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Kitchen Garden Blog #6 - How many people does it take to build a greenhouse?

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 Kitchen Garden Blog #6 - How many people does it take to build a greenhouse? Seeds like particular conditions to germinate. To make it more complicated, not all of them like the same conditions. Some seeds won't germinate unless exposed to smoke so that they can regenerate after a fire (many eucalyptus varieties). Some need extended periods of cold temperature to emulate a long winter (apple seeds). Some need to be roughed up a little to mimic the forces of nature, this is called scarifying (sweet peas/lupins). Other's even need to pass through the digestive tracks of animals in order to germinate properly  There are ways to artificially recreate these conditions to get germination happening - for example I stored some apple seeds in a fridge for 4 months before germinating, and they popped up beautifully. You can generally think about fruits as a container for seeds designed to preserve the seed for the right amount of time, and in the right way for the seeds to successfully
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Kitchen Garden Blog #5 - Potato Galette

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Kitchen Garden Blog #5 - Potato Galette Potatoes are one of my favourite ingredients. So versatile. Used in so many different ways by different cultures from all over the world. I'm looking forward to introducing the KG crew to some Sichuan Potato Slivers soon. This time we kept it simple. Simple but superb. This is a dish that doesn't look out of place in top end restaurants. When it's well executed it's perfect, yet it only has 3 ingredients. Potatoes, butter and salt. What else does one need really?   The mandolin is, in my opinion, the most dangerous piece of equipment in a kitchen. So sharp and so easy to take off the tip of your finger. I always insist on people using the helpful, if a little cumbersome, attachment that mitigates the risk.  We talked about what butter consisted of and then clarified some, by heating it and removing the milk solids (the white frothy stuff that rising to the top when you heat butter). These have a tendency to burn and impart burnt f
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Kitchen Garden Blog #4 - Yummy Yummy Yummy I've got love in my tummy.

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  Kitchen Garden Blog #4 - Yummy Yummy Yummy I've got love in my tummy.  You  would be forgiven for wondering if Kitchen Garden was in fact just Garden if you've managed to read this far into these blog posts. But fear not, we Kitchen too.  Since our gardens are just getting established we've had limited things at our disposal to cook, but we are a resourceful bunch. Last year's sustainability crew under the watchful eye of Adrian Wood nurtured some garden beds at the school and produced some lovely produce which we've put to good use so far. The seasons have also been kind to us in the form of black berries and apples. So we haven't wanted for things to do in the kitchen.  We started the year by harvesting some spinach and silverbeet and incorporating these into pasta dough which we rolled out to make raviolo (large ravioli) and some fettuccine. We filled the raviolo with ricotta, feta, parmesan and more spinach. These got bathed in a browned butter, sage and a
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Kitchen Garden Blog #3 Hügelkultur Garden Beds

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THE ALICE MILLER KITCHEN GARDEN  Blog #3: Hügelkultur Garden Beds  Our beds are full of sand. I suspect that once upon a time they were filled with a sandy loam mix from a garden supply shop and over the years any organic matter that was in that mix has long since gone and we're left wth very hydrophobic sand. It's great for drainage....that's about it. So we need to reintroduce organic matter into our beds. We're doing it in a number of ways. One strategy is creating Hugelkultur beds. This in an old German permaculture system whereby you fill the beds with logs, sticks, straw, cardboard, manure, compost...any biomass really and top it with soil/compost and let the natural processes break all of it down over a number of years. This system has a whole host of benefits. The bigger logs in the base of the bed serve as sponges. They absorb water in the wetter months and gradually release it as the soil dries out reducing the need for irrigation. They also become food for fu
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Kitchen Garden Blog #2: In which we winnow.

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THE ALICE MILLER KITCHEN GARDEN  Blog #2: In which we winnow. A wise person once said, "Gardening is a long game that never ends." I don't actually know if anyone ever said that. But i'm saying it now. For those reading this that are avid gardeners, they'll know what I mean. You're always learning as a gardener, the issue is that it takes a long time to get another crack at it. "Oh my cucumbers struggled this year, perhaps they didn't get strong pollination, I'll try again.....in 10 months!"  BUT - gardening is not all about the end product. It's about the journey too and you can get a lot of joy from the various stages of growth. Planting a seed, creating the right conditions for germination, nurturing the young plants, observing them grow into big healthy plants, trouble shooting any issues along the way, and then finally harvesting! (A little bit like growing young people. I'm not sure about the harvesting part...) But it doesn'
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Establishing our Kitchen Garden

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THE ALICE MILLER KITCHEN GARDEN  Blog #1: In which we investigate and work on plans to improve our soil. (2.3.24) A Kitchen Garden is a place that revels in both function and form. It can be home to all sorts of lovely critters and can provide a space for both quiet reflection and community energy. We were lucky to inherit a space that had a lot of old infrastructure already in place. The previous owners of "the house" had clearly had a thriving vegetable garden, orchard and chicken run at some point in time. It's all been left to rack and ruin somewhat...but that's where we come in. We aim to transform this area back into a thriving, abundant garden space that could grow over time into all sorts of things, limited only by our imaginations.  Our first task was to check out the soil. Soil is the key to all vegetable gardens. It seems to me that the original creators of this garden space once upon a time filled these beds with a sandy loam mix from a garden supply store
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