Alternative Pesto Recipe

Mary, Mary

Quite Contrary

How does your Basil grow?

WILDLY

As mentioned in a previous post, the basil in the herb spiral is growing very well. The time had come to harvest and make pesto. I don't make pesto to a specific recipe, instead I usually experiment and use whatever I have in the pantry/fridge. So the following is a guide and contains various substitution options, based on your likes/ dislikes/ pantry situation. 

For this recipe I used:

• Bail (10 Cups)
• Sun-dried Tomatoes (5-6)
• Sun-dried Tomato Oil (5-7 Tbsp)
• Parmesan Cheese (5 Tbsp)
• Walnuts (5 Tbsp)
• Cold Pressed Olive Oil (if required)

I collected about two colanders worth of basil leaves, so approximately 10 cups of Basil, added it to my blender (the all-mighty Vitamix). Next I added about 5 or 6 Sun-Dried Tomatoes (all that was left in the jar) and the oil from the jar. The sun-dried tomatoes that I buy are preserved in olive oil and the delicious tomato flavour has infused itself into the oil, along with whatever herbs are used to flavour the tomatoes. This is the secret ingredient that really makes it.

Turn the blender/food processor on its lowest setting and sundried tomato oil a little at a time, to allow the basil to be blended. Turn off the blender and add Parmesan cheese. The amount of cheese depends on how strong its flavour is and how strong a flavour you like. I have really strong flavoured cheese and love a strong flavour, so I added about 5 Tablespoons. Next add whatever nuts you prefer. Most recipes call for pine nuts, but these are super expensive. I had an open packet of walnuts, so used those. Pecans, cashews, pepitas, sunflower seeds are also good options.

Inside the blender

Blending 

Turn the blender back onto its lowest setting and blend away, adding more oil if required. The secret to good pesto is blending it until it is combined, but still a little chunky. 

I then spooned out the pesto into cupcake molds and stuck them in the freezer. Once they'd frozen I popped them into a container and will now have pesto for several months. 

Sort of chunky perfection

Enough to freeze

If making large batches of pesto, it is much easier to freeze them into single batch portions, then chuck the portions, once frozen into a container. 

Extending the Edible Garden.

Food garden pre-mulching

Over the weekend, I mulched and added a few more plants to the edible garden, which next to the Hugelkultur.

Pre-mulching with first row of cardboard

My favourite weed-matting material is cardboard boxes. Its thick, its free, it breaks down, forming compost and its fairly non-toxic. Its important to overlap the cardboard on the edges and to ensure its in the perfect location in relation to the tree stem. Too far means you'll get weeds growing up, too close can kill the plant. I usually leave a gab of a few centimetres and also don't mulch right up to the stem. I also find the cardboard more manageable if its slightly damp. So either water it, or leave it out for a few days. 

Cardboard weed-matting. 

Sugar Cane Mulch

After laying down the cardboard, I covered in a thick layer of sugar cane mulch. The mulch is really rough, straight from a sugar can farm about 40 minutes away. I prefer to use it because it smells great, sort of sweetly and I like the look of it.

Gigi 'planting' 

 I haven't added a border to the garden yet, mainly because I ran out of time over the weekend. I am also planning to extend the garden so the the whole area of the fruit orchid is mulched out. I haven't yet decided whether to add borders as I go, or wait untill I've finished the whole lot. I need to mulch out the whole area as its a little difficult (actually very difficult) to mow.  I didn't plant the fruit trees in row, just haphazardly all over the place. Lesson learnt for next time.

Hugelkultur Update

Earlier this month, I tried my hand at making a Hugelkultur. Basically, a Hugelkultur is a pile of logs/sticks/mulch/etc, covered in dirt and planted out. Here is the wiki description of the process.

After 'construction', I watered the soil of the Hugelkultur and left the dirt to settle into the gaps in the wood. Turns out that after about a week, the Hugelkultur was about half the original height after settling.

I planted it out with a variety of edibles that were given to me as cuttings from my friends mum. As mentioned in my previous article, I'm not entirely sure what most of the plants are. Some of the ones I recognise are Sweet Potato, Strawberry, Herb Robert, Comfrey and Nasturtium.

 I was also given a few small tree off-cuts from my friends mum and transplanted a Capsicum bush from my parents house that wasn't doing so well there. Again, I've forgotten what the small trees are, I just know that they are all edible. This weekend I'll be mulching around these trees and also mulching the hugelkultur.

The Hulgelkultur and the small trees are planted in the middle of my Fruit Tree Orchid. Its my attempt at a food forest. Over the next few years the fruit trees should grow to about 3-5m to form the canopy layer, whilst the smaller edible trees will form the mid layer. I'm hoping to have a few hugelkulturs spread around the forest floor, planted out with ground covers and then the ground level mulched, so I don't have to mow or weed. 

Guinea Fowl Update

Guinea Fowls waiting to be fed

I purchased some Guinea Fowl a few weeks ago and released them to free-range about a fortnight ago. They are settling in nicely and haven't flown away (yet). So far they have been hanging around the goat shed, which is where I feed them and has water available.


Unfortunately, one of the Fowls died approximately one week after being let loose to free-range. I'm still not sure why. One morning it was fine, the next it was lethargic,  huddling in the corner and that afternoon it was dead. The rest seem fine, so I'm totally baffled at what happened.

I'm left with seven Guinea Fowl, which seem happy to wander around the goat yard and are slowly increasing their range everyday. The six youngest ones are growing quickly and have almost caught up in size with the largest one, which was from an earlier brood.

The goats are wondering where their seed is...

The goats were curious of their new paddock mates at first, but now largely ignore them. The Guinea Fowl seem a little wary of the goats, staying out of their way, but are not alarmed by them. I have discovered that the goats love the Guinea Fowl seed, so now I have to lock them out of the yard so the Guinea Fowls can eat in peace. I feel like every morning when I feed the Guinea Fowl, the goats are looking on, coveting the seed.

Herb Spiral Update

Back in March, I made a Herb Spiral for my Mum's 50th Birthday (yes, I have very young parents).

It is absolutely roaring ahead. When I first planted the basil, a couple died back and I was too lazy to pull them out. Then, with all the rain in April, they bounced back to life and there is a plethora of Basil available. I've managed to make two batches of pesto with enough leaves on the bushes for many more. So I'll have to have a pesto making day on the weekend and freeze some.

Lots of basil with a mint cascade. 

The mint and dill have also taken off. I have an exciting idea for the mint, which I will post about when I get to it. As for the dill, I'm not entirely sure what to do with it, as I've never grown it successfully before. So I'll be looking for recipes involving dill.

The Lemon Grass (pots in background) is also growing well and I'll have to split it up soon. Lots of friends and family will be getting some green gifts I think...

Hugelkultur and fence painting....

HUGELKULTUR

Lately, I have been ready a lot about Hugelkulturs, so I thought I'd try making my own. 

If (like me two weeks ago) you've never heard of a Hugelkultur, its basically a raised garden bed. I have made a few raised garden beds, mainly at my parents farm and let me say, they are hard work and can be expensive (unless you take the Frugal Option). 

A Hugelkultur is neither expensive, nor difficult to built. All you have to do is gather a pile of sticks and logs, pile dirt over the top and hey presto, instant raised garden. Admittedly they look a little messy, so if you are all about perfect-looking garden, they probably aren't for you. 

Since my block is completed bare, except for the tubestock natives I've planted, I collected a ute load of sticks and small logs from some my parents farm. Luckily for me, my dad had also done some pruning a few weeks ago, so there were a few fairly substantial tree branches. I marked out where I wanted the Hugelkultur and dug out the top layer of soil. 

Ute-load of stick and logs

Digging out the top layer is not essential, by any means. If you have poor soil, or don't want to dig, simply lay some newspaper or cardboard on the ground and pile the sticks/logs on top. However, the soil at my block is good quality and I wanted to use it on the top layer of the Hugelkultur. I piled the soil to the side for later to spread on top. 

Next I picked out the biggest logs to make the border, to keep the smaller sticks in place. Then I piled all the stick on, covered with some soil, then covered with the topsoil. Instant garden.

Gigi snacking on a Guava,
home grown from one of two trees on the block. 

I've planted out the Hugelkultur with cuttings I got from my friends Mum. They are all food producing plants, most of which I've forgotten the name of, so I'll have to have her over for a coffee and tell me what they are again. I'll do an update shortly to re-cap what I'm actually growing.

Gigi playing with her toys on top of the Hugelkultur

FENCE PAINTING

The other activity I've been slowly slugging away at, is fence painting. Gigi has been such a good helperand we're almost done. I'm thinking it might only take another two week-ends and we'll have everything painted.

Gigi busily painting

painted palings loaded, ready to be nailed up

Guinea Fowl...

The chief Guinea Fowl

Three weeks ago I purchased some Guinea Fowl. As mentioned in previous posts, I have a number of goats at my parents property. Nineteen to be exact. I've also mentioned that my parents live in a rural area with lots of wildlife. Some of this wildlife, namely wallabies and bandicoots, are carriers of a variety of ticks. In previous years I've lost goats, particularly baby goats to ticks. Until now, I've put dog tick collars on all the goats. This is both expensive and not ideal due to the chemicals.

I had been doing a lot of reading about alternative pest control options and discovered that Guinea Fowl apparently do a fantastic job at controlling ticks. So after consulting Dr Google regarding their needs and care, I decided to look around to purchase some. Happily the next day in our local paper, someone was advertising Guinea Fowl Keats for $10 each. I called them on a Saturday afternoon and on a Sunday, three weekends ago, Gigi and I were on our way to pick up our new pest controllers.

Some things I learned from Dr Google regarding Guinea Fowls:

• They are LOUD so do not keep them near the house, if you'd like to sleep. 
• They are native to African and thus are used to walking long distances (up to 10km) per day. Therefore when first purchased, they need to be kept locked up for 3 weeks if purchased as keats (babies) or 6-8 weeks if purchased as adults to ensure they get used to their new home
• It is best to keep them locked up close to where you would like them to roost or free range. 
• Even though they are 'domesticated' they are not tame or pets.
• Guinea Fowl can fly. Quite well. 

With this in mind, I set up a temporary cage for the Guinea Fowl in the goat shed. As per Guinea Fowl facts above, I placed them here because it is in the goat paddock, where I would like the Fowls to free range when it came time to let them out and there is also a lovely Moreton Bay Fig Tree next to the goat shed, which i thought would be perfect for them to roost in. 

Temporary Guinea Fowl confinement cage. 

Inside the goat shed, I re-purposed a pallet as a shelf and placed the cage on top, with straw on the bottom. The cage is usually used to house newborn bottle-fed baby goats in the garage at night. Its actually a dog crate.

I got the Guinea Fowl home in a cardboard box and transferred them one by one into the cage. I left them for a while to settle, then put food and water in with them. The food is a seed/grain mix that I purchased from the Produce, good for chickens, guinea fowl and turkeys. 

Our eight Guinea Fowl Keats, free ranging

The week just gone was week three of the Guineas confinement period and therefore time to let them out. On Friday, around lunchtime, I opened the cage door, tied it back and waited for them to launch themselves into freedom. They just stood there looking at the open door. Ten minutes later, they still hadn't made a move, I got bored and left them to it. On dusk, I went back to see if they'd come back to their cage to roost. No Guinea Fowls in sight. I grabbed a torch and looked in every tree around the goat shed. No Guinea Fowls. Thinking they'd flown off, I cursed the Guinea Fowl and my own stupidity. 

The next morning I went out to check the goats and to my surprise the Guinea Fowl were hanging around the goat shed! They hadn't made for the hills after all! They've now been free for four days are are still happily hanging around. Free ranging pest control ready to roll.

They didn't run-off after all!

Some additional things that I have learned from experience about the Guinea Fowl:

• They are wild. When I fed them and gave them fresh water every day, I softly called to them to get them used to me. For the first week, they went crazy in the cage trying to get away from me. By week three they'd stopped going crazy but still huddled in the furthest corner. If they were chickens, they would have been eating out of my hands by three weeks. 
• Even though I'd picked a nice tree for them to roost in and placed their confinement cage next to it, Guinea Fowls have a mind of their own and have chosen a different tree to roost in at night. I still haven't figured out which tree it is. 
• They really can fly. And run. They are very fast runners. 
• Once they've been let out, thats it. They are now 'wild-domesticated' animals. I can see that I'll never be able to catch them or cage them again. 

Some things I'll have to figure out with time:

• I have no idea how to tell the difference between male and female. Currently they all look the same (except one, which is significantly older and more mature) and they are all making the same cheeping noise, which I guess is because they are still young. 
• I have no idea how I will find their eggs to eat, when they get old enough to lay.