Weeds for tea

{or My ducks ate the veggies}

Since my two gorgeous ducks moved in, I haven't had any of my vegetables eaten by snails or slugs. The ducks relish any tiny gastropods they find!  I was beginning to feel like a successful permaculturalist, having taken very literally that statement I read months ago - "your problem isn't too many snails, it's not enough ducks".  And then my lettuce disappeared into the ducks' bellies.

So I re-thought things. If ducks like lettuce, I'll grow lettuce in pots in the courtyard!  Problem solved. Then they ate my pea plants. Hmmmm....

I protected the area the peas were in. They ate the sugar snap peas..... Not happy!  Then they ate the silverbeet and the leaves of the brocoletti that were overhanging the somewhat raised beds. Gah!  They eat more than the snails ever did!  

But I love them, and I love the no snails and no snail pellets garden, so we have to make it work. 

I watched them waddling around the garden. I watched them not being able to get into their pond (a children's paddle pool that is about 20cm high) without using the step I put there for them. I noticed that they can't really get up onto anything more than the height of their chests without a big flapping effort and that generally they didn't bother. They prefer to move around like one of those weird robot vacuum cleaners, bumping off of walls and obstacles that they meet. 

So, later this week, I'll be building low barriers around my vegetables. I plan to leave some things unprotected (I can share!) and will intentially grow greens for them, but others will need to be barricaded from busy Muscovy beaks!

Hopefully that will solve the problem. In the meantime, my vegetable stocks are somewhat depleted. And being stubborn about these things, I still want to cook from our garden, so I'm exploring the weedy option (at this point I'm seriously wondering at how it came to be that the people who live here eat weeds while the animals eat beautifully cultivated veg, but I'm trying not to dwell on it).  

Last night, I cooked schnitzels for tea, and strangely (but surprisingly deliciously)  coupled them with a curried rice dish and wild greens.

The rice was cooked in a light stock with the addition of garam masala, turmeric, ginger, a little salt and some dried mung beans. I brought it to the boil, the let it sit in the covered saucepan to absorb, before stirring in some chopped parsley. The result was a bit like mash or porridge, ugly, but very tasty. 

I sautéed some sliced carrots (the ducks nibbled the tops, but left the roots) in olive oil, added a chopped clove of garlic and a big bowlful of mixed greens and cooked until it was all wilted. The greens I had foraged from the garden (weeds and plants I have planted but that now grow like weeds) and included dandelions, mallow, borage, nasturtium leaves and beetroot tops. 

I served the rice in a pile beside the schnitzel, and put the sautéed veg on top of the rice. I then finished it all off with some fresh coriander and a few flowers. from the borage and nasturtiums. 

The results?  Stu said it looked like I'd served him a garden and then dug in and devoured the lot (like a duck in a lettuce patch). The kids ate theirs without a second glance and I thoroughly enjoyed mine!  So we will happily serve weeds in this house again, but I'll also be barricading those garden beds and planting veggies in duck (chook and goat) free areas of the garden too -just in case!