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Beans

I planted three kinds of seeds. Snow peas, green beans and red snake beans. The local seeds have germinated but the other two imported seeds showed no action so far.

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Getting ready for autumn planting season

After a hectic spring and summer this year, I finally have some time to tend to our edible garden, getting it ready for the autumn planting season. There are four raised planters in the garden.

Naked House Edible Garden with four raised planters.
Naked House Edible Garden with four raised planters.
Planter 1 (left) green leafy vegetables like lettuce, arugula, coriander and cabbage. Planter 2 (right) are the climbers like tomatoes, beans and cucumber.

I got some help this morning making the trellis for the tomatoes. A bunch of bamboo sticks cost NT100. We use a total of two bunches, including the old ones from last year.

Building a trellis is not as difficult as I imagined. The trick is to soften the soil by watering it first before drilling the holes for the bamboo poles.

Done, in less than one hour. Had I done it by myself, given my inexperience, would probably take half a day.

Papa Liu has a green thumb and he brought spring onions (scallions) from his own garden.

Spring onions love the sun but not when they have just been transplanted. They need to be shaded.

Papa Liu came up with this shading system using material we have in the garden.  It is easy, adjustable and does the job!

The arugula and cabbage transplanted yesterday were wilting in the hot direct sun so we built another shading system for Planter 1.

Planter 2. These tomatoes were planted on September 25 and it’s been two weeks. They are growing though not as fast as I expected.

I soaked these beans for 24 hours before planting them. They are beans, snow peas and snake beans (our own crop from earlier this year).

Planter 3 are okra, eggplant, broccoli and broccolini.

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Easy Banana Cake recipe

Ingredients

• 125 g butter

• 1/2 cup caster sugar (or 80g palm sugar)

• 1 tsp vanilla essence

• 2 eggs

• 3 bananas mashed ripe

• 1 1/2 cups self-raising flour

• 1/4 cup milk

( Self raising flour = I cup all purpose + 2 teaspoon baking powder + 0.25 teaspoon fine salt )

Directions

STEP 1 Melt the butter, sugar and vanilla in a medium sized saucepan.

STEP 2 Remove from heat.

STEP 3 Add mashed bananas and stir through until just blended.

STEP 4 Add eggs and mix in well. Stir in flour, add milk and mix lightly.

STEP 5 Bake at 170C for approximately 40 minutes.

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Going bananas again

How do you stop squirrels from getting to our bananas? I don’t mind sharing some but they don’t just eat one banana. They would take one bite of every single banana so it’s not wise to leave them ripening on the tree. Our farmer friend Mr Huang cut this bunch of bananas down just as they started ripening.

We don’t use fertiliser and leave the trees alone. Somehow they grow really well.

Googled and found some great banana recipes to try out.