Fruit & Vegetables

Classic Sweet Pumpkin Pie

If you’re anything like me, you have an abundance of pumpkins during the growing season (in fact it’s way beyond abundance, but that’s a whole other story). I’m always on the lookout for fun ways to make good use of my harvest, and what better way than a pie that can be shared with friends

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Traditional Dutch Stamppot

When it is cold and snowy outside, I always crave old-school Dutch dishes like this traditional stamppot. I grew up eating things like stamppot and splitpea soup during winter, and they will continue to be staples in my home. Meals that are wholesome plus easy to make, I think I will always keep making. Translating

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How to Grow Dragon Fruit

Meet dragon fruit- a truly wonderful, delicious and exotic-looking tropical fruit that is easy to grow at home. With the texture of kiwifruit and the taste of lemonade, dragon fruit is a delightful addition to drinks and desserts (like our dragon fruit & finger lime sorbet), and of course, is fantastic eaten on its own.

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Spinach & Pumpkin Lasagna

This spinach & pumpkin lasagna is excellent yet unconventional. Taking inspiration from classic Italian cuisine and using ingredients I had on hand, this dish almost created itself. I like this style of cooking. Just seeing what is in my fridge, what I can use and creating a dish with my cooking instincts & intuition alone.

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Dragonfruit & Finger Lime Sorbet

The melt-in-your-mouth texture of a sorbet is all the more delicious when you’ve made it from fresh home-grown fruit. Pretty enough for a dinner party and good enough for every day, this dragonfruit and finger lime sorbet makes a great guilt-free snack. Quick and easy to whip up after school, it’s a nice summer treat

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2023 Autumn/Winter Subtropical Planting Guide

Welcome to winter in the humid subtropics- all three weeks of it. Okay that’s a local joke where I live (Brisbane, Australia), but it’s not far from the truth. The subtropics give us a specialised climate- one unlike any other. Most gardening information found online and in books is written for cool or temperate climates,

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Almond Apple Cake

When you want to make an apple cake, but just a little different in flavour, than this almond apple cake is perfect! Its richness is so comforting, what’s not to love? This almond apple cake is a different take on a traditional apple cake. Instead of the classic apple/cinnamon/raisin combination, I’ve switched out the raisins

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3 Easy Ways to Cook Okra – Recipes

While okra isn’t exactly the new kid on the block, most Australians are only fairly recently learning to grow and cook with it. Okra is versatile in the kitchen and can be cooked as a side dish, a main, or a snack. Here we give you a recipe for each of these options. Okra has

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How to Thin Out Seedlings- 5 Top Tips

One of the best gardening problems you can have is too many plants. Sometimes, when you grow from seed, germination can be better than you expect & the garden quickly becomes overcrowded. When this happens, your plants can suffer and fail to thrive because they simply don’t have enough space & resources to reach their

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Why Keeping Chickens is a ‘Bad’ Idea/World Egg Crisis

Now, in early 2023, there’s a worldwide egg shortage in supermarkets. Yet somehow, there’s no shortage of articles & news reports telling us that keeping backyard chickens is a bad idea. This media negativity, despite the shortages, raises serious questions on a number of levels. I believe that the argument against keeping chickens is misguided

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How to Grow Okra

What is Okra? Technically, okra (Abelmoschus esculentus) is a fruit, but is perceived and eaten as a vegetable. The colour changes with the variety, and ranges from pale green to pink to dark maroon. A heat-loving, low-care crop that thrives in strong sun and humidity, okra does best in subtropical and tropical gardens (if you’re

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10 Underrated Veggies for a Subtropical Garden

So many of us have come to live in subtropical climate areas from colder, more mild regions. Naturally, we have grown up eating traditional European vegetables, so when we become gardeners, those are what we try to grow. We soon realise that those veggies aren’t so compatible with humid subtropical conditions, and that we need

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Eggplant & Okra Parmigiana- Recipe

Eggplant parmigiana is a classic Italian dish my Sicilian grandmother used to regularly make for my father (because apparently, no-one else made it just right). Regions of Italy such as Parma, Campania and Sicily all claim parmigiana as their own. In truth, the origins of this dish are decisively uncertain– either way, it is now

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Growing & Using Lovage

Lovage needs to make a comeback! There, I’ve said it. But I won’t be surprised if you’ve never heard of lovage- we don’t see it in grocery stores, we rarely see it in recipes, and the plants are hard to find. To me, plants that are low-care perennials which put a lot of food on

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Pumpkin & Carrot Puree

If you are like Mark and have more pumpkins than you know what to do with, this pumpkin and carrot puree is a very nice recipe to try. Unfortunately I’m not that lucky- I only ever seem to grow one pumpkin per plant. And sometimes even that pumpkin is as small as my hand, even

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Thai-Inspired Stir Fry

This Thai-inspired stir fry is a staple in my home. I come back to it time and time again because it is so simple to make, yet is healthful & packs a great flavour punch. So try it and see for yourself if you agree. When it is very much winter here in The Netherlands,

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Yarrow: A Beautiful & Ornamental Ancient Herb

Yarrow is native to temperate regions of Europe and Western Asia, and has been grown for many centuries as a medicinal and ornamental herb. While I’d heard the name ‘yarrow’ long ago, it wasn’t until I really got into gardening that I sat up and took notice. I then discovered that yarrow is not only

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12 Herbs & Spices You Should Always Grow

No matter where you live, as a gardener you always have some sort of constraints. Whether it’s climate, space, time, energy or just plain personal preference, we can’t do everything. There are literally hundreds of different herbs you can try growing, but realistically we all have to make choices about what to grow and what

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Sicilian Chickpea & Spinach Braise (Vegan)

This traditional Sicilian chickpea and spinach braise is a resourceful meal derived partly through tradition and partly through need. My grandparents came to Australia in the early 1950s armed with gardening knowledge but little else. While they quickly established a productive vegetable garden, grandads fledgling fishing business didn’t always bring home the catch of the

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