Whats In The HeART

A little mushroom experiment.

What I did not expect was for the mushrooms to push through the sticky tape.

One thing growing keeps teaching me is that experiments don’t always go to plan, but failures usually teach us something useful.

While I lost one bucket of a different type of mushroom, the Chestnut mushrooms were a success.

And apparently mushrooms are stronger than sticky tape.

Growing peas are one of the easiest crops to grow, and you don’t need a big garden. A pot on a verandah is enough. Peas do well in cooler temperatures. Simple, productive, and something anyone can try. So give it a go, if you love peas as much as I do. 💛🫛

Natural pest control sometimes comes down to simple, hands-on methods like removing pests yourself. I don’t rely on chemicals for pest management. Instead, I stay observant and deal with problems early, before they get out of control.

I care about growing and eating good food without using chemicals, so keeping on top of pests is important to me, it helps me avoid needing to use them at all.

I’ve been growing and using this plant for the past five years, experimenting with it as an alternative to corn starch and flour.

After harvesting the rhizomes, it can be processed into a flour that is naturally gluten free and useful in baking and cooking.

It also works well as a thickener in place of cornflour, which is often highly processed and commonly genetically modified.

What I like about Queensland arrowroot is that it can be grown at home and used as part of everyday cooking, from thickening soups and sauces to baking bread, biscuits and cakes.

Over time, I’ve come to appreciate how useful this plant is, and how the garden can provide alternatives to ingredients we often rely on from the supermarket.

Five years of quietly experimenting and learning from the garden.





QueenslandArrowroot

There’s something comforting about cooking with what’s already growing.

Today it is butternut pumpkin.

I baked the pumpkin first, then added it to the pot with onions, vegetable stock, salt and a bay leaf. Once onion softens and flavour blends together, I use a hand blender and sometimes add some milk, I prefer the flavour to cream.

Because this pumpkin was grown without sprays, I’m comfortable using the skin too. The skin carries with it a number of health benefits too.

Simple food, made from what’s on hand.
Food tastes different when it comes from your own soil.