The window sill is getting crowded

Spring is always crazy. The first seedlings have moved from the propagation boxes to the window sill.
Some have already had to move further. On to the decking outside, but where they are still protected from frost.

How is your spring planting/sowing going? Isn't it a marvellous time of the year?!
Crazy busy but wonderful.

First seedlings!

The propagation boxes seem to work well. The first seedlings emerged after only a few days.

They are now basking in the sunshine on the window sill - making room for the next seeds in the box.

The weather is glorious at the moment. Frosty mornings, then warm sunshine during the day. :) The spring air is filled with hope and expectations.

Propagation box

It's still winter, but now is the time to start the first seeds. I am keen to have some biggish seedlings when it is finally time to start planting. Chillis, capsicums and eggplants seem to need longer to grow to a decent size. What to do?

Make your own propagation box!

Take some styrofoam boxes.

Add heat mats (in this case they are actually reptile mats).

Put your trays on that. (The seedling punnets will go in there.)

Cover with an old window.

Get yourself a thermometer with a probe, so that you can measure the temperature of the tray.

Start sowing! :)

As you may be able to see in the picture, the temperature inside the box climbed to 24C within a few minutes.

Growing coffee in an Adelaide Kitchen Garden

‘Coffea arabica’ – the  coffee bean bush that is an understory shrub originally from the south-western highlands of Ethiopia – has been cultivated outside its country of origin since the first plants were taken to Europe from the wild in the 1600 and 1700s. From this small pool of genetic material, the coffee bean bush spread to other mountainous regions of the world that enjoy year-round rainfall, light shade, no frosts and temperatures around 20 °C (68 °F). These plantations in northern Africa, the Carribean, Indonesia, East Timor, Papua New-Guinea and South America now account for 75 to 80% of the world’s coffee production, with other species such as Coffea Robusta -  now grown in Vietnam, Africa and Brazil – making up the remaining 20%.

Sadly, for all those folk who can’t start their day without a cup of coffee, the original Coffea Arabica shrub is now rare in its native state, and that rare stock and its inherent genetic diversity is increasingly protected by the Ethiopian government on behalf of its own coffee farmers. As climate change threatens those areas where coffee beans now thrive, searching through the wild strains for more robust and drought-tolerant versions of this small shrub becomes increasingly urgent in the race to keep the world’s workforce from grumpy chaos.

That our own kitchen garden bears little resemblance to the highlands of Ethiopia goes without saying. But the sale of Coffea Arabica seedlings for $35 per pot in a local hills nursery added some impetus to at least experiment with this natural source of the caffeine that fuels the gardener’s daily coffee breaks. This will require regular watering, slight shading for the shrubs under the annual leafing-out of their companion peach trees in our netted orchard, and a wait of a mere seven years until they bear fruit.

Still and all, even if the beans don’t amount to much down here on the Adelaide plains, the old Ethiopian habit of making a tisane from the leaves of the coffee bush might serve to keep some of the gardener’s caffeine-withdrawal symptoms at bay if a world-wide shortage does ever eventuate…

More on how to pickle cucumbers

While kitchen gardens produce fruit and vegetables, mature gardens also produce seeds. While many varieties of seeds are grown for planting out as next year’s crops, a more subtle reason for harvesting large quantities of particular seeds is to use them directly in the kitchen for culinary flavouring.

Once cucumbers suitable for pickling have been grown and harvested, they can be bottled in wide-mouthed jars, either whole or sliced, in salt water (16g per litre of pure water) and (optionally) a tablespoon of whey per jar (from natural yogurt) . Then the seeds are added for flavour – coriander, dill, mustard and fennel. Cover with raspberry or vine leaves and weigh these down with glass marbles to keep the cucumbers submerged. Store in a cool dark place for eating over the following year until the next crop of cucumbers is ready for harvest.