Short and Sweet!

Well not really. Huge and sweet actually. But the story will reveal itself...

Last week Ms Tagalong was tapping away diligently when there was a knock on the door again. She wondered whether she would ever get the blog finished! Ms Mova was at the door, almost jiggling up and down in excitement. "You might want to hold your blog," she said,"you just have to see this."

Sighing loudly and dutifully saving the blog, Ms Tagalong followed, er um tagged along as usual.

Miss Didi's Mum had been fossicking under the sweet potato plant which by now had covered most of one bed. We had done some exploratory digging as you know, a few weeks ago, but this was archaeology on a grand scale. Ms Tagalong's jaw dropped, she expressed some expletives, well as much as she is wont to do, gasped, even.



One wonders how this huge monstrosity had been growing under the earth without us knowing? We have missed the Easter Show, we would have been the stars of the show, surely? We would have returned adorned with ribbons, clasping cups and medals galore.

But did we think of weighing it? Of course not. Ms Tagalong could make a guess; the size of a small child, 10kg-12kg at least! How many kilos of sweet potato jam would this have made? Nestling alongside this monster were many others. The camera fortunately saved the moment for posterity.

So there we are, we must be doing something right to the soil, especially the nutrients needed for sweet potato growth.

But wait, there's more. Yesterday Ms Tagalong found out that Ms Mova was looking after the monster still in her kitchen so Ms Tagalong raced around with a weighing scale,(she knew it would come in useful some day) and as we held our breath, Ms Mova's 'usband gently lowered the potato onto the scale.

Oh how Ms Tagalong felt vindicated, 10.4 kg! What an eye.

An Autumn Morning in the Garden

Ms Tagalong wandered into the garden early this morning expecting mists and mellow fruitfulness but the sky was cloudy and the early morning chill had all but gone.

The chickens were arguing in the pens, jostling for first off the post position as the doors were opened but Ms Tagalong had photography on her mind, not the stomachs of chickens.

She saw the sculptured pathway of the soon to be mosaic pathed road into the chicken enclosure. Little elves have worked hard manoeuvring the mulch into hills somewhat resembling the eagerly awaited swales which Ms Mova has so long craved.

She spotted a table full of healthy pawpaw plants ready to be planted and the fruit to be savoured next year with some of the limes we are attempting to grow.
On second thoughts the limes are kaffir limes and the fruit is not quite the same! Ms Tagalong might have to donate some of her limes off her prolific lime tree. Well, prolific might be an exaggeration, but at least she can count the limes this year.

Next through the camera lens was the neat rows of onion seedlings planted behind this year's exuberant garlic chives.


Sweet potatoes continue to burgeon and Ms Tagalong was rather upset to realise that the ends of the plants which she had gaily thrown to the chickens last week, once dug up can be replanted to form next year's tubers. Ah, well, live and learn.

Sweet potato cheese?

So this is what they mean by completing the cycle, closing the loop, growing, cropping and eating. Just look at what that wonderful Ms Designer (Adoptive mother of Teapenny) has made!

She shyly presented a little treasure, a folded wax packet of what she called sweet potoato jam, to try. Upon opening it reminded me of guava cheese that people used to make when Ms Tagalong lived in Jamaica. It could have been a delicate version of quince paste even, eat your heart out Maggie Beer, but spread generously on an Easter hot cross bun it tickled the taste buds to perfection.

So that was what happened to the monster sweet potato. Ms Tagalong will try to cajole the recipe out of Ms Designer, she will sweet talk her with, well, more sweet potatoes maybe, so that we can all have a go.

This week we have really hit the social media, bigtime. Our most recent young gardener whilst contemplating the growth of plants when doing his homework decided we really needed to go global. So we are now a Facebook entity, become a friend, like us, add comments etc. It can all happen there I am told. But I suppose the most gratifying thing for Ms Tagalong is the link to the blog! He has also made inroads into a website. How much technology can one take?!

This weekend of crisp, marvellous weather saw a few hardened gardeners cutting, pricking out, planting, barrowing and weeding.
Ms Mova arrived on Sunday morning to surprise a Ms Tagalong still in dressing gown attire wandering the beds, admiring all the work and feeling quite relieved that this winter the neighbourhood will have vegetables to eat! Come one, come all. Water and watch them grow!

What a monster!

Well what am I talking about? Could it be the birthweight of Ms Mova's latest grandchild? Could it be a comment on the exploits of the two year old next door? No, it is actually a homegrown variety, a garden-grown veritable leviathan in the Convolvulaceae plant family. This sweet potato is known by the scientific name of Ipomoea batatas. The well-known flower called "Morning Glory" belongs to the same botanical family as the sweet potato. Well this is certainly some kind of fantastic morning glory, an evening glory maybe, delivering enough nutrition for a small army. Weighing in at a hefty 2.2kg this exotically formed monster was being called some very rude names when Ms Tagalong spied it sitting on Ms Mova's kitchen bench.


So what would you do with such another if you happened to dig in the right place in the garden? Ms I don't want to go back to work seemed very keen to find a good recipe. Something to do with thrift Ms Tagalong suspects as much as to do with utilising the wonderful produce we produce. That could have been a typo but it wasn't! Fear not, Ms Tagalong will career to the rescue (no puns intended) and provide a recipe at the end of this blog.

A quiet weekend in the garden saw Ms Tagalong digging a big hole on the verge to take the kaffir lime from her backgarden which is not getting enough sun to grow to its full potential. As she thrust down the crowbar, juddering her back and shoulders, not to mention wrists, she ruminated on how it was that she, at the ripe old 50 something plus age was labouring like a common navvy? Sweat drops flying off in all directions, wiping the mud on her shirt, she was very glad that she did not plant trees for a living. The kaffir lime, however, looks happier already and Ms Pruner across the road will no doubt be out with her secateurs, busily nipping and tucking to give it the beauty makeover it is well in need of. It will soon look like this one with its fresh growth.


African Sweet Potato Stew (Good Housekeeping Vegetarian Cookbook)Feeds 4-6 people
1 onion peeled and chopped
2 tbsp oil
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
2tsp grated fresh root ginger
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
350g sweet potatoes peeled and cut into cubes
15ml mild or medium curry paste
300ml passata or diced tomatoes
300ml vegetable stock
225g spinach leaves, trimmed
225g button mushrooms sliced
60ml peanut butter
30ml chopped fresh coriander
salt and pepper to taste
coriander sprigs for garnish

1. Heat oil and fry onion, garlic, ginger and cayenne gently for about 10mins
2. Add curry paste to the onion mixture and cook for 1 minute. Add sweet potatoes and stir to coat and fry for 3-4 minutes. Add the passata and stock. Bring to boil and simmer for 15-20 minutes.
3. Add sliced mushrooms and cook for 10 mins or so with shredded spinach added towards the end of this time.
4. Mix a few spoonfuls of juices with the peanut butter to soften and then stir back into the pan. Add chopped coriander and seasoning. Serve with rice and garnished with coriander sprigs.

S and M bats

Well what do you know? Life couldn't get more exciting. Sitting in the garden last Friday, with a cool drink in hand and delicious snacks on plates in front of us, we looked at the swarms of bats, mm wrong word I think, streaming in from the direction of the sea towards the fig trees. Yes, I looked up the collective and it can be a colony of bats, most possibly said when they are asleep, or a cloud of bats. I like the cloud description; they scattered and screeched and fell into the trees in a noisy cacophony. Like so many feathered, raggedy clouds torn into pieces by the trees. Just be glad you don't live on Bellingen Island.

So there we were swapping bat stories when Ms Mova reported such close encounters from her deck that she could have leant out and touched them. "They are amazing," she said," I could see their little pink tongues and they were all dressed in black leather with little stilettos as they primped up the branches in search of the fruit."

Imagination was exchanged by hard labour on Saturday for the working bee. More piles of 'stuff' were moved around the garden. The fruit trees were surrounded by more soil and covered in the newly arrived mulch.
Barrow loaders spread out the mulch along the ends of the beds and of course Ms Teapenny was intrigued by all the movement and jumped onto the barrow to have a look. The others were not so impressed and kept quiet in the shade afforded by the door on such a muggy day.


And look what else we found! The most wonderful sweet potatoes from our plants which came from the sacking of Villiers. Thank you fellow community garden.


Ms Designer was checking out the radicchio helped by Lucy Legless and we started talking spinach recipes. "Just cook it with rice and lemon," she said. Sounds delicious. Ms Tagalong seemed to remember a wonderful recipe written out on a scruffy pink piece of paper which had travelled half the way across the world. Ms Tagalong's filing system never ceases to amaze, the recipe was located, so here it is and enjoy!


Spinach pie
450g spinach, washed and chopped
250g brown rice
500ml hot water
1 onion finely chopped
1 Tsp oil
1 tsp butter
2 Tsp chopped parsley
125g strong grated Cheddar cheese
2 large eggs (free range of course)

Topping
2 Tbs wholemeal breadcrumbs
1 Tbs melted butter
Cayenne pepper, nutmeg and salt to taste

1. Place butter and oil in a saucepan
2. When hot, saute the onion until tender
3. Stir in rice to coat then add the hot water
4. Simmer gently for 40mins
5. Turn into a large bowl to cool
6. Combine with cheese, eggs (lightly beaten) parsley and chopped spinach
7. Season well with masses of grated nutmeg
8. Place into a well-oiled pie dish
9. Mix breadcrumbs with melted butter and cayenne pepper and place in a medium oven for 35mins.