Hugh comes down under!

Ms Tagalong only has to talk about it and the twittersphere goes viral! Well at least a few people are talking about it. It? The new River Cottage Australia coming soon to our TVs.

Such a great idea, super recipes and of course as sustainable as can be.

Ms Tagalong and Mr Ideasman were very happy last year whilst residing in Bridport to have visited the Axminster canteen and sample some of the local Devon and Dorset produce.

Last week Ms Tagalong was waxing lyrical about Hugh's Sweet Potato and Peanut Gratin. This week she has been experimenting with some of the recipes from her favourite birthday present.

Never one to miss the opportunity of using bush tucker, this salad of avocado, lettuce, spring onions, cucumbers and lily pillies drizzled with bush lemon juice was just the ticket.

Can't wait to see some of the Aussie chef Paul West's creations at River Cottage.

It's great to have some feedback, so please leave me some comments.

Planning an Open Day

'We love our garden and we want everyone else in the community to love it too!' Ms Mova stoutly declared and Ms Tagalong had to agree.

'It can't be a well-kept secret. We need people to come, plant, dig and chat.'

'An Open Day with lots of events!'

'Let's use some skills from Timebanking. I saw an event planner on there. I bet she's got some tricks up her sleeve.'

Ms Mova fell into a reverie. Images of ideas were floating by. This is what she saw.

Cooking demonstration by Jamie Oliver

Some quality time with gardener Jamie Durie

And even a token art installation! 

Would we say no to gnomes?

What would you like to see on an Open Day in Spring?

It's great to have some feedback, so please leave me some comments.

Sweet, sweet potatoes!

Yes, we had a glut in the garden this year. A somewhat rampant sweet potato plant took over three beds, the raised pyramid and occluded the lemon tree!

It was time for it to go. Ms Mova and Ms Tagalong donned their bibs and overalls, girded their loins or something like that and set to digging and tugging.

Soon all the greenery was in two large mulching piles and the pile of sweet potatoes grew ever-increasingly larger.

'What have you made with sweet potatoes?' queried Ms Mova.

'Soup and curry,' Ms Tagalong replied.

'Mm we need to be a bit more adventurous!'

These are two recipes they would like to pass on to you.

Sweet potato, chilli and coconut soup – perfect for these cool winter days

1 onion - chopped

2 garlic cloves – crushed and chopped

1-3 chillies to taste – chopped finely, remove seeds or not according to heat tolerance!

2 fair sized sweet potatoes

1tsp each of garam masala, coriander, cumin or curry powder

vegetable stock

1 can coconut milk

Fry the onions in some olive oil until translucent

Add the garlic and chillies

After a few minutes add spices and stir in to mix

Add the peeled, diced sweet potatoes

Toss in the onion mixture for a few minutes

Add hot vegetable stock to cover

Bring to boil and simmer until potato is soft

Liquidise

Add can coconut milk and more stock if too thick

Serve with a dollop of sour cream or yoghurt and chopped coriander leaves

And thanks to one of my favourite chefs Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall from River Cottage Cafe

this layering of thinly sliced sweet potatoes laced with lime, chilli and peanut butter is wonderful.

Sweet potato and peanutgratin

Just love those sweet potatoes!

It's great to have some feedback, so please leave me some comments.

When is a garden not a garden?

SOLD - Glovers Lane Reserve

Not when it has been sold so rapidly after council deeming it not to be!

Glovers Lane Reserve is not to provide space for recreation, exercise, therapy and education, or provide a catalyst for neighbourhood and community development, or be a preserver of green space, three of the definitions of community gardens by the American Community Garden association.

Ah, Ms Tagalong thought, perhaps Australians have a different definition. Councillor Steve Edmonds certainly does. He says 'there is no garden in Glovers Lane Reserve.' And to make absolutely sure he went back three times to check!

Ms Tagalong went once. It looked like this.

And this.

Councillor McCloy might have a more liberal view, (good choice of words, Ms Tagalong!) But he said, 'I'm in favour of community gardens but not on certainly incredibly valuable land like in that location.'

There's the rub. The next morning after the vote to sell the reserve, the sold sign was up.

Apparently this is a question which has caused ructions not only in our council but overseas too.

In a landmark case in England in 2008, Lord Justice Moses said, 'The Oxford English dictionary states that a garden is an enclosed piece of ground devoted to the cultivation of flowers, fruit or vegetables.

'That definition is clearly too narrow, as the current fashion for wild gardens and meadows amply demonstrates.

'The reality is that no description will categorically establish whether a piece of land is a garden or not. It is incumbent on the fact finder to determine its use.

'It is important to look at the relationship between the owner and the land, and the history and character of the land and space.'

So, sorry Cooks Hill residents, the fact finders said you cannot have a garden to promote a sense of belonging to a community and a sentiment of wanting to give something back. Oh yes you have given the garden back, it has gone to council and so swiftly to a developer.

Maybe RESERVE has another definition too!

It's great to have some feedback, so please leave me some comments.

Not quite an eighth wonder! The Grounds of Alexandria...

Whilst waiting for brunch!

It was a wonders of the world type of weekend. Not quite the Hanging Gardens of Babylon at the Vivid Festival or the Great Library of Alexandria but the Groundsof Alexandria!

Ms Tagalong and Mr Ideasman were exploring Sydney oohing and aahing at the spectacularly bright harbour and Opera House. Amazing lightshows aside, the cafe called the Grounds of Alexandria was just up their street so to speak!

It was busy. Very busy. So be prepared for at least an hour's wait and the arranged brunch just squeaked in before they stopped serving and changed to a lunch menu.

It's a great space; appealing to the young with a cute Kevin Bacon, although Ms Tagalong is not sure the owners of the grubbly little hands extended to pat him realised that one day he would end up on their morning BLT!

The young Kevin Bacon!

Fresh produce, free range eggs, surely not laid by the token chickens in their run, they would have had to lay non-stop to fulfil the breakfast and brunch demands of possibly 800 people. Jodi at the desk was not sure how many they had served. She rifled through the crossed out names. 'Well it's 9 pages of 20 groups per page,' she said, not confidently it must be added.

And of course there were another 800 milling around for lunch! Whilst waiting you can wander around the garden, purchase coffees, lemonade, pastries, donuts and barbequed beef. Some groups decided this was best and gave up on the waiting for a table lark and chowed down partly hidden in the green alcoves. Verdant herbs are used for the kitchen but Ms Tagalong feels that this is a more a nod to self-sufficiency than a real attempt for sustainability.

That apart, the atmosphere is buzzing, the food good and the service brusque and efficient.



It's great to have some feedback, so please leave me some comments.

Not a Facebook party!

Keeping warm!

It wasn't a real Facebook party. You know, one of those that when you announce it on Facebook it goes viral. We didn't need beefy, sunglassed security at the gate asking ,'Do you know these people?' or 'What's your relationship to Ms Mova?'

In fact it was a quiet affair of about 20 people. Wait, did Ms Tagalong say 'quiet?' Quiet it wasn't. The

The choirmaster up to his old tricks!

ukeleles were strumming, the people singing and what better song to begin with for the departing local choirmaster and his lovely voice companion but the old Abba classic,Thank you for the Music.

Miss Smiles had been round the day before rehearsing with Mr Ideasman.

'The chorus is great,' she said, 'but you don't want to know about the rest of the song.' She mentioned something about dumb blondes or words to that effect so Ms Tagalong had to agree the chorus would probably be best.

In fact it might have been better to have just kept to this song for when Ms Mova's brother lent his baritone? to his favourite song, Blue Moon, the audience laughed wildly.

The pizza oven was ablazing. The 44 gallon drum was ablazing too to keep all warm on this cold Autumn night. Red read out a poem she had penned for the occasion to oohs and aahs and tears in the eye. George ate a whole pizza base when no-one was looking. Not a gluttonous invitee but an attending labrador! 

Conversation never ceased between the old and the new, the remaining and the departing.

'I'm sure someone replaces our young chickens with old ones,' Ms Mova confided. A conspiracy theory ensued.

'Not a velvet underground, but a feathered one,' quipped Ms Tagalong.

'I think it's a cocktail one. Remember the cockerel with the chopped tail dropped over the fence last year? Just so we didn't notice he was an interloper. I think the crowing at four am was a bit of a giveaway!'

Our youngest gardener!

All giggled, laughed and drank champagne. Anyone would think we were glad to say goodbye to these dear friends and stalwart gardeners who have turned up through thick and thin. Even if the lovely companion couldn't remember whether she had come on her bicycle or not! We thank them again for all their support and wish them well in community gardens new down Melbourne way.

All the gardeners are sorry to lose you both but it was a great excuse for a garden party, just not a Facebook party!

It's great to have some feedback, so please leave me some comments.

Glean, gleaner and gleaning

Midgimberries and cherry guava

'Gleaner, Gleaner,' the skinny barefoot boys would call as they dodged the cars at the traffic lights. Another world, another time and they weren't shouting at Ms Tagalong for celebrating the joys of gleaning produce but selling The Gleaner the daily Jamaican newspaper. So what's the difference, gleaning bits of news or bits of fruit and produce?

So who goes gleaning? And what does it really mean? The Oxford dictionary states that the historical meaning is to gather (leftover grain) after a harvest:(as noun gleaning)the conditions of farm workers in the 1890s made gleaning essential. Ms Tagalong feels that the conditions of people in the 21^st century may make it a necessity again.

So much food, so much wastage. Where do we start? Look around your neighbourhood. There's a macadamia tree dropping its little packages of protein right under your feet. There's a citrus tree and over there a mulberry tree. And is that an olive tree littering the street with olives ready for curing?

Up the mid-North coast there was bush tucker everywhere, midgimberries, cherry guavas, native grapes to name a few that Ms Tagalong spotted, popped into a bag and sampled later. Speckled midgimberries with their slightly aniseed taste were great fresh on her bowl of muesli. Cherry guavas, halved and scooped out with a spoon were a great morning snack.

Davidson plums with their smoky bloom don't taste so good straight off the tree but try stewing them with brown sugar for a wonderful tart taste. Perhaps even use Kylie Kwong's recipe and serve them with duck (not locally caught on Throsby Creek!) 

So Ms Tagalong thinks perhaps we need a tree register of our neighbourhood, a plan of fruit and nuts which usually go begging, mouldering or smashing. Supplement the lovely fresh herbs and plants you get from your community garden with some of these little wonders! 

Salad courtesy of Northbank Community Garden

It's great to have some feedback, so please leave me some comments.