Blueberry Hill?

I am thinking of renaming my place Blueberry Hill after the number of blueberry bushes that I now have producing fruit! The only problem being that I am at the bottom of the hill, not up the top?

How it started?

It all started with one little blueberry bush that I found on the ‘take me home and love me’ tray at the Big Green Shed! The poor thing was soo close to dead! It didn’t even have a label and was reduced to $1.00. This bush has become so productive that I wrote a separate blog about it. As a result I was given another 2 blueberry bushes that people had not been able to get to produce fruit. Since then, these blueberries have flowered and produced a couple of great crops of blueberries!

Since then I have found more blueberry plants on the ‘take me home and love me’ tray at the Big Green shed. Of course I just can’t resist these temptations?

Grow and thrive

As they grow and thrive in part shade at my place, they have become a great filler plant. I have them in pots as well as in the ground. They are great for under larger fruit trees and deciduous flowering trees.

I cannot believe how different the fruit taste straight from the bush! They are sooo sweet. Absolutely none of the tartness or blandness you can get from store bought blueberries. And the size! They can be double the size of the store bought fruit!

And what’s even better is that they are good for your health, with research showing that the anthocyanins that cause the bright blue colour are helpful in combating several human diseases and may even prevent some cancers!

So, why not grow some yourself?

Happy gardening from your edible garden guru ?

The post Are Blueberry’s Easy to Grow? appeared first on Delectable Garden.

In Brisbane we grow a fabulous range of vegetables throughout winter. These include lettuce, bok choy, eggplants, tomatoes, kale and most leafy green vegetables.

I was planting up my vegetable garden the other day in time for winter and was planting some more red veined sorrel. It’s really attractive, and adds colour to the garden. As I was removing the seedling from its pot I noticed the label described red veined sorrel as a “Superfood”.

Now I must admit that I have been noticing quite a few vegetables labelled as Superfood in the nursery lately. So I decided to find out what exactly what this constituted a superfood.

You probably won’t be surprised to know that there are lots of conflicting opinions of what exactly constituted a superfood.

General consensus was that superfood is a marketing term to describe a food that is nutrient dense. This means that they contain lots of vitamins and minerals. They also contain lots of micronutrients such as anthocyanins and lycopenes. Researchers are discovering that many micronutrients are instrumental in helping to protect us from cancer. They also work at protecting us from many age-related illnesses.

Most green leafy vegetables are considered a superfood, as are many herbs and fruits.

In fact I would go as far as to say, if you can grow it and eat it, it is a superfood! Many processed foods have empty nutrient foods like sugar added to them. This dilutes the nutrient value of the food.

Processing, especially with lots of heat destroys nutrients. Also, removing layers such as peeling vegetables, removes a lot of nutirents which are then discarded. Food manufacturers add back many synthetic vitamins and minerals to replace those remove during processing. But what about the nutrients we have yet to discover are in the raw foods that may be good for our health?

I think it’s a sad indictment on our lifestyles and current way of life that we have to relabel foods fresh from nature as superfoods!

Let us know what you think in the comments area below.

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My sister is a huge fan of peppermint tea. She often uses it to finish off her dinner. She says that it helps her digestion, and it is a good substitute for dessert with no calories!

I have been doing some research for my new book and it turns out that my sister is right! Peppermint tea has some real health benefits. These include aiding digestion, assisting weight loss, helping to deal with stress, ensuring you sleep better, helping concentration and reducing the effects of a headache. Pretty great huh!

It turns out that the menthol in Peppermint tea, which is its main active ingredient, does help with digestion.

If you take it before the meal it can actually work as an appetite suppressant, ensuring that you eat less!

If you want to lose weight, try starting your day with an infusion of Peppermint Tea and Green tea. This helps stimulate your metabolism, as the catechins in green tea are proven to help boost metabolism and the Peppermint tea reduces appetite.

The menthol in the peppermint tea has other uses. It is a proven muscle relaxant so it comes in handy as a natural way to reduce stress! Just grab a cup of peppermint tea mid-afternoon instead of reaching for your usual caffeine hit! By helping to relax muscles and reduce stress, peppermint tea can also help alleviate headaches. And if you have a cup of peppermint tea before bed, not only will it help you sleep better, it will also give you more colourful dreams!

If you really want to boost the effects of the peppermint tea, then make it from fresh peppermint leaves rather than using dried, processed teas.

Peppermint

Peppermint is really easy to grow in your garden, even if you only have a balcony! Just ensure you keep it moist as, being natural hybrid between spearmint and water mint, it just loves water!

Be careful planting it out in your garden though. Like all plants in the mint family it can become very invasive. I find it best to plant in a pot which I keep in semi shade. It gets some morning sun and it just thrives.

A word of warning though. Like all good things, it can have some downsides. If you are pregnant then it is a good idea to avoid peppermint. And sadly some people are allergic to the menthol.

Luckily I’m not one of them, so I think I’ll be growing and using more of this magic herb now that I know more about its health benefits.

Happy gardening 🙂

Rohanne, your Personal Gardening Expert

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I was down the market the other day and saw that they had lemongrass for sale – 3 stalks for $5.00!

Honestly, if you don’t know how to grow lemongrass you would think at that price that Lemongrass was a precious, hard to grow herb. In reality, growing Lemongrass is easy!

You can grow lemongrass from seed or seedling. It can even grow it by buying one of those stalks and allowing it to take root in a glass of water!

Lemongrass

Lemongrass is not fussy about soil, water, fertiliser. In fact, it’s not fussy about much. I even had a clump growing in a crack in a concrete driveway!

Actually, I would say there are more “Do Nots” when it comes to growing lemongrass!

My list of “Do Not’s” when growing lemongrass include:

1. Don’t plant it directly in the garden, unless you have a massive yard or a corner where absolutely nothing with grow! Always keep it contained in a pot.

2. Do Not plant it in a small pot. I would recommend a fairly large pot as the plant can be large when established so can look top heavy or even break a smaller pot.

3. Do Not plant it in a mixed pot with other herbs. It will smother the other herbs.

4. Do Not let it get out of control! Prune it regularly, and hard. It responds well to being controlled.

5. Do Not let it go to “flower”! Its flowers are more like a fluffy fringe similar to most grass flowers. If you let it go to seed, the wind and birds will disperse the seed and you and your neighbours will have it everywhere. In fact, lemongrass has become an environmental weed in many parts of Queensland.

6. Do Not fertilise it. The more you fertilise, the larger the clump will grow and the more flower spikes it will send up!

7. Do Not ignore little seedlings that pop up in your garden. These seedling are not cute, as they grow into massive clumps!

So Why Grow Lemongrass?

Well, it is fabulous in curries, stir fry’s, laksa and many Thai and Asian-based soups.  And it makes a really refreshing tea!

If you do use it in cooking, then its better to grow it than pay $5 for a small bunch!

To use lemongrass if you are growing it, just go to the base of the plant, find a thick stalk and twist to break it away from the mother plant. It should come away fairly easily. Be careful with the leaves as they are razor-sharp on the edges. Cut the top of the stalk off, leaving about 20-30cm.

Trim the base, peel off the outer layers until you reach the softer whitish centre. This can then be sliced into thin rings, pounded with a rolling pin or crushed in a mortar and pestle.

lemongrass stalk

If you are buying a stalk, choose stalks that feel heavy. Otherwise, it may have been picked too long and allowed to dry out, leaving it less tasty and woodier in texture.

Lemongrass adds a lovely mild citrusy flavour to many Asian recipes, but I find that the woody texture is an acquired taste. It’s better to cut the stalk into 6 cm pieces and just bruise it with a mallet to release the oils.

I then add the bruised lemongrass pieces to the soup or curry early in the cooking process, and remove the stalks before serving. If I want to add it to a stir-fry, I slice it into thin rings and bash it in a mortar and pestle.

It also makes a refreshing tea. Just add the bruised stalks to a pot or teacup, cover with boiling water and let it infuse. Remove the stalks and drink the tea.

Alternatively, use lemongrass to add a lovely citrus flavour to a bottle of vodka for cocktails. Just peel and bruise a lemongrass stalk, put it in a nearly full bottle of vodka, allow to steep for 3-4 days, shaking occasionally and remove the stalks.

lemongrass plant

Like many herbs and spices, it is high in vitamins including vitamins A, C and traces of B group vitamins. It is also high in minerals including magnesium, folate, iron, potassium, copper, phosphorus and manganese. The human body needs the vitamins and minerals to function effectively.

Lemongrass has an extensive history of use in Asian countries for its medicinal properties including its anti-fungal and anti-microbial properties and it is reported to reduce the symptoms associated with colds and flu’s.

It has been called fever grass for its ability to reduce raised body temperatures and is also said to be good for arthritis and joint pain, lowering cholesterol and the risk of heart disease and delaying age-related chronic diseases!

So why not grow some lemongrass today?

Happy Gardening

Rohanne, Your Personal Garden Expert

The post Growing Lemongrass in Australia appeared first on Delectable Garden.

Here are a few things you need to know about how to grow Turmeric

Turmeric is an attractive plant with wide, bright green leaves and beautiful flowers. The flowers look like they are made out of silk. Growing Turmeric is easy!

turmeric plant

To grow your own Turmeric, all you need to do is get a piece of Turmeric root from your local market and plant it in a good quality potting mix. Keep it moist, but not wet in a warm, sheltered location protected from frosts and cold mornings.

I prefer to grow my Turmeric in a pot as it makes it easy to move around the garden and to harvest the corms. However, if you are going to grow Turmeric further south than the NSW central coast, or anywhere where you get cold winters, this becomes more of a necessity.

By growing your Turmeric in pots you can start growing it under shelter. Move it outside as the weather warms up.

I find mine does best with some shelter from the hot afternoon sun in summer. It takes about 8 months to grow a crop. This might seem a bit excessive but at $50 or more per kilo you soon see the benefits. Especially as you will probably find that it has pretty much filled the pot in this time!

To harvest your Turmeric, wait until the leaves have died down then dig up the plant. Pull the roots away from any stem that remains. Wash off the dirt and it’s ready to use.

Turmeric corm

When dealing with fresh Turmeric you need to use gloves, or you will have yellow-stained fingers for quite a few days. Turmeric adds a warm, earthy peppery flavour to many Indian and Asian recipes, especially when used fresh.

I usually grate mine and use in curries or stir-fries. Its also great in a Turmeric latte heated with almond milk and organic honey and then strained.

Otherwise, you can dehydrate thin slices in an oven or food dehydrator and then crush into a powder when dry.

If you are used to cooking with ground turmeric spice, take care when using it fresh as it is much stronger in taste and you will only need a small amount to really add its peppery zest to a meal. I find the fresh Turmeric a much nicer flavour than the dried powders.

Like many herbs and spices, Turmeric is being welcomed as a super-food and it seems that many of its claims are being supported by science. It is high in an anti-oxidant called curcumin, which is being promoted as having anti-inflammatory and even anti-cancer properties.

A number of the claims being backed up by science. These include it being very good for arthritis and joint pain, lowering the risk of heart disease and delaying age-related chronic diseases, as well as being helpful in the prevention and treatment of some cancers!

Some of the information that you read says that there may not enough of these health giving properties in the natural food, and that you have to take it as a supplement in order to get the benefits. However, it seems this is not completely true (surprise, surprise the supplements manufacturers aren’t telling us the full truth).

It has been used for thousands of years in Chinese and Indian medicine without needing to be concentrated, although research has shown that, when Turmeric is heated with fats and other spices, particularly black pepper its effectiveness is increased by up to 2000 percent.

So why not try to grow Turmeric today.

Happy gardening!

Rohanne, your Personal Garden Expert

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What is Echinacea?

Echinacea

Echinacea is a herb that helps our immune system protect us from catching colds and flu.

It also plays a role in shortening the duration of sickness if you do catch a cold. These health effects have been supported by research.

Echinacea is also known as the purple cone flower and is a perennial plant that is really easy to grow. It grows up to 140 cm or 4 feet.

Echinacea seeds

How do you grow Echinacea?

All you need to grow Echinacea is a well-drained soil with a neutral pH, some seeds or a piece of Echinacea root and a full sun to part shade position. I find in the sub-tropics that my Echinacea needs some protection from the hot afternoon sun.

Plant the seeds (see photo) and they will germinate in around 14 days and, if planted in spring will flower in the first year.

What are Echinacea’ benefits?

Most of you would be aware of Echinacea and its health benefits.

Did you know however that you can get all the benefits of Echinacea from the actual Echinacea plant? This may even be better for you, given that researchers have found that over 10% of commercially available Echinacea pills contained absolutely no Echinacea!

All you need to do is make and drink echinacea tea.

To make Echinacea tea, finely chop a few echinacea leaves, then squeeze the pulp through a strainer to yield about half a teaspoon of juice. Dilute in hot water and drink.

Adults can take this dose three times per day, making a fresh batch each time.

As with many herbal remedies, it is not suitable for people who are pregnant and breastfeeding, are taking immuno-suppressive medication or are allergic to other members of the Asteraceae family.

Echinacea is a perennial which means that the plant will die back in winter, which is often when you need the plant’s health effects most!! Don’t worry.

You can use some grated root to make a tea or you can dry the leaves when it is flowering abundantly and use the dried leaves to make the tea.

Happy gardening

Rohanne, your Personal Gardening Expert

The post How to grow Echinacea plants? appeared first on Delectable Garden.

Visitors to my garden are often surprised to see my lettuce, mizuna and other veggies flowering and going to seed at the end of the season.

Why don’t you just rip them out they ask?

Lettuce in flower

Well, one of the reasons is that vegetables flower and provide a great food source for my native bees and other beneficial insects! They actually help to attract these beneficial insects into my garden!

Beneficial insects are great because they will attack and eat the bad bugs likely to be feasting on your veggies.

Besides, as a bonus, I get new seeds that are totally adapted to their environment. This means that they grow quicker, are more resistant to pests and diseases and taste better!

Lettuce seeds on the plant

Most importantly, I know that the vegetable seeds haven’t been coated in any fungicides or pesticides. This means they are organic and just as nature intended!

At the moment I am on my sixth generation of mignonette lettuces. The lettuces continue to happily self-seed in the vegetable garden and adjacent path. Therefore all I have to do is give them the occasional water, some organic fertiliser and then I get to pick the leaves as I need them!

Mignonette lettuce seedlings

The mignonette lettuces seem to be almost totally immune to any pests or diseases. And they taste so much better than anything you can buy in the shops!

So, why don’t you experiment on letting some of your vegetables flower and develop seeds for your garden?

You too can benefit from growing your own seeds and vegetables that have become conditioned to your natural environment!

Happy gardening

Rohanne, your Personal Garden Expert

The post Should I let vegetables flower and set seed? How to save seeds for next year’s garden appeared first on Delectable Garden.

I was down at my local farmers market on the weekend, and I noticed some Galangal root for sale.

This is great, as it can be hard to find in the shops and local markets at this time of year. I grow my own Galangal and it will soon be in flower and after the leaves die down it is ready to harvest.

Galangal root

If you haven’t tried Galangal, it is a member of the ginger family ginger. And, like ginger, is used extensively in cooking.

Galangal is found primarily in Thai, Malaysian and Indonesian cuisines. It has a hotter, more peppery taste than ginger with under-notes of pine and citrus.

To use it, add it to soups such as Thai Chicken and Coconut soup. Its also an important ingredient in many Thai curry pastes.

Depending which recipes you read, some say if you don’t have Galangal you can substitute ginger. Other recipes say that it is different and that ginger and galangal cannot be used interchangeably. I am in the latter camp as to me they have different flavours to contribute.

Galangal is closely related to Ginger and, as such, has many of the healing and medicinal uses attributed to ginger. It is said that consuming Galangal on a regular basis can help with digestion, reducing bloating, constipation and vomiting.

Like ginger, Galangal helps reduce motion sickness and nausea. It has proven anti-inflammatory properties, which means that it can help treat arthritis and rheumatoid arthritis.

Galangal has been shown to improve blood circulation, improving oxygen supply and nutrient supply to the extremities including the hands and feet. As such it has been credited as assisting with hair growth and to treat baldness, although this is not proven.

It can also help respiratory problems. A mixture of Galangal and lime juice can be used as a tonic for coughs and colds.

As Galangal is high in anti-oxidants it helps to minimise the damage caused by free radicals and other toxins in the body.

Galangal is a tropical plant, although it grows well in Brisbane, and can be grown as far south as Melbourne with a bit of care.

It is an attractive plant, very similar to ginger with quite narrow strappy green leaves. I prefer to grow my Galangal in a pot as it makes it easy to harvest, but this becomes more of a necessity if you are going to grow Galangal further south than the central coast.

This way you can start growing your Galangal under shelter and move it outside as the weather warms up.

Galangal plant

Galangal is really easy to grow and is seldom bothered by insects or disease.

All you need to do is get a piece of Galangal root from your local market and plant it in good quality potting mix. Keep it moist, but not wet in a warm, sheltered location.

I find mine does best with some shelter from the hot afternoon sun. It takes about 8 months to grow a crop. But in this time you will be probably find that it has pretty much filled the pot, depending on how big a pot you started with of course!

Yes, that may seem a while but at between $30 to $50 per kilo it’s worth it! So why not try growing some today?

Happy gardening

Rohanne, your Personal Garden Expert

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Here are five new year resolutions that have been tweeted as popular this year. And how your garden can help you to keep to achieve these resolutions in the next the 365 days.

Resolution 1: Exercise more

Exercise more

A lot of people start the New Year with a resolution to exercise more. This may be because they want to get fitter or because they want to lose weight.

You may already be getting some exercise. But most of the time you just sit around at home and at work, and this can have a negative effect on your health and your posture. In fact, sitting has been called “the new smoking” because of the negative effects on our health.

The garden can help you keep this resolution! You could actually grow some things that you can eat.

Gardening is a great activity for increasing your health and fitness.

Don’t have much space? It’s amazing how much you can grow in a pot or a vertical garden.

A patch of greenery can be a great positive influence for you in the concrete jungle we live in!

Resolution 2: Engage more with people and less with Social Media

Engage with more people

It’s even more fun if you share your gardening activities with friends and family.

Invite them over to help you set up your garden. Even better, invite them for a meal, where you can serve them something you have grown! Another way you can meet people and connect is to attend gardening clubs or join gardening groups on Meet-Up or Facebook.

Resolution 3: Eat Healthier Food

Vibrant veggies

There is soo much fast food around today that it sometimes seems harder to actually make healthier choices. Again, your garden can help.

When you get to eat something that you have grown and nurtured, it brings a whole new meaning and flavour to your food. Growing your own lettuce is easy. And the bonus is that you only pick what you need for your meal and leave the rest still growing in the garden, instead of getting slimy in the bottom of your fridge!

Try growing herbs such as Basil, Thyme, Sage or Mint and add them to your salads. It will add a huge flavour boost and the added bonus of knowing you grew them. Therefore they haven’t been treated with nasty chemicals that aren’t good for the bad bugs, but they aren’t good for you either!

Resolution 4: Reduce Stress

Even if you don’t have a green thumb, digging in the dirt, planting and nurturing plant life can be very therapeutic and stress relieving. Gardening has been proven to reduce stress.

Doctors have been able to test levels of the stress hormone cortisol. These tests show that cortisol levels decrease massively after we have been gardening and playing in the dirt.

I know that life can get busy and it can be hard to find time to do some gardening, but even a few indoor or outdoor potted plants have been shown to have these stress-reducing benefits.

Resolution 5: Start saving money.

There are lots of ways that your garden can help you save money.

By making healthy lifestyle changes, like cutting back on fast food and eating fresh salads from your garden. Gardening can also be a physical activity, which helps burn calories. So why not trade in your gym membership which costs both money and time and trade it for exercising at home in your garden?

The benefits are that you actually get an end product that you can use in your kitchen!

Don’t know where to start? Contact us at The Delectable Garden. We’d love to help you.

Happy gardening 

Rohanne, your Personal Garden Expert

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Davidson Plums

I was soo excited the other morning to find that my Davidson plum tree has finally given me some fruit!

This tree has been in my garden for 6 years. While it has been happily growing skyward, up to this year, it has refused to give me any fruit.

Everyone else has been boasting about the fruit they have picked, often off younger trees. So last winter I gave my tree a severe talking to, and told it that unless it started to fruit we would be considering its future! I’m not sure if that is what worked, but it has given finally me some plums! Yay

So what is a Davidson Plum?

For those who haven’t heard of Davidson plums, or haven’t tried them, they are an Australian native rainforest tree. The tree a produces a very tart plum-like fruit. Davidson plums were an important part of bush-tucker that has found its way onto high class restaurant tables!

They look very similar to a blood plum in colour, with a beautiful dark purple skin and blood red flesh and soft juicy pulp when ripe. However the fruit is generally considered too tart to eat raw, although the aboriginals didn’t seem to mind the tartness!

Plum jam

It makes a fabulous jam that makes normal plum jam taste bland by comparison.

Possible Health benefits?

Most noteworthy though is the fact that the Davidson plum is being researched for its possible health benefits. It is high in antioxidants, being rich in both anthocyanins and lutein. These are two micronutrients which are believed to protect against age-related diseases such as dementia, deterioration of sight and heart disease as well as some cancers.

Davidson plums are an excellent source of potassium. They are also a significant non-dairy source of calcium. The plums are a good source of Vitamin E and zinc, which help improve skin health and reduce the signs of aging.  Finally, the Davidson plums are being researched for their potential ability to reduce high blood pressure and obesity.

If you should be lucky enough to stumble across a source of Davidson plums, whether fresh or as a jam or cordial then I recommend you try them out. Not only will your taste buds thank you, but so may your health.

Happy gardening 🙂

Rohanne, your Personal Garden Expert

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