We Have Blueberry

Who would have thought?

When I think of subtropical fruit, the blueberry is not the first thing that comes to mind. Pineapples, mangoes and bananas yes, blueberries no.

Obviously, I am quite wrong.

This fabulous little Sharpeblue blueberry has been in the ground for less than one year, and already has produced not one, not two, but three ripe berries. There are 26 more yet to ripen, and, wait for it, 5 new blossoms. The berries are sweet and juicy, and perhaps even more importantly, nothing is trying to eat it apart from myself. Next visit to the nursery and I am buying up a veritable field of them.

And what is even more fabulously marvelous, Sharpeblue is the kind of blueberry that you are allowed to let fruit in its first year. Other kinds you pull off the blossoms as the form.

I so don't know how I'm going to cope when it comes to leaving the asparagus alone.

Hang on Little Golden Dorset

You know that feeling you get some mornings upon waking that there's something really exciting happening that day? And your eyes fly open and you jump out of bed? Well for me, every day is like this at the moment.

Because there is an apple on my apple tree. Not the one that keeps getting stripped back by rodents, but the one I bought to keep the first one company.

One teeny tiny apple.

And so every morning, I flop out of bed, struggle to open the front door (the lock sticks), traipse down the front stairs (even in the rain), and check that the apple is still on the apple tree.

And so far, every morning I have breathed a sigh of relief.

Funnily enough, there was an apple of the same size on my other tree at exactly this time last year. A few weeks later, it dropped off.

Oh that was a sad, sad day indeed.

Please grow little Tropical Golden Dorset.

I really, really want to taste a freshly picked apple.

A Garden Update: Part Two of More Than Two

Spring has sprung in our lovely garden, with lots of marvelous rain, and promises (warnings) of litres more bucketing down from the heavens. The very back of our backyard has been fortified (I hope) against the expected flow of summer water as it travels down the incline from front to back, with lots of raised beds and banana plant plantings. I have also been trying to raise the level of the ground in the chicken coop, which generally floods every rainy season. Countless bags of manure, tree branches, lawn clippings and anything else that comes to mind are being laid on the ground with the hope of keeping the ladies dry.

The garden is just loving the warmer and wetter weather.

Pictured above is one of the first figs to appear on our lovely little Black Genoa fig. There are about 10 fruit on it so far, and I am hoping for even more this year. You can see in the photo below how healthy the tree is looking - and how small. Thanks to Elaine and her passed on information on how to keep them little, I am dwarfing my own full sized tree. As the fruit only forms on new growth anyway, there's a lot to be said for keeping it little.

And I'm pretty sure our over the fence neighbours would agree.

This next photo below is my lovely pomegranate. I had a little freak out in winter when after I moved him he lost every single leaf he had, and I thought he was dead. I really need to check before freaking to see which plants are deciduous. I have no idea if/when/why/or how this one fruits, so I am out there every morning looking for some kind of sign.

Please send me a sign pomegranate.

I haven't spoken about our avocado tree for a while, so the last you heard of it was that it was flowering. Which indeed it was. Flourishing there below, isn't it? You really couldn't tell at all that some rodent life form has eaten off every single flower.

Every one.

And the last of the updates for today are the strawberries. I have been scattering coffee on them every fortnight, and while the fresh stuff seems to keep the slugs off, they do come back after a few days. When they stop fruiting I am going to dig them all up and transplant the keepers to higher ground.

Next year slugs will have coffee and dizzying heights to contend with.
And last, but most certainly not least, here is a slightly blurred photo of what's been keeping me from blogging.Nothing like ripping your kitchen apart with family and friends to keep you busy.

My First Cabbage

With the cauliflowers slowly losing their battle with the caterpillars of the white cabbage moth, I thought ready or not, I'm picking my cabbage.

Isn't he cute?

There were certainly a lot more outer than inner leaves, but that's okay, the chickens are always happy to see some green leaves. If they hadn't been caterpillar ridden, I might have done something exciting with them, but as they were (and I live in morbid fear of accidentally eating a caterpillar. Or worse - a slug) I wasn't touching them.

So yes, my first cabbage. Now while I hadn't actually grown my own cabbage before, I have eaten lots of home grown cabbage. My dad has lots of success with them, and lucky he does, because I think this might be it for me.

And not because it took ages to grow, although it did seem to take an age.

No I can cope with the long growing period, because cabbage is something I really like. It's a fabulously versatile vegetable, and besides, I think it tastes plain old yum.

And with that yummy taste in mind, I thought I'd make a little coleslaw. To properly take advantage of the freshness of the cabbage you know.
I made a pretty big deal when I served up the coleslaw as a side salad for lunch. I may have even hinted to my family that they were dwelling with a veritable earth mother, nourishing them as I was straight from the garden.

Next time I'll taste before I talk.

Because it was not yum.

Like really not yum.

It tasted like I had somehow included an off chilli in the coleslaw - it was hot and burning in my mouth and not in a good way. That cabbage was long gone tastewise.

Cute or not, I am majorly peeved.

I'm glad I chopped him up good.

A Garden Update: Part One of More Than One

I don't know if any of you have ever noticed this, but I am a bit of a starter of projects.

But not so much a finisher.

I am like this with everything. After four years, for example, my bedroom walls are still only painted 3/4 of the way up (that's as high as I could reach without a ladder). It doesn't, of course, bother me at all, but I realise that it may drive others nutso.

And I am pretty sure that I do the same sort of thing here on my blog. Talk things up never to mention them again.

Except bananas. No one could fault me on the extent to which I blathered on about those fat things.

Anyway, in the spirit of letting you know where things are at - let's update.

The cauliflowers right out the back that I complained about taking an age are finally starting to do something. There are ten plants that are all at this stage, but unfortunately, I think it may be too little too late, the heat and cabbage moths have well and truly set in now. I sowed the seeds well before winter, but next year I will sow them even earlier.

And why are they pink?!
Above is my hard tomato plant - remember Pomodoro Mud Pie: Brick Red? It was certainly my biggest producer, but has most definitely come to its end now. I had kilos of fruit from it, and thanks to Mark's advice to use them in cooking they were all put to good use. Mostly dehydrated, but some with bacon and eggs too.
And do you know what this is? Because I almost didn't and was about to pull it out... it's a peanut plant. Do you remember in the 26 days of planting project I did N is for Nut? Well I thought my nut plant produced around 10 peanut pods last year, but it must have been more like 11. This is the one that got left behind.
The new chickens are growing up. Doesn't it happen amazingly quickly? They aren't even three months old yet.
And one of our artichoke plants is proving to everyone who passes my front yard that I really had no idea how big they would grow. Lovely looking plant, but way too big for its spot. Hopefully I'll remember that for next year.

And there you have it.

Stay tuned for more nail biting garden excitement to come.

Picking Apples

There is an ad posted on billboards all over town at the moment, which advises Australians on how to pick apples.

It goes something along the lines of "Australians know how to pick an apple. They first look at this". "This" being the label.

I don't know why, there are so many things to get upset about in regards to food advertising taking the consumer for an idiot, but this ad really annoys me.

I have looked and I have looked and I just cannot find a sticker on mine.

What Ali Did

Last Saturday night, I went on a Mission.

This mission involved me dragging the boys and their father out, in the dark, to the place behind our local shopping centre where some gardening genius decided to plant non clumping bamboo.

The stuff is everywhere.

Up the hill, down the hill, and marching into people's backyards. If it could grow in the tarmac it lines, well it would be there too.

And we pinched some. Now for those of you who are shaking your heads at me right now, we only pinched the bamboo that was lying about on the ground.

We would have cut it down fresh, but we learnt within about 10 seconds of trying that fresh bamboo is really hard to cut.

After we had gathered to my little heart's content, we realised that it was not going to fit into the car. Not a chance.

But I am nothing if not extremely determined in the face of adversity, and so under each arm went the bamboo, and off I set, dragging the whole lot home.

It made so much noise.

I am so glad we went there in the dark.

And this is what I did with the bamboo.

I made some wonky teepees.

And I am so proud of myself.

The intention of my wonky teepees is to give my lovely spaghetti squash plants a nice frame to climb. I have not grown or eaten spaghetti squash before, so treating them this kindly is a bit of a gamble, but even if it's not a great crop it will at least look a bit spectacular climbing up our fabulous teepees.
I am so feeling like a master builder right now.

Raiding Day

Today, Felix and I went to our friend Tess's house to raid her mulberry tree.

She had been telling us for ages how chockers it was. "I've picked five buckets and they just keep on coming! The branches are groaning under the weight of the sheer volume of mulberries on this tree! You have to come and eat some!"

Yeah, yeah, I thought to myself... so you've got a few mulberries...

And then I saw the tree for myself. It's kind of hard to tell from the photo above, but the last time I saw those branches they were reaching towards the sky. And this is only a few of the branches...

Felix and Tess and I ate and ate and ate. And then we ate some more. We'd be on one branch stuffing our little faces and then we'd spot another branch that looked better and move on. It really was a most fabulous afternoon of abundance. Faces and hands were pink. Tummies full. Those mulberries... my goodness they were good. Fat, juicy and sweet... we were in mulberry heaven.
And when we arrived back home... I couldn't help but notice that the one half mulberry that was left on my poor sorry stripped tree had ripened. I didn't take a photo, the one above is old, but to me it looked kind of small and proud, sitting all alone there on the tree.

Stuffed as I was, I picked it and slowly savoured my lovely little lone mulberry.

Perhaps I am biased, but it seemed to me the sweetest one of all.

Coasts of Gold and Catch Ups

I went to my 20th high school reunion last weekend.

I hadn't really wanted to go.

I didn't actually like high school. Did anyone? All the drama and intrigue, and I never really seemed to be a part of any of it. I was a little afraid that this catch up might be like that, were people going to start whispering secrets behind my back?

Funnily enough, it was my oldest friend and my newest friend who convinced me to go. The oldest, with whom I had been at primary school, just would not let up. "Come on, let's go, we are going, it will be fun, see you at the hotel, we'll pick you up at 6.45 sharp". My newest friend just looked and me and said, "I missed out on mine, and I really regret it. Go. It's one night of your entire life."

And so I duly dragged my family down to stay at a fancy hotel on the Gold Coast so that I could attend my 20th high school reunion.

And do you know what?

It was, without a doubt, one of the best nights of my entire life. Absolutely. Gone was all the teenage rubbish that goes with teenagers, and what was left was a group of really quite fabulous people. Issues had long been sorted, and people knew who they were. The women had grown prettier, and the men fatter in the middle and thinner on top. And we all talked and drank and laughed and stayed out until past 3 o'clock in the morning.

And as we all waved goodbye one guy yelled out that he'd had so much fun we should meet up again the next weekend.

I knew it wouldn't happen, but I so agreed with him.

The funny thing is, that now that I have been to this reunion, my entire perception of my high school experience has changed. The kids there weren't awful, they weren't mean, they were just finding themselves, just like I was. We were all confused. We all did good things and bad things and silly things, and we had all ended up being pretty decent, kind human beings.

And ever since I figured all that out, well I have just felt great.

Now if you are wondering what the photo has to do with anything, it's a snap of the pool area that I took from our hotel room. The boys were going on the slides with their dad. If you look very carefully at the little blue spot halfway up the stairs, that's Luka. The other darker spot, further down is Felix.

And in the water is their dad, waiting to catch them as they shoot out of the slide.

If only their lives could stay always so simple.

p.s. stop calculating how old I am.

Finding Cameras and Fixing Zucchinis

I lost my camera last week.
Well, lost is actually quite a strong word. Misplaced? I looked high and low for days, but obviously not quite high or low enough, as it ended up being under a pile of clothes that were on top of the piano.

What on earth a pile of clothes is doing on the piano is anybody's guess.

Anyway, I haven't been posting as I haven't been photographing, and I think a blog is like a cookbook, if there aren't any photos, I'm not into it.

I am, however, very much into zucchini. Every year I try to grow it, and every year it's the same story. Zucchini plant grows, looks fabulous, little zucchinis come along, get to the size of my finger, and then the blossoms shrivel up and rot off. And this peeves me to no end. Zucchini are supposed to grow well here. They like the heat. And I know they grow well here - the plants are fabulously healthy looking and flower up beautifully, but I have yet to produce a zucchini larger than my finger.

Until now. Or at least until after now. Actually, until perhaps after now. Because I am not sure that this is going to work.

After a little research I discovered that calcium deficiency is causing the blossom rot on the zucchinis. This is caused either by a deficiency in the soil, or by irregular watering. Applying dolomite is supposed to fix this, so that's not rocket science. But there was also another recommendation.

Apparently if you remove the blossom once the fruit has begun to grow, and scrape off any signs of rot, the zucchini fruit will recover and flourish.
Skeptical?

Me too.