Davo

I wasn't sure how to spell Davo.
Daveo?

Dave - O?

In the end I gave up and settled for Dave minus the e and plus the o.
So this is Davo. Or, if we were not in the habit of shortening names and then plonking a new ending on them, Davidson's Plum. And Davo is an Australian native.

Davo is an understory rainforest tree, and bears fabulous (so I am told!) plum-like fruit. Opinion seems to be divided over the taste of said fresh fruit, from delicious and tangy to no way am I eating that it is way too tart.

I say there's always jam.

Davidson's Plum grows up to 10 metres tall and will grow well in a nice shady spot. Which is why I bought David, as I have plenty of nice shady spots. He has the most fabulous leaves, very shiny and covered with thousands of tiny hairs. Dave looks as though he's prickly, but he's really not.

Davo is native to northern New South Wales, so he is not too far from home at all. I actually have no idea about when he might produce fruit, knowing that he's an Aussie, however, he's likely to sit back, relax, and take his time.

Welcome to our yard David.

That's a Whole Lot of Caffeine

Well you can possibly guess from the photo above that the coffee collecting has started.

I was soooo excited about picking it up today, and rushed to the cafe after work to grab it. There was A LOT of coffee in my bin. Really quite a lot more than I expected. I'd say around three standard size buckets worth. I couldn't help myself either, I stuck my hands in it as soon as we got home. And it felt so fabulous to the touch that I yelled out to the boys to come stick their hands in it too.

If you ever get the chance, you really must try it. The texture is simply marvelous.

Anyway, I dutifully took a sample upstairs and tested it carefully with my fabulous little pH testing kit.

And, if we could have a drumroll please, the results are in. I tested it twice because it seems that I am a little colour blind, but we stuck the little colour chart right into the test patch and concluded that the coffee tested a pH value of 5. So slightly acidic? Most of the research I have been doing on the net seems to suggest that the pH usually tests a little higher, but I am guessing that it must depend on all sorts of factors.

And while I was experimenting...

Lots of people had mentioned that it deters slugs and snails... and so... before work this morning I grabbed a strawberry with a slug on it... and sprinked it with coffee... and... when I got home from work this afternoon - dead slug.

I didn't take any photos of that.

Give Peas a Chance

I am not, in general, one of those marvelous mothers who has the Mary Poppins touch. I don't think up fabulous games for the boys to play, and I am yet to make cleaning up a whole load of fun. We do cook together, but as a rule I tend to let them run wild around the yard and expect them to make up their own entertainment.

This afternoon, however, when the boys had seemingly declared war on each other, I realised that it was time I intervened.

And brought peas to the warring factions.

I think that peas are an altogether fabulous weapon of mass distraction for children. And perhaps in particular for little boys, because you are literally handing them something and saying please break this apart and pull out its insides, which is a little boy's natural instinct anyway.

We didn't pick a whole lot of peas, just a handful each. We carefully shelled them with our grubby little hands, and soon had a big bowlful to share.

We cooked them for about a minute in boiling water and ate them up, one at a time.
And I don't have a photo, but peace really was restored between the nations and they were last seen laughing together over a shared snack of greens.

If only more of the world's problems could be solved with peas.

Coffee Anyone?

source

I know most of you will be wanting to throw something at the screen when I say this, but I don't like coffee. Not at all. I think the smell is just fabulous, but it makes my heart race and my hands shake. Coffee and I just don't get along.

But today, whilst I was watching a friend empty her coffee tower thingy into the bin, it occurred to me that my plants might enjoy a cup now and then. So I researched for a bit on the net, and by all accounts, I am even more alone in my disliking coffee than I realised.

The garden is supposedly an absolute aficionado.

Which is fabulously wonderful news indeed. Because, my brilliant blogging buddies, the aforementioned friend is the proud owner of her very own coffee shop. And is willing to save me her coffee tower takings.

I wonder if the plants take it one lump or two?

Sweet Corn and Cameras

A few weeks ago now, I dropped my camera.

There was no major damage thank goodness, although I think the strain on my heart may have done something slightly permanent. You know the moment of realisation that you have dropped something very precious? That split second of oh no, this cannot be happening?

Well it almost did me in.

So as I said, no major damage done. Except... there is this one teeny tiny bit that held the battery flap closed... which broke off and doesn't hold it closed anymore... which doesn't really matter.

Except that it does.

Because now I have to walk around with my finger on the flap to hold it closed while I am taking photos. And I don't know about you, but when I am taking photos, my fingers are like the Korean army (I am presuming they are a well organised lot). They have their places. They know exactly where to go and what to do. And holding the flap closed has not ever been one of those things.

It's confusing my fingers.

And making me way less inclined to take photos.

But today I gave my fingers a stern talking to (they would be quite stern in the Korean army I would think, particularly if we are talking about the North Korean one), and ventured out to photograph our lovely corn.

I have planted loads of it.

We have big corn and little corn and fat corn and thin corn.

Corn out the front and corn out the back.

And we even have some along the side.

I really like corn.

And because I know that some of you will want to know, I am growing three varieties: Balinese Corn, Golden Bantam and Incredible.

And because I know you'll want to know this too, although this you'll already know, I'm not quite sure which one is which.

Move over Broccoli, I've Found Broccoletti

So I don't know about you, but the wait for broccoli for me this year has been endless... eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeendless. Planted well before the start of winter, I am still waiting for the majority of my broccoli to actually broccoli. And what's quite terrible, is that I am pretty sure that now the cabbage moths have set in, there may not be a whole lot of broccoli-ing actually taking place.

But it doesn't matter.

Nope.

I've found a new player in the field of tree-like greens.

And its name, is Broccoletti.

And Broccoli Raab, and Rabe, and Rappi, and Grelos, and, my personal favourite, Friarielli.

It seems to have quite a few names.

Personally I am quite happy to call this little green wonder whatever it likes, because, my blogging friends, broccoletti grows faster than radish.

Yep, that fast.

I sowed the seeds for this plant on the 25th of July, making this little treasure around 7 weeks old. From seed to table in seven weeks. It most certainly beats the 16+ weeks I have been waiting for the broccoli.

Having said all that, I should probably keep quiet about dumping broccoli forever until I have actually tasted broccoletti.

Although apparently it's quite delicious, stem, leaves, flowers and all.

And I'm all for living dangerously in the garden. So...

Broccoli - u r dumpt

Extracting the Juice out of Life

But if you don't have time to do that, then just do your tomatoes.

Ooo am funny.

You might remember, a few months ago, I posted this about my dreadful hard-as-a-rock tomatoes.

Mark, from Mark's Veg Plot suggested I use them in cooking, which has proven fabulously successful indeed. They don't actually taste bad, quite the opposite - they are marvelously flavoursome, it's just that they are hard. Brick hard.

So when the lovely, lovely men from Geronimo Jerky so graciously offered me the use of one of their old dehydrators, a little light bulb went off in my head.

Pomodoro Mud Pie are perfect for dehydrating.
Absolutely perfect.

So perfect in fact, that by the time they were finished, only half of them were left. I kept getting up in the middle of the night you see, to check that the dehydrator wasn't about to burn the house down... and every time I checked, I just had a little tiny taste.
Sweet and absolutely packed full of flavour, these little semi-dried tomatoes did not need one thing added to them. Not salt, not oil, not anything.

I'll be extracting the juice out of life way more often now I know how tasty it is.

p.s. because coincidences often occur half a world apart, the abovementioned Mark has also been playing with tomatoes. Go take a look!

Fun with Eggs

When eggs smell bacon cooking

Oranges and Apples

Pictured above is possibly my greatest pride and joy. It is my beautiful, glorious tropical dwarf Anna.

I adore this apple tree. Growing up on the Gold Coast I never actually saw any, but a lifetime of reading about them in books left me with a vision of windfall apples, and for some reason, rosy apple cheeks.

I'm not too sure I am going to get either windfall or apple red cheeks here, but it is a lovely vision.

I am dying to grow apples. Dying to. I am patient though, I am happy to wait. Anna fruited last year but the teeny little apples fell off, and that's okay. I went out and bought her a Golden Dorset as a friend. I am patient in my wait for windfall and red cheeks.

I am not patient, however, with whatever (*&^%$@!$%^(*) rodent is eating every single leaf, bud, and shoot from my beloved tree. Every single one. I see the tree bud, and voila, the next day it is gone. I have been shaking my fists and jumping up and down on the spot for weeks now. My lovely apple tree which should be in full bloom, is nothing but a collection of bare sticks.

Back off rodent.

Or I'm pulling out the big guns.

Oh and I almost forgot.

Here are the oranges :)

Sublime

This year, at our house, it is most definitely the Year of the Lime.

Five years it took, but wow, were they worth the wait. Soft and juicy, citrusy and tangy, our long awaited limes are truly sublime.

Our tremendous tree is not only producing limes this year, but it is also onto its second flowering. The tree is absolutely smothered in blossoms, it's quite the spectacular sight.

This lime tree is the only citrus tree we have in our yard. We decided on lime because they can be so expensive in the shops - often up to $2 each. Which is just silly.

With the long wait we've had for these ones I'd be charging at least $10.

My Archematoke

I'd dearly love to spin a marvelous tale from the word archematoke. Something along the lines of "when I were a wee lass" (and lived in Scotland apparently), but alas no, nothing of the sort. I cannot tell such a lie, because I am pretty sure it would leave my mother scratching her head and wondering just when it was that we ate archematokes.

Artichokes actually. But you just try saying archematoke and see how easily it rolls of the tongue. It's a fabulous word, and I for one, am sticking with it. But not for this post.

Because that would just be confusing.

So I have artichokes growing in my garden. Lots of them. Possibly because I planted a whole bunch of seeds, possibly not. But the lovely (not) lady at the nursery that I was telling about my archematokes (I called them artichokes in front of her), today informed me that my artichokes (she said it properly too I noticed) were doomed.

"TOO HOT FOR THEM HERE LUV" (she was very loud), "ANYTHING WITH A SILVER LEAF WILL JUST UP AND CARK IT IN THE SUBTROPICS COME SPRING."

Well thank you very much loud lady. I happened to be very proud of my artichokes and you just crushed my pride like it was a dirty little snail under your great big gardening boot.

So here is one of my artichokes.

Please admire him before he and his silver leaves up and cark it.