Eat your leafy greens

Photo by Pille-Riin Priske on Unsplash

Leafy greens are quick and easy to grow. Plant seeds today and you'll be picking in 5-6 weeks, plant seedlings and you'll be picking in 3-4 weeks.

Leafy greens include things such as rocket, spinach, warrigal greens, bok/pak choy, mustard greens, chard and kale. Other greens you can include with your leafy greens when you cook are the leaves from a variety of vegetables eg sweet potato, nasturtium

Here are a few of my favourite leafy greens recipes.

Steamed/Wilted greens

This is one of my favourite ways to have leafy greens. I usually have it as an entree as it's a bit too flavoursome as part of your mains.

Wilt (in the microwave) or steam some greens. Top with sesame oil and soy sauce to taste.

Spinach Pie (Serves 2)

      Olive oil
      1 large onion, finely chopped
      1 clove garlic, finely chopped
      2 tablespoons lemon juice
      Bunch of fresh spinach or mix 2/3 spinach with 1/3 leafy greens
      1/4 cup ricotta or cottage cheese
      50g feta, crumbled
      1/4 cup chopped continental parsley (I often don’t put this in)
      1 tablespoon wholegrain mustard
      1 egg, lightly whisked
      Pepper to taste
      1 sheet puff pastry
      Poppy seeds (optional)

 

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Brush a small ovenproof dish with oil and drape the sheet of pastry over it to thaw.
2. Combine onions, garlic and lemon juice in a saucepan and cook, stirring, over medium heat for 4-5 minutes.
3.  Add spinach and cook 4-5 minutes.
4.  Cool. Stir in ricotta/cottage cheese, feta, parsley, mustard, pepper & mix until combined.
5. Add egg & fold through.
6. Cut pastry to fit your dish and keep the excess for the top of the pie.
7.  Spoon spinach mixture into dish. Cover with pastry, seal edges.
8. Lightly brush top with oil and sprinkle with poppy seeds.
9. Bake in pre-heated oven until top is golden (around 30 minutes).

Pesto

Pesto is usually made with basil but you can use any leafy greens. I actually prefer to not use basil as basil pesto discolours once the air gets to it. My favourite is nasturtium leaves - they give a nice peppery flavour. I also usually use peanuts as they're cheaper but you can use any nuts - with pine nuts being traditional.

I make a largish batch, bottle some and freeze the rest in ice cube trays - which are later popped into containers in the freezer. Pop a cube or two into stirfry or over pasta for a quick meal.

Here's a basic recipe, but I usually do it by feel and taste.

      4 cups of basil (or parsley or nasturtium) leaves firmly packed
      3 cloves of garlic
      1 cup peanuts, pine nuts or macadamias or a mix
      ¾ cup fresh Parmesan (grated or thinly sliced)
      ¾ cup olive oil
      ½ teas salt (or to taste)

1. Combine everything in a food processor and pulse for about 2 minutes until it becomes a paste of the consistency you like.
2. Spoon into sterilised jars that have a tight seal. (Soak in boiled water or baby bottle steriliser.) Or freeze in ice cube trays.

 

Buttery Rocket Pasta

Melt some butter in a saucepan. Add a couple of handfuls of rocket and wilt. Pour over pasta of your choice. Top with parmesan cheese.

Make your own deodorant

A few people have asked me for my deodorant recipe so here it is. 

After trying a few recipes I came up with the following which I’ve been using for a couple of years. I make small batches – just multiply the quantities if you need more. 

In warm weather (25C+) the coconut oil is liquid. I suggest you gently warm the oil to a liquid state if you’re in a cold climate. In winter I pour the mix into an old stick deodorant case. You could do this in the hot weather but you'd have to keep it in the fridge. I keep it in a small glass jar during summer. 

INGREDIENTS 
2 tablespoons bicarb soda 
4 tablespoons arrowroot powder 
4 tablespoons coconut oil (in a liquid state)
10-20 drops essential oil (I like a mix of peppermint and lavender) 

METHOD
- In a small glass container with a wide opening, stir bicarb soda and arrowroot powder together. 
- Pour in the coconut oil and essential oils. 
 - Stir well to mix. 
- Screw the top on the bottle and store in a cool place. 
- To use - scoop out a small amount and rub it in your underarm area.

Raising seedlings in plastic milk bottles

Sadly we're forced to buy our milk in plastic bottles, so I find a lot of uses for them.

I've had great success using plastic milk bottles as mini hot houses to shoot seeds.

See the pictures below. Don't drill any holes.

When you feel the tiny seedlings are strong enough, prick them out & plant into some small pots until they're ready to go into the ground or into larger pots.

Cut a plastic milk bottle in half.

Put about 3cm seed raising mix in the bottom half.

Add seeds and lightly pat down. Mark and put the top on.

After 7-10 days open the lid & peek in to see if you have seedlings.

Making hanging pots

I was lucky enough to be given a number of old hanging pots that had no lining. Looking around my place I found a couple of things that I thought would work....

I had an old conference bag made from some kind of manufactured material. I cut it down the sides, fitted it into the wire frame, cut and fitted the offcuts into the spaces then cut a few holes in the bottom and trimmed it around the top. See first set of pictures below.

The second things I had were an old hessian coffee bag and an empty plastic potting mix bag. I lined the the wire frame with the coffee bag first - so it would look good from the outside. However, that would have soon rotted so I lined it with the potting mix bag, cut a few holes in the bottom and trimmed them both around the top. Second set of pictures.

Both are working well although next time I'd leave a little more overhang at the top.

Grow spring onions from cuttings

Next time you buy spring onions (or shallots as we often call them) - don't discard the bottom 1cm. Cut it off with the little roots attached & plant in a pot. In no time it'll sprout and keep growing green shoots. I cut them all off at once & plant them in a bunch. In the photo below I've placed them in the centre of a largish pot & I'll plant some greens around the edge.

I just keep cutting the green shoots off & then I have green onions on hand at all times. They will eventually go to seed and you need to start over - but it's a heck of a lot cheaper than buying them every time you need them.

I actually use these instead of onions much of the time as I've never had success with growing onions. Onions like cooler weather so maybe now that I've moved to cooler climes I may have some success.

Planted in a bunch

This is after 10 days

Pot liners

Growing on a balcony means I have to be mindful of water and soil running over the edge and annoying other people. I had a few old cotton & linen tea towels so I'm trying them out as pot liners.

I figure they'll let any excess water drain but not the soil. They'll also eventually break down and I can put them into the community garden compost heap.

I tore the tea towel to the size of the pot

Push it to the bottom so all holes are covered

Carefully add a layer of soil and then fill

Sweet potatoes

Sweet potatoes are very easy to grow - but I've never tried them in a pot before. A friend has given me some sweet potato runners with roots. These are the ones with purple skins and white flesh.

I've snipped a few bits off to put in water so I'll have more plants and I've planted the main runners into a large pot. Snipping off the runners at the growing tip also helps the plant send down more roots & therefore more sweet potatoes.

The leaves are great in stir fries or soup - or anywhere you'd use greens. I like to wilt any greens in a dish in the microwave & then pour a little sesame oil & soy sauce over. Yum!

Here's progress so far.

After a couple of days

After a week

A month of growing

Growing leeks

I had great success growing leeks from seed in my large garden. Growing them from seed is a lengthy process so I decided to try something.

I used to always harvest my leeks by cutting them off just above ground level & letting them regrow. This speeds up the process of getting a new crop.

I bought a couple of leeks at the fruit shop so decided to try sprouting from them.

I cut the base from the leek leaving about 1cm above the roots.

Put the cut piece into a saucer (or lid) of water so that the tiny roots are covered.

Within a couple of days the roots will grow.

Next a small green shoot appears.

Once the green shoot was about 5cm long I planted it onto some potting mix.

Stay tuned for progress.....

Growing pea shoots

Pea shoots are the cheapest and easiest thing to grow - and they're quite expensive to buy (go figure!). I use the dried peas from the soup aisle in the supermarket - they cost a couple of dollars for a large packet.

My favourite container to use is the bottom half of a plastic milk bottle, but as I'm using those for lots of other things at the moment, I've pressed into service a butter container and a little clear plastic container that had some mini cucumbers in it.

Here's what to do:

Put 2-3cm of potting mix in the bottom of your container.

Place dried peas close together on the potting mix.

Cover with about 1cm of potting mix.

Water and put in a sunny spot - can be your kitchen window sill.

Voila - just over a week later:

Growing containers

I only brought a few pots with me so in the short term I need to use anything that comes to hand as a growing pot.

Household containers that work well are tins, milk bottles (cut in half use top & bottom), butter containers, plastic containers that fruit like strawberries come in. All you need to do is drill (or poke) a few holes in the bottom.

Even glass bottles will work for something like mint that is happy to have wet feet.

I particularly like old plastic milk bottles and use them for a variety of things - I poke holes in the bottom with my cake skewer and, depending just what I'm doing with it, drill a hole in the lid. (I'll explain my milk container sprouting method in another post.)

Asparagus

I had great success growing asparagus from seed (Mary Washington), so about 10 months ago when I knew I'd be leaving my rural retreat I dug up 2 crowns & transplanted them into large pots.

They survived 4 days stuck in the removal van and the change of temperature from 35C to 25C.

They're a bit confused but have thrown 6 spears so far.

It'll be interesting to see how they go as asparagus have deep roots & they may eventually outgrow the pots.

A new journey

Photo by Sigmund on Unsplash

After 6 years of having a 708 sq m block of land on which to grow fruit, veggies, trees for the birds and flowers for the bees, I've returned to apartment living. The boxes are largely unpacked and most things in their new place.

I've already started planting into pots on the balcony so I'll update that in following posts.

Apart from the challenge of space, my other challenge will be moving from a sub-tropical climate to a temperate climate. I have many seeds that are acclimatised to a sub-tropical climate - let's see how they adapt to a cooler place.