Holiday Snaps

In an effort not to have you pop your eyeballs completely out of your head trying to take in all our photos, I thought I would just post a few snaps of my absolute favourite part of our holiday.

Even though I am pretty convinced that I broke my toe there.

So below is us making our way towards the Mele Cascades in Port Vila, Vanuatu. I absolutely fell in love with Vanuatu, it is just so rich and lush and tropical. We saw banana plants and paw paw trees, elephant apples and star fruit, honestly there were fruit trees growing everywhere, on the side of the road, in the middle of paths, and all of them were just dripping with lovely, ripe, healthy looking fruit.

I was ready to move there and start a garden immediately.

I think I am a little excited about getting there in that photo above... hurry up guys!

Mele Cascades are a series of waterfalls, pool after pool of gloriously crystal clear blue water, tumbling over these lovely big white rocks. The effect of the water with the white background was really quite stunning.

In the photo below you can see up to the top of the waterfall. I am convinced that here in Australia there is no way we would have been allowed to take the boys up there on the ropes, but of course in Vanuatu we were not only allowed, there were also some helpful young men standing in the water, helping clumsy tourists such as myself drag their small, brave children to the top where you could swim in behind the waterfall itself. I had never swum behind a waterfall before, and it now rates up there as one of the most exhilarating moments of my life... I think I may even have let out a triumphant little war cry.

Unfortunately we don't have any photos of us going up the ropes, nor did we capture me flat on my behind, fully dressed, in the water. Felix is a big fan of being carried, and I slipped and fell with him in my arms. And hurt my toe.

This is Felix and myself on our way back, dress sopping wet and me trying to mask the pain of my toe.

And at the end of our trek, a lovely cool drink and a swim in one of the pools of the falls. I am still thinking about how much my toe hurts, and how sure I am that it's broken.

I remember sitting there taking this photo and thinking that this is what I would suppose heaven to look like. But without a sore toe.

Our lovely driver William, when questioned as to what languages were spoken in Vanuatu, replied, "broken English". I believe this is what he was talking about.

I think it translates quite clearly myself.

Welcome Home

For quite some time now, I have quietly suspected that the garden secretly enjoys toying with my emotions.

The underground growing of parsnips, mulberries appearing out of season on a teeny tiny tree, I honestly believe the garden likes to keep me on my toes.

So while we were away on our fabulously wonderful holiday, I did of course spare a few thoughts to what might be taking place in the garden, but I wasn't exactly worried that produce would be falling ripe off the vines.

However upon arriving home, I find this large, perfectly formed, shiny eggplant. So large in fact that it was not only touching, but actually reclining on the ground, with its little branch bent almost in half under the heavy weight.

Now seeing as producing an eggplant larger than a bantam egg has so far proven elusive to me, I must wonder what message the garden is trying to send to me.

Is it, "Look what we can do when you're not around to interfere"?

Or, "Welcome back, we missed you, please don't ever leave us again, we can't shake you a cocktail so here's a gift"?

Although in complete ignorance of the garden's grand plan, I am choosing to take the appearance of the much prized eggplant as a mini cocktail offer.

Hello again everyone, I missed you all very muchly :)

Bon Voyage!

You would be forgiven for wondering why, when I clearly have the talent of a supremely challenged artiste, I have chosen to post a drawing of a ship complete with smokestack and detailed figures of myself, the boys and their father.

Well one answer could be that I wasn't sure of how to draw a ship, and copied this one from a kindergarten wall.

Another answer, and the correct one I might add, is that we, the boys their father and myself, are going on a week long cruise tomorrow.

To the South Pacific!! Weeeeeeeeeeeeheeeeeee!

Even in my mind this beats bananas and parsnips :)

Have a fabulous week lovely fellow bloggers, and I promise to bring back loads of white beach/palm tree photos for you all.

I May or May Not Cry

Okay, I have a teeny tiny confession to make.

I ate one of the bananas without telling you. But it was just a teeny tiny one, and it was, quite bizzarrely, the only one that was yellow. Completely yellow in a field of green. And I ate it without photographing a thing.

I was quite surprised to find that it tasted much like a banana. Any banana really. Nice and sweet and not floury, but a normal tasting banana nonetheless.

I kind of thought that fireworks might go off at the first taste, you know?

Anyway, that's neither here nor there now, because I am now a little worried. The rest of the bunch is definitely yellowing, veeeery slowly, but it's also doing something else too.

Their little stems are withering.

That can't be good. Nowhere in the literature on the growing of bananas is withering stems mentioned as a good sign.

I will cry if I have ruined another bit of produce from my garden. Why are they withering?

Oops

It's been raining for the past few days so I haven't really been out and about in the garden. Which is a bit of a pain to be honest, but when I think about it, the pain is kind of balanced out with the pleasure of seeing a happy, rain drenched garden.

It is indeed a fine line Ms Amphlett.

Anyway, it did stop raining for a wee while (I'm liking the Scottish blogs), and I went for a wee wander (a lot). I fiddled here and there, as you do, until I think I may or may not have fiddled a little too much.

I pulled this out of the ground, thinking it was a weed. Hmm... I don't know what it is, but it smells like a carrot... pictured above are the leaves and below the whole thing.

Do you know what it is?

A Momentous Day

In September of last year I went a little bit wild and purchased seven fruit trees online.

A few of them I was more than a little disappointed with, and I actually had plans to complain and send them back. I hate to have to argue my case against bad service though, so I hung on to them and although it took a long time, I eventually got them out of their plastic and into the ground.

After all the rain we had here in Brisbane, the fruit trees really seemed to perk up and put forth quite a lot of new growth. So I revised my opinion of the nursery I had bought them from, and went back to their website to see what else they had.

Looking at the fruit tree list, I noticed that written at the top of the page was something along the lines of "all trees will fruit within a year".

Yeah, good luck with that, I thought to myself.

The mulberry tree had been in a bad position during all the rain, and I'd dug it up and moved it to another location halfway through January of this year. There was no way it was going to fruit this summer after that.

Well I was wrong.

This is my fruiting within the year mulberry tree.

Knee high to a grasshopper and I counted no less that 10 teeny tiny baby mulberries on it.

I am quite possibly as excited as it gets.

Cheese Trees

Years and years ago I knew a savvy mum who used to give her children water in green cups and tell them it was green cordial. They wouldn't touch water, but they certainly loved their green cordial.

When I first placed this dish in front of Luka and saw his little face screw up in vegetal distaste, I quickly asked his father what he thought of the cheese trees we were having for dinner.

Both boys have loved it ever since, and they still think cauliflower is a type of cheese.

I don't remember where on earth I got this recipe from, although it must have been during my mad lemon phase, but I do know that it completely changes the taste of the cauliflower, which roasts up beautifully into a lovely, fresh, almost nutty flavour.

About halfway through cooking this yesterday afternoon, I realised I was losing light and rushed everything out of the oven and outside for photos... I had also forgotten to buy parmesan so I sprinkled it with homebrand tasty cheese just for show, and picked it off before putting it all back in the oven to finish cooking

I am such a dedicated blogger.

Roasted Cauliflower with Garlic and Lemon

One small cauliflower

2-4 garlic cloves, crushed

Half a lemon, juiced

Olive oil

Parmesan cheese

Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Separate the cauliflower into florets and toss in a bowl with olive oil, garlic, lemon juice, and salt and pepper. Spread out on a baking tray and place in the oven for around 30 minutes, until the cauliflower is cooked through.

Sprinkle with parmesan and serve.

Eat Your Greens (and Whites!)

Sweet seedling success...

These are broccoli and cauliflower, although which is which at this stage is anyone's guess. Now while I am quite exited about growing broccoli again, cauliflower is the prize that I'm after.

I have tried to grow it before and failed spectacularly, but this time the timing is much better (I think!), and I am looking forward to consuming cauliflower bake, cauliflower puree, and the michelin star of them all, lemon and garlic cauliflower roast.

My tastebuds are already preparing.

I'll Just Grab Something for Dinner

Just sometimes when I really think about all the time, and hard work, and effort that I put into my vegetable garden, I sometimes get a little discouraged by the sheer lack of edible results.

Things die on me all the time, the fruit trees are mostly new and I am impatient, I plant the wrong things for the climate and I plant the right things but at the wrong time... Feeling a bit hopeless about it all doesn't happen very often, because just like a holiday I like vegetable gardening for the journey, not solely the destination... but sometimes, just sometimes, I think it's really nice to arrive.

And today, I kind of feel like we made it out of the airport and had a bit of a look around.

For dinner we had barbecued chicken, eggplant and capsicum. All from the garden. Apart from the chicken which came from the butcher. The green paw paw was going to be part of a salad but it tasted awful so I gave it to the chickens.

And the bananas are in there because I might just try to work them into every photo I can until we actually eat them.

Finally, a "today's harvest" photo.

7 Months in the Making

My capsicum plants are easily the rag taggiest pack of vegetable plants you are ever likely to see. Holes everywhere, twisty leaves, big gangly limbs, and the least likely looking plant you'd ever pick to be fruiting.

But they are.

I literally threw these seeds at the ground in July of last year, along with some of that pink radioactive corn and pumpkin seeds. The corn and pumpkin soon took over, while the capsicum grew slowly in their shadow.

Well the corn was pulled out months ago, and the pumpkins didn't survive the rain. Which left the capsicum plants... For 204 days now they've been striving towards their ultimate goal.

One wee little capsicum.

Hanging Baskets and Zucchinis

Our zucchinis were not the bees knees last year.

I planted the yellow kind, and while the actual plants grew ginormous and thrived, the fruit would get to a certain size and then start to die off. I did still get some, but I had to pick them at a size just a bit bigger than a man's finger.

However if failure stopped me from growing things I'd have taken up lawn bowls quite some time ago, and so forth go I ahead with them once more.

I'm pretty sure that last part doesn't quite make sense, but I do think it sounds rather entertaining.

So just as the title suggests, I got a bit adventurous and sowed the seeds in a hanging basket. I then got so excited about this idea that I now have three more hanging baskets up, all filled with seedlings.

I think it will be harder for the slugs to get to them.

These little zukes are destined for one of the back garden beds when they get a bit bigger, I have a really large one where they will have plenty of space to spread out. It's actually much too big, I can't even begin to reach the back of it, and as it backs up to our back fence and side fences, I can't go round it.

No large town planner would I make.

Hopefully I'll make a small zucchini gardener instead.

26 days of Planting: T is for Tarragon

Years and years ago, when I was a teenager, I kept a recipe book.

From memory only four or five recipes actually made it into my recipe book before I ditched it for some other idea, but out of those four or five recipes, there is one that I still remember.

It was Chicken and Tarragon Pie.

I have long since lost the recipe, but the memory of that pie in my mind is of a pie of perfection. So perfect in fact that it started a lifelong passion for the lovely, lovely herb of tarragon.

Unfortunately tarragon does not share an equal passion for me, and it usually tops itself after a few weeks under my care.

I just buy more and try again.

Fun With Bananas

I have been driving everyone mental for weeks over these bananas.

Do you think they are ready? Well, when are they ready? How do you know when they are ready? Here, look at these, are they ready? If you were me would you say they were ready? Should I cut them down now, are they ready?

Mental.

Today I was very excited as my parents were coming to visit. I would normally be excited about that anyway, but I was extra excited because I knew we could discuss the readiness of the bananas for quite some time.

Upon their arrival my obliging father allowed himself to be propelled towards the window to view the bananas.

"Do you think they're ready dad?"

"Well, why don't you cut the bottom hand off and see if they ripen up okay?"

What a champion. Thanks dad.

I was in my element... I do so adore a bit of chopping down. Even when the photo is taken after the fact.

Everyone gathered to watch.

And down they came... one hand from the bottom of the bunch.

We cut down 16 bananas, and they weighed 1.5kg. They seem ready, they look exactly like any banana I've ever seen anyway. I've no idea how they'll go, but don't worry, I will not let you miss out on any of it!

I'm not sure we'll win any prizes for them, but I am about as chuffed as I get.

Pop Up Fruit

I do not like them Sam-I-Am.

I think I have spoken to you about paw paw (papaya for some) being my pop up plant before. They turn up everywhere in the garden, and at any given time I have four or five little ones sitting innocently in places where they weren't the day before.

So I say I don't love the fruit, but I am slowly trying to change my mind.

They are quite fabulously practical trees. They grow straight up and branch out at the top, so they take up hardly any room at all. They seem to fruit easily within less than 12 months of emerging from the ground, and apart from being eaten as a ripe fruit, you can grate up the green ones and use them in salads. I also read on Gardening Australia that you can cook them up like a vegetable, but unfortunately they forget to tell you how.

You can also mash them up and use them as a beauty mask. I admit to being guilty of trying this, and it really does seem to leave your skin nice and soft. Although you can't help but feel like a bit of a pork chop sitting around with mashed up fruit on your face.

The other thing that is warming me to paw paw, is that the boys love them. They plop down on the grass and cut them up with butter knives, treating themselves to full body masks, inside and out.

And they are pretty. This one here is an older one, and it goes all the way up to the kitchen window of our high set home.

They are too high for us, so these ones we share with the possums and bats.

I will learn to love them.

Stick It In!

A few months ago I was trying to take some photos of my lavender plants.

The sun had disappeared from the area where the lavender was and in my frustration at trying to get a good shot in the low light, I snipped off an end piece to take out into the sunshine to photograph.

I had always thought that lavender looked a lot like rosemary, but close up I was thinking how much lavender leaves resembled those of ferns.

Happy with my photographs, and ready no doubt to inflict upon you a post about how glorious lavender smells, I turned back to look at the plants and was struck by how unhealthy they looked.

I had been very proud of them, they were once very beautiful, but they were past their prime and had become woody and just looked messy.

And so I just pulled them all out, leaving me with no lavender.

Sometimes I don't think things through.

Luckily I know a thing or two about retrospective restoration.

A few months before this lavender story, I had seen an episode of Gardening Australia where this lovely lady had the most fabulous grounds, and the most fabulous planting method.

She would just chop bits of plants off, spear a hole in the ground with her shovel and plant them half to three quarters of the way up the stem. No stripping, no shooting in water, just chop, hole, and plonk. The Gardening Australia dude was amazed. I was amazed. This woman was my new gardening hero.

This method of course appealed to me immensely, and off I cut 6 or 7 more stems of my poor yanked out lavender, poked some holes in the garden and buried them, about halfway up their stems.

Here they are, three months in.

Growing up :)

Batman

You know those comedy films where the struggling parents can't handle their young children and this is illustrated in a scene where one parent steps on a toy left out in the middle of the hallway. And then while doing the hopping dance holding their injured foot steps on something with wheels and goes for a sixer.

Well it wasn't quite that, but I did fall over in my haste to get to my camera and bring to you all the photo of this bat.

After the adrenalin had died down it did occur to me that bats were pretty widespread, and that it was pretty much a given that all of you have actually seen a bat, or even possibly many bats before.

From now on I'm only running at night for drop bears.