Nudie Fruit

Well, here it is. The lone banana I plucked from the hand finally decided to man up and go yellow.

He doesn't look quite so fat with his clothes off, does he?

After much pomp and ceremony we sliced him up and ate him - the whole family sitting down to share and give their verdict. And while I am pretty convinced it was still slightly under ripe, this was one fabulous tasting banana. Sweet and firm, very sweet in fact, and no squish to him, just one lovely banana.

Gosh it was an exciting moment - bananas really do take their time! I still don't think that the rest are ready to come down though, if you look at the photo below the banana is quite black along with the yellow, and I am convinced it's because I picked it too early... but... now that I know they'll ripen when I pick them, there's nothing to stop me from taking one every day until they are all ready to chop down.

One down, two hundred and ninety nine to go.

I Can't Believe It's Not Rosella

But it is! I know I never should have stayed from straight out fruit and vegetables, because I have caused confusion with my flower photo... so just to set the record straight, and because they are really pretty, here are some more images I took of the rosella flower...

In the morning...

To the side...

Far away...

And after five...

I'm still not mad about flowers, but isn't it amazing how much they can change in appearance in just one day. I looked for the blossom this morning thinking maybe it would have opened up again, but I found the whole bud on the ground... I guess its job was done.

As is mine. I do so hope you all notice my "high five" rhyme.

I May Have Missed My Chance

I don't often take photos of flowers because, I must confess, I tend to find them a teeny little bit boring.

Now before you all start throwing things at the computer screen in disgust, it's not flowers that I find boring as such, it's just that I don't have a whole lot I can say about them. Flowers are pretty, some smell lovely, here's a photo of a flower. That's about all I can do.

And that's trying really hard.

But today, with this flower, things are a little different. Because this flower has sent me into alternating states of rapture and worry. Rapture because this fabulous little scrunched up rosella blossom is so pretty, and worry because I am under the impression that rosella should be picked before it blooms.

Oops.

So now I think I may have missed all cordial and jam making opportunities.

Unless somehow the blossom stuffs itself back in?

Pump It Up

When you are holding a highly powered hose in one hand and a precious camera in the other, trying to get an artistic shot presents a bit of a problem.

When I first envisaged this post, I had images of gently falling droplets of water, glistening against a bright blue sky and a blazing sun. What I got was shooting jets of water and an almost wet camera.

I did though, I think, manage to capture the essence of what I was trying to communicate with you, and that is, I got a new water pump for our rain tank today.

A few years ago, I don't remember when exactly, the Australian government offered rebates on the cost of buying and installing water tanks for individual dwellings in Queensland. Very excited, off we went and purchased our lovely 3000 litre tank, and started watering. Since that time, the price of water here has skyrocketed, and water restrictions aside, I wouldn't dream of using town water on the garden. Not in a million years.

Unfortunately for me, after a year or two the pump on our tank died. Water would still come out of the tank, with but no pressure I was relegated to filling up a watering can to water the garden.

Which meant that not everything got watered all the time. You all know that lugging around 9 litres of water is no fun, and with my garden ranging from one end of the house yard to the other, my enthusiasm for the task was negligible. And things got neglected. I'm sad to say that sometimes seedlings died, and plants wilted, all because I got tired of lugging.

But today I lug no more! After several years of saving (I think I thought pumps cost a lot more than they actually do), I am now the proud owner of one freakishly high-pressure pump.

The vegetables won't know what's hit them.

Fallen Guava

I have heard it said, not in the most austere circles I must admit, that good men have crashed their cars when they have turned to look at a beautiful woman on the street.

An urban myth? Possibly. But today Felix and I ran the car off the road because I spotted a fruit tree groaning under the weight of its fat juicy fruit.

And to my surprise, it was a big fat guava tree.

Now I had never even seen a guava tree until our car incident today. In fact I had never even eaten a guava in Australia, and honestly didn't know that they grew here at all. I grew up drinking bottled apple and guava juice and just loved it, but it wasn't until I went to Brazil when I was young and carefree that I actually tasted one. And fell in love.

Guavas are blooming delicious. A very unusual fruit with tons and tons of seeds, but they kind of slide down your throat while you are eating. And boy did we eat a few. The tree was in someone's yard, but a large part of it was overhanging the footpath, and there were guavas everywhere rotting on the ground, so we braved it and munched away. There is something really special about eating fruit fresh from the tree.

After we had eaten our fill, I picked up a few from the ground to bring home. A bit mooshy and wormy (like in the top photo), but I had read somewhere that guavas grow true from seed, and they only take around four years to fruit.

I easily have a good fifty seeds to experiment with. And if none of them take, well little guava, I know where you live.

A White Success

I don't know why I have such an obsession with growing eggplants.

It could possibly be that they eluded me for so long, but there are many other fruit and vegetables that I have not been able to grow successfully, and they have not grown into such a vegetal preoccupation. I consider eggplants as my personal challenge, and each time I see a new one come forth, I feel a quiet sense of victory.

I don't know why the eggplant should stand out so amongst others, but it does.

And this morning, my lovely bloggging friends, I have photographed for you what I consider to be a pinnacle of achievement in my personal eggplant challenge - The White Eggplant.

This is my White Whale, my Juliet, my I can't think of any more literary references this early, but this white eggplant is what I set out last year to achieve, and it looks as though achieve it I will.

I think that seeing this eggplant emerge is one of the most satisfactory fruit appearances I have ever experienced.

Now you might think that now I will be able to rest on my laurels from here, but no my friends, the eggplant challenge does not stop here. For this eggplant was grown from a seedling, which while is a success, it it not the success I am chasing.

I am growing this one for the seeds...

The Chosen One

In light of all the blathering you have had to endure about the bananas on this blog, it was my firm intention to keep my next little experiment to myself until it was over and I could present you all with a finished product.

That being a ripe banana.

So I duly trotted out the ladder, sans camera, let the boys have their turn on it, waited patiently for mine, climbed up it, and chose one to cut down.

But while I was up there, with the bananas right in my face, I could not fail to notice one thing.

These bananas are the fattest little fatty boombalahs I have ever seen. Not huge bananas, but FAT. Enormously fat. I kept walking around the house with the banana, "isn't it fat, have you ever seen such a fat banana, my goodness, would you take a look at how very fat this banana is".

Unfortunately I have found the sheer fatness of this banana really difficult to capture in image, so I have gone the way of countless little boys before me and I measured the banana.

Measuring proved to be a little bit of a problem, in that I have no measuring tape. So I've used a deflated balloon, because I think that standard balloon sizes have got to be pretty universal.

And the results blew me away. The banana, measured at its fattiest fat fat point, is two unstretched standard size balloon lengths around. But the amazing thing is, that it only measures one and two thirds of a standard size balloon long.

This fat banana is not as long as it is fat.

In all conscience, how could I keep that sort of information from you?

I think this banana is crying out to be included in a nursery rhyme.

Ch Ch Ch Change

The 'ch ch ch" in the title is supposed to be the chattering of my teeth... not the song. Although the song is what is stuck in my head now, and not the chattering of my teeth.

Now those of you from colder climates will probably laugh at me from great distances (and through a computer screen, so it really does lose its impact I'm sorry to say), but over the past few days here, I've noticed a distinct chill in the air. It's slight, but it's there, and the worst thing is, it's here to stay for a bit.

I hate the cold. No, let's correct that, I loathe the cold. Loathe it so much that it merits italics. Last night it was down to 21 degrees (stop laughing now), and it's only going to get worse.

While I have disliked the cold intensely from my childhood, the reason I continue to detest it to such an extent now, is because of our house. I love our house. Adore it. It's old, and it's wooden, with fabulous VJs and polished floors. It's elevated right up off the ground and has super high ceilings, and just like all the houses of its period in my area (postwar), it has tons of windows. Tons of them. To catch all the breezes you see. Because it gets very hot here.

But no one seemed to think of the cold. And while you are allowed to laugh at 21 degrees, 10 degrees at night in a home with gaps in the floorboards is no fun at all. And what's worse, the house seems to store the cold. At 6am it's warmer out than in. I have many a memory of swaddling up in my doona, and shivering and chattering my way around the yard, trying to find a patch of sunlight to that out in.

As I have said, no fun at all.

But this year I am going into battle. I have a reverse cycle air conditioner, oil heaters for every room, and even a little fan forced heater in my own room for when it gets really bad. This season, I am determined not to be caught out hopping on cold floors on my way to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

And to further try to get into the spirit of things, I have even made myself a warm winter handbag. I had been wanting to try felting for ages, and pictured is the result of my first try.

Bring it on winter, I've got a felted handbag to keep me warm now.

Bananas of the Unbudging Kind

Now I know that I have probably driven you all a little mad with these bananas, and I hesitate to bring them to your attention again. But I just can't help myself. Because the bananas, the ones on the banana cam page, the ones that I went batty over and blogged about non-stop for days when they emerged, yes those bananas, are Still Not Ripe.

I'm not entirely sure what they are waiting for.

They look all lovely and plump and filled out. They seem to be quite big for ladyfingers, I can see them being a fabulous lunchbox size. They look to be in the flush of good health, wonderfully marvelous to be honest. The only thing that puzzles me about their wonderful marvelousness, is that they look exactly the same today as they did in photos from three months ago. Green.

Now I have learnt my lesson. I picked the fig too early, ruined it. I cut off the last hand of this banana bunch too early, ruined it. I have ruined several rockmelons in the past in exactly the same manner and I once picked a capsicum that was the size of a small chilli because I actually it was a chilli.

Oh yes, it was a long and hard road, but lesson learnt. I am not touching these babies until they are yellow. They can sit up there for the next ten months and I'll not touch them.

In a game of Western style shoot out, I'm waiting for the bananas to draw first.

I Don't Know What It Is, but It's Mine

Felix and I went to Luka's school and helped out with his prep class's muscle strokes lesson today. The class is actually called gross motor skills, but Felix calls any form of exercise muscle strokes, and I personally think that sounds like a whole lot of fun.

Four kids were injured during the class, these small people don't seem to have any sense of personal space whatsoever and heads were colliding like coconuts. Blood and tears and snot everywhere. And "mine". The ball is mine, the yellow one is mine, give me the pink bat it's mine, if I can see it it's mine, doesn't matter if you are touching it, it's still mine, gimme gimme, mine, mine, mine.

It must have rubbed off on me, because I am pretty sure that at one stage I may have stared down a four year old and said mate, that ball is mine.

Bad mummy helper.

In the photo above though there's no fight, it's definitely mine.

Even though I'm not sure what it is.

It's fat and oval and hairy and it's growing on a vine. I really want it to be honeydew so I can then post it as H is for Honeydew, but that may prove to be difficult, given that I'm quite confident there has never been a honeydew melon in this house.

But honestly, what else is as exciting as honeydew that begins with an H?

No, horseradish is not exciting.

The photo above shows what the fruit looks like when it's little, and below is the flower.

It's mine and I'm keeping it. But... what on earth is it?

Saving Private Mulberry

It was Felix fourth birthday today, and what he wanted for his birthday more than anything, was a party. Both of my boys adore a good bash, and the more the merrier. Up to the point where Felix wanted to invite his father's business partners along.

Lovely guys, but not happening.

When I realised we would be having up to 20 children running amok in the garden today, in the back of my mind I was vaguely aware that there would have to be some collateral damage. And that there were Things I Wanted To Protect.

Foremost in my mind was the peanut plant, but it's way back in a boring corner, so I checked that off the list. The raised garden beds have proven in the past to be pretty unappealing to small children, so that was okay too. The side passage, well I was worried, I cannot tell a lie, but I was pretty sure nothing would happen that I couldn't cope with. So all was good.

Until I remembered the mulberry on the mulberry tree.

The fruit in our garden seems to ripen one at a time. And as the mulberry has exactly five mulberries on it, I was pretty aware of their individual ripeness statuses.

And I knew that one was almost ready. Almost, but not quite.

I had to make a tough call this morning fellow bloggers, one that I wouldn't wish upon any of you.

If I left the mulberry on the tree to ripen further, I ran a very real risk of losing my very first mulberry to small hands.

But if I ate it, I'd be losing out on an extra day or two of sweet, sweet ripening.

Who am I kidding. The choice was easy, since when have I ever shied away from picking things too early?

And the mulberry was delicious. A bit of red on them never hurt anyone.

Bring on the next four!

Everything I Touch Glows!

I told you my new green thumb was glowing. Look at what it's done to this capsicum.

And Now the Nut Is Nutting!

Whenever my wonderful parents come to visit, at some point during the day I drag them around the garden.

The tour is fabulously fun for me. Not everyone could stand having every single plant pointed out to them, but my obliging parents nod with apparent delight at each new discovery. And of course I am in my element, subtly drawing attention to the highlights, surprising them with delights such as a single red mulberry on a tree, or a ripe looking fig that my dad wanted to pick.

Luckily I know better than to just snap a fig from its branch without it first being submitted to the wiggle test.

Der.

Invariably, I endeavor to begin this garden tour at the far back bed, as in my opinion it's the least exciting. I feel it's important to let the tension build as we go.

In a startling about face today however, the tour was thrown into a tailspin when the back garden bed underwent a status change and tipped the scales as the number one attraction, rating a second, third, and before the end of the day, a fourth inspection. Because while I was pointing out the lone peanut plant that resides therewithin, my mum noticed that it was peanutting.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that as of now, I am of the superior sort of gardener.

Honestly, my thumb is so green that it's glowing. I am seriously contemplating searching for employment sitting on the coastline somewhere and acting as a lighthouse.

Help! The Rosella Is Rosella-ing

And I have no idea what to do with them.

None. Nada, zero, zilch, zip. Well, actually, that's not quite true, I do know that you can make jam with them, but when, how, and with which part?

You may possibly be thinking right now that I am a bit of a rosella novice. And you could be right. In fact I only bought the seed packet last year on a whim, I don't think I thought anything would come of it, as so many, many whims in my garden have had nothing come of them.

But I was wrong, and this time it's a right wrong, because whatever it is I have done with the rosellas, I have done good.

So good in fact, that they are actually growing enthusiastically outside a garden bed in which I hold absolutely no recollection of ever sowing rosella seeds.

Figs, beans, mulberries, and now rosella, the tables are turning my friends.

I am becoming at one with my garden.

And evidently quite comfortable with italics as well.

Hello Little Bean

These are the first green beans of the season.

At least I think it's the season. Surely if I plant them and they produce a green bean, then it's definitely the season.

I adore these slender green munchkins. I might even go so far as to say that I think they are the ant's pants. They are a marvelous with everything as far as I'm concerned; as part of the meat and three veg mainstay that we Australians love so much, in a stir fry, and steamed green beans with soy sauce and sesame seeds makes me cheery just looking at it.

And best of all, for some reason, they grow for me. You put in the bean, water it, and hey presto, a bean.

Wonders will never cease.

My intimacy with the green bean does not extend to everyone however, as I found out late last year. I gave a big handful to our fabulous neighbour Margaret, she and her husband are always giving me produce and I was dead proud to be giving her something besides eggs. She looked at them and thanked me, walked away, looked at them again, did an about face and came back.

"What are they?"

"Umm, Margaret they're beans. Green beans... French beans??"

"Well, I never. How do I cook them then?"

"Margaret, what planet are you living on?" (You can say these sorts of things to Margaret).

After explaining in detail the steaming process of the green bean, she seemed to be quite happy about it all, but I do wonder what her husband thought of the exotic delicacy she was serving up for dinner that night.

Margaret is about 80 and grew up in England. Does this explain the green bean black hole?

Is That the Best You Could Come Up With?

Once or twice a year I call a dear childhood friend who lives far, far away from me now. Now obviously twice a year isn't so very often, and we are not close like we were when we were growing up, but like all good friendships, as soon as we begin talking time falls away and we are soon giggling like teenagers over silly things again.

My friend and I are very different. She grew into a lovely, glamorous young lady, with a high-flying career and fast paced lifestyle. She is always immaculately turned out, and somehow seems to be in on the things that are "happening" before they have even actually happened.

I am somewhat different. I work two days a week in the easiest job known to mankind, I am still studying at uni for some unknown reason, and I am a veritable grub who has dirt under her fingernails 24/7. I could cheerfully go out in my pyjamas if it were socially acceptable.

Nevertheless, none of this matters when we get together.

While I was talking to my friend on our first call for the year, for some reason or another I mentioned that I was writing a gardening blog. My friend almost spat out her coffee into the mouth piece and laughed, "is that the best you could come up with?", she said.

After I got off the phone I took a little wander around and had a think. I thought of all the hard work I have put into my blog, into taking the best photographs I can and into writing as well as I could. I thought of all the lovely blogging friends I have come to know, about how I am always eager to hear from them and their news.

And then I thought of the garden. I thought of the really hard work I have put into it, of how proud I have been of my small successes and how I have come to learn to accept the failures. I thought of my beautiful bananas, and our lovely chickens, and the beautiful garden beds that I am so smitten with.

And I thought to myself, actually, yes.

This is absolutely the best I could come up with.

I Definitely Deserve a Medal Now

Ooo look what it's doing, it's getting all red and ripening. Ripening people, a fruit in my garden is actually ripening and I think I might even be able to eat it.

Do you know what this means? Five mulberries and four figs, I think it almost qualifies as an orchid.

And there will be zero tragic mistakes with this one...

I know when to pick a mulberry.

The Fig Got Alisoned

Oh yes, I Alisoned my fig. For out of my garden, under my care, one delightful fig emerged, unscathed, unbugged, but unfortunately, a teeny tiny bit unripe.

Somehow it also managed to make it through the season unFelixed, which just goes to show how very special this fig really was.

Interestingly, the fig seemed to ripen overnight. I could swear that yesterday it looked like the ones above, and by this morning it had transformed itself into lush, fabulous, almost ripeness.

I gently plucked the little fruit from its branch, tenderly sliced it open and gazed upon its figlike perfection. I was amazed at how much it looked like a fig inside, the colour, the texture, and the taste... oh the taste...

It was like a well balanced mixture of glue and chalk, quite marvelously awful on the palate, and my lips kept sticking together for hours afterwards.

So my fig made it through the season... and almost achieved greatness... almost... unfortunately I had forgotten that the biggest threat in my garden is actually... me.

My fig got ALISONED!

It's Done!

So Geronimo Jerky had the unveiling of their new store today, and as promised, their new planter boxes were ready to go.

It was such a lovely day for the opening, the boys were very lucky. The weather was perfect, a little cloudy so not too hot, not too cold, and as it was the first Sunday of the month, the opening day coincided with the markets. The main street of the suburb we live in is closed off, and gorgeous food stalls take over, life doesn't get much better in my book.

I was so very excited about this project, and felt so lovely and chuffed and supported by your comments and suggestions, so now let me show you what finally went into the boxes.

I loved the idea of corn that a few of you suggested, and so it found its way into the far planter box in the above photo. Just in front of the corn I popped in climber beans, which will hopefully wind their way around the corn as they grow. In front of the corn and beans I alternated cauliflower and cabbage, I thought their round shapes would serve as a nice contrast to the tall, straight corn.

Most of you also suggested herbs, and in the closer planter box above you can see chives, oregano, Thai basil, rosemary, thyme, and the big winner, lemongrass. I have to say that they lemongrass took the cake, it's such an elegant plant and earned quite a few comments for its loveliness.

I then got very excited with this third planter box and built a structure for these peas to climb up. Peas are my personal favourite, and will continue to be so as long as they climb up the frame that I am dead proud of constructing for them.

So I don't know what happened to this photo of the fourth planter box, and you might have to use your imagination a little. So many of you suggested chillis that I just had to use them, and planted them alternately with capsicums, with an aloe vera backdrop. Actually you might have to use your imagination there quite a lot.

And that's it, project completed. Now all it has to do is withstand the attack of small children during the day and teenage boys during the night, and let's hope the Geronimo boys remember to do some watering.

Thank you all so much for your suggestions and comments, you can certainly tell from what I planted that I liked them all very much.

Good luck little veggies!

26 Days of Planting: V is for a Variation on Peach

I absolutely adore nectarines.

So when I saw this lovely, lovely example of a tropical variety, I just couldn't walk past it. Actually, that is a little fib, I did walk past it several times, back and forth, back and forth, trying to talk myself either in or out of buying it, I'm not sure which. Then a vision of a delicious fresh nectarine won out, and little White Sunset trundled along home with Felix and me.

Now I don't know if you are wondering about the title or not.

In my crazed attempt to squeeze the letter "V" out of my new tropical nectarine, I looked up the Latin name, and there came across all this information about nectarines actually being peaches, but without the fuzz. Now there is nothing I like better than I peach without fuzz, so growing a defuzzed one suits me just fine.

The question now is, will I actually grow it?

See, this Sunday is my father's birthday... and while I didn't get the nectarine with dad in mind, the more I think of it, the more I think he would love it. And if you give something you love to someone you love and you think they will love it, then that's got to be a good thing, right?

See, I'm still walking back and forth with little White Sunset.

I really hope my father doesn't read this post.

Why Don't Mine Dangle?

I really want ones that dangle like these.

But my paw paws only grow like this.

How do I get a dangly one?

A Gardening Commission

This coming Sunday, the 6th of March, the lovely boys from Geronimo Jerky will be celebrating the opening of their fabulous new store. This new store is located in a charming suburban shopping street, and it just so happens that this street is only a two minute walk from my house.

Out the front of the new store are four wooden planter boxes. I'm sure they were once filled with beautiful, well-cared for plants, but they currently display weeds, overgrown herbs, and woody bushes.

The boys at Geronimo want to create something exciting in their planter boxes, and they have asked me to do it.

I am going to be the curator of my very own garden boxes on a strip of public land.

I feel like I've come into my own here. I am having visions of vegetable magnificence, glorious bushels of fine produce which people will come from near and far to lay their eyes upon. I feel as though I may perhaps merit some sort of special badge.

Of course, we all know that with my track record it could end up being a bit of a gardening disaster, so I do have a plan.

I am going to fill it all with lovely fresh seedlings, just before opening day. You can't go too wrong there. And I only live down the road, if things start going to pot I'll sneak down there in the middle of the night with new seedlings... nobody ever has to know... it'll create a marvelous new urban myth about vegetables transforming themselves overnight.

Anyway, enough of my blathering.

I need your help. It has to be a vegetable, it has to be fabulously exciting, and it has to be out in full sun. And that's full Brisvegas sun, which is a particularly strong sun indeed.

What shall I plant?