Bountiful fruit trees and lovely leaves
In this ezine:
- Juicy and Sweet
- My 6 favourite spinaches
- Recipes and Pics
- The kids gardening roadshow at your school or kindy?
Juicy and sweet
Do you have problems with keeping your fruit trees alive? Do you get little or no fruit and really hanker for a decent crop?
The fruit tree workshops start this weekend and I still have 6 places left. Would you like to come along and solve your fruit tree issues? Just $65 per workshop or a discount for coming to all 4 in the series.
I still have 6 places left and would love you to take part. Why not bring a friend too and you’ll both go onto the draw for a free workshop.
I’ll also have a range of excellent pruning tools for you to try out at the workshops so you can improve your tool skills and be sure of a better harvest with good pruning abilities.
I need your help to get the message out to folks you think who would love to learn how to choose, grow and care for fruit trees and citrus in their garden and in pots. To give me a hand, just forward on this email newsletter, or give a friend a call and both book into the Mt Coot-tha sessions.
My 6 favourite leafy vegies. Popeye would be envious!
Visiting the markets for fresh food can be a lovely experience. Even with lots of vegies in our garden, I still enjoy the connection with the growers, talking to others about how to prepare the fresh ingredients and the socialization and varieties I don’t have at home. Kim Sweetman in the Courier Mail Saturday doesn’t think so though. Her Saturday column relegated shopping at the markets for fresh food to be a waste of her time. Is she in the minority? I suspect so... with readers of this ezine anyway.
Silverbeet and spinach are just begging to be taken home. They gaze at you with their big green leafy crinkles, but the problem is, once you buy a massive bunch, what do you do with it all? Chock up the fridge with just one bunch perhaps? Try to get through it all before it becomes a slimy mess that gets composted?
It’s really easy to grow some of your own and pick it as you need it. All the greens grow well in pots as well as in the ground. Our favourites at the moment are ruby chard and silverbeet. Lots of iron and B vitamins every night! The kales like Tuscan Blue/Cavolo Nero are fabulous. We love it added to frittata or minestrone soups for the cooler nights. It’s a hardy little plant in the garden too and easy to grow from seed. 
What about Warrigal greens, used as a bush tucker food by Captain Cook to treat scurvy, ours are spreading all over the garden paths and begging to be eaten.
The winter leaf, English spinach has had a good year this year too. Grown as a guild with the beans and peas and near the Kale it has flourished without insect attack. And now that the weather is warming, the Surinam spinach is coming into its own. It will provide us with delicious leaves to cook or to eat raw in salads throughout the summer.
And how can I go past the sorrel? It’s lemony and lovely. Perhaps a special article on sorrel coming up soon. I’ll keep you informed. (Executive chef Brent Southcombe who does the Gourmet Gardening workshops with me has a lovely recipe for a sorrel sauce.) We have 3 sorts of sorrel, all delicious and very underrated. I know why the French and Belgians love it so much.
Recipes and pics
Send me your favourite fresh fruit or vegetable recipe to linda@ecobotanica.com.au and I’ll share it with readers in this e-zine. In return I’ll send you a pack of organic vegie seeds.
But wait there’s more ... Cooking fresh food from your garden and kids workshops also appear in the new brochure that's on the website now. Take a look at the new October to December 2010 brochure on the Ecobotanica website www.ecobotanica.com.au under Workshops or What’s on. Or email me linda@ecobotanica.com.au for a posted-out glossy copy or an emailed copy.
Win a Free Workshop
During the month of October, if you book into a workshop or series with a friend, you’ll go into the draw to win a workshop of your choice to the value of $65. If you win you can keep it to yourself or give it as a gift.
What a great way to attend another inspirational workshop – free. The draw will occur at midday on 30 October and is open to all those who book a workshop this summer season and who pay with their friends by this date.
Junior gardeners
I'd love to bring the kids gardening roadshow to your school or kindy with Flags and Banners using natural plant paints, Jack in the Beanstalk gardens and much more. Drop me an email find out how your children can have a lovely and educational time linda@ecobotanica.com.au
