Years ago I got some milk kefir grains, and we made milk kefir regularly.  Milk kefir is kind of like a thin drinking yogurt, it has been around virtually forever, and is very good for health.  Kefir contains vastly more probiotics than yogurt, it is simpler to make than yogurt, and once you have it you can keep it going for ever as long as you have access to milk.  Back ..read more

What should you grow when you desperately want to grow a venus flytrap but struggle to keep one alive?  The answer, surprisingly, is to grow a succulent.  Tiger jaws succulents (Faucaria tigrina) look superficially similar to a venus fly trap with open jaws and ferocious looking teeth.  While it looks similar to a flytrap, these are not carnivorous, they don't move. &nbsp ..read more

I have been growing Vietnamese Fish Mint  (Houttuynia cordata) for years, yet for some reason I have never written a blog post on it before now.  This plant has many common names, including dokudami, 'poison blocking plant',  lizard tail, heartleaf, fishwort, bishop's weed, and it has a heap of other common names too.  I usually just call it 'fish mint ..read more

Silverbeet (Beta vulgaris) is an easy to grow leaf vegetable.  Silverbeet is also called chard, swiss chard, rainbow chard, leaf beet, perpetual spinach, and beet spinach.   When I was a child (and in some parts of Australia today) this vegetable was mostly called 'spinach'.  Silver beet is not closely related to true spinach (Spinacia oleracea).  They are used in similar ..read more

This blog is mostly about garden nonsense, but thought I would write a post on language learning as it may be useful to someone.  Learning another language is a long process, sometimes it can be difficult to measure your progress.  One method is the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) scale. The CEFR is a guideline used to describe achievements of learners ..read more

I grow a few maidenhair ferns.  They are easy enough to grow if you get the conditions right.  Earlier I wrote a blog post on how I grow maidenhair ferns.  My oldest maidenhair fern has been with me since 2016, over these past 8 years it has grown from a tiny cute little fern into something rather large and impressive.  This used to live full time in my office, but I ..read more

When we had acreage or chickens and other poultry would free range through the orchards.  After moving to town our chickens used to free range through our yard.  That was nice, it was good for the chickens, good for the fruit trees, and rather pleasant.  Then we had issues with the neighbour's dogs. Now during the day the chickens are contained in a (very large) run under ..read more

A few years ago, I started growing a perennial vegetable called Vietnamese fish mint (Houttuynia cordata).  This perennial plant is used as a vegetable, or herb, or medicine, or grown as an ornamental, in a host of different countries. Fish mint is an extremely productive and vigorous plant, and borders on being indestructible, which is a great trait for a perennial vegetable to have.& ..read more

Our chickens, like all chickens, don't lay very well over winter.  The pineal gland in their brain detects the reduced hours of sunlight, and they either lay less or stop laying eggs entirely.  For young pullets, this is normally not an issue and they still produce enough eggs.  For older hens, this can mean months of no eggs.  Our hens are getting old, they are six or ..read more

String of Pearls is a lovely succulent.  They grow long trailing stems, most varieties have almost spherical leaves, some varieties have leaves that are still round but a bit pointier, and the flowers are always white and fragrant. I am growing a few different string of pearls varieties and thought I would write a comparison of how they perform for me, as well as take some comparison ..read more