|
Post by sunfrog on Sept 21, 2010 9:37:26 GMT -5
Hey can you move my post to the Food Thread. I put it in the wrong one. Cumin is slightly spicy but not in a good way. Bleh!
|
|
|
Post by PigsnieLite on Sept 21, 2010 10:28:51 GMT -5
We have a food thread? WHy dont you add one?
|
|
|
Post by Avril on Oct 17, 2010 19:53:39 GMT -5
Yesterday I tackled the back garden, loooooong overdue. In the vegie patch I pulled out the broccoli and rocket, thoroughly gone to seed, along with the ubiquitous carpeting chickweed which made me wish I had a bird in a cage if only I didn't hate seeing birds in any sort of cage. I had to dig out the enormous clump the lemongrass had grown into. It was taller than I am. I saved some of the seeds to plant. I cut down and uprooted the Duranta which was going feral and inconsiderately dropping purple flowers over the fence onto our neighbour's barbecue. I've planted a beautiful Nagami Cumquat there instead, after enriching the almost completely sandy beds with compost. I've planted more cos lettuce, some basil now that it's warm, some lebanese cucumbers that Alan used to call lesbians, and will head to the nursery for some lucerne hay or cane mulch. We have a new rainwater tank just like this one! I'm wondering what the gravity fed water pressure will be like with the hose...
|
|
|
Post by shoegirl on Oct 17, 2010 20:35:35 GMT -5
Is that an orange tree?
|
|
|
Post by PigsnieLite on Oct 17, 2010 20:38:21 GMT -5
Why do you want a cumquat when you could haf a lovely inconsiderate purple lower plant? My mum has a potted cumquat too; she smuggled the seed from the Philippines. She called it a *kalamansi* and she would make me *kalamansi juice* whenever I had a cold. We've also developed the habit of squeezling the juice over noodle dishes.
|
|
|
Post by Avril on Oct 17, 2010 22:21:55 GMT -5
A cumquat is a citrus fruit you eat whole, including the skin, about the size of a small oval plum. There's a delicious contrast between the sweet of the the fruit and the sour of the rind. I absolutely love them. There are many varieties and I actually have two: this Nagami and a Meiwa, which are sort of round unlike the tear drop shape of the Nagami. They appear to love my compost, so I can grow them! The duranta was lovely when it was small, but once it got got higher than me it was too hard to prune and got woody and unsightly. I might cultivate another one I have in a pot on the deck. What you've called kalamansi/calamansi we call calamondin, which tastes more like a mandarin or tangerine. It's small orangey type fruit, yes?
|
|
|
Post by sunfrog on Mar 6, 2012 21:57:30 GMT -5
There's a wasps nest near my garden bed. Do wasps pollinate flowers? Should I leave it or chase them away? Wasps are scary but last year I didn't have any bees to pollinate my zucchini.
I'm afraid of the wasps. Are they friendly? Do they attack in swarms? What do they want?
|
|
|
Post by Avril on Mar 7, 2012 1:37:32 GMT -5
I don't know anything about US wasps. Unless you mean WASPs.
Here we have lovely harmless native wasps and we have the thoroughly nasty European wasps that can kill, if they attack in enough numbers.
The European wasps need to be exterminated. The native wasps can stay, particularly because they've made a home above my windchimes. They seem to like the sound and the vibration.
|
|
|
Post by shoegirl on Mar 7, 2012 14:27:22 GMT -5
The wasps here in Canada pollinate just like bees. If you are stung by one it's pretty much the same as getting stung by a bee. They don't usually sting unless you really scare them, or irritate them.
|
|
|
Post by sunfrog on Mar 7, 2012 18:56:20 GMT -5
I've never been stung by a bee and I don't think I want to try it.
|
|
|
Post by Avril on Mar 8, 2012 6:26:20 GMT -5
Did you know, if a bee stings you, the sting is ripped out of it and it dies. A wasp, on the other hand, can sting and sting and it will not die as a result.
|
|
|
Post by sunfrog on Mar 8, 2012 11:23:24 GMT -5
Hmm... that doesn't make me like wasps any better. lol. ::The wasp looks at Sunfrog and says, "wagga wagga," which in wasp language means, "don't make me bite you." ::
|
|
|
Post by sunfrog on Mar 8, 2012 11:25:40 GMT -5
The wasps here in Canada pollinate just like bees. Lol, I thought you said, "The wasps here in Canada are polite just like bees."
|
|