Lifestyle Paddocks and Plates - Share your Garden and Kitchen Tips and Pics 🌱🍑🥬🌶

Remove this Banner Ad

No matter big or small garden, farm or apartment, its so easy to grow a few things to eat and it’s such a good feeling. Taste wise you can’t compare home grown food to the cardboard tasting, plastic wrapped crap they pass off as produce in the supermarket.
We are lucky where we live we have an abundance of room and resources to grow a fair bit of food, if you have any farmers markets near you try those, makes a world of difference.

I’ve been a passionate grower and cook for many years, to me nothing beats going outside, picking a few things and turning them into a meal. Sometimes its heaps of vegis and fruit, sometimes it just a few herbs, but I try to use at least one thing from the garden in every meal. I also love pickling and preserving.

Here’s just a small snapshot of some of the earthy things that make me happy 🌱
Nearly everything we use from beds, manures, jars are either free, second hand or cheap, we also chuck everything on a compost which gives us beautiful free soil.
Most things are grown from seed too which is much cheaper.
We’re not necessarily organic or vegetarian, but try to be sustainable.

4692EFC4-CCBE-4784-B000-098FDAF1FF8F.jpeg D64FA1B7-8B05-4AA8-BB63-2F6FA10EE52C.jpeg
AEA78705-7E27-4BCA-AF4E-6A00EEF0D817.jpeg 31C378D4-EC20-4129-BAF9-95C21F61152D.jpeg
F3471299-F5E2-4852-AF32-98EC49EA8D8B.jpeg B3473E7C-E603-4776-8D5E-E7762C80B5EF.jpeg
3A453EC4-EB6D-415A-9DFA-072393679762.jpeg 095A5A4A-1B00-451B-90AE-D59153CBBBE6.jpeg 1E59BC85-1A1E-44FD-9E14-20FDF707B1F0.jpeg A8AF6FCE-A671-4D80-94FC-F2B5EA798E59.jpeg B2B4E81C-F70A-4C13-B91C-7B1390BAE1D3.jpeg 05AD2F88-C38B-4591-B37C-F5A88AA9F3A0.jpeg 9BE8D710-F057-4B17-B6BB-FE24AE93EE93.jpeg 694C506E-8BEA-4CED-BDCA-413642258FB1.jpeg
6791BCEF-7B1A-4DAE-AB0A-F95BCFDE3ABC.jpeg 7B258409-17DB-4BAE-9495-2837BDBE6537.jpeg 2A0B3D52-E882-43A6-8388-8B3C791ACE65.jpeg FDA232FE-8B62-4360-94B8-7DD0AABC2D30.jpeg


Even in the smallest garden/apartment you can grow something without spending a lot and it’s very satisfying 👍🏻 I’d love to see other peoples gardens/cooking big or small and maybe inspire or help someone give it a go. A bit of effort and some scavenging skills can go a long way :D
 
Last edited:
When the apocalypse hits, I'm moving in to yours Wosh

We have a mango tree which was productive in Jan and Mrs Ding regularly sends me out to pluck some of her curry leaves.
 

Log in to remove this ad.

  • Thread starter
  • Admin
  • #4
When the apocalypse hits, I'm moving in to yours Wosh

We have a mango tree which was productive in Jan and Mrs Ding regularly sends me out to pluck some of her curry leaves.
Oh God I’d probably give all that up for one mango tree 😭 Got any photos? Also of Mrs.Dings curries yummo 😃
 
Two of my heroes- compost and beetroot.

The other day I taught two 30 yo kiddie friends my favourite salad.

Roasted beetroot, skinned and sliced and placed on a plate with alternated de-skinned Ruby Grapefruit segments with a light chive and lemony yoghurt dressing.
 
Oh God I’d probably give all that up for one mango tree 😭 Got any photos? Also of Mrs.Dings curries yummo 😃
We plucked what I could reach of the mangoes before the bats got to them. She covered the spare room floor with them (in hay) then when they ripened made heaps of ziplock bags full of them cut up to freeze. They are really tasty compared to the store ones. Mrs Ding also makes a chutney out of them which is too spicy for my palate but others rave.

Here’s the curry leaves.

6BEE4A23-365F-4F4F-B871-E5FAC9132AF0.jpeg
 
When the apocalypse hits, I'm moving in to yours Wosh

We have a mango tree which was productive in Jan and Mrs Ding regularly sends me out to pluck some of her curry leaves.

Have a try at growing Cardamon. It is like ginger and does well in banjo-land. Scents the garden, the leaves are great to wrap fish in before bbging. The flowers are beautiful, orchid like and of course the seeds are wonderful for cooking.
 
  • Thread starter
  • Admin
  • #8
Have a try at growing Cardamon. It is like ginger and does well in banjo-land. Scents the garden, the leaves are great to wrap fish in before bbging. The flowers are beautiful, orchid like and of course the seeds are wonderful for cooking.
I use cardamon in heaps of cooking but I can’t grow it in Melbourne, one of my fav Indian spices.
MWPP get around this, plant based Indian food ploise! I made a cucumber raita the other day from the garden 👍🏻
 
  • Thread starter
  • Admin
  • #9
We plucked what I could reach of the mangoes before the bats got to them. She covered the spare room floor with them (in hay) then when they ripened made heaps of ziplock bags full of them cut up to freeze. They are really tasty compared to the store ones. Mrs Ding also makes a chutney out of them which is too spicy for my palate but others rave.

Here’s the curry leaves.

View attachment 1057564
I think Bunnings have them, I want one but most people here reckon they only do well in a greenhouse.
 
Two of my heroes- compost and beetroot.

The other day I taught two 30 yo kiddie friends my favourite salad.

Roasted beetroot, skinned and sliced and placed on a plate with alternated de-skinned Ruby Grapefruit segments with a light chive and lemony yoghurt dressing.
My beetroot borscht :D
Beetroot, spring onions and shallots from the garden.

C2DB06E9-FE2E-4361-91B3-84A454E161C0.jpeg

That salad sounds good
 
I use cardamon in heaps of cooking but I can’t grow it in Melbourne, one of my fav Indian spices.
MWPP get around this, plant based Indian food ploise! I made a cucumber raita the other day from the garden 👍🏻

Yep. Grew it in Brisbane and it was great. Moved back to Melbourne and have tried without success.

Still there are umpteen things that can be grown in a house or flat or Melbourne. I love that lots of folks here now plant in their nature strips or raised beds and it is a community thing.
 
I’ll have to take some photos of our garden when I’m home but we have mint, lemons and mangoes
And some flowers too

I have raitha everyday Wosh but sadly not from garden veggies!
Our mangoes are still quite raw for the time of year sadly Dingster but cut raw mangoes are tasty in a salad or in a pickle :)
 
I’ll have to take some photos of our garden when I’m home but we have mint, lemons and mangoes
And some flowers too

I have raitha everyday Wosh but sadly not from garden veggies!
Our mangoes are still quite raw for the time of year sadly Dingster but cut raw mangoes are tasty in a salad or in a pickle :)

Yep. Perfect for pickle. Had two massive mango trees in Brisbane. Unhappily they were stringy but picked green and sharp they perfect for pickling and chutneys and the odd gallon of mango based cocktails.
 

(Log in to remove this ad.)

So hubby and I have got a rather nasty flu at the moment, I’m bad but he’s worse, rotten head cold and very sore throat (no rona, its a thing going around, gastro coming)

Picked this just now and I’m going to make a lovely fresh soup we can get down.
Everything from the garden except peas and potatoes.

4E64EBE4-8481-4BDC-AD79-65428CA31EC3.jpeg
 
I think Bunnings have them, I want one but most people here reckon they only do well in a greenhouse.
I've got a friend in Cheltenham who's successfully grown a mango tree. I'll check with him tomorrow what breed it is, because that makes a huge difference on where you can grow them.

My garden died a little when I was sick last year so I'm currently trying to work out what to replace everything with. My chilli plant is wrecked, so I have to get a new one, but my strawberries are still going good :)
 
I've got a friend in Cheltenham who's successfully grown a mango tree. I'll check with him tomorrow what breed it is, because that makes a huge difference on where you can grow them.

My garden died a little when I was sick last year so I'm currently trying to work out what to replace everything with. My chilli plant is wrecked, so I have to get a new one, but my strawberries are still going good :)
Pics!
It’s been such a shitty summer here, we’ve barely strung 2 warm days together and the gardens have struggled. Its Autumn already in 2 weeks...hard to believe 😳
 
We plucked what I could reach of the mangoes before the bats got to them. She covered the spare room floor with them (in hay) then when they ripened made heaps of ziplock bags full of them cut up to freeze. They are really tasty compared to the store ones. Mrs Ding also makes a chutney out of them which is too spicy for my palate but others rave.

Here’s the curry leaves.

View attachment 1057564

When are you going to plant it out? They are a tree
 
So hubby and I have got a rather nasty flu at the moment, I’m bad but he’s worse, rotten head cold and very sore throat (no rona, its a thing going around, gastro coming)

Picked this just now and I’m going to make a lovely fresh soup we can get down.
Everything from the garden except peas and potatoes.

View attachment 1057638

Make him eat a clove of that garlic, best thing for colds
 
Yikes! Pokemon spread like a virus or the potato blight in Ireland. Some poor kids never recovered. Look at por_please_ya
I’m not a kid and I love pokemon 🤗 I still go catching sometimes...when we’re allowed out of our friggin houses.
 

Remove this Banner Ad

Back
Top