I had thought that quinoa grew in cold climates(needed), but I see from your
PFAF info that its is primarily a temperate/equatorial plant. I have tried
to obtain some seeds in Oz but no luck. Tara gave me a contact in NZ but
they did not respond to a letter. probably its too difficult to pack and pay
for import into oz.

Winds: In South Oz we have been having a lot of strong winds which is drying
up the small amount of rain we have had this year. I read that in 'El Nino'
periods winds are stronger. Graham , losing your shed is a problem with
winter not too far away, I hope its righted now.

Cheers

Wes

BTW can you tell me a bit more about the quinoa you grew? What
conditions
does it like, how does one harvest it and prepare it to eat etc and
anything
else you can think of.


I got a small amount of seed from Plants For a Future which I planted, of
this only 3 plants made it maturity (problem is it closely resembles Fat
Hen, to which it is related, and which is endemic on my plot as a weed). I
saved most of this as seed, and the following year thickly broadcast it in
my garden, and had a really high germination rate, it was everywhere and
needed loads of thinning out... Even some soak water that I'd poured onto
the ground germinated. anyway, i harvested the heads again, used most of
it
but kept some seed, however ever since have had very poor germination,
maybe
it was a freak year that it did well?? I must admit that I havn't tried it
the last couple of years, tho small scale grain growing is something I'd
like to try again...


PS: send rain urgently, creek has dried to a few permanent water holes
and
"they" are now saying this is the worst drought since 1902. Any
bushfires
this year will be truly disasterous (AND I live in an area which is
supposedly not officially in drought).

Well your welcome to some of ours at the moment... high winds blew my shed
down last weekend and I havn't had a chance to sort it out yet.
Unfortunately it's now dark by the time I usually leave work, so I
explained
to my boss that I had a 'domestic crisis' I had to deal with and he let me
leave work early to sort it out the other day (I think he found it quite
funny that I considered a shed on it's side a 'domestic crisis...'), but
it
was absolutely chucking it down so all i could do was salvage a few tools
and stash them temporarily in my compost bin... Today I was hoping to get
down the allotment but again it's hacking down outside.... And I've got
loads of potatoes that need to come out.... Arrggghhh!!!!

Cheers for now Graham