Delicious surprises

Regular readers of this blog will know that Pam and I have been on a short holiday break. Well, when we returned home we had a few delicious surprises in store for us. One was the amazing way our zucchini plants have grown and started to produce crops, and the other pleasant surprise was a package containing a new kitchen gardening DVD created by the man I worked with for many years, Don Burke. But first the zucchinis, then I'll tell you about Don's new DVD...

Our neighbour Katerina always does a brilliant job watering
our garden while we are away, but this time she excelled
herself. When we left the zucchini (courgette) plants were still
relative babies, but in just one week they had turned into monsters
and were starting to produce both flowers and fruit.

A small harvest for dinner that night: small zeeks with the flowers
still attached. Pam loves these! These vegies can grow into monster
marrows, of course, but they do taste best when small, like this.

Meanwhile, out in the garden, lots more little zucchinis are
already popping out. Yes, we're going to have a zucchini glut!

One extra detail that I am pleased about is that the chervil I sowed
to go with our zucchinis is starting the thrive. The chervil plants are
in a row of pots in a semi-shaded spot under the lemon tree
 and just behind the zucchinis. So, when I pop out to harvest more
zucchinis I also harvest a handful or two of chervil, a herb with
a delicate, slightly aniseedy flavour which teams superbly
with zucchinis. Isn't it nice when plans work out well!  

And now, for the second delicious surprise awaiting me when we got back from holidays was a little parcel containing this new DVD by Don Burke. It's called "Backyard Farming: Back to the Kitchen" and so it's all about my favourite topic, which is growing your own food, then harvesting it to enjoy in the kitchen. As you can see there's a chook on the front cover, so Don has also included some segments on keeping chooks so you can have a supply of freshly laid eggs to accompany your homegrown organic produce.

I'm sure many many readers of this blog were also fans of the popular 'Burke's Backyard' TV show that was for many years a regular part of Aussie Friday nights at home with the family, watching the television. This DVD is what I would call "classic Don Burke". He really knows his stuff and deals with an incredible array of backyard farming topics, and the treat is the sense of fun and good humour he brings to every segment. It's very easy to watch, very enjoyable viewing – just like tuning in to the Burke's Backyard TV show once again.

While I scored a freebie from Don, it won't set you back much – just $24.95 – to enjoy the fun of watching the DVD at home. At this time of year, of course it's a great Christmas gift idea! Either drop some major hints around the home, or buy a copy for a gardening friend (or do both). You can order it direct from the Burke's Backyard website, www.burkesbackyard.com.au, but you'll probably also see it sold at leading retailers such as ABC shops, Sanity and various other outlets. If you Google "Backyard Farming: Back to the Kitchen" you'll get lots of hits from all sorts of online retailers, so it's very easy to get a copy.



  

Harvesting vegies: blog radio 2

A while ago I posted my first attempt at Blog Radio here, an MP3 of the little segment I do regularly on Sydney radio station 2UE (AM 954), as part of Don Burke's weekend mornings radio program called 'Burke's Backyard'.

And so this is the second installment of blog radio, and it's all about knowing when is the right time to harvest your vegies. At the end, I include a recipe for capsicum and corn fritters by the magazine's cookery editor, Tracy Rutherford.

And so, here's Blog Radio 2: harvesting vegies

Tracy's recipe can be found at the BBY website, here:

or here...

Tracy Rutherford’s Corn and Capsicum Fritters

• 1 cup (150g) self-raising flour

• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

• 1/2 cup finely grated parmesan

• 2 eggs

• 1/2 cup (125mL) milk

• kernels cut from 1 corn cob (or 400g can corn kernels, drained)

• 1 large red capsicum, diced

• vegetable oil, for cooking

• 2 tablespoons chopped chives

• 1/2 cup (125g) sour cream

• crispy grilled bacon, to serve

1. Sift the flour, cayenne pepper and a generous pinch of salt into a large bowl. Stir in the parmesan. Whisk the eggs and milk together and gently stir into the flour mix. Add the corn and capsicum to the batter. Fold in with a large metal spoon, until just combined. Don’t overwork the mixture or the fritters will be tough.

2. Pour a thin film of oil into a large frying pan and heat over medium heat. For each fritter, measure 1/3 cup of the mixture, drop it into the pan, and let it spread to about 10cm diameter. Cook for 3 minutes on one side, and 1 1/2 minutes on the other.

3. Stir the chives into the sour cream. Serve a spoonful of this mix on top of the fritters, with some crispy bacon on the side.

And if you like the sound of Don's radio show, you can access the full podcast at the 2UE website here, and also subscribe to it via iTunes.

And now, the radio show

And now for a little experiment in 'blog radio'. Every second Saturday I do a segment on Don Burke's popular gardening radio show on 2UE (AM 954) in Sydney on Saturday and Sunday mornings, 6am to 9am, which is also syndicated around the country to lots of other stations.

My little bit on the 'Burke's Backyard' show is about growing vegies and cooking at home with them, and I always include a recipe that people can access at the Burke's Backyard website. As I work for the Burke's Backyard magazine, I invariably slip in a plug for our latest issue whenever I get a chance (shameless I am). I've been doing these radio spots for about 18 months now, and I thought that for a change of pace on my blog, you could listen to me prattle on, rather than reading what I have to say.

Don's full show on both days can be heard via podcast here but for my little experiment I thought I'd open up Garage Band on my Mac and figure out how it all works, with the aim of slicing off just my bit (a 6-minute segment, complete with theme song) and posting it here as an MP3 file on my blog.

I think I've done it all correctly, but I'd love to find out whether it worked OK at your end of the line, so please let me know how it all went. If the experiment works, I thought I might add 'blog radio' as an occasional feature here at Garden Amateur. Anyway, here goes, Saturday October 31, all about beans.

Click here to experience blog radio!

'Blue Lake' bean flower, from last year's yummy crop.

(And as per Melinda's suggestion, here's a link to the bean recipe I mention in the radio spot.)

Backyard TV – at my place!

What an interesting day! TV crew here all day filming segments in my backyard. The first one goes to air on Friday night, 6.30pm on Channel Nine, as part of the regular 'Burke's Backyard' gardening segment that's within the 'A Current Affair' TV show on Friday nights. Lots of the other segments they filmed here will appear in coming weeks, so they tell me. They ended up doing several different stories, as the show's presenter, Don Burke, found all sorts of things to repair, plant, repot or just generally talk about here.

Here they are hard at work in Amateur Land, Don, cameraman, 'soundo' and the producer discussing how to do the next segment (on my poppy patch, in this case).

And here's me (right) with the star of the show, Don Burke (left), in what can only be described as a pretty good happy snap starring two bearded, middle-aged Aussie blokes. Now, Don and I aren't strangers by any means. I've been working for him for the last 11 years as a magazine sub-editor, but this is the very first time he has ever come round to my place. And having Australia's most famous gardener visit your garden is like having the headmaster over for dinner when you're a schoolkid. Not relaxing! But it seems I passed inspection, although my secateurs are blunt and I could definitely do better in that department. But I got a Gold Star for general neatness (perhaps I overdid the 'tart up' with the new mulch, etc yesterday afternoon?), received an excellent composting tip, and have promised to move my potted pineapple into a warmer spot.

It was a combination of nerve-wracking anticipation and good fun (plus relief) to have a really expert gardener check out things here at home. Don and I have a great working relationship, and I've learned so much from him over the years. As well as working on his magazine, editing all the text and writing some articles when it is deemed safe for me to do so, and even contributing a few photos, I've lent a hand with the creation of a variety of gardening books and I also have a regular weekend radio spot (for Aussie blog readers, it's on 2UE mornings, 6am-8am, syndicated nationally) where I talk about growing food plants and toss in a recipe or two for good measure. Here's a link to the podcasts for the radio show. I'm on every second Saturday, mostly (the last one was Saturday 25th July, talking about cumquats (if you check out the podcast it's just a bit before the half-way mark in the program), and the next one will be on Saturday August 8).

However, until today I've never had anything to do with the TV side of things, and watching a TV crew work is really fascinating. Very professional but also quite relaxed. They curse the noise from passing planes, trucks and motorbikes, saying in the middle of a take "bugger, stop, let's do it again" (and that happens a lot here in inner-city Marrickville, which is close to airports, shops and transport, as they say. And sometimes they say worse words than bugger, too!). But the whole team works really hard, head down, tail up, as they say. All day long: 9am start, until sunset.

PS: a couple of friends have asked me over the last year, knowing what I do for a living, why I call my blog 'Garden Amateur', when I work on gardening magazines and books and do a regular radio spot on gardening/cooking.

Well, for one thing I don't have any formal gardening qualifications and I'm no expert at all, and don't pretend to be. Out in my garden I keep on making lots of mistakes and don't know the names of zillions of plants, or how to grow them, either. I only blog about what I know, and that's not a lot.

But the real reason for the 'amateur' name is that I do all my gardening for the sheer love of it, not for any other reason. And I also love the old 19th-century idea of the 'amateur' scientist: the person who, without formal qualifications, devotes so much of his/her time to pursuing knowledge about something for love, certainly not for profit or fame. That's why I garden. I do it for love, not for any other reason. And I blog about it for the same reason, too. So there you go, that's me, in case you were wondering.