'Tis the season

Autumn this year in Perth has arrived really late. I like to get my garlic in the ground in March, but I still think there's a bit of time left if you've been meaning to plant some and just haven't got around to it.

Here's the garlic I planted starting to come up.

The best garlic to plant is locally-grown so go to your fruit and veggie shop or veggie markets and pick up a few bulbs, break them up into cloves and choose a sunny spot to plant them.

Just remember to dig in a generous amount of manure into the soil and plant them, pointy side up, about a finger deep.

The green shoots should come through after a couple of weeks. Just leave them until around October/November and you'll be ready to harvest... lazy gardening at its best!

A planting frenzy!

Just putting a quick shout out to all the people who've planted garlic in the past week!

I was overwhelmed by the response to my post 'Get some garlic in'. Lots of people have sent messages or stopped me to tell me they'd bought their garlic or had planted it already. You will be so happy you did later in the year when you taste your own home-grown garlic. And you'll be surprised by how flavoursome it is!

Watch out now for the shoots to start appearing, they'll be up in no time! Here's my garlic patch starting to sprout:

Don't worry if you haven't planted any yet, there's still some time left to get them in the ground. I will keep you up to date with how mine are growing and remind you later in the year when to stop watering and let the plants die back and also when to dig up the bulbs and hang them up to dry. For now though, sit back and relax and watch them grow.

Get some Garlic in!

 

It is time to plant some garlic. How do I know that? Because my wonderful Italian neighbour told me so. And she left a container of her very own garlic at my doorstep as a reminder! Last year I planted my garlic too late in the season and you may remember that it didn't grow very well. Although it was delicious and I'm still using the last few bulbs, each bulb was only one clove, not a group of cloves like normal. When we moved into the street less than a year ago, my neighbour promised me she'd tell me when she planted her garlic, so I could follow. I hadn't expected her to give me some of her garlic collection so I'd already been to the markets and picked up a few bulbs of locally-grown varieties. I ended up with this: 

 

 

 

I gave some of the cloves to my colleague to plant in her garden. As I've said before, garlic is the perfect 'vegetable' for the lazy gardener to grow. You buy a bulb or two from your grocery store (make sure it's Australian because the imported ones are bleached and sprayed with horrid chemicals). Break it into cloves, plant each one about 15cm apart, pointy side up about 1cm below the soil surface. Then you wait... you don't have to do look after them, they generally look after themselves. Then later in the year, when the weather starts to warm up again, you can harvest.

 

I recently advised a friend to plant some among his roses. The plants don't look unattractive and might even keep some bugs off his plants.

 

I lost count of how many I planted this year... it could be close to 100. So my friends might be getting some garlicky Christmas gifts again this year if all goes to plan!

 

So go and get yourself some garlic and plant it now and when you taste your home-grown garlic next summer, you'll be glad you did!

Chilli mussels

We made chilli tomato mussels for dinner the other night, with lots of ingredients from the garden. They were delicious:

 

 

...and quite easy to make too!

 

I made a sauce by gently frying some finely chopped onion in a little olive oil, adding crushed garlic (from last year's harvest) and some chopped red chillies (from the garden). Then I added diced tomatoes (from the garden) and a glug or two of white wine.

Then we quickly steamed the clean mussels with about a cup of boiling water for 3 minutes before emptying the water out and pouring the sauce over the top to bring to the boil for a few more minutes. We stirred in some fresh chopped continental parsley (from the garden) and served it with fresh sour dough bread and real butter. Yum!