Grey's edible garden in Busselton, Western Australia | Shopping & retail

Grey's edible garden

Locality: Busselton, Western Australia

Address: 29a Hester street 6280 Busselton, WA, Australia

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25.01.2022 I'm a foodie and pro herb grower, but it's only in the last year that I've really got into using mint adventurously; though I've used it all my life with lamb. I recommend using big in salads. And try this recipe which will turn very average fish into a major crowd pleaser. But instead of using two tablespoons of mint, use two cups seriously, give it a go, it will give you the courage to go mad with mint. http://www.seriouseats.com//sicilian-eggplant-pinenut-capo

24.01.2022 Glebionis coronaria, (formerly Chrysanthenum coronaria) Is a vegetable grown all over the Mediterranean basin, (wehere it originated) and all over Asia. Known as Coronaria, (Spain/Catalonia) Crown daisy, (England) or Shungiku, (Japan); it's one of the very few daisies that are annual/biannual. The greens are high in potassium, other minerals, carotene and antioxidants. I first came across Coronaria decades ago, 'it's a daisy you can eat', I was told. Yeah I thought, but wh...y would you. Well here's why, because it has a very mild daisylike flavour that tastes very nice. It's very easy to grow and supplies more greens a sq metre than anything else. It's not a 'daisy' it's a vegetable, it's been under cultivation for...(don't know :-) a long time. There are many varieties. Do yourself a favour, take it seriously. Good in salad, stir fry and flowers are used in herbal tea. http://www.namayasai.co.uk//Shungiku%20Beds%2015Sep2006%20

20.01.2022 What's that? You might ask, or if your hip with the coool, you might not This is a Yacon, or ground pear/apple. Personally I think it's most like a nashi, but without the grainyness. They're sweet though not very, and the sweetness is not sugar. There's no unpleasant saccharine type flavour, but it doesn't register as a sugar in the body, though it is liked by the good bacteria in the gut and is called a pre-biotic as it gives them special powers... It grows much like Jerusalem artichokes above ground and indeed is related. Below ground Yacon has both rhizomes from which new plants emerge as can be seen, and also tubers resembling sweet potatoes. It's the tubers that are eaten. They have excellent keeping qualities and indeed a little are better when stored for a month or two, (they lose water, wrinkle a little and are therefore sweeter. Eat Yacon as they are, peel and chop and add to salads, or slice and add to stir fry in the lieu of water chestnuts I'm well pleased to have Yacon, one of the best new veggies for sure. Perfect for relatively frost free areas of the southwest, (or maybe even frosty areas, I wouldn't know).

20.01.2022 This is a latex glove used to seed collect from half a dozen mustard habanero chillies. The gloves were thoroughly soap washed four times and twice they were towel dried. I touched my tounge to the stain and it took a burn. Mustard habanero are a relatively mild 350,000 SCU. Some of the modern weapons grade chillies go up to over 2,000,000 SCU. A meal for one I'll use 3 cayenne chilli. I like chilli. I don't see any point to a chilli hotter than mustard habanero. On the other hand some of the chilli lite types such as Big Jim, Annaheim and Poblano Mulatto 'molle' are very useful for stuffing and using on salads

20.01.2022 Fragaria alpina the European wild strawberry. It's small, it's like eating perfume. it doesn't run, it makes a clump. It's one of the worlds most expensive foods, but it's a luxury you can afford if you grow it yourself. Looks great in strawberry pots, hanging baskets and you can even eat the leaves, (young spring) in salads or dry and use for tea. http://www.fruitipedia.com//Alpine%20strawberry%20plants.j

20.01.2022 https://www.facebook.com/story.php

19.01.2022 Red Romaine/Winter lettuce - There's only one lettuce to grow during the cool months. This variety of Red Romaine dates back centuries. You can water the seeds all you like in warm weather but it refuses to germinate until the weather cools. It grows strong and solid, remains sweet without a hint of bitterness and reliably self seeds every year. As you can read here, I'm not the only one who raves about it. http://sweetdomesticity.com/2013/12/06/red-romaine-lettuce/

19.01.2022 Hyssop, Too often passed over in the herb garden, in preference to the larger rosemary and lavender. Hyssop makes a lovely tight bush up to a metre each way, and has a beautiful blue floral display. Beekeepers used to rub their hives with it to keep the bees from taking off to pastures new.... Hyssop aids the Digestion of fatty foods and leaves can be used to flavour soups, salads or stews.

19.01.2022 Everything you know about compost is wrong! No! It's 'compost' itself that's wrong. Composting is all about breaking down organic matter into humus and nutrient. Now that's okay as a goal, but the means is all wrong. The means is reliant on bacteria. They'll do the job. no question, in the fullness of time. And if you spend lots of time turning and aerating it'll even have some nutritional value. But bacteria are very small, yes there can be lots of them, but go figure. ... Consider an apple, bruise it a little, break the skin, give the bacteria guys a head start. How long before that apple becomes a small heap of brown in a puddle? Now see how you go feeding that apple to a horse. The horse would turn the whole orchard into compost before the bacteria have finished one apple. Okay keeping a horse is problematic, but there's another layer of animal between the big herbivores, (including rabbits and guinea pigs etc) and the microscopic. world of bacteria. I'm talking about the micro, insects and invertebrates. Many of the same animals that are pests in the veggie garden can be an asset when used to break down organic matter. Forget the piddly little plastic worm farm, my worm farm, lined with black plastic sheet with an outflow pipe to catch the useful nutrient rich liquid in a drum, is 4 metres long, a metre wide and can be piled up to two metres high. And quite apart from the probably millions of worms, it has slaters, snails slugs and others all chomping away all day every day. its fascinating to see how quickly a big heap can be reduced down to humus. It can take any soft or greenish material from broom rape to Banana stems. Sure bacteria help, bacteria help digest food in us and horses, but mouths do the heavy lifting. Look after the critters and the bacteria will look after themselves. https://youtu.be/n9OhxKlrWwc

16.01.2022 No More a Marketing :-) You might have noticed since I haven't been for nearly a year. It was just too much work for too little at my prices, and I didn't want to put them up. There’s not much point paying more for your edible plant than you can buy it for at the supermarket. Packing and unpacking every market takes time and plants suffer. But you can still buy all the standard herbs and perennial edibles that I used to carry, plus a growing list of more unusual edible plant...s direct from me at my usual low low prices. P. M. me here or email [email protected] for a list.

15.01.2022 Growing Brassica's The 'egg shell trick' is one of my favourites. Someone high on magic realism or wishful thinking writes in a gardening book that, "cabbage white butterflies are territorial, so if they see an eggshell they'll think another butterfly already 'owns' that garden and go somewhere else." Before you know it every armchair gardener, writing a coffee table organic gardening book, includes this spurious nonsense and it spreads across the planet. It's what I call, 't...he propagation of bullshit'. If cabbage white butterflies see a few eggshells they're more likely to think somebody has organised a dance party or an orgy or both. In winter when fear of sun-scorch is over you can protect brassica's and boot along their growth with an old trick called 'cloches', Cloches used to be made out of glass and you'd see an acre covered in glass bells. A lot of investment in money and time. Now you can make an effective cloche simply by cutting the bottom off of a 2 litre milk container. A caterpillar on a 3 cm seedling is the end. But once it's outgrown a cloche it doesn't matter so much. http://1.bp.blogspot.com//d0cN8iRv7M0/s1600/glass-bells.jpg

15.01.2022 I'm taking a sack of free Echiums to the Market tomorrow. Busselton, Signal Park. You can thank me by liking the Grey's edible garden page :-) https://farm5.staticflickr.com//4740699914_d3b0b23044_o_d.

09.01.2022 Lovely big rhubarb $8 rosemary $6 ex-Busselton, be quick

09.01.2022 Kai lahn, it was for many years, now there's a profusion of Westernised names like Gai Lon; probably all wrong Anyway it's Chinese Broccoli, grown for the thick and tender stems, rather than the florets. Hybrids of Kai lahn (broccolini) exist, but as with mint and chocolate, I prefer one thing or the other. So that's why I'm growing some in the greenhouse. I want to keep them seperate from the Broccoli growing outside. That means I have to be a bee. That's what the tuft of cotton wool is doing in the picture. Nice and soft for collecting and passing on pollen and you don't have to wash and dry it before using again, like a brush. Just throw into the compost

09.01.2022 Salsify, Tragopogon porrifolius. It's a neat pasnip like root veg. It looks more like an onion or grass with its strappy leaves. The great thing about salsify is that the older and bigger it gets the better. They don't get woody they get softer, ( but not mushy). You wont often see it in the shops because it doesn't travel or keep well. You pull it and use it, great for home gardeners. This vegetable is native to Russia and the Balkans and was first introduced to England on the strength of its attractive flower. The seed has a fairly short viability so let one go to seed, it'll self seed very well and wont interfere with other vegetables growing nearby. http://www.buildingasimplelife.com//Purple-Salsify-Flower- http://www.knowyourvegetables.co.uk//know/Salsify%203.jpg

09.01.2022 This celery, I’d used the top making stock, was floppy limp after a week in the fridge. I put it in a little water. It took time but after about a week the stems were straight and rigid again. That was over a month ago, it’s now starting to root and has put on some new leaf growth. Time to make more stock I always keep lettuce fresh this way. Much better than putting in a fridge and saves room.

08.01.2022 What are those green fruit in the ratatouille? Green tomatoes? Wrong though they do have a tomato like notes as well as slightly sweet and sour. They're Tomatillos. Tomatillo are a great way to add some tomato flavour without having it taking over the whole dish. They're easy to grow, are close relatives of cape gooseberries, green when ripe and come with a cape. They're also known as husk tomato. Traditionally used in salsa, you can use tomatillo as tomato substitute sliced in sandwiches or add them to stir fry and my genuine French temporary resident Theo gave full marks to the Ratatouille.

06.01.2022 Don't beat me, but I thought you might be getting a teeny bit bored with chillies So here's another hot idea. Is it as hot as a mush of Carolina reapers? Probably not, but it's a different kind of hot, and preparation can certainly get you in the eyes and nose. The seed came from just two horned mustard plants. I should have weighed them but I didn't, all I can say is that after soaking in Apple cider/tarragon vinegar it half filled an 800 Gm halva container. ... I didn't think there was enough to blend in a blender, but I did maybe a quarter in a mortar and pestle and that was laborious and getting to me. So in the blender it went. I added pimento, Turmeric salt and olive oil. It wasn't blending satisfactorily so I added water a little at a time until it was getting some movement. It was my first time making mustard from scratch. It's really good, hot, and no big deal. Mustard making is easy

05.01.2022 Kumeras Not even Maori are clear about what constitutes an authentic Kumera, (Maori sweet potato, ignoramus ) . But Kiwis are very clear about Kumera being a better sweet potato than anywhere else. The Kumera takes on a different form depending where in New Zealand it's grown But no matter what it looks like, one thing remains the same, it's smaller than the supermarket varieties and it's tastier. Two forms of Kumera are also found in Hawaii, One of them is popularly, (and... confusingly) known as 'Okinawa'. The other is known in Hawaii as 'Molokai'. The origins of varieties of Ipomea batatas have been lost in the mists of time, to be honest, but one interesting fact is, in the Quechua language (indigenous, formerly of the Inca Empire, now concentrated in Peru) the word for Sweet Potato is Kumer). Some historians say that this common naming, and genetics points to pre-Colombian trading between the Polynesians and South American mainland. Interesting, but I digress. The most common form of Kumera is 'Owairaka' purple/red outside - creamy white inside. caramelises nicely, excellent, popular. 'Molokai' Purple/red outside - solid purple inside. This is a VERY interesting vegetable from a health point of view. Research done in New Zealand has shown that the high levels of anthocyanin, (purple juice, found in wine, beetroot) could reduce colon cancer by a whopping 75%, BUT! You'd have to eat a kilo everyday. Nice but, can't see that happening; still, every bit helps aye? 'Okinawa' White outside / white with purple marbling inside. Also touted as delicious and healthy, though presumably you'd have to eat 5 kilo a day, (just kidding). There's a fourth version of Kumera, purple/red outside - yellow fleshed inside. Highly regarded by people who know it, so far haven't tracked it down

05.01.2022 The health conscious will know that most purple coloured edibles like blueberry, plums, eggplants and grapes, contain powerful antioxidants essential to our health. These antioxidants are called 'Anthocyanins'. Next tomato season I'll be offering a new tomato that presents as totally black and is a rich source of Anthocyanin. It's been developed by Oregon State University using traditional plant breeding and both the seed and plants will have been produced by organic methods. http://oregonstate.edu//purple-tomato-debuts-%E2%80%98indi

03.01.2022 You'll be glad to hear that this coming spring I'll have some real hot chilli's on offer, including this one. I like the flavour of the scorpions. Some of the others not so much. I've been nibbling on a scorpion all week trying to build up my tolerance. They really are crazy hot. I put a half in an omlette built for two last night and it was excellent. Very hot but within tolerances. Great for making plum sauce. Also excellent in apple sauce, that was a happy accident. https://fbexternal-a.akamaihd.net/safe_image.php