Was going to do separate posts about these things but I figured I would never get around to that so it is a kind of Yin and Yang post.
Jabiru or Edamame are soya beans that are grown to be eaten as beer snacks, I experimented with them this year and they were fantastic. They grew steadily over the whole spring and summer, seemed to be impervious to weather, including the horrendous heat of early Feb and don't appear to suffer from pests. I had room for about 5 plants I think but that produced a big enough crop to make several bowls of beer snacks and there are enough to freeze a few for later as well.
You boil the whole pod in salted water for 5-10 minutes, depending on how big they are and then suck the beans out - delicious. I read somewhere that they are also called Hairy Beans and mine certainly live up to that. In Japanese restaurants you can scrape the beans out with your teeth but with the homegrown you have to split the pods into a smile and sort of squirt them into your mouth. Sounds tricky but you get used to it pretty quick - or starve to death.
In the same vege patch that the edamame were growing in, I had a few unexpected casualties that I put down to cats peeing in there. However, when I dug it over after the crops were finished I discovered hundreds and hundreds of disgusting curl grubs which I suspect were the culprits after all. Luckily they are the chooks most favourite snack so I have been spending a couple of hours a week digging them out and chucking them in the chook run. It's like watching a chicken mosh pit.
Think I will put a chicken tractor in the patch for a couple of weeks and let them clear it right out before I plant the next lot of veges in there. They destroy plants at the roots so need to be eradicated toute suite. We get little enough to grow in the winter without those little buggers interfering.
I think you can water with eucalyptus oil to get rid of them but I am concerned that the worms would suffer as well so hand and chicken removal will have to suffice.
3 comments:
I want to try growing edamame next year!
Lucky chickens!
So that's what they are... curl grubs. On the Sunday just gone my garden was completely redone. While dismantling one of the beds we came across the grub in your photo. At first we thought it was a witchetty but then just before eating it, someone said "don't they live in trees?". The strange thing is my chickens wouldn't touch it.
One of the design considerations with my new garden is to incorporate a chicken tractor. I would love to see and hear about yours.
If anyone is interested in my garden makeover you can read about it at http://zucchiniisland.blogspot.com/
Hi Jason,
I have an A frame tractor that came with my original rentachooks as well as a couple of eBay hutches that I can move around pretty easily. The hard part is getting them through the gate as I have had to fence off my vege patches from the rabbit, chooks and dog.
In the Mandala garden you could use domes made from polypipe and either wire or bird netting and just rotate them as part of your crop rotation system.
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