Make the most of your weeds

Posted 15 May 2013

Quick – plant your peas, your broccoli, your leeks and your pak choi! They will love this last bit of autumn sun and be up and zooming by the first frost. Also don’t forget to gather some of last year’s garlic and to replant before the shortest day (22nd June) both soft and hard neck varieties will reward you if you do. They are not fans of weeds so you could plant them into a crop that dies down over winter (such as Comfrey) and avoid the need to constantly weed.

Now is also the time for ‘Weed sorting’. What???? Yes, an array of lovely weeds will have germinated with the rain and provide you a smorgasbord of opportunities. Ideally if you have kept up with your mulching and your timing is right (ie. the weeds are not too big), you will be able to simply insert a fork and turn your mulch burying your adolescent weeds. For any larger ones, pull and sort into groups. For example, pile some Dandelions, nettles and marshmallow together for your fertiliser brew and some for your chooks (as they love them too) along with Cape weed, Docks, Milk thistle and young sticky weed. Fog grass and other grasses pile up to add to your compost and wilt a couple of grasses to throw into your worm farm.

I have begun TPOW’s Citrus grove with a Eureka Lemon, an Imperial and Emperor Mandarin and an Australian Lime. I hope they enjoy the rusty nails and chook poo menu that I provided!

Lots of apple juicing and preserving still happening in my kitchen including Apple Jam (see recipe section). Try drying herbs as they jolt into action, use the warmth of the interior of your car to dry these on sunny days, some herbs like Thyme can be dried slowly in your spare bedroom.

As for my uppermost challenge it would be my solar kitchen trailer. Still in the design phase and as predicted providing me with a steep learning curve…!

PS. Keep an eye on your Pumpkins, slice off any new vines and tips as they emerge (they won’t amount to anything ) and move developing pumpkins, still attached to the vine back close to their root system to help them capture their last gulp of sugar!