For Tess, Chris, and Danielle

A few weeks ago I was talking to one of my very oldest friends on the phone, who, along with her husband, is having a fabulous new house built down in Melbourne.

It was all very exciting, and as I was asking her all about it, she confessed to me that she could make neither head nor tail of the drafted plans, and that her husband had ended up making her a teeny tiny diorama of their new house so that she could understand what he could quite clearly see on paper.

We both had a little giggle at this, and I confessed that I couldn't read a plan for the life of me either, and while we were at it I never could see my babies in those ultrasound photos. As we were talking, I mentioned that it really was a very sweet thing of her husband to have done, and how touched I was by his thoughtfulness towards her.

Fast forward to this weekend, when three lovely friends of mine came over for afternoon tea, carrying a shoebox with them.

I was pretty sure I knew what was going to be in that shoebox, one of my friends is an architect, the other an interior designer, and they have generously been planning a new kitchen for me for quite some time now.

And I was right, because in the box were the plans for my kitchen... and something completely unanticipated...

My very own, teeny tiny kitchen diorama.

So this post is dedicated to Tess, Danielle, and Chris.

Who touched my heart with their thoughtfulness...

And fabulous dress sense...

I adore my kitchen plans.

And I can't wait to cook for you all in it.

Thank you so much ladies!

4.9 Metres of Yum

A few weeks ago, I believe I may told you all that I had a 7 metre patch of strawberries.

Now in the interest of being 100% accurate at all times on Mud Pie, I realised that I was going to have to get out there and measure the patch.

So Felix and I got out there, and we measured the patch.

And I think I lied.

We most certainly have some strawberries though.

Which never seem to quite make it to the kitchen...

or my way for that matter...

Winter Wednesdays - Comfort Food

I know that bananas are not the first thing that spring to mind when you think of winter, but when winter gives you bananas, well, then that's what winter is about.

Years and years ago, when I was wayyyy younger and oh so much more fun, my sharemates and I used to sit under our house, drink cheap beer and play cards. We were an unusual lot. At one stage it was myself, a lovely Brazilian guy, a Canadian girl and her Norwegian boyfriend, and for some bizarre reason, Tom. Tom was a little out of place, because while we were all young university students, he was a proper grown up - a forty year old university lecturer in Industrial Relations. From memory, Tom was a leetle highly strung, and didn't ever join in on our card games.

I think Tom was living in the wrong house.

We had a lot of fabulous times under that house with our deck of cards, and one of the more fabulous things that I remember, is the things we used to eat. And when the boys stood next to all our bananas today and asked me for a snack, one of those memories came back and I sat them down, took them both by the shoulders and said, "My boys, today you are in for a taste sensation".

And I made them a banana, peanut butter and honey sandwich each.

To die for my friends, to die for. A perfect balance of flavours and texture, this tasty snack sticks to the ribs and satisfies the hungry child and student alike.

As the Yo Gabba Gabba song says, "Try it, you'll like it".

Here's linking up to Hazel's Winter Wednesdays.

Mash for Luka

"MUM", (the boys often talk to me in capital letters) CAN WE HAVE POTATO MASH FOR DINNER?".

As a matter of fact, yes, we could. These are the offspring of one potato that I put down in the bed I kicked the rats out of back in April. Sounds complicated hey.
I am very proud of our little potato success. They are just boring supermarket potatoes, all the first bed are, but this one at least, seems to have done well. In the other beds I have more exciting varieties, like Purple Kings and Dutch Creams, but I staggered the planting so I wouldn't have a mountain of mash all at once. In fact I am still potato planting now, my Digger's garden guide says I can plant them until September.

To make these a little more exciting, I have taken to calling them Supermarket White.

And Supermarket White made the best mash. Ever. Full of butter and cream, garnished with a handful of chopped parsley and onion shoots, a good potato mash is up there with my favourite dishes.

Luka's too it seems.

This, apparently, is his "happy face".

Not Bleu

Apart from the sky that is. Not one cloud today, not one. Which is fabulous weather wise, but not so fabulous water wise. The tank is down to the very last drops now.

When I purchased this lovely little blueberry in December last year, I was blathering on about all the rain we had been having, and also of going to the ballet. So no ballet today, but I do give you a bit of tutuesque pink, which is not blue at all.

I am hesitant to say that this fabulous little "Sharpblue" blueberry looks as though it's going to flower. It doesn't look nearly as good now as it does when I bought it, but it is covered in these lovely pink things that I am hesitant to say are blossom buds. I don't have a whole lot of blueberry experience though, so I'm not committing to anything.

I am, however, committing to the spelling of blue in my post title.

Because today some fabulous Australian won the Tour de France, and I though I'd go all fancy pants on you.

Come on little blueberry, you know you want that yellow shirt.

26 Days of Planting: X is for feliX planted this!

Okay, they are carrots, they do not begin with an X, and I am cheating, cheating, cheating, but there is honestly nothing out there starting with an X.

Nothing!

So way back then, we decided that our X was going to have to be Felix. And boy did he do a good job. Felix sowed these seeds in December, and they have survived flood, chicken attack, our dog standing on them, and the sides of the box they were in collapsing. He tended to them every day without fail; watering, and prodding and poking, and for some reason, picking them today.

We are having them tonight in a mint and carrot salad, along with roast duck and rice.
I suspect that the apprentice will quickly surpass his master.

Keeping it Green

I like to have a salad with dinner, and over the past few months, the boys and I have fallen into a regular routine of gathering, washing, and preparing our salad greens.

Every day, just before dinner is ready, we troop downstairs to the garden and snip away at our salad greens. We have four salad beds, so we rotate each night to give things a chance to grow again before the next snip. Nothing gets to grow very large as we use the leaves as we go, rather than pulling up a whole plant.

Felix's extra job is to pick 10 cherry tomatoes and Luka's is to go strawberry hunting. Once we've collected enough, upstairs we go to wash and prepare it.

The washing is not rocket science, we just fill up the collecting bowl with water and the boys hover over it looking for "bad stuff". In winter we don't really have any problems with bugs, but it is a real treat for them if we actually find a caterpillar. A treat for me too, because if I ever find one on my plate I might just not eat again.

After a nice bath we shake it out, slice the tomatoes in half, and then dress it with a little oil and lime, salt and pepper.

For me the salad is the star of any meal, and the boys will nibble at a piece of lettuce and tomato.

In our salad tonight we had:

dwarf kale

rainbow spinach

cos lettuce

butter lettuce

bok choy

tatsoi

pak choi

cherry tomatoes

mint

garlic shoots

onion shoots

parsley

coriander

dill

land cress

and one butter bean

I don't have any photos of it ready and looking pretty because when dinner is ready, we eat!

What do you eat every day from your garden?

Winter Wednesdays - Running on Empty

Oh we are really scraping the bottom of the barrel for the joys of winter now.

However I did find something to offer up to you, if not quite a joy, it is at least about winter.

A few weeks ago, amidst my blatherings about life, the garden and everything, I mentioned that one of the impediments in my path towards attaining Master Gardener status, was the fact that our soil is of very poor quality.

Mark very aptly pointed out that I needed to get over my aversion to worms and start composting, and I agreed that yes, throwing scraps to the chickens is not a composting system. He didn't quite put it like that, but I'm sure that's what he was thinking.

So composting system is coming... I of course have a complicated plan for it, nothing so straightforward as simply purchasing a compost bin.

All that aside (I told you I blathered), the second impediment on my path towards becoming one with a food forest, is water.

Or lack thereof.

In winter, in Brisbane, it doesn't rain. Pretty much not at all. It is dry, dry, dry. So dry that you can just about peel your lips off your face after a day outside, and if it's windy you can peel off your face too. So dry in fact, that Australia had the dubious status of being the driest inhabited continent in the world.

It's really dry, okay?

And it does wonders for the soil. See the patch above? In summer, it's grass. In winter, our yard is a dustbowl.

The fruit trees and all the vegetables are safe for now, we are extrememely lucky to have a 3000 litre watertank keeping them in liquid. But the water in the tank is down to the bottom 20cm, and when that runs out, that's it.

Oh yes, the joys of winter. Here's linking up to Hazel.

p.s. if you look at the photo of Felix's feet for long enough you can, bizarrely, begin to imagine that they are the feet of a large chicken.

Mr Incredible

I think that plants have personalities...

Some of them, like pumpkins and tomatoes, are a little contrary. They enjoy testing you. "Oh no, I don't want to grow here, I want to grow over there." Others, such as eggplants and strawberries are bursting with pride and want to look magnificent, but then scoff at the hard work of producing with abundance.

And then you have another kind... the kind that wants to please... the kind that are content with little, who are happy where they are, and are generally satisfied with life.

And these kind, like my fabulous mulberry here, are sometimes so generous and kind and giving, that they fruit not only once, but twice a year for you. And all this from less that one year in the ground.

I like mulberries.

I call this one, "Mr Incredible".

The Alchemist

I don't like radishes...

so I turned them into chocolate...

Then I transformed bananas into mandarins...

and a felted flower into turmeric...

Yep, I am an alchemist...

Although I wasn't expecting to ever be one.

You see, I don't like radishes, so I gave them to a work colleague.

To my surprise, he brought me chocolate the next day.

And then I gave my neighbour some bananas.

He got so excited that he went to the mandarin tree he had never even looked at in his yard, and picked me a bucketful... it seemed that wasn't enough for him though, and he sent his flatmate over the next day with some special cat food for Mrs Goggins.

The next day I went to work, where I found a whole lot of turmeric piled up on my desk, and next to it a little note... Thank you ever so much for the felted flower, I will wear it always.

I didn't give anything away with any sort of idea that I would receive anything back. In a day and age where big businesses might just not help you up if you fell over in front of them, the thoughtfulness and generosity of my fellow man fills me with pride, happiness and a warm glow for the future of mankind.

p.s. those chocolate boxes are empty, I couldn't wait.

:D

The Avocado Dating Scene

When I was younger (and way more fun), I was quite the emotional and highly strung lass. I have, of course, mellowed greatly with age, and indeed, also with having small children. When you are liable to be woken up in the predawn hours of the day with a toy truck being driven over your legs "for the bumps", you either mellow out or check into the mental home.

Today, however, in a nod to my younger self, I have gone from extreme excitement, to extreme confusion, to worried desperation, all in the space of several hours.

Worried desperation may be a tad dramatic - I never quite got over my dramatic tilt.

Now the extreme excitement from this morning was due to exhibition A, pictured above. These lovely little buds on my fabulous Wurtz Avocado tree had me in raptures. And it is just covered in them, I counted at least 20 of these little buds, and this is on a tree that wouldn't be much more than a metre high. Mental images of mountains of guacamole abounded.

In my high excitement I thought I'd do a little research, just to see how long it might take to fruit, and whether perhaps I should remove some of the buds. And that's when confusion set in.

It seems that if you have avocado tree type A, you need type B to pollinate it. And vice versa. Then I read something about the flowers opening one day as a male, and the next as a female. Then I read something about not worrying about having types A and B, as the flowering on one tree will overlap. And then I read something that said, yes do worry. And that's where the desperation set in.

I have no idea what to do.

Does my avocado need a "friend"?

Yellow Gold

Ooo I've got winter bananas!

And not only winter bananas, but winter gold... at my local IGA bananas are selling for $16.99/kilo at present, and with 11kg of ripening bananas I believe I am sitting on exactly $186 and 89 cents.

Yellow Gold.

A little while back when I cut down an earlier banana plant, a few of you asked why. And I am really quite chuffed that by going through the process of growing them, I have really learned something concrete. Not something that someone more knowledgeable told me, but knowledge of my own because I have gone through the process.

And I adore that about gardening.

Anyway, the reason that I cut down the mature banana plant, is because once it has fruited, a banana plant won't produce again. What does happen though, is that under the ground the plants are growing from a corm and from the eyes of the corm up come little banana plants called suckers. You can see two lovely sword suckers, along with the mother plant, in the picture above. Along with mulch. Told you I went mad with it.

Now these sword suckers are sucking the life out of the mother plant (the big one), and it seems to be standard recommendation to have one big mother plant, a half grown plant and then a baby sucker. And as much as you lean towards calling them banana trees, you can't. They are in truth a giant herb.

Check out my herb garden :)

Winter Wednesdays - My Pride and Joy

My dear fellow bloggers, today, I show you something which really would not have been possible without winter. Therefore I am truly honest when I say that this is one thing I do appreciate about the freezing cold temperatures of this cold season.

It's my very first homegrown cauliflower.

And not only a homegrown cauliflower, but one that has withstood both my gardening techniques, and the attentions of the chickens to its leaves.

A truly worthy contender for Winter Wednesdays.

Help me Fashion...

... a new letterbox!

Out the front of our house, on the other side of the picket fence, there is a footpath. And quite often on this footpath, I have noted, along come feet. More often than not, attached to those feet are people, and invariably some of those attached people are young, and a bit silly and perhaps under the influence of certain fermented beverages.

And invariably, some of those youthful beverage consumers feel the compelling need to rip the tops off letterboxes.

I like to think that I take this in my stride, because what's a letterbox in the grand scheme of things really.

I do however, require a new letterbox, because my mail is getting wet.

I have managed to convince myself that I don't really need that lovely shiny new mailbox at the shop for three hundred dollars, and considering that whatever I put up is likely to be played with again, I think I'd like to make one.

I'm just not sure what to make.

Any ideas?

Yo Yo

Over the school holidays we mulched...

and sowed...

and mulched some more...

In fact a whole lot more...

And in between the mulching and the sowing we played and we ate and we made mud pies and we didn't take one photo of one thing and post it on the internet.

And it was all fabulous and wonderful and bonding and lovely, but boy, am I so excited to be back!

Hey again everyone!