10 Years on - let's do it again!

On a day in August the boys reminisced on the hey days of Man versus Carrot.  Of course, this was after a few beers and having forgot the hardship that they previously endured. So, it was on again for the first week in 2022 - same garden space, same rules.

For Paul planting started in the first week of September.  Knowing how hard it was last time detailed planning went into this - spacing of the 4 plots, meal planning and planting times all detailed on a spreadsheet.

Plot 1: Corn, Zucchini, pumpkin and beans

Plot 2: Tomatoes, Eggplant, Peppers, Basil and Parsley.

Plot 3: Potatoes, Carrots, Beetroot, Parsnip, Cabbage, Celery, Fennel, Cucumber

Plot 4: Swiss chard (self sown), spring onions, Pac and Boc Choy, Lettuces.  

Lessons learnt: 

I am not as good as a yates man - add 2 to 4 weeks to their timelines for production.  Buy seed potato and give them lots of space.  Provide proper spacing for my plants and do no shade them out. Improve the soil before planting, mulch well - especially for greens.

Fails - potatoes - never looked like happening (Luckily I had my perennial feral patch and a Pontiac volunteer in the corn patch - that I almost pulled out. 

Corn - out by a couple of weeks. Plus when the did come on only a few nubs per cob. Massive fail!

Could have done better - carrots shaded out and needed much longer; similar with beets. Silverbeet - plant a different variety (Fordhook Giant) and didn't need so much (only used it in curry).

Successes - Hash Browns, borlotti beans (only used in soup, but would have been good in a pasta dish (done like Tony's Fazool), nutri-bullet. Best tomato season for well over 7 years.

Challenges - Ferals - mice and rats eating my climbing beans - so a huge dent to production.

The Meals.

Breakfast - either tomato and basil on toast or hash browns with tomato, or V4 (tomato, celery, carrot and beetroot).

Lunch - quinoa or cous cous salad (tomato, cucumber, rocket and basil) salad, hash browns, V4.

Cous cous salad

V4

hash browns

Dinner:

Night 1: alcohol - 7 drinks - beer, champagne and red wine. Not a healthy start!

Night 2: Stir fry vegies - Pac and Boc Choy, Broccoli, Beans, shallots and Rice.

Night 3: Tomatoes, Basil and Chick Pea Pasta

Night 4: Vegetable Soup - potato, carrots, celery, zucchini with Borlotti Beans and Pasta with Basil and parsley

Night 5: Roast vegies and Rice - parsnip, potato, pumpkin, carrots and beets.

Night 6: Vegie Curry and Brown Rice

Night 7: Red lentil pasta with tomato, eggplant celery, peppers, baby zucchini sauce

Didn't need 200g - especially with hash browns. only used around 750 mls of olive oil for the week. Moderate alcohol intake for a holiday week - nothing before 5pm.

Harvest Day 7

Plenty of chillies, capsicum and peppers still on the bushes and they are all going strong. My tomato crop is just starting to pick up - cropped my first beefsteak type today.

Here is what I harvested this morning - with all this, the family will be joining me for chilli tonight.

Day 6 - BBQ

The day started with Paul picking another 3 cucumber.

Paul invited friends over for a BBQ, - Day 6 - feeling cocky - garden fresh salad (lettuce, tomato and cucumber), corn and squash were on the menu. The chips well that was up to chance, the boys dug up the spot and found a nice bunch of potatoes to feed the masses present. The corn was cooked in its husk - steamed nicely over the BBQ and the squash, cut in slides and cooked over the grill.

Richard help me out with the BBQ, both of us cheering every time a sausage spat into the chips. Though the chips didn't exactly need it thanks to them being cooked in cobram EVOO.

Simon assisted by washing down the vegies with some Boddingtons and a few laughs.

Dinner - leftovers or something new....?

Now I know how a vegetarian feels like at a BBQ

On Tuesday evening we were invited to a barbeque at my mates Gregs place in the Adelaide Hills. The bbq plate was chock full of high quality lamb chops, snags and fresh baby octopus. I was armed with bag of fresh potatoes, roma tomatoes and a couple of corn cobs. I also had a left-over yellow capsicum stuffed with spicy rice and chilli that I had made the previous day.

Surprisingly I didn’t feel a strong urge to eat the meat, but the bbq’ed octopus looked and smelled sensational.

After the plate was thoroughly scraped, and flooded with good South Australian Extra Virgin olive oil, the potatoes were turned into yummy fried greasy chips. The romas were lightly bbq’ed just enough to make them soft but not mushy. The stuffed capsicum tasted better than the day before. The tomatoes and capsicum delight were then finished with a drizzle of grassy robust Frantoio EVOO. Not that it needed more fat - but I use EVOO for flavour.

However, it was clear that vegetarians (even a transient one like myself) get subjugated to meat eaters in these circumstances. By the time I had prepared my meal, the others had finished eating. I'm not complaining as I'm looking forward to getting my own back to a unsuspecting real vegetarian some time in the very near future.

But a couple of Bourogne’s later and all was forgotten. A great finish to a top warm South Australian arvo.

Gruelling Times

Yes I’ve been a little slack – working this week. That’s my excuse anyway.

So lets start at the beginning of the challenge. First things first. The weather was threatening to be a stinker, so I was keen to take off as much of the heat sensitive crop that I could. I also wanted to get at that valuable stash of potatoes that I planted way back in July. But there were carrots planted on top of them so they had to go first. Here’s a few pics of the ceremony. Overall the amount of Pontiac potatoes were less than expected. Only a single layer of them, when I was expecting two as I had mounded them once or twice. But there were enough there to keep me happy.

The purple heirloom carrots were complete duds. Looked great on top, but had gnarly twisted and hairy roots about as thick as my nose hairs. Right next to them planted in the same soil were the traditional carrots. I picked a couple. Here they are shown side by side. The more I deal with heirloom vegetables the more I realise that they didn’t become ‘lost’ in time for no reason. Other superior varieties just replaced them. Incidentally, in my opinion the heirlooms actually had less carrot flavour.

The tomatoes were there in abundance. Some were cooked inside due to the extreme heat that we just experienced. They looked perfect on the outside but had the texture of tinned tomatoes. They didn’t go to waste though. I scooped out the flesh to add to my famous vegetable gruel.

Paul was right about some of my corn. They were a little overdone. Again, great flavour but a pappy texture. Once again, the kernels were cut off and added to the gruel. The French beans were hit hard by the heat and again were overdone. Yes, you guessed it – they went into the gruel.

My Gruel Recipe

Cut off anything off your horrid vegetables. If you think the dog wouldn't eat it then it goes. Keep the rest.

Put it in a big pot with 100mls of robust extra virgin olive oil.

Add two hot chillis

Assalt it (to a greviously bodily harm stage)

Add as much pepper as possible.

Boil the shit out of it.

Simmer for 10 hours.

Enjoy!

Day 5 - Lunch and Dinner

Lunch - salad - consisted of roasted pumpkin thrown in with other salad material - tomatoes and cucumber etc.



Dinner - soup - consisting of multiple vegetables - zuchini, tomato, eggplant, corn, celery, carrot, onion, shelled beans and 70g of pasta. Soup accompanied by bruchetta, cobram EVOO and sol beer - excellent on a warn evening.

Start of Day 5

A quick little harvest to start the day, 5 (not so) mighty reds and 5 cucumbers.