preparing the beetroot.

Not edible, but also from the garden, the pink and red Pierre de Ronsard roses are in full bloom.

January is BRAIN TEASER month, so enjoy a cryptic crossword, play a game of cards, complete the quick crossword in the paper or settle to an online strategy game. I find keeping the rats off the tomatoes sufficiently brain teasing. Let me know what is successful, please.

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In The Southern Hemisphere …..Spring Means Open Gardens

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Open Gardens allow entrance to some of the finest private gardens and occurs only once or twice a year. The entrance fee is usually directed to the owner’s preferred charity. Each is a wonderful opportunity to see gardens that are often behind houses you’d never get to visit. Generally the owners have spent months getting their garden ready for inspection. Often they are in the garden when it is open to the public and can identify plants and ideal growing conditions and talk about the evolution of their garden. The city garden above was calm and green and peaceful. Beautiful.

The rest of the gardens featured were on the Ferguson Valley Open Garden Trail through Boyanup, Lowden and the Ferguson Valley. We were blessed with lovely weather, good pub food and interesting gardens.

The gardens are in rural areas and were various sizes but all bigger than a suburban block in the city. Several fronted lakes or river beds . They were all great to visit.

The gardens varied in age, with one evolving over the past ten years and others being much older and added onto at various times.

The older gardens grew mostly European plants, some were a blend of both European and native Australian plants, like this bottle brush flower.

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Roses grow so well in this region. Not photographed but all the gardens had vegetable gardens, mostly in raised beds. There is very good soil in this locale and the gardens are green and lush.

Some of these gardens were on a grand scale, some were gardens which had just grown to fill the available space. Scent and colour everywhere. Most of the gardens had plants for sale, many had Devonshire teas. (Coffee and tea, scones with jam and cream) All enjoy gorgeous vistas across rural countryside.

There’s a mix of native West Australian plants and traditional imported garden plants.

Beautiful banksia, related to proteas.

It was really interesting to see what other people had planted, especially in shaded or windy areas and to see how they made the most of available water supplies.

Today is Sesame Street Day, established in 2009 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the beginning of the program. Sesame Street was devised to promote literacy in the USA and has been declared amazingly successful.

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How to Grow Buxus (Box) and Make Box Topiaries

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TO GROW

I have box (buxus) hedges and they “sucker”. I pull up these stray suckers and if they have a root attached I plant them out. These are generally successful.

Another method is to take a cutting from an existing plant. The best time to grow semi-hardwood cuttings, like box, is late spring to summer, although I have had success in autumn, too.

Take a cutting about 10cm/4 inches long and strip off all but a few leaves at the top. Keep the cutting moist in damp paper towel or newspaper if you’re not planting them straight away.

Push several stems into a pot of well drained potting mix and label them. Some gardeners recommend dipping the stem into rooting/hormone powder. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t and have good outcomes either way.

Cover the pot with a plastic bottle with the bottom cut off and the lid off to allow air circulation. This creates a mini-glasshouse. I only do this in autumn. Don’t let the pot dry out.

In about 10 weeks your plants should have grown roots and can be carefully transplanted. The plants in the pot above are three months old and have been very slightly trimmed and shaped.

TO TOPIARISE

To create ball topiaries, strip the leaves from the stem leaving the growth at the top. Begin shaping this using scissors or secateurs. Occasionally leaves will develop on the stem as they grow. Just pull them off.

These topiary trees are about two years old and I keep them dense and round.

This dome is about three years old and started with four stems.

This topiary tree is nearly four years old. Box grows well in full sunlight or semi shade. Don’t let them dry out.

Another dome started with five stems. Begin shaping as soon as there is sufficient growth. If you want to make a square/cube topiary it is easiest to plant four stems, one in each corner of the pot as this will thicken up faster than one with fewer stems.

I use a slow release fertiliser. The container will tell you how often you need to apply it for best growth.

Saturday 26th August is Dog Day and honours the special bond between man and canine. Take time to appreciate the love and value dogs bring to our lives and do your bit for abused and homeless dogs where ever you are in the world. Look at www.nationaldogday.com for more information and ways to celebrate.

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Some Making, Some Cooking and Some Growing

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Making.

Making Herb Pot Markers. I use wooden Tongue Depressors from the $2 Shop to make markers for herb pots. Using non-toxic paint, I colour most of the depressor as shown and when it’s dry I do the other side, making sure the edges are also painted. I use a waterproof marker to write the name on the stick ( I used a Sharpie) and a non-toxic paint, in this case a sample pot, for any food growing pot. Also, when Louis, our dog was a puppy, he chewed most of the labels one afternoon so I was glad they were non-toxic.

I usually paint ten sticks at a time.

Most paints only require one coat so this is a quick and easy job.

Cooking.

Cold Weather Cooking. I make several trays of pasties and freeze most of them for work lunches or weekend lunches.

Lots of nice spinach at the moment, so I made an egg, sheeps’ fetta, onion and spinach slice. Tastes best when cold, if you can wait that long.

Quick Apple, Almond and Coconut Slice. Didn’t add the coconut and it was still very good. Below is Ginger Caramel Slice. Irresistible. The recipe for both these slices comes from www.taste.com.au

Growing.

The Sweetpeas have begun blooming.

They look pretty and smell gorgeous.

The first tulip is blooming but there are lots more about to come. This is Tulip Leen van Mark.

August 21st is World Fashion Day. Thinking about the amount of clothing in good condition that ends up in landfill, maybe it’s time to re-fashion something you already have?

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Growing Microgreens

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Microgreens are edible, immature germinated seeds and usually less than 5cm/2″ tall. These little nutrient powerhouses are simple to grow, packed with flavour and beneficial enzymes and they look pretty, too.

Within a few weeks of planting they’ll be at the cotyledon, or true leaf stage. Snip and enjoy scattered on your food! Some will regrow, otherwise tip the soil onto the compost heap and start again.

Common microgreens are lettuce, kale, spinach, beetroot and land/watercress. I’m growing lettuce, coriander (cilantro), spinach and beetroot. I grow mine outside, but they will grow well on a sunny window ledge indoors.

To add a little balance to all this healthy eating here’s the coffee cake, with coffee icing and chocolate dipped coffee beans, we devoured later!

Did you know today is Fresh Veggie Day? Get crunchy now!

Some Gardening, Some Cooking

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These hippeastra have bloomed for months.

Clivias are blooming, too.

Bought a worm composting farm and dug it into a garden bed in dappled light.

It’s citrus time in Western Australia, so I made a Lime Cake. This recipe has olive oil instead of butter and was very moist.

Neighbours put out a basket of oranges at their gate so I made an Orange Cake. It was very good.

Another neighbour gave me some lemons, so we had Lemon Delicious Puddings.

These Brussels Sprouts were oven roasted in olive oil. I stirred through sweet chilli sauce and put them back in the oven for 15 minutes. They tasted wonderful!

Cooler weather means our son uses the slow cooker to make delicious ragu. He serves it with pasta or couscous. The smell wafts enticingly throughout the house for hours before we eat it!

A recent article in delicious.com.au (A Wasted Opportunity) talks about the cultural, environmental and economic problem of food waste in Australia. I have redoubled my efforts to not throw out food, so more Bread and Butter pudding.

How did you celebrate International Nurses Day?

PERTH GARDEN FESTIVAL

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The Perth Garden Festival features garden displays, landscaping, floral displays, garden related products for sale and sustainable living ideas. I went with my Mother and niece and we had a lovely day. We looked at the displays, talked to lots of experts, enjoyed cooking demonstrations, talks about controlling pests naturally and also a talk about roses.

These grass trees thrive in the poor Western Australian soil and look great in the bush and in suburban gardens.

This hybrid tea rose is called Grandma’s Rose. It is very pretty and very fragrant.

Gorgeous vase of banksia and eucalypts. These plants are native to Australia.

Inspiring displays.

The Festival was held at McCallum Park which has many mature trees for shade, including this Moreton Bay Fig Tree.

Today is International Jazz Day. Did you celebrate?

Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show

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My mother and I flew to Melbourne for the Flower and Garden Show. So many beautiful displays and plenty of expert advice.

The floral displays indoors and outdoors were inspirational.

Lovely outdoor ideas for year round use.

We also enjoyed catching up with friends and relatives.

Look at this stunning new chrysanthemum! Amazing variety of colours.

Did you know last Sunday was World Autistic Day?
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