mischief at large

Discussion in 'General chat' started by mischief, Dec 4, 2009.

  1. mischief

    mischief Senior Member

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    I noticed that the tomatoes planted in the first bed have started to grow little white nobby roots along the stems which tells me that they are not getting the nutrients they need.This also reminded me that I had not made the comfrey tea so I grabbed a bucket and three quarter filled it with comfrey leaves and filled right up with water and popped the lid back on.
    That itsnt going to solve my problem with the tomatoes right now though, so yesterday we went for a drive in the country and collected some horse manure- filled the whole of the back of the ute with this.This definitely belongs right at the back of the garden but the tomatoes should love alittle around their roots.

    It rained the other night and yet the next day the soils till seemed to be dry, abit disappointing, I was hoping to not have to water so much and use the mulch to keep things moist, looks like the worms are doing too good a job of turning it into soil cos there are alot of bare patches starting to show.

    I refuse to buy anymore plants and have resorted to direct sowing my seed, luckily this is the right time of year to do so(summer) and the things that are being sown, dont like to be transplanted,beans, florence fennel, black winter radish and turnips.I did have some cabbages , caulis and broccolli to go in and afew companions like basil and dill.

    Beans are really good at hiding their offspring, I thought I had been good at collecting them as they grew but found 2 1/2 kilos hiding. I was going to try making Kim chi with my our sauerkraut pot but the garden dictated that I try salting down the beans.
    Part of my changing ways is learning how to preserve the food we grow using less electricity which means not using the freezer if we can help it.( Maybe we will be able to do away with this altogether).

    I have started harvesting the chamomile flowers and lemon verbena for teas.Origianlly I was only planting the chamomile for the bees after a nasty experience afew years ago.
    I had grown some lovely chamomile, dried heaps of it for tea only to find that it was incredibly bitter.I decided that the tea makers must be doing something to their product to take the bitter out and never grew it again.
    I was wandering around the garden with my mum this week when she pointed out that the chamomile flowers were getting alittle old and that I really needed to harvest them.We picked some and made a tea which to my surprise was not bitter at all and quite nice with the stevia leaves we picked at the same time.
    After she left,I did abit of research and discovered that I had grown Roman Chamomile last time which can be bitter and this time have German Chamomile which is not.
    I havent found when exactly is the best time to harvest the flowers yet, is it when they are open and the flowers are flat or is it when the flowers have grown well rounded and bulgy(not a nice way to put it but the seed bits do grow out and bulge).I have been picking some them at different stages of open-ness.Probably doesnt really make any difference execpt there has to be a point where they have more nutrients in them and so more flavour.

    The three Avocados I planted out are doing well, they got a bucket load of water each this week slowly poured thru their mulch.The ones not planted yet got put in a drum of water till the bubbles stopped and then put back in there sheltered spot.They all are starting to grow shoots and new leaves.I have to make a desision on where to put them very soon.

    I have been hovering over the other tea plants willing them to hurry up so I can harvest them and taking little sneaky bite from them.
    The Mexican marigold does taste like licorice but needs that sweetness from the stevia to make the taste sweeter and more rounded.
    Pineapple sage has always been a favourite and I was please I had not killed my plant by leaving it out in the frost.I took heaps of cuttings and put them all over the place so I can see where they will grow in the ground with out dying off.
    The Bergamot is still only tiny so I cant even have a nibble yet.

    Part of my cutting back on spending as well as growing our own food, was to look at exactly we did eat and drink and research what we can grow or what is similar in flavour to what we use.
    Coffee is out it wont grow here and I refuse to build a house for a plant.
    I have heard about roasting things like dandelion and chicory roots and more recently-parsnip roots, all of which we will trial over the next year or two.
    Tea plants are easier and although Camillias do grow here and I do have a small plant of this,I like alittle variety so the search for herbs for teas continues.
    I am not happy with the tea plant it hasnt done anything at all including die for the whole time its been in its spot.Full sun sheltered from heavy winds reasonable soil well mulched????

    I was asked if we are eating out of the garden yet or do we still buy food, so I was really happy to be able to say that we were only buying onions and were still eating the potatoes that Someone, not me, bought, cos they were on special- not one bag but two 10 kgs, this will keep us going in spuds till ours are fully mature and we can store and grow ours. The justification on this one is, we would be having to eat out potatoes before they reach their full potential which would be abit wasteful when if we waited afew more weeks, they would be more plentiful.
     
  2. mischief

    mischief Senior Member

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    If you are eating or drinking please finish before you continue, I do not want you ruining that perfectly good keyboard.

    Have you ever stopped to watch flies mating????
    Ok its official Im now a fly voyeur.
    Seriously tho I had always thought they were the wam bam thankyou mam type but not this pair.
    I was minding my own business admiring my stand of pop corn when I noticed a pair of flies at it.
    After a couple of minutes I glanced back at them and they were still at it.
    Intrigued I stopped to watch.Her back legs were going flat out and every now and then he would push down on her back flat out making them look like they were doing a pushup duet, then a little pause and off they go again.
    After 5 minutes I got bored and went off to find something else to amuse myself with.
    So guys you should at least be able to beat a fly and
    go longer than 10 minutes!!!

    We have finally got a real summer, now that its here I find it really hard to handle the midday sun.Unfortunately I still have to go mow lawns late in the morning due to wt grass where I would normally be doing the sensible thing and get through them before it gets too hot.

    We are now half way thru the second manadala and things are still going really well.
    We eat vegies from the garden every day and havent bought any for ages.
    I had a surplus of eggs again so my mother got given some and one of the elderly ladies I mow lawns for.
    I will have to start baking cakes, My partner wont know what has happened.

    It looks like we might be having rock melons and okra this year, they have just taken off with this hot whether, especially after the last lot of rain.
    I dont know if its my imagination or nt but plants semm to do bbetter after rain, then again it could have been the week of thunder storms we had.Lots of thunder and not much else.I still had to water every other day.

    We had our first cauliflwer last week absolutely goregeous smothered in cheese sauce.Then the next 3 were ready even tho I planted them afew weeks apart.
    The taste of fresh vegetables straight out of the garden is incredible, espesially so when you know you grew them. They just taste fantastic.

    I read somewhere that it should take 4 months for most vegies to go from seed in the harvest out. I dont really think this is the case in cooler temperate climates.My tomatoes and lettuces definitely take longer than that although the cabbages, beans and beetroot certainly did..

    I have been going round the chamomile palnts with a passion collecting all the flowers for my teas, I do leave some for the bees tho.
    One lot I put in the freezer after I had dried it. I had made a cuppa from my freshly dried flowers only to find a catepillar in my tea pot.It was not there when I picked them and I guarantee there arent any more where that came from.

    This year I grew 2 types of sunflowers both quite small.To be honest I felt intimidated by the thought of the giant ones.
    I did 2 sowings and noticed that the first sowing of one had a completely different growth habit to the later planting.
    The frist are really short with big flowers and stubby little secondary flowers. The later planting has small primary flowers, sturdier growth adn more secondary flowers that seem to be better shaped and are growing longer stalks.
    How strange that a slightly different planting time, slightly different soil, the second lot are outside the chooks area so they didnt get and manure just some shredded tree mulch over lawn clippings.
    I think i'll take seed for next year from the second planting.

    I discovered that if you pull the leaves off the lemon verbena stalks it starts to grow fresh soft new growth very quickly, I cut the whole stalk off when the new lot of leaves were a good size, leaving 2 leaf nodes for it to continue.
    This smells divine and has to be my favourite scent. Years ago I grew it and use to have a little plastic bag full of this in my jacket pocket.Every now and then I would take it out and have a good ol sniff,the scent lasts for ages.

    I made my first ever sauerkraut with cabbages we grew.It actually turned out really good. I think I put alittle too much salt in it and had to squeeze out alot of the juice to eat it but after that it was good.Thats my lunch with a few other snacky things like snap peas and beans and a some buttered bread.

    I feel so lucky, eggs for breakfast,salad for lunch, cooked vegies for dinner all from the garden.
     
  3. mischief

    mischief Senior Member

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    When I learnt that the white butterflies were attracted to yellow nasturtiums but repelled by orange ones, I was intrigued.Was that orange flowers in general etc...
    Then one of my broccolli flowered with the loveliest buttery yellow flowers and I thought AHA brassicas all have yellow flowers.!!!
    I have been watching the white butteflies flit around trying to find the brassicas to no avail for some time( they have found them now) and consider that the companion planting in this respect has worked a treat.I dont mind afew holes in the leaves when things are just about ready to be picked.
    I have let 2 of the better broccolli go to flowers and wound up pulling 3 out because they just would not grow sprouts.

    The Red Express cabbagae that was supposed to be an early maturing cabbage. This year it hasnt been and Im abit disappointed in it..

    The handful of wheat I tossed in a corner just to see what would happen has grown and has lovely seed heads at the pollination stage.I might try a larger sowing somewhere next year.

    My supermarket pop corn is definitely tassling up at the same time as the heirloom black popcorn even tho it was sown 6 weeks after the black popcorn.Just gonna have to see what happens.

    Even tho its still summer I find myself thinking about what Im going to do or try next year. The more the year progresses the more I can see that there is a different time sequence to Lindas climate in Qsland, and I really need to pay attention to this factor.Good thing I got a diary to keep my notes in.

    I learnt that if you collect stable sweepings in summer, you really do need to get it out back straight away.I waited then it rained then I had to work etc... then we had a major fly attack.I am seriously considering getting the fly kill man in to spray the house with noxious poisons, just to get some relief!
    I have a friend who stores stable sweepings for a year then in late spring early summer plants out his tomatoes.Plants them in the same spot every year and never has any problems, just adds the new lot of composted manure .I will be doing something similar, but this will be for my seedlings to go into to grow big enough to be planted out.

    I had my first carrot today. These have taken ages to grow but at last I have carrots.It was alittle shorter than I thought it would be but the taste...
    I am disappointed with the eggplants, they are good looking plants and flowering nicely, when I check they have little fruit which gets dropped afew days later.Not too sure why they are doing this, maybe they need more water but when I check the soil it seeems to be moist rather than dry.

    I have finally harvest the million radish pods for sprouting and just as many rocket for next years seed.This showed up an unexpected problem...I didnt have any where ti hang these up to dry out.I can just see the porch being filled up with lines of hanging herbs and things, i did think of the all way as its cool and reasonably breezy with high ceilings.

    I designed a greenhouse. It turned into a potting shed/greenhouse with low attic for drying and storing things for winter.
    It just sort of grew as I thought of more things I needed this space to do and if we just tweaked it alittle it would be perfect.
    Unfortunately I dont think the building inspector will let me build it tho.
    So I have had to return to reality and think alittle smaller
     
  4. mischief

    mischief Senior Member

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    Sometimes life just gets in the way of living.
    I have not been able to get on line to keep up todate with this and have fallen behind in the garden for the same reason.

    I had a goal of eating only vegetables from the garden from this year onwards.
    So far we have been doing that...
    Broccolli, beans,beetroot,tomatoes,lettuce,celery,silverbeet,rocket,asapragus peas, snap peas, gherkins, spring onions,parsley, basil,cauliflower, cabbage....a carrot...

    I have had to pick beans to dry, they just got away from me when my back was turned and as a result have stopped producing more baby beans..
    Luckily I have some more coming along and my purple king beans are really starting to take off.

    The rocket seeds have been harvested along with the radish seed for sprouts ( not sure how this is goingto work out tho, it seems awfully hard to crack them out tof their pods with out taking forever and making a mess, any ideas?)

    I am now officially 1 bed behind where I should be in my planting out.
    I have decided to justify this by telling people that this is where I will be making my compost pile when I will no longer be sheet mulching the back yard.There are only three more spot to go before I am back to the beginning.
    It doesnt seem that long ago that I just started and here I am almost thru the second mandala.

    I had the best intentions to plant by the moon but... I got to go away for a couple of days when I was supposed to be planting out my root crops so I either have to go by the calendar or just plant out any way if not I'm going to be even further behind.

    Had an old friend pop in and I was nervous about showing them the garden knowing they are more of the tidy clan.
    I worried needlessly, despite the overgrown rocket etc.. all I was hearing was wow!
    Sometimes you need to see things thru other peoples eyes as well as your own.
    The purpose of this garden is to produce food which it is doing, next year it will have the added purpose of being pretty...
    pretty productive haha.

    I was really naive to think that I could tell a pumpkin where they could and could not grow.Luckily they have headed in the general direction I wanted with a few tendrils crossing the path. I can still step over them so its not so bad.

    We had a glut of cauliflowers, that will teach me to stab them all at the same time.Good thing I adore cauliflower cheese.
    I gave one to our new neighbours who moved in a couple of weeks ago.
    Actually wound up giving about 6 of them away cos I just couldnt eat that many and the last time I tried to freeze them they were horrible so I wasnt going to ruin them that way.

    I am getting alittle disappointed with our summer.
    It was only a month ago that it felt like we were going to finally get summer and now it feels like autumn already.

    I had okra plants that were starting to look lovely and even had flowers which I havent managed to get them to do beofre, they have grown bigger and look very healthy but the flowers havent opened yet. I think the cold nights we have has turned them off.
    Same with the eggplants, I have grown these before and love the long skinny sort rather than the fat oval ones.
    If they dont hurry up and fruit soon it looks like I will have to go down a size to the small egg shaped ones next year.I find the long skinny ones .
    much sweeter compared to the ovals ones which I find too bitter and not very tasty.

    We went to the beach for the first time this summer, and had a swim.I noticed that there was quite abit of seaweed lying around the beach adn commented that we should collect this for the garden, which later we did.
    We had bought a smoked fish from a kiosk up on the road and ate this for our lunch, the remains were put 3 feet out from our feet for the seagulls. I wasnt sure if they would come that close but eventually they did, they were much more interesting to watch than TV and kept us amused for at least an hour.(the carcass was put in with the seaweed and came homw with us)
    The first thing I did when we got home was put the seaweed and fish bits in a bucket, fill it up with water put the lid on and pop it up in the garden with the comfrey tea thats also fermenting away madly.
    I learnt my lesson with the horse manure and will never again leave these things to lie around down by the house ever again.

    All the pop corn is flowering? silking? Both heirloom and supermarket sort together.
    I dont know whether to save some for seed or just buy some more next year. I really didnt expect them to get to this point at the same time cos the heirloom was planted 6 weeks ahead of the other.
     
  5. Grahame

    Grahame Senior Member

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    Great post mischief,

    I think you have just summed up many of the issues with timing, time and gardening in general that so many people have. Interruptions, errant pumpkins, gluts. It's all there.

    By the way I suspect your corm will be crossed, so you might need to source new seed for next year.

    Thanks for your update
     
  6. eco4560

    eco4560 New Member

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    When completely dry, put them in a canvas bag (like a shopping one), whack them with a rolling pin, give it a shake and whack it again a few times for good measure, then tip it all out and winnow away the non seed bits.

    You might want to get a hold of the Seed Savers Manual - lots of good tips on how to deal with different types of seeds.
     
  7. mischief

    mischief Senior Member

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    Thank you the two of you.
    I'll give the bag idea a go tommorrow.
    The seed savers manual sounds like a really good idea too, I'll have to have a hunt for it.
     
  8. purplepear

    purplepear Junior Member

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    I love reading your posts miscief the frustrations you sometimes feel I feel too sometimes but looking at the potential is full of promise for what it will be like when we get that one "good season".
    Kate and I set a target for our first year of eating atleast one thing from the garden each day. Sometimes it was a few basil leaves in a can of tomatoes but it helped us to focus on the produce. Even now - when we supply food to twenty families - we sometimes buy vegetables when we have a failure (like capsicum which has been miserable this year
    We always look to eat "in season" when we have to buy vegetables. Please keep up your inspiring posts.
    regards Mark
     
  9. Grahame

    Grahame Senior Member

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    The failure of crops in any given year is another reason diversity is so important.
     
  10. purplepear

    purplepear Junior Member

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    Too true Grahame - chillis are doing great
     
  11. permasculptor

    permasculptor Junior Member

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    I grow capsicums that look like chilli's.They are very successful for me the fruit fly leave them alone.
    anyone want seeds?
     
  12. mischief

    mischief Senior Member

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    Thank you, purplepear.
    When I first started this blog I wasnt sure how it would turn out.

    I have enjoyed the process and it has helped to put in writing whats going on.
    Makes it easier to 'see' things and get a better perspective of the garden and sometimes life in general.

    It is nice to know that if things did turn to custard then I could just go down the road and buy dinner.
    This decision to only eat from the garden made me realise just how much effort our grandparents put into their gardens and how much they did depend on them.
    My mother did say that the reason she hated beans was because she had to eat so many of them as a child, which tells me that things dont always go to plan.

    My fiance pointed out that a garden this size could be feeding a family of twelve, which it probably could if I got it right.
    I want to get it to the point where I dont have to buy the chooks food. I do think they need alittle more than the odd snail for protein- this is the reason I think causes them to start eating their own eggs- lack of protein.
    From my observations it seems that it is usually the ones at the lower end of the pecking order who eat their own eggs and may not be getting the same amount of feed as those 'higher up'.

    Last year I grew some fanatastic chillis and made sweet chilli sauce with them.
    This year the birds ate the plants and I didnt replace them.
    I do have a couple of capsicums left, one is a yellow one and they are doing reasonably well.
    Im not too worried about the chillis cos I have alot of dried ones in the cupboard, but will definitely have to grow some next year.
     
  13. mischief

    mischief Senior Member

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    My Okras are finally flowerring!!!! So I might still get some yet so long as summer stays with us for just that little bit longer.
    My eggplants are holding their fruit!
    My Ox heart tomatoes have got blossome end rot!=(

    I am flat out picking gherkins, there for a while I wondered if they were ever going to start producing.Im glad I did put a trellis for them to grow up.Its hard enough finding all the cucs as it is without them sprawling over the ground.
    I like smaller to medium size pickled gherkins but recent have had large ones which I slice some long ways ans some cross ways for sandwiches or snacking on.

    I thought none of my onions had come up but I have since discovered that what I thought was spring onions (which have been doing okay) was actually 4 pearl drop onions.These are cocktail sized.
    I will keep them and replant them next year for seed.

    Its been weeks now and the 'Jelly egg" hen is still broody.I havent had that many eggs from her and am seriously considering telling the man of the house that its his job to dispatch of her.
    I want to get some fertile eggs at some point so we can replace the hens but I think it will be too early to do this right now.
    Somewhere I got the idea that if I got eggs for the next brooding hen in Autumn that they would be old enough come spring to start laying.
    Of course I could end up with all roosters too and will have to go back to the egg farm for more end of lay

    If youe read on a seed packet that snap peas are self supporting....dont believe it.
    I did get a good crop of snap peas but they completely smothered what ever it was growing in front of them
    ( Onions?)

    I definitely need to take note of where I plant things.Its rediculous trying to hunt for something you know you planted but cant remember exactly where.

    This year I grew 3 types of 'green' beans. A green one, a yellow one and my favourite Purple king, a pole bean.
    I still prefer the purple kings.They dont sprawl all over everything else and I can find the beans very easily and taste good too.

    I learnt to make sure that the chamomile flowers that I dried were thoroughly dry before putting them in the cupboard.
    I wnet to make some tea only to find that this jar of whole flowers had gone mouldy.
    I'm really glad I kepth them separate from the broken up flowers I did earlier.
    What I should have done is keep the jar on the bench where I could keep an eye onit and at the first sign of condensation in the jar, whip them out and dry some more.
    I am going to have to cut more flowers off and need to hurry cos they are almost done.

    The last butternut that got planted(was supposed to be a rock melon) is doing fantastic. We are going to have so many butternuts.I am definitely growing these again.

    I have been looking at the growth habits of the different plants trying to work out which would go well together for next year and which I need to cut back on or plant more of.

    I have lavendar seedling coming along nicely which I want to plant around the edge of the path, Dwarf Munstead.
    Hopefully these will keep the chooks from throwing the mulch out into the path and give me abit of space to get the wheel barrow around the paths.I feel bad when I have to run over something thats gotten in the way.

    I had so many eggs this week that I have given some away.
    One work mate bought a dozen off me, insisting that she pay the same price she did at the supermarket.
    While I dont mind taking her money I dont think I should have let her pay that much, afterall I dont have the same overheads that egg farms do, even freerange ones.
     
  14. purplepear

    purplepear Junior Member

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    About the eggs mischief - take the money and be happy that the people are getting a superior product from happy chooks at only the same price as the older supermarket eggs. The money you make can be put back into making this world a better place.

    We get a similar problem with the mandalas as you do in that you can know that something is ready for harvest but finding them on picking day can be frustrating.
     
  15. ppp

    ppp Junior Member

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    just a thought on planting things then forgetting what they are and where.. I've been doing two things which have been sucessful..

    I have an old set of blinds, which when cut into 150mm lengths make very nice labels. I carry these and a marker around with me, and try to always put one in the ground quite a few times now, I've scrambled around looking for (and finding) the label, when I wonder what the hell it is.

    Secondly, I've bought a nice little blank book with nice heavy pages. I try to always write a little entry when I drag myself in from the garden, writing what I planted, (plus harvested) and a little sketch of where.
     
  16. purplepear

    purplepear Junior Member

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    Sounds like a great idea ppp - can I pinch it?
     
  17. mischief

    mischief Senior Member

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    Those are both good ideas.

    I tried to do a drawing of each bed in my diary but kept either losing the places of them or forgetting they were there so having a separate notebook for that would be good.
    Plus the circles in the diary are too small and are hard to read when I can find them.
    As Im trialling different types of plants to see which does better or is better planted at a different time or place, I do need to get better organised on this point.

    I like then idea of the labels, writing on cut up milk bottles just isnt doing any good as it fades really quickly.
    I had thought of doing labels for perennials using cut up aluminium cans and the name punched in with a nail so its a permanent one and maybe put on a stick of some sort so it isnt hidden in the greenery.(Still contemplating this one)

    Another thought I had on note taking on a slightly different slant, was to do my own herbal based on the herbs that Im growing.
    Using an alphabetical index (with the page number written next to the plants name)and just writing in the plants has they get planted plus pertinent facts about them that are generally known along with the cultivation data about them, then maybe updated as they are gotten to grow well in my garden.
    I get alittle tired of flicking through herb books to find the bits and pieces I want to check up on, especially when they cover so many plants that I am never going to be able to use or grow.
    Be nice to have a reference of whats to hand and how to use them etc... maybe abit like the old stillroom books.
     
  18. purplepear

    purplepear Junior Member

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    I named each Mandala starting with Nelson (of course) and then Winnie and Henry and Gracia and Evelyn then Zinni and Zandizi then the beds are numbered as the dome hits them so I can enter that I did such and such in Nelson3 today. Now I need to do it!!!
     
  19. eco4560

    eco4560 New Member

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    That is soo coool! Mine just have the unromantic names of bed 1, bed 2 etc....
     
  20. purplepear

    purplepear Junior Member

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    The idea came from a Canadian WWOOFer who was helping me dig the paths.
     

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