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What's That Vegetable?

Sometimes it hard to tell which vegetable you've got in your bag, especially all the leafy green vegetables. Here's a little something I created to help identify vegetables from Goldbush Micro Farm.You can download the Vegetable Identifier PDF by clicking the picture below.Use the pictures to find the names (or at least narrow it down) and the description will help you and give suggestions for how to use.I also have several Info Sheets available to download including a Kale Info Sheet ...

Bronwen's Seedy Crackers

The much requested cracker recipe we served for Taste and Tales: ½ cup flaxseeds¼ cup chia seeds½ cup sesame seeds½ cup sunflower seeds½ cup pumpkin seeds1 ¾ cup almond flour1 cup water (up to 1 ½ cups)½ cup olive oil1 tsp baking powder2 ½ tsp salt Grind the flaxseed roughly, so some is still whole. Add all the other ingredients and mix well.Leave for a few minutes to absorb water and add more if needed, you want a sloppy wet mixture.Take ¼ of the mixture and roll out until very t...

Taste and Tales 2022

This year Goldbush was on a trail for 2 Saturdays, I’m not sure what made me think that was a good idea!? Four minibuses of visitors came each day to Goldbush Micro Farm on a tour that included Forgotten 43 Brewing, Baked by Blanche, High Protein Breakfast Company and Fenton Street Gin. The days themselves are so much fun, I find it so energising talking to anyone who will listen about the garden!...

What Is Local?

Imagine with me for a minute. There’s a small farm every few kilometers, and you know the person that grows your food. You have access to fresh food, without a corporation in the middle, so the price is fair. Your farmer earns a fair wage, so they can continue to feed you for many years, and they create jobs for locals like you, or your children. This is Hyper Local. Currently here at Goldbush Micro Farm I deliver every Wednesday to Hāwera and Normanby, me doing a loop into and through town a...

Fresh Beans Info Sheet

I wanted to share this info with you to give you confidence to use beans in as many different, delicious ways as possible. Whether you got them from us or bought them at the supermarket or grew them yourself! This Info Sheet is a downloadable PDF so you can see all the info and the recipes. If you want to print off the recipes don't print page one to save on ink. It includes how to store, prepare and cook green beans (of any colour!). Green beans, string beans, fresh beans, snap beans, and the f...

Favorite Holiday Dishes

I’m pretty adventurous in the kitchen, at least when I have the time and space to be! With two young children and a growing market garden you’ll usually find me throwing together a one-pot-wonder for an easy meal, in the slow cooker or baked in the oven (I do not have time to be standing over a stove most days!). But when it comes to special events and family coming over I like to explore new recipes and try different ways to prepare things. What I have found is there are several recipes tha...

Countdown to SBT

It has been an intense month getting all the spring planting done (4 or 5 weeks earlier than last year!) whilst also preparing our property for the Taranaki Sustainable Backyards Trail which starts October 29th. Recently I managed to score myself a Wwoofer (willing workers on organic farms) for 10 days. This helped so much having a focussed, hard-working extra person. I also held a working bee of friends and family and got a large amount of mulch spread, so I’m feeling much calmer and confiden...

Kale 101

Kale is a staple here at Goldbush Micro Farm, we grow three different varieties of Kale, Curly kale, Tuscan kale and Red Russian kale. They are interchangeable in recipes but they do shine brighter for some specific uses. Check out the kale info sheet on more info on ALL the kales plus five fantastic kale recipes....

Pak Choi 101

Blog Post Updated 14th August 2023Pak choi (also called bok choy) grows in large, loose heads with wide, crispgreen-white stalks and dark green or red leaves.It can also be harvested as a baby leaf and eaten raw or cooked.The leaves have a cabbage flavor, but it’s the large stalks that become creamy and tender when cooked.Download the Info Sheet by clicking the picture below for all the info on how to cook and store pak choi and a few delicious recipes too!Inside the download you'll find infor...

Kohlrabi 101

A member of the cabbage family, kohlrabi is notorious for its “weird” extra-terrestrial appearance. Although the whole plant is edible, most people eat the bulbous stem base. This rounded vegetable is actually the stem of the plant and it grows right on top of the soil. It has a sweet flavor and crisp texture, akin to a turnip or broccoli stem. Kohlrabi is pale green to creamy white on the inside with a green or bright purple outer peel. How to store: If the skinny stems and leaves are still...

Garden Wordsearch Fun

I've created a few word searches using words related to Goldbush Micro Farm, a fun little activity for all ages. If you want to call it teaching/learning, it ticks all sorts of boxes from new words and spelling to science if you want to dive deeper into some of the species or varieties to maths if you want to look at grids and maybe even design your own! Set a challenge to find recipes that use the vegetables or see if you can find the creatures listed in your own backyard or your next walk in t...

Have An Abundance of Winter Greens?

Here's a great way to use a collection of winter greens, a brilliant, delicious, packed with nutrients soup we like to call 'Shrek soup' to help get over the "but it's green!" factor!Swap bunches for baby leaves if you like and otherwise vary the greens included depending on what you have available, a handful of sorrel adds a lovely lemony flavour. Just aim for an equivalent amount to go with the carrot and potato.4 cups vegetable stock1 Tbsp olive oil1 onion thinly slicedSalt and pepper4 cloves...

Where can YOU grow food?

Here are a few ideas for those of you wanting to grow food and learn more about growing food not lawns. Start small with pots on a windowsill - not too hot that the pot dries out though! Keep an eye on the moisture level.Deck - you'll need pots but you can use/reuse so many things!Sunny spot in front or back yard (yes even if you rent! Check with your landlord - you may have to agree to returning it to lawn before you leave)A neighbour’s sunny yard.Volunteer at a local farm (nudge nudge) ...

Getting ready for Sustainable Backyards Taranaki at Goldbush Micro Farm - 5 months out

We’re entering the depths of winter, daylight hours are less than 10 per day, slowing growth to a crawl, even without the Sou’easter tearing across the garden. With less than a month to the shortest day we are in cajoling mode, attempting to convince the vegetables it’s a good idea to grow, using covers and the tunnel to keep things warm. It also means we’re less than a month until the days start to stretch again and we look forward to the seed sorting and catalogues, the planning and th...

Courgette Overload!

Courgette (or zucchini if you're Italian) are in abundance at this time of year!If you have your own or are getting some from us you will no doubt reach maxed out courgette overload soon (if you haven't already).Today I'm going to share a few quick tips on using up those courgettes and share with you my best (and fastest) recipes, because I'm all about speed and flavour.As you can tell by my blog post, you don't have to scroll through half a mile of writing to find the recipes ;-)First: Courgett...

Juices and Smoothies - Load up on Vegetables!

Read on to find out how to make a delicious smoothie full of all the essential nutrients - it also happens to be delicious! But first a quick and easy juice using the fantastic carrots from Goldbush Micro Farm:Carrot Juice750g of carrots makes 300mL juice, enough for 2 people, (do this daily for 10 days every 3 months for an ultimate dose of vitamin A, amazing for your health).  ...

Rescue Strategy 5 Vege Prep

Vegetable Preparation to make the best use of your vegetables for the week!Using Goldbush Micro Farm vegetables or your own from your garden or bought at a shop. Some quick ideas, pick those that work for you and make the most of your vegetables. Helping you in the move towards zero waste in our vegetable rescue strategy about prepping vegetables, this also saves you time during the week! Transcription of video: Rescue Strategy Number 5; Vegetable Preparation. So this week I would love to be sho...

Rescue Strategy 4 Vegetable Storage

This week I'm sharing several tips on how to store your vegetables so they last a lot longer (giving you more time to use them!).  Video Transcription: Hi. So rescue strategy number four today is about storing vegetables for longer, so that you can use them when you're ready and you don't come across gross, wilted, rotting, yucky things in your fridge. Now the first tip is something very different from what most people do is don't store your vegetables and vegetable drawer, also called whe...

Rescue Strategy 3: Goldbush Green Dressing

Sometimes called Salsa Verde or Pesto, this green dressing isn't quite Pesto as it's dairy free (no parmesan cheese), it's not a traditional Salsa Verde that usually uses tomatillos or green tomatoes, instead it's a delicious, put it on everything, Goldbush Green Dressing! Simple to make (whack it all in a blender and blend until your desired consistency) and uses up a lot of greens, especially if you've got some going south. Here's the transcription of the video if you'd rather read it and the ...

Rescue Strategy 2 - Freezing prepped veges

Rescue Strategy 2 is all about more vegetables we can freeze to preserve for later, have them prepped or cooking things before freezing (reducing the space they take up), to make faster meal time cooking.Video Transcription: Hi. So today I'm going to be talking about my rescue strategy number two, which is somewhat related to rescue strategy 1, which we looked at keeping off cuts of vegetables in the freezer to be used at a later date for stock and in soups and stews and things like that. So thi...

Rescue Strategy: Keeping vegetable ends out of the rubbish

Vegetable scraps, ends, bits and skins all get kept to live again in another dish! This zero waste idea is a great way to stop the bits of veges we don't typically eat from going in the compost or rubbish bin. If there's tough bits these can be used boiled up in a bone broth etc and sieved out later, softer things can be cooked up and blended to be used as a DIY stock paste.Thanks for watching and let me know if there's anything you're struggling to use all of and I can do a video for that! Tran...