October, 2024
Wonga Pigeons, Hairy Knees (really), and Great Bushes of Blossom
The wonga pigeons have returned!
Wonga pigeons are Australia’s biggest pigeon, so round and plump they mostly walk instead of flying. Until the 2019/20 fires one waddled down the garden path every later afternoon to drink from our frog pond, even though the creek isn’t far away, then pecked at the grass seeds and cumquats and calamondins.
The fires surrounded us, but the wildlife refuge we run wasn’t burnt, and became a temporary home for thousands of animals. It was weeks after rain extinguished the fires that I realised our pigeon friend hadn’t returned. For three years there have been no wonga calls across our valley ‘wong wong wong wong’ – repeat a thousand times. Wonga pigeons calls are loud, with no melody, and go on for hours. I love them anyway.
Suddenly, yesterday, at the frog ponds, a wonga pigeon emerged, a young one, and then another; a nesting pair. Maybe, possibly, our lives will include 4 pm visits from a wonga pigeon again.
It’s a magic spring. The fruit trees are great bushes of blossom. The wombat holes are wider, and the wombats inside are plumper too. They needed a spot of wombat renovation to be able to fit back into their burrows.
There’s been three green-and-grass-filled years for wombats here. Are they grateful for the years of supplementary feeding during the drought and bushfires? They are not. If I’m lucky they’ll sniff towards me as if to say, ‘We have met somewhere before haven’t we? Now go away. I’m eating dinner.’
It’ s always dinner time for wombats, interrupted by sleeping time, and dedicated activity to produce more baby wombats.
The Last Few Years
I do have an excuse for the last few years negligence with newsletters. A problem knee replacement meant that by the time it was properly diagnosed there were so many fractures where the infection had spread to other bones that most of my leg had to be replaced. This resulted in a hairy knee (do not laugh, dear reader) and a surprise when I first slid into a swimming pool. One leg floats. The other, mostly concrete and titanium, sinks. There go my chances of being picked for the Aussie Olympic Swimming Team, Dog Paddle division.
It also means that when I stand on the scales I can say, ‘At least five kilos of that is the concrete in my leg. Please pass the chocolates.’
Books
I’m lucky to have a job I can do even with a gammy leg and fractured spine. I still can’t believe I get to spend all day simply writing every book that has slowly become an obsession after musing on it for three years.
Books Out Now
The most recent ones for young people are The Girls Who Changed the World series, starring time-travelling school girl Ming Qong.
Ages: 8+
Ages: 8+
Ages: 8+
Ages: 8+
The next one out in late November is Tigg and the Bandicoot Bushranger. I adore it, and hope you do too.
Ages: 9+
The latest book for adults is The Sea Captain’s Wife, with The Whisperer’s War to be released next March. If you are a mum, could you put it on your ‘I’d really like this list’?
The Sea Captain’s Wife begins when Mair goes down to the sea on Big Henry Island to find herself a ‘beachy’ husband, a sailor washed up on the rocks. Rescuing sailors is a tradition on Big Henry, where each house has its own pattern for socks. Once a man wore a certain woman’s socks, he belonged to her, and you couldn’t buy socks on Big Henry.
It’s not a feminist utopia, though Mair is shocked at women’s roles when her husband brings her to his wealthy home in Sydney. It’s an adventure, a romance, a detective story as well as history, how Australia changed once steam ships connected us to the world. It’s a book about joy, but also about survival. In hard times – from volcanic explosions to murders – you need to work together. Good times are even better when shared too.
Books Coming Soon
Awards and Shortlistings
There have been several this year, from the prestigious ARA Historical Novel Prize for Secret Sparrow, to the MARION ACT Literary Awards for The Turtle and the Flood, and CBCA Book of the Year Notables Lists for The Great Gallipoli Escape and Ming and Hilde Lead a Revolution. They’re on the web site, jackiefrench.com, if you want to read details.
Each one was an honour and a privilege.
Gardening
It’s ‘eat loads of asparagus’ time, and time to pick late navel oranges, mandarins, mulberries and fat avocados. There is so much fruit this year it’s hard to find enough people to share them. I’ve been counting blossom on the apricot and cherry trees and reminding myself that not all blossom turns into fruit.
We have kids coming into our gardens again. I heard a small boy whisper to his mum ‘Is that a lemon on a tree? Can I really pick it?
I think he and his sister enjoyed the oranges more. They left the tiniest scrap of orange peel in the creek; the rest must have floated away.
This is the exciting time: trees are setting fruit, and are bright, with pale-green leaves – it’s a time to dream about the abundance to come in a couple of months. October is just too encouraging. The days are balmy, and you feel like you can cultivate the world.
Beware. Whatever you plant now you’ll have to tend at Christmas. Three dozen tomatoes planted now mean a week freezing them, or sauce-making in late summer; three zucchini plants will mean you’re forcing them on your friends. The more you dig now the more you’ll have to weed in a month’s time.
Start small, and extend your plot week by week. That way you won’t start more than you can tend.
What to Plant
Cool areas will start spring planting now. In warmer areas, plant more lettuce, beans and corn. Pests attack early plantings. Most pests start breeding at about 3°C, while most predators only begin to be active at about 12°C. Wait till the world is ready to receive your bean seeds and capsicum plants – don’t try to hurry spring along.
How do you know when to plant? One bit of folklore wisdom says to plant tomatoes when the soil is warm enough to sit on with bare buttocks. In suburban areas use the back of your wrist. Another old saying has you planting corn when the peach blossom falls. I do this every year, and it works – unless, of course, your peach blossom happens to be frosted off.
On the other hand, there is the ‘spring flush’. This really exists: spring-grown crops grow faster than ones planted later. You just have to use your judgment – get plants in early enough to catch the spring tides, but not so early that they’re stunted or frosted off.
The next three months are the main planting time for the year. You’ll be planting the things you’ll eat all summer, as well as many of the things you’ll be eating through autumn, winter, and hopefully next spring as well.
Many crops, like silver beet, celery, leeks, spring onions, parsley, beetroot, carrots, parsnips, turnips, and foliage turnips can all be planted in one go to see you through the year. If you’re short of room, however, you can plant them over the next few months as space becomes available. These are the ‘year-rounders’, the crops you’ll rely on as the foundation of your vegie garden all year round. Other crops, like pumpkins and watermelons, are also one-crop plantings: plant enough to pick and store.
Then there are the staggered croppers: beans, lettuce, peas, corn, tomatoes, and zucchini. I tend to plant a new succession when the first lot is just starting to flower. It works better than planting every two weeks as, especially early in the season, early- and late-planted crops tend to catch up with each other and you end up with a glut.
Quick Maturers
Early summer can be a lean time when you’re living from your garden: last year’s plants have gone to seed and the next lot are still too young to eat. Try some of the old peasant stand-bys. Luckily we have a lot of peasant cultures to choose from: Australian ‘backyard peasants’ can have a much more varied diet than any traditional peasant ever dreamed of.
Radish
Round red ones are ready in about one month and the leaves can be snipped for salads or steamed after two weeks – more will re-grow. If, like me, you don’t like raw radish, try cooking them – they taste a bit like asparagus.
Chinese mustard greens
Can be eaten small and young – again, in the same way you’d use spinach or lettuce. It’s a very fast grower but resists running to seed when it gets hot.
Tampala or Chinese spinach
This is another fast grower. Use it as soon as you can bear to pick the leaves. The plant will eventually grow to about one metre tall, when you just eat the leaf tips. Tampala is very tender and delicate – much more delicate than silver beet, and it suits even conservative eaters.
Baby carrots like Amsterdam Forcing
Don’t thin them – just pull them as soon as they’re big enough.
Cos lettuce
Just pull off individual leaves as soon as they are big enough, without pulling up the lettuce, so the rest eventually hearts. You can do the same with Prizehead Red: simply harvest a bit whenever you have a salad. Rocket also gives quick salads, but it is a bit pungent and smoky for some tastes. Try soaking it in milk overnight before serving.
Cut celery
A celery used like parsley, very strongly flavoured. Seed can be sown all year round throughout Australia.
Rocket
Also called ruccola or Eruca sativa, it can be sown all year round – it self-sows with vigour. Steam the young leaves or eat them in salads. The older leaves are slightly bitter and smoky – loved by some, but not by me.
Urslane
An annual sown in spring in cool conditions, and all year round in tropical to subtropical areas. Cook it or eat it raw. Cut the leaves at 10 cm high or less, when they’re soft and tender.
Watercress
You can be eating this in a month, but beware of tiny snails which carry liver fluke: wash even home-grown watercress in three changes of water.
Silver beet
You should have your first picking in a month if you feed and water them well.
Chinese cabbage
Don’t try this in subtropical areas: it’ll bolt to seed unless you grow it in a cool, shaded place. In cooler areas you may be picking it two months from planting.
Harvest
This is a month that tells you how good your garden planning was last year. We’d have had peas if the wallaby hadn’t eaten them, and young dandelion leaves if the wombat hadn’t sat on them. (The leaves are probably still edible but I don’t fancy them.) Keep picking the tops out of silver beet that goes to seed so they’ll keep cropping till the new lot are ready. Pick Brussels sprouts as soon as they form so more grow. Asparagus will be yielding now, and early artichokes. In warm areas, lettuce, Chinese spinach, corn salad and peas may be starting to yield, if planted in August.
Fruit
Loquat, navel orange, lemon, lime, tangelo, mandarin, avocado, early strawberries, very early raspberries in warm areas, rhubarb, banana passionfruit, and tamarillos ripening from last season.
Other jobs
Broad beans don’t set seed in hot weather: mulch them thickly now to keep the soil cool. If they start getting spots on their leaves you’ve probably got a potash deficiency: throw wood ash on the plot, for next year. Let excess or old broad beans dry in the pod – then keep them to add to soups and stews later.
Chop up vegies gone-to-seed and stew them into a rich vegetable stock – either have it for lunch or freeze it. A friend grates them, adds wheat germ, and bakes them into crisp dog biscuits.
Many veg, like carrots and celery, that have gone to seed can be eaten simply by peeling away the tough outer membrane: the centres will be soft and sweet.
Plant green-manure crops that can be slashed and ready for January plantings of winter vegetables: broad beans (cut them at flowering, don’t wait for pods to set) or sunflowers, buckwheat or even radish if you pull them out before the bulbs form.
Mulch strawberries and rhubarb now, and cut off any rhubarb heads going to seed. Mulching now prevents leaf disease later.
Buy young chooks now: they’ll lay through to next spring. If you don’t raise your own chickens, try buying black, white and red ones alternately, to ‘colour code’ each year – or leave different colour roosters with the females each season.
If your chooks aren’t laying well, check their water: fresh, running water means more eggs, while a stagnant puddle may keep your hens alive but they won’t thrive. Hens won’t lay in very hot weather either: scatter branches over the chook run for some shade, and plant some trees, preferably trees like mulberries, tree lucerne or avocados which can provide chook food.
Chooks are paranoid creatures. They can be scared of anything that flies over them and anything that chases them – from kids to foxes. Scared chooks don’t lay well. Once, chooks were jungle birds, living in the broken light of the undergrowth. If you want secure, non-paranoid chooks, stick branches, old corn stalks, etc. over their run so that the light below is shifting and semi-shaded. They’ll feel less vulnerable, no matter what is around.
Pests
No matter what pests are bugging you, try not to do anything about it for at least another two weeks – see if natural predators won’t start doing the job for you.
What to eat from the garden
Every year I bless the times I put in asparagus and artichokes – they are the first real sign of spring. It’s ironic that when fresh veg are scarcest, two of the most wonderful crops appear in abundance.
Hungry-gap crops
Now that we can get golf ball tomatoes and pineapples any time of the year, a lot of the old spring foods have been forgotten. Most people won’t eat or harvest anything they don’t recognise from the supermarket – and most of us now prefer much blander foods. Bitter food was presumed to be a spring tonic in both European and Asian folklore.
Many traditional ‘hungry gap’ foods are all good, if now unconventional. Try them before you reject them. If you baulk at eating prickly pear fruit, mistletoe jam or carrot tops, remember that it’s better than an elderly, well-travelled tomato, that wasn’t much good in the first place.
Flowers
It may be a coincidence, but a lot of the early spring flowers are edible. Flowers are high in both vitamins (especially vitamin C) and minerals: an advantage when a lot of the vitamins had vanished from long-stored spring food.
Weeds
While many weeds are edible most of the year, they are only really good in early spring. After that their leaves get tough and bitter.
Winter leftovers
Many vegetable bits that we discard are as good as the main crop. Look for:
Cabbage stalks
These should be peeled of their tough skin, steamed, and served like asparagus.
Brussels sprouts or broccoli leaves
Shredded and stir-fried, they are also good with sautéed apples in butter.
Leeks going-to-seed
Cut off the seed stalk, peel it, and chop it into any vegetable dish.
Carrots going-to-seed
Grate them down to the tough core, slice it off, then grate the rest. Or add grated tough carrots to egg and wheat germ to make dog biscuits.
Celery going-to-seed
Cut out and peel the seed head. Serve it finely sliced, like cucumber.
Brussels sprout leaves
Try them shredded and stir-fried like cabbage.
Eating immature vegetables
Carrot tops
Chop them finely, like celery.
Young celery leaves
Broad bean tips
Steam them like silver beet. This is also a good remedy if they’ve got aphids.
Globe artichoke stalks
Peel and steam them.
Beetroot leaves
Eat them like silver beet. Don’t use sugarbeet leaves or golden beet leaves: they can be poisonous.
Hop or choko shoots
Steam and serve with butter.
Zucchini or pumpkin flowers
Stuffed or butter-fried, these are also good dipped in batter and deep-fried.
Garlic leaves
Chop and add them to stews or salads.
Tiny radish leaves
Can be chopped and added to mashed potato, or dipped in batter and deep-fried.
Young sunflower or poppy leaves
A small amount can be added to salads. Don’t use too many unless you’re also looking for a medicinal effect.
A Few Recipes
Oh how delightful to hear from you😃
I am so very sorry to hear of what you have gone through with your knee.
I had trouble with both my hips and the second one was done 3 times , an infection and walking will never be the same .
I sympathize and understand a bit of what you have gone through.
I hope that there are many joys in your life to keep your spirit up. It certainly sounds like you are getting the most out of your surroundings and passions. Thank you so much for all that you have shared and for your very interesting books.
Have you ever considered doing a Literary cruise? If you were a guest…
Such a wonderful read. I am salivating at the descriptions of all these delicious fruits and vegetables.
Love those cheeky wombats.