Mud Pie

Bad Blogging and Watermelons

2012-01-18T00:33:00.001+10:00

Oh yes, I have done it... I have produced watermelon. On its last legs it may well be (the children got to it today); I still grew a watermelon to the size of a grapefruit.

Which is at least ten times larger than any other watermelon I have grown.

If I were in competition with myself, then this melon would be taking home the blue ribbon.

Which is more than I can say for my poor neglected blog.

(I think I might be close to retirement :D)

I Grew an Apple

2011-12-12T12:14:00.001+10:00

Sort of.

How big must an apple be before you can call it an apple?
I ate it. It almost popped my eyeballs out of their sockets, but I grew it, and so I ate it.

I'll bet all sorts of problems would have been avoided if I had been the gardener of Eden.

A Rare Red Fruit

2011-12-10T19:18:00.000+10:00

How could I resist in the face of this advertising line?

Oh you so know that I couldn't.

This is a Red Centre Lime. Or an Australian Blood Lime, and is a cross between a native Finger Lime (I don't actually know what a finger lime is, but I do feel as though I should. At least I am giving it capital letters) and a mandarin (I know what that is).

Which is just so very, very exciting.

Who doesn't love a lime? And if they are good in green, how fabulous are they going to be in red?

Ooo red and green.

This is practically a Christmas post.

The Hanging Cucumbers of Mitchelton

2011-12-07T17:36:00.000+10:00

I adore a good cucumber.

This variety is called "Muncher Burpless", and it most certainly lives up to its name, being both munchable, and not causing any burping.

I have the cucumber plants growing up one of my bamboo teepees, sitting in a bed with lots of lovely aged cow manure. I am pretty sure I threw some ground coffee into the mound as well, but that's hardly surprising - I collect so much coffee now that I use it in everything.

So whether it's the coffee or the manure, I am doing something right as I am picking a lovely fresh cucumber every other day. I love them fresh with mayonnaise, or sliced, salted and squeezed to within an inch of their lives and then drenched with lime and creme fraiche.

Yum.

It Blinked at Me

2011-12-03T14:53:00.001+10:00

And that's when I realised it was alive.

Who finds a tortoise in their backyard? In the middle of the suburbs?

Quite obviously, we do.

We named him Mr Beaujangles, and after a lovely play sent our newfound friend safely on his way into a neighbouring backyard.

One without a dog, cat, chickens and small children.

It may have been my imagination, but I am relatively sure I detected a look of relief on his face as he trudged off.

The boys really liked playing with him.

Third Time Lucky?

2011-11-29T18:54:00.001+10:00

I have tried several times now with watermelon.

With zero success.
But something in me just keeps on trying.
Maybe this time?
Hang on to your hats little watermelons... I'm feeling lucky.

My Big Fat Zucchini

2011-11-27T10:01:00.000+10:00

I really wanted to call this post My Big Fat Zucchini and If You Want it to Rain Have an Outdoor Party, but really, if I set that sort of precedent, who knows the lengths my post titles will eventually reach?

Possibly much like my sentences - way too long.

So yes, it has rained, and not because I washed the car or left my washing on the line, oh no, that wasn't quite enough. What I had to do was to throw a party - you know the kind, the kind where you all sit around outside so as to enjoy the great outdoors. Until it starts sprinkling just that little too hard. Possibly not hard enough to penetrate the soil to any great depth, but most certainly enough to drive everyone upstairs.

Call me the Rain Party God.

Anyway, back to matters more vegetal.

I have zucchini. Or indeed courgette, if you prefer. And this is my Biggest Zucchini Ever.

Finally, after fussing over the plants for months, I have cracked a size larger than my little finger. How did I do it?

I stopped fussing and left them alone.

The Zucchini Rain Party God I am thinking.

Please Rain

2011-11-23T13:06:00.000+10:00

It doesn't look very promising, does it?

But it hasn't rained properly in months... the tank is dry and everything is going to pot. Corn, tomatoes, beans and eggplant - everything.

The Bureau of Meteorology have promised rain for this afternoon, and I am holding them to it.

I've even left two full loads of washing on the line for extra encouragement.

More Glass Noodle Than Spaghetti Squash

2011-11-22T00:28:00.000+10:00

After my spaghetti squash post last week, I knew I was going to crack and pick it fairly soon. Exactly when I wasn't sure, but the squash took the decision out of my hands by turning yellow overnight.

Like a small oval beacon in the garden, signalling its readiness. I like that attribute in a vegetable.
I really like when bloggers show their produce next to a ruler or a pair of scissors for scale, and thought I might try to do similar.

Looking around for an appropriate oval object, I soon found Felix's head.

I was quite uncertain how on earth spaghetti-like strands come out of a squash, but after boiling it for thirty minutes before cracking it open, it soon became apparent. I don't know how clear it is for you in the photo below, but the inside is like a tightly packed pack of spaghetti, just waiting to be teased out.

And so tease them out I did.
And found a whole new favourite for the garden.

The spaghetti squash had a lovely, subtle flavour, much like a zucchini. As I was not convinced that the family would like it, I served it with a heavy bolognaise sauce, which was completely the wrong thing to do. The squash, which to me resembled the texture of glass noodles rather than pasta, deserved a far more delicate topping.

I have two more squash ready for the picking, and I am dreaming of a prawn and Thai basil accompaniment...

Spaghetti squash, you earned your right to the teepees you grew over.

They Chopped Off Their Heads!

2011-11-20T21:03:00.000+10:00

Six of them!

I love sunflowers. I never plant any flowers, apart from sunflowers. They are fabulous - showy and cheery and just plain beautiful. I just love them.

So I thought I'd plant a whole lot along our front fence and share them with passersby.

Well we shared them alright. Someone reached in over our fence and chopped off their heads! I am a victim of flower theft! And if you think that is terribly terrible, well, my poor neighbours lost more than just one rose...

To be honest though, I'm a little torn between being peeved that someone stole my flowers, and being chuffed that someone thought them worth stealing.

I have steal worthy garden goods.

Sweet Success

2011-11-17T06:48:00.000+10:00

Perhaps not the greatest photo I have ever taken, but I was all very excited about my fabulously sweet sweet corn. Excited enough to post this photo that makes my hand look like I am an 80 year old woman. Oh well, you know what they say.

Wrinkly hands, large brain.

Oh that's funny.

So this is not quite my first corn for a while, but it's most certainly been the tastiest. This variety is called Golden Bantam, an heirloom variety from Eden Seeds. Only 7 weeks ago it was just a little tacker, in the second photo here, so it's really grown quite quickly. These two are the best cobs I've had so far, the ears are sweet and fresh, and really lovely and light to eat.

In my humble opinion, freshly picked corn doesn't seem to fill you up as much as supermarket corn. I have read that the moment sweet corn is picked, the sugars start transforming into starch, so you should set the water onto the boil before you trundle out to the garden.

Which is exactly what we did.

Squash that Spaghetti

2011-11-13T21:52:00.001+10:00

Well it hasn't rained in weeks and I have squeezed out the last drops from the water tank. There is no rain on the horizon and it is HOT. Burning hot, the sun is scorching - you can feel it toasting the top of your head after only minutes outside. Because water here now costs a fortune, when the tank runs out, I let things go... so the sunflowers are drooping, the celery tops are burning, and all my leafy greens have practically disintegrated.

But the spaghetti squash are thriving!
Ha!

Not because they are some sort of hardy drought resistant type, but because they are my favourite things in the garden at the moment, and for my favourite plants I will lug a bucket of water around the backyard.

So as the lugging of buckets indicates, I am quite chuffed with our spaghetti squash. It's fabulously decorative and is rivalling the broccoletti for fast growing produce. We have around five plants climbing up our wonky teepees, and around three decent sized fruit so far, but more teeny tiny fruits are popping up everywhere.

With my track record for harvesting things before they are ripe, I am of course already dying to pick the biggest one. I don't have a photos of it that I want to post, as all the photos I took managed to feature my diagonal next door neighbour's very ugly shed. But the largest one is of course bigger, and it's starting to turn yellow. The vine of the larger on is also starting to wither, which doesn't look brilliant on its teepee, but does bode well for its ripeness.

I'm so going to pick it this week coming.

The Young Ones

2011-11-10T07:27:00.000+10:00

One year in the waiting, the youngberry is youngberrying...

I have no idea how long it will take, I've no idea what they taste like or look like, but presumably berry like, and hopefully something I'll like.

Goodness me there's nothing like taking a few photos to realise you have some weeds to take care of in the garden.

Apparently They Grow on Trees

2011-11-07T08:00:00.001+10:00

Tomatoes that is.

This is my lovely Tamarillo - or tree tomato as I think it is quite commonly known. It is only tiny now, but according to Gardenworld, it is going to grow rapidly up to around two metres high, and then branch out and produce tons of delicious, slightly spicy fruit for us to eat fresh or stew.

Somewhere else on the web I read that they were not self pollinating, so I have planted two out, and I have sowed another eight seeds. I have plenty of space for fast growing, scrumptious fruit :D.

Not that I have tasted a tamarillo, but what sort of gardener would I be if I did not throw myself into the unknown realms of the fruit and vegetable world.

I am quite excited about these little tamarillos, I actually saw a fully grown fruiting tree on the weekend, and they are really quite a fabulous looking little tree. The fruit looks quite dramatic too - it kind of hangs down in clusters looking a bit like a red passionfruit.

Enough of trying to follow my descriptive blathering - you can see one here at Inhabitat's flick page and here at Victoriana Nursery Gardens.

I seriously hope that mine grows up to look like that.

ps the chicken is Not Dead Yet.

Sick Chicken

2011-11-03T19:25:00.002+10:00

I realised the other day, when one of my hens started acting off colour, that none of my chickens have died a natural death. By natural death I mean death from another thing other than the dog down the road. Or that crow that time. Oops.

So I have a sick chicken. She's been off for days now. Listless, not reacting, eating very little, and very bizarrely, throwing up. Every time I pick her up to examine her (I have no idea what I am looking for), liquid comes out of her mouth. Kind of like I am squeezing it out. Sorry, gross.

I don't really think I can take her to the vet, unless she needs to be put down. I have googled "chickens throwing up" and have read everything from massaging the croup to get the gunk out, to syringing her with a garlic infusion. I am very squeamish and am not sure how I might go at either of these things, unless I really knew it was the right thing to do.

Do any of you have any ideas?

We Have Blueberry

2011-10-31T16:54:00.000+10:00

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

2011-10-27T19:28:00.000+10:00

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

2011-10-26T11:05:00.001+10:00

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

2011-10-16T19:13:00.001+10:00

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

2011-10-12T19:51:00.000+10:00

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

2011-10-11T21:00:00.001+10:00

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

2011-10-10T19:14:00.000+10:00

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

2011-10-05T19:54:00.001+10:00

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

2011-10-04T20:06:00.000+10:00

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

2011-10-03T14:10:00.000+10:00

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.

Davo

2011-09-27T19:28:00.000+10:00

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

2011-09-23T20:17:00.000+10:00

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

2011-09-21T20:24:00.000+10:00

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?

2011-09-20T20:36:00.000+10:00

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

2011-09-19T17:51:00.000+10:00

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

2011-09-13T19:15:00.000+10:00

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

2011-09-12T17:47:00.000+10:00

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

2011-09-07T18:37:00.003+10:00

When eggs smell bacon cooking

Oranges and Apples

2011-09-06T19:33:00.000+10:00

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

2011-09-04T19:46:00.000+10:00

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

2011-09-03T19:01:00.000+10:00

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.

Snuffy and Grommice - The Kindness of Strangers

2011-08-31T14:08:00.000+10:00

A little over a week ago, I know you can cast your enormous brains back that far, I wrote a little post about the demise of our lovely little grey silkie Edna. And because you have a memory like a steel trap, you'd remember that Edna was taken way before her time by a local dog, and I was feeling a little upset about it.

Well, not two nights later, I received this email:

Hi Ali  I have followed your blog quietly for a little while now and I just read about what happened to your (and your boys) silkie chook, Edna. I know the feeling of losing your animals to something out of your control.   I breed silkies - I have nearly 80 black, white and buff ones (only a couple of these). I would like to give your boys a silkie pullet each, maybe a black one and a white one (or two black or two white if you prefer). Silkies are such the perfect chook for kids and so pretty in the garden.

M.

M was right, they are pretty, aren't they?

Today, M's husband went out of his way en route to the airport to hand over a box to Felix and I... and inside that box were our two lovely new little silkies whom the boys promptly named Snuffy and Grommice.

They are currently settling in beautifully with our gorgeous grown up chickens, and tonight will meet our cute little baby leghorns and australorps. We have chickens coming out of our ears now.

I am not very gifted with words, and I would love to have the ability to wax lyrical about M and her kindness and thoughtfulness. I'd love to say marvelous things about her generosity of spirit that led her to offer a gift to a person she had never even spoken to, let alone met. I'd love to write beautiful words about how acts like these gives me great hope and faith in humanity, but I really am not gifted with words, and I'd just end up sounding a bit soppy really.

What I am quite confident of saying though, is thank you.

To M and her husband from Sliprail, a HUGE thank you from Ali, Luka, and Felix. We adore our new little ladies.

Garden Sorrel

2011-08-29T17:20:00.001+10:00

Move over Tatsoi - I have a new new favourite.

This, my beautiful blogging friends, is Garden Sorrel. Although why garden has to be specified is beyond me. Is there Bedroom Sorrel? Beach Sorrel? Are there places that I should be putting all kinds of appropriately named sorrel?

Oh, once again I digress.

Until this year, I had not ever, ever, ever tasted sorrel. And now that I have, I will never let it not be growing in my garden. I will shade it in summer and put a doona over it in winter. Because, my fabulous looking friends, sorrel (the kind you put in the garden) is To Die For. Delicious. Scrumptious would not be too strong a word to describe it. Like a leafy lemon lollie.

Garden Sorrel, you are my new new favourite.

Although I'd really love to try some of that Bedroom Sorrel.

Fenally

2011-08-28T19:43:00.000+10:00

You would be forgiven for thinking that I had dropped off the screen of the blogaverse for all the non posting I have been doing lately, but I assure you, I am still around. It's been raining which is wonderful, but water bucketing down from the sky is fairly non conducive to taking the camera outside. Very good for filling the tank up though, and I now have 3000 fabulous liquid gold litres to play with.

Apart from the rain, we have just been busy. And I haven't felt like taking photographs. I have felt like sewing and planting and buying new couches, and, as it happens, plush elephants.

This elephant was such a hit that he earned a place at the dinner table this evening, and apparently tonight I am sewing him a new jacket. Can't wait to see that happening, his measurements are not exactly catered for in your average Butterick pattern.

Although as far as I am concerned, he can sit unclad at the dinner table every night. He's got marvelous manners and never interrupts.

With all the lovely rain we have had, and then the glorious sunshine today, the garden is practically growing in front of us... so many fabulous things to share, and today I thought I'd show off my new fennel (hence the post title... I was trying to be witty.. trying). I put it in ages ago after Phoebe from Ballynoe Cottage said she'd be interested to see how it would go here.

Well, it took a long time to germinate (months in fact), but this is how it's going.

Fare fabulously fair fennel.

Winter Wednesdays - It's Slightly Weird, But...

2011-08-24T17:19:00.006+10:00

It's absolutely my favourite thing about winter. No contest, hands down.

Forget the lovely winter vegetables that do so well here, the tomatoes and the peas and cauliflower... forget the bananas that ripened, forget the glorious winter skies, the warm, sunny days, the crisp, fresh mornings and the clear, clean air... oh no, what I like most about winter

Is my hair.

Yes, my hair.

For three months of the year, with the fabulous lack of humidity here, a lack which peels the lips off your face and eczemas up the nation, my hair responds with soft waves and loose curls.

It is literally unable to frizz.

My winter days are lit with delight and joy, as I brush with abandon, confident in the knowledge that in a season where there is no humidity, there is no frizz.

It may seem like a small thing to you, but ordinarily I have the kind of hair, which if I were in a movie, would be teamed with bad glasses, freckles and braces.

No, winter is truly a kind friend to my hair.

Oh winter hair, how I will miss thee.

Here's linking up to Hazel for the last of the Winter Wednesdays for 2011. And good on you Hazel for kicking us in our cyber butts and making us appreciate that which we (me) do not normally appreciate.

ps can I ask why it is the last one? Isn't there one more Wednesday of Winter left? I am asking in my small voice (you have to imagine that my voice is small, it seems that I cannot change my font size today) just in case I really have no idea of when seasons start and finish. Which I normally don't, I mean it's either hot or cold, wet or dry here. Or, as it was today, hot and cold and wet. Yes, all at once.

If You Want Something Done Properly...

2011-08-21T19:31:00.000+10:00

Then do it yourself...

Despite having a perfectly adequate nesting box, filled with lovely sugar cane mulch and comfortably placed under shelter, the chickens decided it wasn't quite right, and made their own.

And to be honest, I kind of agree with them. My humble attempt at a nesting box (not pictured!) is clearly just a wooden drawer filled with sugar cane mulch... whereas this... this is one well thought out, well made, cosy egg laying cocoon.

The ladies obviously wanted it done properly...

And did it themselves...

Which brings me to doing something else properly.

These photos of the boys with our lovely little silkie Edna were taken around a year ago. Edna was by far our favourite chicken. She was funny (when she walked her little head had to bob back and forth in time), gentle, and sweet. She laid lovely little eggs that the boys both coveted, and was just a delightful little creature to have around.

It was with great sadness that a few weeks ago our little Edna was taken by a dog that lives a few houses away from us.

I was very sad about Edna. In the grand scheme of things I know she was just a chicken, but she was my responsibility and most certainly didn't deserve to die such an undignified death.

So this is a proper little tribute to Edna, our funny little head-bobbing lady.

Before and After

2011-08-20T19:46:00.000+10:00

I was going to entitle this post "This is my Angry Face", but my angry face was way too scary to let loose on the World Wide Web.Last week, this was my gorgeous mulberry tree. Not even in the ground for a year yet, and on to its second fruiting. I was so proud.
And this is my mulberry tree this week. It took one night and something, I suspect either a rat or a possum, has stripped it bare. Every single mulberry gone.
Oh sorry, I lie. There's half a one left here.

Every time I walk past it, my angry face gets a good workout.

Winter Wednesdays - A Heart in Winter

2011-08-17T13:40:00.001+10:00

Or rather no heart in winter... Cabbages are a first for me this season, and I am unsure of their hearting habits...
This one doesn't seem to actually have one.

Is that a problem?

It's almost over - here's linking up to Hazel's Winter Wednesdays.... oh I can't wait to get to Hazel's Sunny Summer Sundays!

Cheep Thrills

2011-08-16T12:18:00.000+10:00

Our family is very lucky in that just up the road from where we live, there is the most fabulous produce barn In The World.

Now it's not fabulous because of its shiny displays or its fabulous range, quite the opposite, it's a little haphazard and most of the interesting things you would want to buy display a large Not For Sale sign.

No, its marvelousness is in what it isn't as much as what it is. It's not modern or fancy or polished. It's old and full of character and a somewhat smelly charm. They have heaps of animals there (most of which are Not For Sale) - a shetland stallion, an enormous sow called Elvis, talking cockatoos, goats, guinea pigs, rats, ducks, and chickens. Loads of chickens, fancy ones and plain ones and funny ones. Oh and birds, peacocks and doves and all sorts of things that I try not to look at because some things just don't belong in a cage at all.

And the people who work there... I don't know where they are from, but I suspect they are all family, because there is young and old and each and every one of them has character. And kindness. They give the boys hay to feed to the goats and Elvis, let them nurse the baby animals, and even let me cuddle the cutest little baby pig EVER.

Well anyway, enough blather. The boys and I went there yesterday, and we bought baby chicks.

Two white Leghorns and two black Australorps.

Evie, Charlie, Batman and Lulu, welcome to our world.

Oh, and the post title. As we were leaving the produce barn with our chicks in a box, one of the guys who worked there said, "Chicks going cheap". "Oh yes," I replied earnestly, "I got them for such a good price, aren't they cute?"

What a numbnut.

Aspiring to Asparagus

2011-08-15T09:05:00.000+10:00

I must have taken around 60 photos of our emerging asparagus, but try as I might, I couldn't quite manage to capture the detail the way I would have like to.
I had to settle for this photo, at least you can tell that it's asparagus... I think! The emerging shoots are really slender, and the camera just couldn't quite focus on them properly. Let's hope they fatten up a bit for a good photo.

So... asparagus. This is Mary Washington, and I have exactly 18 of them. And not really a good idea of where to put them. I am not sure how much their success will be assured here in Brisbane, after hours and hours of googling I did notice that poor Mary doesn't necessarily fare so well outside her preferred temperate zone.

But the seeds have sprouted and that seems to me a fortuitous beginning, and onwards I shall press on. Ha, plant on.

So... full sun? Dappled shade? Morning sun? Afternoon sun? Winter full sun and summer dappled? You name it, I can offer it.

The question is, what would Mary want?

Surely Yes...

2011-08-11T18:41:00.000+10:00

The avocado tree is driving me batty... surely, but surely, these are flower buds on it?

A few weeks ago I showed you these photos, and there was no question in my mind that my avocado tree was on the verge of flowering.

But there was just one comment, just one, that asked me if I was sure they were flower buds and not just new leaf buds... and it started up a little niggling uncertainty in my mind.

I look at them every single day, and with every single sighting I change my mind.

Today, I am convinced in favour of flower buds. 100% sure for the moment.

Do you think??

Winter Wednesdays - It's So Over...

2011-08-10T19:52:00.000+10:00

Yep, 21 degrees here today.

Toasty.

I think the chickens are celebrating an advanced, albeit unofficial end to winter here, because these lovely eggs are a sight I haven't seen in months.

I haven't taken a jumper to work for over a week now, and I am pretty sure that this afternoon I almost complained about how hot is was in my room at work. Almost. Winter has left the building.

Do you know what is bizarre though?

Being further north it is of course warmer here in Brisbane during the day than Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide But strangely, colder at night.

Take tomorrow for example:

Brisbane 22 high 4 low

Sydney 18 high 13 low

Melbourne 15 high (is that actually high?? :D) 11 low

Adelaide 18 high 8 low

How do you explain that?

Oops I almost forgot to link up. Here's to Hazel's Winter Wednesdays.

Determinate, Indeterminate or Just Plain Determined?

2011-08-09T20:35:00.000+10:00

Until this year, I had no idea that different tomatoes had different growing habits.

Tomatoes always just seemed to pop up by themselves, offer up little red packages of delight, and then fade away. Since having read about determinate and indeterminate, however, I set out to examine a tomato plant in my front garden that is working its way up a hedge, determined to determine its terminability.

Armed with the knowledge that indeterminate tomatoes will continue to produce and grow until they are killed by external factors such as frost (good luck with that here), while determinate will stop growing once they reach a certain size, ripen all their crop at once and then die, I have concluded that pictured is a determined indeterminate tomato.

Credit where credit is due, I first read about the different types of tomatoes at Mark's Veg Plot.

New Wave Gardening

2011-08-08T17:42:00.004+10:00

I am not entirely sure what New Wave Gardening might actually be, but if you take New Wave to signify experimental, then this is it for me.

For some time now I have been struggling with our dry season. In many parts our yard is a dustbowl, and the parts that aren't need constant watering. With only a 3000 litre tank, it just isn't possible to keep up, and so many things miss out.

A few weeks ago, you might remember that I mulched the front yard. Well popping up everywhere in that mulch now are lovely little pumpkin seedlings. Heaps of them. There are also a few tomatoes, and an eggplant, all from under a thick layer of mulch. And I have noticed something about these vegies that have appeared, unbidden, in the garden. None of them droop in the hot weather. Under their protective layer of mulch, their roots are cool and moist.

And this my friends, set off a light bulb in my small yet still functioning brain.

I have always mulched, but never on a grand scale. I have always been too chicken to get rid of the grass, everyone has grass, we have always had grass!

Well not anymore. Today I spread a thick layer of sugar cane mulch, followed by a layer of aged cow manure, and topped it all off with a lovely thick doona of red cypress mulch.

In the corner so far I have Black Zucchini, a few pop up tomatoes, Golden Bantam Corn, celery, broccoli and rainbow silverbeet. And I am thinking of lots more corn, some cucumber, a few more zucchini and perhaps a few sunflowers.

I'm not sure how much it will cut down on watering, or how well it will work, but anything is better than half dead grass and dust.

I feel like I have tucked up the vegies in a lovely comfy bed.

My New Favourite

2011-08-07T20:08:00.000+10:00

Well winter countdown counters can say what they like, but the cold has most definitely lost its grip in Brisbane...

So much so, that I, a great one for living on the edge, went to work for once not only without my heater, but also without a jumper.

Yep, that's me, spontaneous, carefree and unpredictable. You can't predict me.

Anyway, blather once again aside, during the day here it is starting To Get Hot. And of course, it's only going to get hotter. Much hotter. Scorchingly hot in fact. Unbelievably scorching hot to the point where the radio broadcasts warnings as to how long you can spend outside before you start to burn.

Around 30 seconds for my pasty limbs.

Having not at all managed to put blather aside back there, I will now come to the point: I have to tell you how fabulous this lovely little asian green is before it is fried out of its bed.

Tatsoi. It is fabulous. Absolutely fabulous. It takes no time at all to grow from seed to seedling, it copes marvelously well without being watered every day, and it tastes wonderful. I have around 30 plants which have kept me in salad greens for months now.

Tatsoi, you are my new favourite in the garden. May you not bolt for months to come.

Winter Wednesdays - The First of the Broccoli and I Did A Bad Thing

2011-08-03T19:53:00.001+10:00

I used town water to hose the garden.
I know, it's very bad. I am bad, it was bad, bad, bad, bad. But this week I am working full time, and when I got home today it was getting dark and there just wasn't time to lug around the watering can that I have been using as I drain off the dregs of the water tank. It hasn't rained here in weeks, and after a hot day today, it was either give the vegetables a drink or watch them die.

So I connected the hose to the town water tap, set it to shower, and I gave the poor wilting vegies the bath of their life. Honestly, you could see them coming back to life as the water got to their roots, and my satisfaction level with life reached new heights.

I am not exactly sure if it's legal to use the hose to water the garden at the moment, and I felt a little lot guilty, so I sent the boys to bed tonight without a bath, and I am going to forgo my shower. Euwwwwwww!

I am so going to pay for all this on my next water bill.

Bring on summer and the wet season.

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

Australian Wildlife...

2011-08-02T22:07:00.000+10:00

Pomodoro Mud Pie: Brick Red

2011-08-01T18:54:00.000+10:00

Yep, that's right, I have invented my own tomato.

Amazering hey?

Oh, why did I call it Brick Red, you ask? Because it's red? Because it looks fabulously delicious and oh so good?

Oh no, no, please, let me explain.
I called this tomato Brick Red, this tomato that I have been excited about since way back in June, this tomato that I have been checking for ripeness and bugs every single day for over two months, well I call it Brick Red because this tomato, this one I am calling Brick Red, is as hard as a brick.

No kidding. You could take someone down by throwing Brick Red at them. You could lay it down as a house foundation.

Brick Red is as solid as a rock.

I thought that letting it ripen might soften it up a bit, but oh no, one week on and it's solid. I even gave it a little friend in the hopes that it would thaw its frozen core, but no, Brick Red has impenetrable as its middle name.

How fabulous that we are renovating the kitchen - Brick Red will come in so handy as a hammer.

For Tess, Chris, and Danielle

2011-07-31T19:25:00.000+10:00

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

2011-07-29T21:51:00.000+10:00

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

2011-07-27T19:20:00.000+10:00

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

2011-07-26T18:30:00.003+10:00

"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

2011-07-25T18:31:00.000+10:00

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!

2011-07-24T17:28:00.001+10:00

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

2011-07-21T19:11:00.003+10:00

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

2011-07-20T18:34:00.000+10:00

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

2011-07-19T18:32:00.001+10:00

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

2011-07-18T18:30:00.005+10:00

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.

The Avocado Dating Scene

2011-07-15T18:22:00.002+10:00

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

2011-07-14T19:11:00.000+10:00

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

2011-07-13T18:06:00.000+10:00

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...

2011-07-12T19:00:00.000+10:00

... 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

2011-07-11T19:30:00.002+10:00

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!

The Boys, Chocolate and Blogging

2011-06-24T17:53:00.001+10:00

Photos by the fabulous Tessa

Rarely do I indulge the boys and their boundless enthusiasm for all things sweet and chocolately...

Except when I do.

Luka is on school holidays for a little while and so I am going to take a little blog holiday and make sure to indulge him and his brother in a whole lot of marvelous things like building cubby houses and jumping on the trampoline.

And perhaps another little visit to that most fabulous chocolate cafe.

Keep well fellow bloggers, talk to you all soon.

Ali.

What a Goose

2011-06-23T20:01:00.000+10:00

Did you know that cement and concrete are not the same thing?

I had no idea. Anyway, I went to buy some (I thought I wanted one but actually needed the other), and walked past this plant. I had no intention of buying anything green at all, but I felt like a right goose after my cement/concrete faux pas, and it seemed rather fitting.

This, is a gooseberry. Never tried one. Never actually seen one either. No idea what they taste, look or smell like. But Gooseberry Jam seems to like them, and the name would suggest that you can make jam from them, so that sounds pretty good to me.

From what it says on the little ticket, they grow into a small bush, and like full sun.

So I thought I'd put it in a sunny spot big enough for a small bush.

Winter Wednesdays - The Future's So Bright...

2011-06-22T18:51:00.001+10:00

Are we there yet?

I'm inside now, and lovely and snug and warm, but earlier on my toes were numb, my poor lips chapped, and I was cold, cold, cold. And the day - where have the days gone? I looked at the sky earlier on and thought, yes must start thinking about getting dinner on - only to look at the clock and realise that it was only 2.30 in the afternoon! 2.30 and getting dark! Oh it's getting harder and harder to wax lyrical about winter days...

I wouldn't have even been outside on such a cold windy day, except that Hazel is making me appreciate winter. So off I trotted into the garden this morning, dutifully trying to find something to appreciate. Luckily I didn't have to trot for long, and I pulled up to a halt in front of our lovely winter flowering Snowflake Bushes.

In my humble opinion, these snowflake bushes are a warm climate answer to snow laden trees. They are a real show stopper, a spectacular burst of colour in a stark landscape... quite marvelous, I could have taken photos of ours all day.

But then I got distracted trying to see if I could take a photo of the sun, just to see if I could.

So there you go, another Winter Wednesday. Now last week I did say there was something that I really and truly appreciated about winter, and there is, I am just trying to figure out how to photograph it.

Wish me luck, and sunglasses on for the next photo.

p.s. although I am trying to make Hazel pay for her sheer cheerfulness in the face of winter, for the purpose of full disclosure I must say that I would have been outside even if I didn't have to take winter photos.

If I stay inside I feel like I should be cleaning.

Where's Wally?

2011-06-21T19:28:00.000+10:00

You know how sometimes you are on the verge of sleep, when all of a sudden you remember something of vital importance?

I had one of those moments last night...

Blissfully drifting off, lovely and toasty warm under my doona, when all of a sudden I am sitting bolt upright, eyes wide open, one thought on my mind - I hadn't seen the bay tree.

Earlier on in the day I had been admiring my strawberries. I usually have a fairly mild success with strawberries, I grow enough for the boys and I to enjoy straight from the garden, but never really any more than that. This year though, I am hoping it might be a little different. After all that rain we had last year the strawberries had a huge growth spurt, and now I'd estimate they cover an area around seven metres long and one metre wide. The garden is absolutely chockers with strawberry plants, and I spent some time pulling some up and clearing them away from the base of the fruit trees.

But what I didn't remember, at around 11pm, was clearing any away from my teeny tiny bay tree. The one that is so small it only has around five leaves. I knew it was in there somewhere, but I couldn't remember seeing it.

I couldn't remember seeing it at all.

I somehow managed to get back to sleep, but was outside at first light, eyes sweeping back and forth over the strawberry patch, anxiously searching for my teeny tiny bay tree.

And I found it. It took a quite a while, but I did.

Can you?

Up The Garden Path: The Great Chicken Coop Coup

2011-06-18T20:22:00.000+10:00

A few months ago, it struck me that after three years of kitchen scraps and chicken manure, the best soil to be found on our house block was to be found in the chicken coop.

So I kicked the chickens out, and proceeded to cage the veggies instead.

And I planted...

And planted...

And planted!

After 8 weeks of growing, things are really starting to come on. It was definitely a good decision -these vegetables are by far the healthiest in my garden, and I've really been able to plant a lot of winter (for us) vegetables. Most of the things in here are not permanent, because when we get our heavy summer rain the coop will flood and be more suitable for ducks than anything else.

Apart from the existing lime tree, and the lovely ornamental potato vine (pictured above), here's what is new and growing in the coop now:

curly kale

cos lettuce

radishes

cabbage

broccoli

cauliflower

green zucchini

black zucchini

parsley

celery

bok choy

pak choy

carrots

eggplants

banana plant

mustard

beans

peas

silverbeet

beetroot

spinach

potatoes

tomatoes that popped up

and of course, several as yet unidentified subjects.

The chicken coop garden is in the back right corner of our yard, and in winter gets full sun in the mornings, then dappled sun until the afternoon when it gets full sun again. In summer it doesn't get too much sun at all, with the poinciana tree providing dappled shade.

And that's it - the chicken coop garden.

Oh and the chickens! Don't worry, they got themselves a brand new shed to sleep in and are now allowed to free range in the rest of the backyard.

When Your Neighbours Give You Oranges...

2011-06-17T17:32:00.002+10:00

Make orange cake!

If the mess we made making this cake is any indication of the amount of fun we had making it, well then this was one fun cake to make.

We chose a whole orange recipe, which basically means that you process up the whole orange, skin, seeds and all. Which all made perfect sense to me at the start, but I don't have a food processor, I have a stick blender. So much to the boys delight, we spent half an hour jamming the stick blender into three cut up oranges, in an entertaining attempt to puree them.

While I don't think we quite made a puree any self respecting baby would eat, we did manage to jam those oranges up into a pulp, and invite our neighbours over for afternoon tea...

Yum.

I followed the recipe fairly loosely, doubling the quantities because when I make cake, I make cake.

Whole Orange Cake

from best recipes

1 orange

180ml melted butter

3 eggs

1 cup sugar

1 1/2 cups self raising flour

Icing

2 1/2 cups icing sugar

2 tablespoons melted butter

orange juice and zest

Method

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

Process the whole orange in your food processor. Or really enjoy your experience and take your time trying to do it with a stick blender. Add all other ingredients and mix, pop into pre-greased and floured cake tin into preheated oven.

Cook for 45 minutes.

To make the icing, mix it all together adding orange juice until you have the consistency you want.

Invite the people over who gave you the oranges, and offer them some cake and a cup of tea.

A Tuberous Obsession

2011-06-16T20:03:00.000+10:00

Alongside bananas, I think that potatoes are the most fabulously exciting things that I have ever grown in the garden. I adore every stage of the potato - the first peep of the foliage from the soil, the beautiful fat green leaves in full growth, and of course, the digging around for treasure at the end of the journey. Every vegetable gardener knows the great thrill of the potato hunt.

And for some reason, where in my garden many, many, many, other vegetables fail, potatoes triumph. And so, this year, I have gone absolutely wild and have now planted around 60.

By my calculations, at around 5 potatoes per plant, we could end up with around 300 potatoes.

And I am not finished yet.

As you can see in the photos, I have staggered my planting. The top ones only just emerged a few days ago, whereas the bottom ones are only around a month away from harvesting I would say. The middle ones shot up so fast that I haven't had a chance to mound up the soil around them.

I also plan to plant out another 15 - 20 in a space I have along the side of the house, and then another 10 - 20 as an experiment to see if they will help to break up some particularly hard-packed soil.

I think it is quite clear that I am a dead serious potato farmer.

And because I know that Mark will want to know, so far I have planted 3 different types of potatoes. Purple ones, cream ones and white ones.

Oh boy that's funny.

Winter Wednesdays - This Is More Like It!

2011-06-15T18:29:00.000+10:00

So I am not entirely convinced that I'll be able to keep this up for the entire season, but today, I am able to post about something that I genuinely enjoy about winter.

You've all heard me complaining about it being cold; I'm cold, it's cold, the house is cold, and while I haven't started complaining about it yet, I'd really like to add that my workplace is blooming cold too.

Now I know that most of you think I'm a little nutty, but when nothing is heated properly and we don't wear the proper clothes, well, it's cold.

But not today. Up until now we have had quite a few cloudy and rainy days, and my complaints have been louder than ever, because that's just not what winter is here. It doesn't rain in winter. What's the weather thinking, here it rains in the summer months

And while it's true that it really does get a little chilly here from time time, mostly what we get are lovely clear warm days... blue skies for as far as the eye can see, warm and mild temperatures, and a sun that toasts you up and shines all day long. Over 300 days a year if the tourist brochures are to be believed.

So there you go lovely fellow bloggers, that's my Winter Wednesday Without Whingeing.

Embracing the Inner Rogue

2011-06-14T18:36:00.001+10:00

Well I have decided not to question a gift horse, and embrace my rogue tomatoes.

Today I counted over 30 tomato plants that have popped up in various places, and they are just blooming with health and well-being, and absolutely lording it over my poor, drooping deliberately sown ones. They are growing all over the place - in corners, out of cracks, under the trampoline, and like this one, they are all full of flowers and ready to fruit.

So it's not quite like I had planned, but it does look like I will be getting an abundant crop this year.

I'd just better not start looking after them.

A Not So Empty Nest

2011-06-13T20:54:00.000+10:00

The ladies have stopped laying.

This has come as no great shock to me, as their eggs were fewer and further between for several months, before stopping completely a little while ago. I thought they may have been taking a little break, and I also know they often stop laying with the shorter days, but to be honest, I think the egg laying part of their lives has come to an end...

Our lovely ladies, two chickens of some description and a silkie bantam, are a little over three years old now. They all laid fairy regularly, our bantam a little less so, but all good things do come to an end, and I think three years might be our end.

Fabulously luckily for me however, not all my eggs are in one basket, and I have a lovely supply of eggs from another (very generous) backyard chicken lover. And these eggs are HUGE! Much bigger than mine ever laid, and much more reliable too.

And the other silver lining to this egg white cloud, is that come spring, I get to herd the family out fancy chicken hunting.

Sputnik Has Landed

2011-06-11T17:53:00.000+10:00

Well it's still blooming freezing - 15 degrees outside as we speak I believe, which is 59 degrees fahrenheit if my google conversion chart is to be believed. So yes, freezing, however, I did promise that once we hit the teens that I would venture outside once more, and so venture outside again I did.

And how fabulous that I did, because the kohlrabi is kohlrabi-ing.

Now I have never tasted kohlrabi, but I love it already, because clearly, it does not need labelling. A baby kohlrabi looks exactly like you would expect one to look like - a baby kohlrabi.

Unfortunately, out of the bazillion seeds I planted, only five plants germinated, and I am not sure that they are exactly blooming. They have taken a long way to get to this fattening stage, and I'm not sure they are going to reach their full potential.

It is slowly dawning upon me now that my soil is not very rich, which is possibly something quite a few Australians could say about their soil. I don't know why I didn't realise this some time ago, but I can be a bit obtuse in my sheer enthusiasm for doing, and tend not to notice the obvious.

However, have no fear my blogging friends, for I have a plan. Several plans in fact, and hopefully once implemented, I'll have further paved my way towards the garden paradise of my dreams. Where everything flourishes and is labelled, where there is corn in winter, and where whatever is eating my bananas turns instead to a strict diet of weeds...

I Know They Didn't Freeze Off, But...

2011-06-09T17:32:00.001+10:00

It was 12 degrees celsius today.

Twelve degrees.

12 of them.

It's not a lot of degrees, is it?

Subtropical my bottom.

If you'd left me hanging outside mid-air without my thermals, I'd definitely have dropped off.

However, these bananas did not just spontaneously jump ship. Oh no... something has CHOMPED them off. My bananas! Can you see the whole hand that's missing? Or rather not see it, but see where it should be?

Now I know I should be jolted into action, up in the tree bagging and setting up all sorts of defensive structures. Spikes and cannons and things. However, it's 12 degrees.

A sort of inertia has come over me, and it's not going to depart until that thermometer reaches its teens.

Winter Wednesdays - Colour

2011-06-08T17:35:00.001+10:00

Well, here we go - Winter Wednesday.

Before I even start, may I say that sharing what I enjoy about winter was not my idea... I don't enjoy winter. I live in Queensland for a reason, if I loved winter, well Tasmania is reputed to be really quite spectacular.

But Hazel and Veggiegobbler are all enthusiastic about it, and they support my blatherings on, so here I am supporting their mad winter-loving attitudes.

Mind you, living in Victoria, as they both do, I'm pretty sure it's find something to appreciate about winter, or complain for several months.

So for this Winter Wednesday - I bring you colour.

This is some lovely, lovely rainbow silverbeet that I put in a while ago. Isn't the beetroot red colour just spectacular? Unfortunately it was an overcast day, I was really hoping for some sunlight to really set the colours off, but alas, it was just not to be.

It's not really doing as well as I think it should be, but it's the first time I've grown it so I'm quite the proud grower regardless.

No idea when to pick it, or actually what parts to eat - can I just cut off a few leaves at a time, or is it a pull up pant?

Oops, plant.

Hey, how serious is this post? All about the veg, no blathering.

It must be Hazel's mature influence.

And Yet Again...

2011-06-06T17:36:00.004+10:00

I Planted Without Labelling.

There honestly should be some sort of vegetal law about this, or at least some signposts in my garden.

Stop.

Look.

And Label.

They were planted at the same time as the ones we now know are radishes... I thought these ones were radishes until the other ones revealed themselves, which just goes to show that I should not be let out in the yard without a licence.

So once again, I present you with: Guess That Vegetable.

Man v Wild

2011-06-03T18:05:00.000+10:00

This year, I vowed to myself that I would grow tomatoes. Lots of tomatoes. Too many tomatoes, a veritable abundance. I wanted to be able to pick and eat them fresh from the plant, to put them in salads, to cook with them, to can them, to make them into relish and jam, and to be able to share them with my neighbours.

I have the space, and I have had success with tomatoes before, my tomato dreams were really not impossible.

But somehow, something has gone wrong. Above and below, the lovely sprawling healthy tomato plant that you can see, well that's a rogue tomato that popped up in the winter vegetable bed. Doing well as you can see. In fact, doing spectacularly well. It's enormously huge and hasn't got a mark on it. It reliably offers up a ripe truss of fruit every two or three days without fail, and it requires absolutely no looking after whatsoever - I don't even water it.

And now, please, let me direct your attention to the bed below. This is my dedicated tomato bed, one that I have cultivated and mulched and fertilised. I planted both seeds and seedlings, and have cared for these babies since the day they came into my life. Watered them and fed them and loved them.

And a more sorry bunch of tomatoes you have never seen. They are wilting and spotty and weak. The leaves are yellowing, they have not produced one flower between the lot of them, and I have a feeling they are ready to topple over and cark it at any given moment.

And they are literally one metre away from the self seeded, healthy, vigorous plant that I had nothing to do with putting there.

Ali v Nature

Ali: 0

Nature: 1

A Winter Essay

2011-06-02T16:16:00.000+10:00

So I told you all yesterday that the bananas banana-ing had given me a marvelous idea.

But it's not only that the bananas are banana-ing. Or even that the fig is figging.

It's also because the chillis are chilli-ing and the capsicums are capsicuming and that next door, the pumpkins just will not quit pumpkining.

I have already mentioned that here in Brisbane, winter is not really the right word for what we experience this season. Sure, it's a whole lot colder than usual, but colder than usual when it's usually sweltering hot doesn't really mean a whole lot. When it's winter and you can quite comfortably be outside during the day in shorts and a t-shirt, well, let me just say that it's not freezing. It does get cold, and I would be the first to complain about that, but it doesn't frost over, and the sun shines bright and warm all day long.

And I guess the plants feel that too.

Which is why the banana produces bananas, and the chillis and the capsicum and the pumpkins are all doing so well. Along with strawberries and tomatoes and eggplants, and all the other things that like warm weather.

Which is why I would like to try to grow warm weather vegetables this winter. In fact my fantabulous idea was that I would like to try to grow them all year round. I am already dreaming of, "My Year with Sweet Corn".

I'll pick sheltered, sunny spots, and in will go corn and pumpkins and watermelon, along with cucumber and rockmelons and eggplants. Actually, in will go everything that I can think of, because after a big vegetable planting break - I am ready to get growing!

And if things don't work, well, at least I'll know that for myself, and not just be going on what sowing calendars tell me.

Fat Roots and Bananas in Winter

2011-06-01T09:36:00.000+10:00

Do you remember these? Well our Unidentified Growing Vegetables are getting fat roots... but I still don't know what they are. Are they radishes?

Whatever they are, they are most certainly a pretty colour, and what's not to like about a pink vegetable? Eat your greens kids. And your pinks.

But fat roots are not the only exciting development in the garden. Much to my surprise, a much shaded banana plant is banana-ing... at the beginning of winter. Although winter is a pretty inaccurate term for the magnificent sunny days we have been experiencing recently. There should be a different word for winter in the subtopics.

Sumnter??

Anyway, the flowering banana has given me a most fantabulous idea... but I do like to keep you all in suspense, and I know that fruit and veg get you all pretty excited, so I'll post about it tomorrow.

That is if the plague has finally left our household.

Thanks so much for all your well wishes :)

Sick

2011-05-26T14:51:00.002+10:00

I'm so sorry I haven't posted and it must seem like I have just disappeared, but I haven't - I promise! I have been sick with a tummy bug and just as I woke up this morning and thought - oh yay, I think I feel better - poor little Felix threw up.

It's all been a bit overwhelming and something had to give, and unfortunately Mud Pie was the chosen something.

Thank you so much for coming looking for me, I do promise that I will be back to play again very soon.

Ali.

This Little Piggy

2011-05-20T19:56:00.001+10:00

This little piggy will go to the harvesting basket...

This little piggy is trying to hide at home...

This little piggy we'll have with roast beef...

And of this little piggy we'll eat none...

And this little piggy is way too wee wee to be dined upon at home!

Oh dear, I am quite obviously tired. But I thought I would show off my lovely, lovely either cauliflowers, cabbages or broccoli (no I don't know which is which, but you knew that), that were all planted as seeds on the very same day.

Yep, the exact same day.

Each of these plants is in a different garden bed, and as their nurture is all the same (a bit of benign neglect on my part), the differences are purely of nature.

Interesting hey.

Mushrooms: Part Three

2011-05-19T17:12:00.000+10:00

I just cannot keep calling this series, "mushrooms part whatever part we are up to"...

Why?

Because it in no way, shape or form even begins to hint at how blooming exciting growing these mushrooms is! It is SO exciting. First thing every morning the boys and I are up with our heads stuck in the box to see how much they have grown.

And my, how they have grown. Too big for their little corner in the box now, I chopped them out and up. Fried them with a little butter (actually quite a lot), garlic and some home-grown parsely (which I am almost equally excited about - but that's another post).

And they were yum. Just lovely... soft and fresh and fragrant, and home-grown. What a fabulous high that was. I'd never eaten a freshly picked mushroom before, and it just felt fabulous.

To make Hazel happy (and I'd do quite a bit to make Hazel happy at the moment after the terrible ordeal she had with her chickens), I weighed them and have dutifully noted it down. Here. Am about to that is. Now please bear in mind that my scales are not digital and not spot on, but they weighed in at around 300g.

So at $25 for the box, so far the cost has been $83.33 recurring (I'm not sure what they do at the shops about that pesky three, do you think you have to just keep on paying it off?) per kilo of fabulous fresh fungi.

I think... mathematics - not my forte.

If You Planted It You Should Have Stuck a Tag on It

2011-05-18T17:50:00.001+10:00

Well the title (thanks Beyonce) says it all. I toiled, I sowed, I watered, I loved and I watched over, but... I didn't label.

And I really have no idea what this is. Do you? Rainbow something perhaps? Spinachy, silverbeety, chardy (what is chard?), leafy stuff?

Good for you stuff? Salad stuff? Cooking stuff? Foodstuff?

What do I do with it stuff?

Do you know what to do with it stuff?

Stuffing stuff?

Edited To Add

I just found a post/photo of them when they were babies: http://mudpiehomer.blogspot.com/2011/04/rowing-with-vegetables.html

Does that help?

Count Them Baby!

2011-05-16T18:17:00.000+10:00

Have I ever mentioned here that I am a little eggplant obsessed?

It isn't because they are my favourite vegetable - as you would logically think given my obsession with growing prolific quantities of them - oh no, I wouldn't even put an eggplant up there in my top ten.

It's because an eggplant plant was the very first vegetable to thwart me.

It was pretty much the first vegetable that I ever brought home from the nursery as a little teeny tiny seedling. And I lavished all the love and care and attention on it like the firstborn that it was. And it grew... and grew, and grew, and it became big, and lush, and beautiful, but do you think I could get it to be bountiful?

Nope... it just took up space and insulted me by offering a teeny tiny eggplant the size of a golf ball every few months.

I took it as a personal affront and ended up ripping it out. And now, every time I have an auberginial success, I think to myself...

"In your FACE eggplant!"

Mushrooms: Part Two

2011-05-15T18:34:00.000+10:00

My goodness I worked hard in the garden this weekend. I planted and pruned and dug up and moved. I shoveled and raked and above all, I cleaned up. Gosh I had let the place get messy. Piles of dead branches everywhere, waiting to have something done to them. But not anymore. Now the yard is lovely and shiny and tidy...

And when I was finally done and came upstairs to clean up, I thought I would just take one little peek before having a shower.

And look - mushrooms! A little fungal reward for all my hard work.

I am very excited... I have no idea when to harvest them, or even how to harvest them, but who cares, I have produced fungi. Ooo yes dear blogging friends, that's right - fungus in plural. Three of them to be exact, which makes them worth exactly $8.33 recurring each.

And I think there are more to come :)

That'll reduce costs!

Spuds in Jackets

2011-05-14T19:03:00.002+10:00

Before you get very excited, I do have to tell you that the potatoes are not home grown.

But they were most certainly home cooked.

In Brisbane, I'm not sure about other parts of Australia, you are not allowed to have a fire in your backyard for burning rubbish. In the suburbs that is. What you are allowed however, is a fire in the backyard for the purposes of cooking. And my marvelous blogging friends, that is just what the boys and I put together.

A fabulous little brick fireplace, smack bang in our yard in the burbs. Custom made for alfoil wrapped potatoes.

I am, like most people I suspect, a firebug at heart. I adore camping as long as it comes with a fire, and any park with wood rather than gas barbecues, well I am just in my element. And I am equally in my element here, as we have a never ending supply of wood for the fire. The huge Poinciana in our backyard drops seedpods and branches left, right and centre. It is proving eminently satisfying feeding them to the hungry fire and watching them turn to ash.

And because we loved our alfoil spuds so much, we rushed off to the markets to buy more supplies.

These lovely spuds were labelled "Purple Sebago" at the market. A search on the Internet however, reveals nothing of the sort. I did find "Royal Blue", which they look a lot like, so either the Internet is wrong or my fruit and vegetable store is wrong. I don't really mind either way, I just want them to multiply. I bought 30 - some for dad, some for me. My planting calendar tells me I have months left to put them in - until September, so I am planning to stagger their planting and have a never ending supply of lovely purple potatoes to put on our fire.

A Purple Potato Paradise.

ps because blogger popped a valve and we couldn't post for so long, we have since had a go with the purple potatoes on the fire. And would you believe it - they lose their purple!

Shopping Therapy

2011-05-11T11:55:00.000+10:00

I have not had the best time over the past week or so. I was woken up on Mother's Day with a bit of a shock - something had had a go at our hens. The chickens were okay; quite a few feathers missing, but our lovely little silkie bantam has had her skin torn in several places. Quite surprisingly I think she is going to be alright, she's such a quiet little thing that I am amazed she didn't die of shock.

Felix had been sick for the whole week with tonsillitis, so very much not fun, and then on Monday he came up in spots. Serious measles-like spots, so off to the doctor for some tests we went. He is fine and recovering nicely now, although he still looks like an example from a medical textbook.

"Amazing Tropical Skin Diseases". Or perhaps "Survivors of The Plague".

I have also not been feeling well and am due to have a tooth pulled out tomorrow morning. My dentist is inexpensive rather than sympathetic, so that promises to be quite the fulfilling experience.

But amidst the chaos and confusion, and brushing aside worries and responsibilities, I found 15 minutes to myself and stole into one of my favourite nurseries. Lost amongst their fabulous collection of seeds, I spent a lovely moment in time selecting the most delightful sounding vegetables I could find.

I walked out of that nursery on a high, quite thrilled with my purchases...

Perhaps I should take one as a good luck charm for the dentist's chair tomorrow?

And a Happy Mother's Day to All

2011-05-08T19:52:00.000+10:00

One out of Five

2011-05-07T18:01:00.000+10:00

And this is number five. Thank goodness this one worked out, because the others were enough to put you off growing rockmelon for good.

Do you remember this fruit? Or perhaps you best remember Hazel's comment about it? Oh I will never ever quite let that go... just dusting off that naughty comment and showing it off every once in a while will be quite satisfying I suspect.

So this is the last of what I think we decided were rockmelons. The others all rotted and were gross like the first one (I didn't post about them for fear of Hazel's potty mouth) which was quite disappointing. But I persisted and smelt and poked and prodded this one for days until it fell of its vine, and when I cut it open it was not without some trepidation.

The smallest of the lot, and finally, one that smelt like something you would want to eat. And eat it I did.

I had it for breakfast.

Some might be critical and perhaps think it lacked a little sugar, but after five failures this one success tasted pretty sweet to me.

Jamming Rosellas

2011-05-05T13:57:00.000+10:00

I am consistently amazed when projects I try actually work. When I bought rosella seeds, having no idea what rosella actually was, I didn't think any would grow. When some did grow, I thought, well, they won't flower. When they did flower I said to myself, oh there won't be enough to make jam. And when I was making the jam in my mind I was thinking, well the jam won't set.

It just goes to show that I should never listen to myself, because I've obviously got no idea.

Good looking people, yes that's you - I made JAM! And not just any jam, but sweet, delicious Rosella jam. And with only 400 grams of rosella flowers. I am practically Nigella, only without all the money. Or that thing she has going on with the camera, I don't think I could do that.

Want to know how it's done?

Pick your rosellas after they have flowered. Three weeks I believe is the recommended time; I would recommend doing it when you have the time and inclination to make jam.

Separate the red calyxs (the outer part) from the seed pods. They just peel off. Cover the seed pods with water and boil for around 15 minutes until soft and kind of jelly-like on the outside.

Put your red calyxs into a large pot.

Add the seed pod water to the red calyxs, using a strainer. Because I had such a small amount of rosellas, I squished the pods right into the strainer to get as much of the water as I could, because it's the seed pods that make the pectin that sets the jam.

Discard the seed pods.

Add sugar to equal the amount of red calyxs, i.e. one cup of calyxs equals one cup of sugar. I also added two peeled and chopped apples, because I had such a small amount of rosellas.

Add the juice of one lemon (I used a lemonade, it was all I had and it worked fine).

Bring red calyxs, apples, sugar and lemon to the boil, and stir! Periodically check for setting by chilling a plate in the freezer and placing a small amount of jam mixture on the cold plate. Let it cool for a few seconds and then push it with your finger. If it wrinkles up then you have jam.

Bottle into sterilized jars and impress all your friends.

Jimmy and Flower Flower Soup

2011-05-03T17:40:00.001+10:00

Well it was supposed to be Jimmy, Flower Flower and Cecil soup, but Cecil got lost along the way.

So my pumpkins didn't survive all the rain we had last year, but my father's did, and last weekend we all trekked down to nanna and grandpa's house and pinched some.

To get to dad's pumpkins it's a bit of a trek. Under the fence, through the gate, down the hill, past the dam, up the hill and there's the patch. Actually, it's not that far, it's just that along the way there are distractions. We have to pat the horses, look for tadpoles in the dam, listen to dad's mandatory dam warning (for the boys, not me), admire mum's whipper snipping and find suitable sticks for swords.

And think up names for our chosen pumpkins.

When Hazel announced her great pumpkin challenge, I threw my glove into the ring and laid claim to the best pumpkin soup recipe in the land. And okay, it might be a slight exaggeration, but it really is good soup.

I think that no matter what else you do to this soup, as long as you roast the pumpkin first, everything is good. I roast mine until it's lovely and soft, and a little caramelised. Skin on. I also pop in a few cloves of garlic and an onion.

So roast the lot up, with oil, salt and pepper. When it's done, squeeze out the cooked garlic and take off the onion skin, cover with chicken stock and bring to the boil. Boil it for a little bit, then whizz it all up and serve with crusty bread and butter.

Jimmy and Flower Flower - you were delicious.

Yep, I'm really not getting any better at food photography.

Up The Garden Path: My Corridor of Shame

2011-05-02T16:33:00.000+10:00

Oh it is ugly and I am ashamed... but here it is, my dark, dirty garden secret, my ugly, uncared for "other" side passage.

So I'll go into defense mode straightaway. When we first moved in to this house, around five years ago now, the conifers that you can see to the right of the photo were lovely, bushy, picture-of-health specimens... just gorgeous trees.

And then along came our neighbour.

Our neighbour has a fondness for one of those backpack plus spray gun rigs. Now I can understand that, to be honest I could go in for a bit of backpack/spray gun power myself. The only problem I have with his penchant for dress ups, is that in the backpack he likes to put poison. And spray it all around his fenceline. Which is his perogative.

Except...

Well you can see for yourself what his love of the backpack did to my trees. It kind of killed them, but bizarrely only to around halfway. Poor things.

So why, I hear you ask me, don't I chop them down?

Well, I don't because of this.

See?

Or rather don't see. This is near the top of one of the half dead conifers. And this is the view out of my sunroom. A room that runs almost the entire length of our house. A room where one entire wall is made up of windows. A room that connects my bedroom to the bathroom.

And a view that blocks out the view of my neighbour's house, and way more importantly, his view of mine. The tops of the trees provide a perfect screen of privacy between my house and one I'd really rather not look at.

But it doesn't change the fact that the trees are not all beautiful, and it's high time I did something about it. So I have started.

If you look in the top photo, you'll notice all that lovely strappy grass on either side of the passage. That's Brazilian Walking Iris, which indeed does walk all over the place. And you can't see them properly, but I have also started to plant different sorts of palms under the conifers. My hope is that as I plant new things and they grow, I'll be able to cut back, and ultimately cut down the poor half dead conifers.

And if he poisons them again I'll topple them over onto his house :D

And the Winners Are...

2011-05-01T18:23:00.000+10:00

Well, it just goes to show that random number generators really do work on atmospheric noise, and that certain people were making a lot of noise!

I have been sitting here for half an hour now and still can't believe who popped up first...

And I am fabulously pleased and amazed and excited and flabbergasted to announce that the marvelous winners of the fantabulous Digger's Books are:

Hazel Dene

Duchess_Declutter

and

Gooseberry Jam

Can you believe it?!

Congratulations ladies, please email me at alikxy@hotmail.com with your postal address and I will get your lovely books to you.

Congratulations again :)

Last Chance, Dig In

2011-04-30T16:11:00.000+10:00

Winners announced tomorrow...

Click here to enter.