KITCHEN GARDEN Is Vietnamese mint really a mint? Scientific Name: Persicaria odorata Common Name:Vietnamese mint Family: Polygonaceae True mints botanically speaking have wide spreading underground rhizomes with erect, square and branching stems. The leaves are opposite each other on those square stems, with clusters of small tubular flowers. Ture mints are also in the Lamiaceae family. So what do we make of Vietnamese mint? Perhaps you saw it in the herb section of the garden centre and mistook it to be just like any other mint. Not exactly a real mint and it's also in the same family a ..read more

 THE GOOD EARTH How to Grow and Use Yacon: Peruvian Ground Apple Scientific Name: Smallanthus sonchifolius Common Name: Yacon, Peruvian ground apple Family: Asteraceae-same as daisies and sunflowers. Plant Height & Width: 1.5m x 0.5m   If you look at the flowers they are like much smaller versions of sunflowers. Here’s a tuber that tastes similar to a nashi pear, looks something like sweet potato on the outside, and the sugars from it aren’t absorbed by the body. Not only that, the tubers contain a lot of juice, and the sugars that make it sweet is not absorbed by ..read more

 TALKING FLOWERS Seasonality of Flowers Vegetables have their season when they’re available fresh and not just out of the cold room where they’ve been for 6 months or more. What about flowers? Many people forget that flowers have their seasons too, after all there are plenty of flowers available all year round. Hellebores-a winter flower  Why is that important?  It's the same as for vegetables and fruit, if it's not the current season for the flowers, then they're most likely imported. If I asked you what’s the best time of year to buy peonies would you know?   What a ..read more

 SPICE IT UP Furikake: Japanese seasoning Isn't it time you enlivened your tastes buds with something you've never tried before? This next spice isn’t just one spice on it’s on but several spices or a blend of spices that are just right for Japanese food or any other food for that matter. Furikake is a traditional Japanese seasoning that is sprinkled on cooked food. In some ways like shichimi togarashi seasoning, furikake seasoning has not only toasted sesame seeds in it but also black sesame seeds that combine to give you a delectable nutty flavour. But wait, will it have mono ..read more

 KITCHEN GARDEN Leaf Celery Scientific Name:Apium graveolens var. secalinum Plant family: Apiaceae Common Name: Parcel   A relatively uncommon or even unkown herb or vegetable. Parcel stems from the idea that it looks like parsley but tastes like celery. Leaf celery is a biennial plant growing to 60cm in height. Biennial simply means that leaf celery grows vegetatively during the first year and fruits (seeds) and dies  at the end of the second year. Leaf celery could be classified as a herb because the leaves are used just as much as the stalks in coo ..read more

 SPICE IT UP Know Your Cardamoms. There are many budding chefs and cooks that use heaps of spices in their recipes going by the success of cooking shows on television. Green and brown cardamom pods Indian, Asian and Mexican cooking particularly calls for a wide selection of these different spices.   Some spices though come in a variety of  grades, colours and uses making it possible for the unsuspecting cook to make a blunder. This may not necessarily result in a vast difference in the final flavour, but it can make your creation not as 'flavoursome' as it should be. Brown Chi ..read more

 TALKING FLOWERS    Tips on Choosing the Freshest Flowers Do you regularly buy a bunch of fresh flowers to brighten up your home? Do you find that no matter which ones you buy, you just can't seem to get them to last past a few days, but friends regularly boast about how their flowers last for over a week? Sometimes I cringe when I see a bunch of flowers outside some supermarkets because I know what signs to look for that tell me whether or not they’re really fresh. But could you tell how fresh a bunch of flowers are when you see them for sale? Some of the top tips are Keep yo ..read more

TALKING FLOWERS Dried Flowers and How To Do Them Did you know that dried flowers are back in fashion? Perhaps, like me you thought that never went out of fashion, but do you dry your own on do you buy dried flower arrangements?   No prizes for guessing that those brightly coloured flowers are actually bleached in vats of bleach first, then because all the pigmentation (chlorophyll) has been removed it is practically falling apart.   The next step, the foliage is plasticised and dyed. Not something you want to display in your home   The process behind these dyed flowers is incre ..read more

 KITCHEN GARDEN Tricks with Horseradish My father was a big fan of this vegetable or perhaps it should be called a herb? He loved it grated on various meats, ‘clears out the sinuses' he always exclaimed. Not too many gardeners are familiar with horseradish and even though it's a perennial vegetable that's easy to grow. Perhaps because gardeners and others aren't too familiar with what you do with this, ahem root vegetable.  Well that's right,  horseradish is actually classified as a root vegetable even though you can use it as a seasoning and in drinks. In drinks I hear you e ..read more

 TALKING FLOWERS Sustainable Floristry Have you ever thought about what happens to the tons of flowers that are sold around Australia for weddings, funerals, special occasions like birthdays and anniversaries?  Hydrangea flowers for sale Perhaps some of the lucky recipients might compost them when they're finished or at least throw in the in the green waste bin, but what of the others? Did you know that approximately 10% of flowers that are sold in Australia are imported from overseas? May not sound like much but do you know if the flowers you buy, are they imported or locally grown ..read more