Enjoy Mulled Wine Jelly and Grow Cut and Come Again Celery

SPICE IT UP

Mulled Wine and Mulled Wine Jelly

Are you missing the Christmas spirit? In Australia it was mostly too hot around Christmas time to partake in mulled wine. Winter isn't that far away, and for some people, Christmas in July is a thing.

That would include mulled wine.

Right now though, you could make some mulled wine jelly to relive some of that Christmas cheer which just seems like a faded memory.

You may have heard of the spices that go to make mulled wine, a traditional drink in the northern hemisphere at that time of year.
But here in Australia, it’s too hot, so what else can we do with these spices?

Traditional mulled wine spices contain allspice berries (ground), cassia bark (Asia version of cinnamon), ginger, dried orange peel, and cloves.

METHOD: Mulled Wine

In a saucepan 

POUR 1 bottle of red wine

ADD1 cup of brown sugar,

ADD 1 fresh lime

ADD 1 fresh quartered orange.

ADD2-3 tablespoons of mulling spices.

SIMMER gently for 30-40 minutes DO NOT BOIL

STRAIN: into a jug and serve while warm.

If you’re keen to experiment with your own recipe, then use real vanilla pods, cinnamon quills, fresh citrus and star anise at the very least.

Apart from mulled wine jelly, and mulled wine fizz, there’s also mulled wine glazed ham. So experiment away. Listen to the podcast to find out more.

I’m talking with Ian Hemphill from herb and spice expert from www.herbies.com.au

If you have any questions about spices in mulled wine spice mix, drop us a line to realworldgardener@gmail.com or write to 2rrr PO Box 644 Gladesville NSW 1675

VEGETABLE HEROES

Today’s vegetable hero is -Celery Leaf , Leaf Celery or Chinese Celery. Leaf celery is also called Cutting Celery, Parcel, Smallage, Zwolsche Krul, and German celery.

• Celery Leaf is botanically-(Apium graveolens var. secalinum).

Leaf celery sounds like it’s all leaf, but that’s not the case.Yes there’s a lot of leaves, but they’re on top of long, albeit thinner stalks.

• Leaf celery is a more primitive form of familiar supermarket celery but it’s a great cut-and-come-again veggie.If you cut or harvest leaf celery plants often, it will constantly send up new stalks.
• The stalks are hollow, crisp, and packed with flavour, cutting celery is an essential veggie at our house.
  

In colder zones, if you can nurse year-old plants through winter, they will send up a huge flush of stems in early summer, followed by lots of flowers and seeds.

• The ground seeds make a great seasoning for dozens of dishes.

As a true biennial,  cutting celery is happy to produce zillions of seeds at the end of summer here in Australia.

• If you’re an occasional celery user who find that the bunch of celery that you buy from the supermarket turns brown and mushy before you finish it, then you may want to try growing this alternative.The best thing is the stalks aren’t bunched closely together.
• So if you just want one or two stalks of celery to flavour your soups or Bolognese sauce, then just go out into the garden and cut two stalks.

Celery Leaf tastes similar but slightly better than regular stalk celery!
I would say it tastes a little stronger than stalk celery or celeriac.

A Bit of Hsitory
Did you know that leaf Celery has been around for a long time and was in fact used by the ancient Romans as a medicinal herb.
Supposedly, Celery seed has been used for around 3000 years as a seasoning for food.
Did you also know that crushed celery seeds are steam distilled to make celery oil?
This oil is used for flavouring sauces, meats, liqueurs, perfumes, cosmetics and soaps.

 
Some gardeners have run out of room in their veggie bed already-full of tomatoes, Basil and whatnot.
Never fear, Leaf Celery will grow in large pots because it’s a compact plant that grows to 45-60cm in height.

• If you live in a cool temperate district, container veggies can be moved under cover during winter.
• Leaf Celery is a darker green with thin stalks and leaves that look like a cross between the Italian Parsley and the Curley Parsley.
• Celery leaf is perfect for container gardens because it’s a cut and come again plant and is great used as a herb in stews, dressings and salads.

When to plant:
In cool temperate districts, Spring and Summer are your sowing times, in temperate and sub-tropical zones, you have from Spring right through to Autumn, 

Arid areas, the only time you can’t really sow it is in summer, and tropical districts win the jackpot, because they can sow it all year round.

How to grow:
From putting the seed into the ground or pot, it’ll take around 2-3 months.
Like most veggies, Leaf Celery needs full sun but can do alright in part shade in soil that’s not too dry.
You can start them off in punnets if you like because they don’t mind being transplanted.

• Keep in mind, Leaf Celery isn’t frost tolerant.

Sow the very fine seeds thinly, and only 5mm (1/4”) deep.
Be careful not to cover the fine seeds too much because they need light to germinate.
For fine seeds I tend to use a light cover of vermiculite which I then mist to make moist.

• They can be slow to germinate taking up to 21 days at 100C-180C, so be patient.
• In warmer areas, seedlings should emerge in 1-2 weeks.

Once the seeds have germinated it’s a good idea to thin them out around 30cm (12”) apart.
TIP: number 1: Don’t let them dry out.

• TIP: number 2:-If you believe in companion planting, then leaf Celery is supposed to be an insect repellent for cabbage white butterfly.Try planting some around your Brassicas like Broccoli, Cauli, and Cabbage.

TIP: number 3 and now for the Celery Seed.
If you leave your Celery leaf over winter, the plant will bolt to seed in Spring.
What can you do with that?
Apart from replanting fresh seed, the seeds are actually edible.

• Ever heard of Celery salt?

What you can also do is grind it up in your mortar and pestle with a little sea salt. Better than from the supermarket shelf.
Plus you can enjoy the dainty white umbels of flowers.
After a couple of months, pick leaves as you need them to put in soups, stews, stocks and sauces.
A few eaves go well in salads with a strong blue cheese or some or cured meats.

• How else to use leaf celery?

Packed with flavour and fibre, it's best to thinly slice cutting celery crosswise or diagonally.
A sharp knife makes quick work of slicing and dicing any type of garden celery.
Use it as you would regular celery, eat it raw or cooked in long slow cooked meals, or as flavouring in sauces.
Why is it good for you?
The leaves are brimming with five times more magnesium and calcium than the stalks. They're also a rich source of vitamin C and antioxidant’
The good thing is Leaf Celery is low in carbs, and has even a small amount of fibre.

THAT WAS YOUR VEGETABLE HERO FOR TODAY

Allspice and Cloves but Not With Beans

We start with allspice and cloves, similar but different, how? That’s in the spice it up segment, growing beans in Vegetable Heroes; a new series called ‘so you think you need a landscaper part 2, with Peter Nixon in Design elements and buttons on stalks in plant of the week.

SPICE IT UP

Allspice vs Cloves

How well do you know your spices?
Would you think for instance, that allspice and mixed spice are the same?

Pimenta doica_allspice tree with berries.

Would cloves be a good substitute to save you running to the store, if you ran out?
Let’s find out.  I'm talking with Ian Hemphill from www.herbies.com.au 

Even the Spaniards were confused with the allspice berry when they invaded Jamaica, thinking it was a type of pepper.  Probably why the allspice tree is Pimento doica.

• The allspice berries  are picked when they're green and put out to dry in the sun.

Allspice and cloves

The heat of the sun activates the enzyme which turns the berries dark brown.

At night, the berries are heaped into a pile and covered with a tarpaulin.

The next day they are spread out in the sun again. 

This process is repeated over three to four days, by the end of which time, a volatile oil develops called eugenol.

It turns out that allspice and basil, also have a lot in common, because both contain the essential oil eugenol. 

That means both are perfect partners in tomato dishes.

• But it also turns out you can use allspice instead of mixedspice but at 1/3 of the quantity because it’s much stronger. 
• The clove tree is Syzygium aromaticum. The unopened flower bud is the clove.

.If you have any questions, please write in to
Realworldgardener@gmail.com or write in to 2rrr, PO Box 644 Gladesville NSW 1675.

VEGETABLE HEROES

Beans: Phaseolus vulgaris

Do you love your beans?

Did you know that beans have been an important part of the human diet for thousands of years?

• Beans are a legume in the Faboidea or the pea family.

Scarlet runner beans

So you would think that beans are easy to grow but for whatever reason, some people find them challenging to germinate.

• You may already know that as well as other legumes, beans have nitrogen fixing nodules on their roots. Yep, that’s right, the roots make nitrogen out of the air and deposit it into the soil.
• Lightning storms are even better for that reason because they convert nitrogen into ammonium ions which is what plants need before they can take it up.

Green beans, either climbing or dwarf, are also called string beans and snap beans.

Dwarf beans are very quick growing and may be sown every three or four weeks from spring to give a succession of pickings throughout summer. They’re handy for filling in any gaps and perfect for tubs and window boxes.

Green beans can be yellow

• Green beans generally have smooth, slender pods.
• Runner beans tend to have slightly coarser pods and continue cropping a few weeks later than string beans.

Then there are the beans exclusive to warmer climates including soya beans, lima beans, and the appropriately named yard-long beans!

How To Grow

To grow beans you need up to four months of warm weather.

In subtropical climates beans can be grown almost all year.

For temperate and arid zones, mid-spring through to late summer are the best times to plant.

In colder districts, beans, don’t like the cold at all and they certainly don’t like frost.

You have until the end of summer, certainly you wouldn’t be expecting any cold snaps now.

Tropical districts, once again, need to wait until the winter months to sow beans.

For those gardeners having trouble getting beans to germinate, beans are best planted at soil temperatures between 16°C and 30°C.

If the temperature is colder , you probably will strike out.

How to Sow and Grow Your Beans

• Drop in two seeds per hole, so they fall about 2cm apart, and 5cm deep.
• Cover with soil, seed raising mix, or compost. Grown this way the beans will mostly shade out competing weeds and 'self-mulch'.
• An important fact about growing beans is that they need well-drained soils with a pH between 6.5 and 7.0 and are sensitive to deficiencies or high levels of minerals in the soil-especially climbing beans.

  

  Bean plants can self mulch if planted closely.

How To Water Your Beans

When growing green beans, keep the soil moist.

A good rule of thumb is to put a finger in the dirt and if the dirt is dry up to the first knuckle, then it needs about an inch of water.

Keep your beans watered and watch for vegetable bugs and green caterpillars

• TIP: Pods won’t set at temperatures above 27⁰ C.

Did you know that if you pick the beans as soon as they’re ready, you’ll get new flowers?

If you neglect your bean plants and let your beans get large and stringy, flowering will slow right down, and you probably won’t get any more beans from your plants.

• Tip: To have beans all summer long, plant more seed as soon as the previous planting starts to flower.

Beans do poorly in very wet or humid tropical climates because they get bacterial and fungal diseases.

Go easy on the fertiliser or you’ll get lots of leaves and no beans.

When are beans ready pick I hear you ask?

Usually in about 10-12 weeks.

• Pick them when they are about as thick as a pencil, smaller if you want a better, tender taste.

Dragons Tongue beans

 Why are they good for you?

Green Beans are a good source of vitamin C and also contain calcium, magnesium, zinc and Vitamin A. But, the most important nutritional fact for beans is that they provide a major source of soluble fibre, great for lowering cholesterol.

Also is a source of folate .

Some varieties of the dwarf  beans are

Brown Beauty-flat pods

Dwarf Snake Beans-ready in 11 weeks.

Windsor Delight has long pods of about 15cm.

Blue Lake Climbing, long pods again but they’re round this time.

So happy bean growing gardeners!

THAT WAS YOUR VEGETABLE HERO FOR TODAY

Longing for Tropical Fruit

Spice it Up

with Ian Hemphill www.herbies.com.au
Have you ever thought about what part of a plant the clove comes from?
Is there such a thing as a clove tree or bush?

Or perhaps your thinking is more along the lines of where else can you use clove spices other than when making Christmas cake, Christmas pudding and Fruit Mince Pies? Oh, and of course in all things apple. Did you know dentists used to use oil of Cloves when putting in a filling in your tooth because of the strong antiseptic properties?
Listen to yet another amazing tale about the spice trade!

Did you catch that tip from Ian?
Next time you make that pasta sauce, add a pinch of ground cloves to add another great flavour.
Cloves contain Eugenol oil which is also found in Basil leaves, so they’ll certainly go great with all your pasta sauces.
You can also grow the Clove tree, Szygium aromaticum go to www.daleysfruit.com.au
If you have any questions about using cloves why not drop us a line by sending in your question to realworldgardener@gmail.com or by post to 2RRR P.O. Box 644 Gladesville NSW 1675, and I’ll send you a copy of the Garden Guardians in return..

Vegetable Heroes: Silverbeet

SILVERBEET or Beta vulgaris is grown as a leaf vegetable in Australia.
Had you ever heard of the other names for Silverbeet?
What about Swiss Chard, Spinach, Perpetual Spinach, Strawberry Spinach, Seakale beet, Sicilian and Chilean Beet,Roman Kale, or Mangold?
Silverbeet, or Swiss Chard is a leafy relative of beetroot, another member of the Beta vulgaris species.
Swiss chard isn't native to Switzerland but actually comes from the coasts of Portugal, Spain and the Mediterranean islands.

Why Swiss Chard?  Is it because the Swiss grew it everywhere?
Not exactly. It’s named that way because a Swiss botanist Koch decided the scientific name of this plant in the 19th century.
Because of that, the common name has honoured Kochies' homeland.
Do you throw away your silver beet stems? Put it in the compost maybe?
Did you know that apart from the leaves of silverbeet that’s eaten like spinach, the stems may be cooked like celery?
I can tell you they’re pretty tasty.
The seedlings can also be served in salads.
Silverbeet is a little bit like (Spinacia oleracea L.),but silver beet has a larger, coarser, milder tasting leaf.
Silver beet’s also more tolerant of cold, heat, drought and disease.
Some of us have tried to grow Spinach in warmer weather, but you might as well give up, because Silver Beet beats it hands down.
Silver beet doesn’t easily go to seed during hot weather and doesn’t wilt quite as much as English Spinach.
The stems can be white, red, pink, orange or yellow. The leaves may be smooth or crinkled.
Leaf colours vary from light to dark green to deep red.
In general, the paler the leaf colour the milder the leaf flavour.

Where and When  to Grow:

Silverbeet grows in full sun or part shade.
Although it’s fairly wind hardy, strong winds can cause leaf damage in open sites.
If you want to grow Silverbeet in a pot, no problem at all.

For temperate districts, you can sow Silverbeet from September through to next May.
 Cool temperate districts, from September to March.
Sub-tropical areas and arid areas, you can sow Silverbeet all year round, and for tropical regions, only sow Silverbeet from April to July.

 

Growing Silverbeet

Silver beet can be direct sown or transplanted.
When you open the packet of seeds, you’ll see knobbly cluster seeds.
Each one of these clusters has two to six seeds in it..
The cluster seed is sown 1/2 cm deep in the soil or into seed trays for transplanting.
Then the usual thing-keep the soil moist until seedlings emerge, usually in about 10 days.
Thin them out when the silverbeets are 5cm high and use the thinned out seedlings in stir fries.
Silver beet needs plenty of nitrogen and water for the fast growth of large, well-shaped, not too tough leaves.
Commercial growers often add copious quantities of animal manures, composts or green manures.
That means, Alfalfa or lucerne is grown first to put lots of Nitrogen into the soil with their nitrogen fixing nodules.
Don’t use fresh animal manures because the animal manures need to be composted to avoid nitrogen drawn down and spoiling the silver beet leaves with food poisoning micro-organisms.
Applying some blood and bone fertiliser before sowing gives silver beet crops a good start, especially on sandy soils.
Did you realise that Silver beet leaves are 93% water?
Like a lot of our veggies, we need to keep up the water in hot weather to stop them from wilting.
Having said that, if your silverbeet has wilted, it will recover after watering.

If you’re using the sprinkler, early in the morning is best to avoid fungal problems on the leaves.
The one fungal disease I have noticed is called Cercospora leaf spot (Cercospora beticola Sacc.) and is the most common fungal disease.
It produces light grey spots with brown margins on the older leaves. These spots fall out and create holes in the leaves.
The disease is favoured by high temperatures (24° to 30°C), high humidity or long periods of leaf wetness.
Cercospora leaf spot comes from infected seed, diseased host crops or weeds growing near the silver beet.
If you do get this problem, don’t grow silverbeet in that spot for another 3 years.
Silverbeet can be cut and come again with multiple pickings.
The outer leaves are picked by pulling them down to 2.5 cm above the plant base, leaving the central leaves behind.
TIP: If you pull rather rather than cut the outer leaves, you won’t damage the inner leaves as much in later pickings.
Silverbeet is really fast growing and is ready in about 8 weeks and when the leaves are about the size of a ruler, ie, 30cm long.

 

Why is it good for you?
Like many leafy green vegetables, silverbeet has high levels of magnesium, calcium, vitamin K, iron, potassium, vitamin A –
Did you know that if you’re a smoker you should eat vitamin A, rich foods?
That’s because a carcinogen found in cigarette smoke induces Vitamin A deficiency.

Silverbeet should always be included in diets of vegans and vegetarians, who should always eat plenty green leafy vegetables. 
Happy silverbeet growing everyone!

Design Elements

with Louise McDaid, Landscape Designer,

So, you want a blue and white garden, or maybe purple and white?
Is colour important in garden design? But should you religiously stick to those two colours or should you use another colour? Let’s find out….

 

 

 

The colour wheel is great to remember when picking colours for your garden.

That’ll help getting a gaudy mix of colours that just doesn’t work.

www.realworldgardener.com

If you have any questions about this week’s Design Elements, send it our email address, or just post it.

 

 

 

Plant of the Week

LONGAN TREE, Dimocarpus longan  or Euphoria longan.  Are you looking for something different to plant in your garden? Don’t just always go for the ornamental flowering types. What about something that you can add to ice-cream? From Adelaide to Perth, Cooktown to Warners Bay, growing some tropical fruit can be achieved Try this one.


 

 

If you can’t grow Lychees but would like to, then the Longan tree is for you.

The Longan is in the same family as the Lycee tree-Sapindaceae or soapberry family.
Longan trees are more adaptable than Lychee trees.
Longan trees tolerate some frost and drier and cooler conditions.

1. Longans , are evergreen trees with lime green foliage.
2. The flowers are in panicles at the ends of the branches with male and female flowers in the same panicle. No problem with pollination.
3. For fruit set of longans and lychees, cold, wind or rain will interfere with pollination when in flower.
4. Hot dry winds will affect the crop at any time and cause fruit drop.
5. Always plant your tree in a sheltered area.
6. In Australia, grow Longans and Lychees from cooktown to Grafton but they have been grown in Perth (a friend who grows them there) Adelaide and in parts of Victoria.
7. Really, Longans and Lychees are too big to grow in a pot for more than a few years.
8. In cooler areas, plant your tree under another larger tree, and in areas where the sun is blasting during summer, protect your tree from direct sun.
9. In the natural environment, Longans and Lychees are understorey trees in rainforests where cloudy skies and high humidity are the norm.

My friend in Perth has built a shade cloth shelter on three sides of his trees.
Water your trees regularly and fertilise with a small amount every month in the growing season.
That means around 30g per month in the first year, 50g in the second until it starts to fruit.
Then keep it at that rate each month.
TIP: In cooler districts, leave out the autumn feed.
Good tip: not attacked by fruit fly.

 Thai varieties of Longans are considered the best according to Louis Glowinski, author of Fruit Tree Growing In Australia.

A close relative to the Lychee tree but much larger, stronger and more cold tolerant.
The fruit is deliciously sweet, bearing just after the lychee,  so for Lychee lovers this is a welcomed taste variation to look forward to.
A highly ornamental tree with beautiful green leaves and clusters of yellow flowers that have a wonderful scent.

If you want to buy a Longan tree, www.daleysfruit.com.au

Some have marcotted trees-- Marcotts are a kind of cutting that strikes while attached to the parent tree. Like air layering.
In some districts, you need to do a bit more work, like build a three sided shelter for the formative years of the tree.
Keeping it away from windy locations, by perhaps growing it underneath a larger canopy tree.
The upside is the fruit isn’t affected by fruit fly. How good is that?
Longan - Kohala Seedling originally from Hawaii
The early ripening fruit is really sweet.

Longan - Haew is a late maturing cultivar. The high quality fruit is medium to large in size with a rather small seed. Being a late fruiting cultivar it tends to bear in alternate years. Marcotted trees will commence bearing in 2 years.

Longan - Biew Kiew
This variety from Thailand is well suited to the sub tropics where it receives cooler winters. It is a heavy consistant cropper with good quality fruits that come off later in the season than the Kohala.  

Extra Notes from reader Jonathon.

I am currently growing 7 longan varieties in marginal climate (50km NE Adelaide). Here Biew Kiew and Haew do better than Kohala (longer growing season and more vigorous). By far my best performing and fruiting variety is Homestead. (Not able to source this variety so far - editor's note.) | from Jonathan - Gawler, SA 15-Dec-2006