The Garden is Calling

and quite loudly too.

The weather has been quite nice these past few days. 

I have seedlings doing their thing in the kitchen.  Some of these have their second set of leaves - their true leaves.  So I suppose it is time they are put out into the vege beds.

There is pumpkin, zucchini, tomato, capsicum, cantaloupe and sunflowers.

I made my own 'pots' by cutting the local newspaper in half, wrapping the cut paper around a glass and taping it into a cylinder.  I then taped the bottom over to make a pot, filled them with potting mix and popped in the seeds. I also wrote a bit of a code on the 'pots' so I would know what I had.

 The first lot of seeds were put into my mini greenhouse tray. 

It took a few weeks to do the second lot.  They went into a disused cat litter tray.  I came up with the idea of using a couple of store shopping bags taped together to make a cover for this lot.  It worked well I think.

Since the seeds were kept in the kitchen, and we have indoor cats, I had to have all the potting mix covered to keep the cats out.  It worked. 

Kept under the bench in the east facing kitchen the seeds.....

...have mostly all sprouted and are doing well.

Not everything has come up.  Only some of the sunflowers have sprouted and so have some of the cantaloupes.  Certainly worth the experiment.

Now to put the bigger ones into the vege beds and hope the snails don't get them.....

Gardening again

After a bit of hibernating over winter I'm back into the garden.

So far I have put 2 loganberries and 1 marionberry into large pots, planted out 1 dwarf apple and 1 dwarf nashi pear.  I have also potted up a dwarf navel orange and planted out 6 raspberries - 2 each of 3 varieties; and I have planted out 2 rhubarb crowns.  In fact I had what looked like a tiny crown in with it - so I planted it into it's own pot too.

Where the raspberries are went from this.......

to this.......

 

It now has plastic edging along the whole bed - 8m of it - is filled in with compost and potting mix (run out of compost) and is heavily mulched with sugar cane straw.  So far - 1 week after doing it - the birds have yet to realize they can go scratching in the straw.  Can't say the same for around the rhubarb!

Today I dug up/pulled out the old potatoes that came up over autumn - got a dozen of a useful size.  the other small ones I left in the vege garden beds to do their thing now that it is starting (ever so slowly) to get a bit warmer.  I also added a bag of manure to each bed and covered them all with sugar cane mulch.

In the next couple of days I will plant out the other seed potatoes I have, the small spuds I harvested earlier in the year and the 2 sweet potato plants.

To get more spuds I need to build up the soil/mulch around them as the plants grow.  Must remember to do that.

All the vege beds now have a nice coat of mulch.  I bought some bales that were water damaged and going cheap.  One bale had a worm in it - I put him into the vege bed.  I hope he likes it.

Speaking of worms - my attempt at having a worm farm failed.  I think they got too hot over last summer and either all died or they wriggled their way out of their home.  Not too sure if I want to try again.  Might be an idea to take the plastic tub with the soil/food scraps/etc out of the polystyrene box it is sitting in and plonk it down onto the ground.  It has holes in the bottom so it will most likely act like a small compost bin.  Hhhmmmm..

New Plantings

and some garden pruning happened today at my place.

There were some overgrown strappy plants in front of the kitchen widow that were in need of some major pruning as they were covering up half of the front path.  Looks much better now that they have been cut back.

I also got around to planting my Apple Tree.  It's called Wild Granny and is grafted onto dwarf root stock.  It should only grow to 2m tall and 2m wide.  I have put in the narrow-ish bed in front of the house near the front door.  I hope it takes off in spring and gives us some apples.  It should, once fully grown, give us some shade too.



Apparently is was 'discovered' by someone on an Easter camping trip.  The growers I got mine from have found that it is self pollinating.  Great for those who have limited space as you don't need another apple near by to get your fruit.

It only has a short fruiting season - 2 months - but that will do for starters.

Now to get the Nashi Pear into the ground - oh and the Raspberries, the Loganberries and the Marionberry......

Fried Green Tomatoes

Looks like I will be making this or some Green Tomato Relish.

This is what I picked today.....

a miserable handful of beans and 3 capsicum

and .......

all of these tomatoes.

And that's only half of what is still out there on the dying vines.  Must be around 5kilos worth.  however much they weigh see that bowl in the right of the pick?  It was filled 3 times and it's my largest mixing bowl, the 1 I use to make xmas pudding in.

They have all  been washed in plain water - to get any dirt and bugs off them.  Now what do I do with them?

I have heard you can leave the green ones in the dark somewhere and they will ripen, just have to watch the moisture in the air and check for rot.

I have also heard you can make a green tomato relish.  Any suggestions?

Oh, did I tell you I also harvested a heap of potatoes?  I got a bag full - that's a 30cm cube bag full...
That should keep us going for a while.  They range in size from marbles up to 1.5 fists.  I may see if the little ones will keep over winter and replant them in spring for next seasons crop.

Yummy Bread

I think I have success!

This is my first ever sourdough loaf waiting to slowly rise.

AND after it has been baked.....

I was surprised by how mild it tasted - I was expecting something a bit stronger and more sour.

Since then I have made another one - all gone now - and I have the makings for sponge tonight so I cook another loaf tomorrow.

I think I know what I am doing now.  I only do 1 loaf at a time, so I keep 1/3cup of the sponge for the next starter.  Then I add 1/6cup flour and water for it's first feed.  The second feed is larger at 1/3cup each flour and water.  At that point I am ready to make the sponge, so I add 1 and 1/3cups each of flour and water.  Once that has  done it's thing I add sugar, salt and oil give it a mix and then enough flour to get a dry-ish dough.  I turn it out onto the bench and give it a bit of a stretch and a push together.  Once a finger hole poked in comes back out at, which doesn't take long at all, it's into the tin for the dough to rest and rise before baking.

The last loaf was really light and airy.  I think it was left a bit too long proofing before being popped into the oven.  Still tasted good!!

Sourdough bread

Yesterday I posted a pic of the sourdough bread starter I had put together.  Well this is it today......

It has lots of little bubbles and appears to have risen and then sunk.  As far I have read it is supposed to do that.  It smells quite fermenty too - not a word I know - and that is a good thing.

So my next dilemma is what now.  The 'recipe' says to leave it sit for 3 days but other makers of sourdough say it needs to be fed.  The recipe says that too but does not say when or how to feed my starter.

I have pondered this all morning and decided to give it a bit of a feed.  It is only a small starter (1/3 cup flour, 1/3 cup water) and I would like to be able to make a loaf of bread with it on the weekend, so I think it needs a bit of bulking up.  To that end I have added in 1/6 cup flour and 1/6 cup water and given it a good stir.  I will do the same again tomorrow but add in 1/2 cup each water and flour.  That will give me 2 cups of starter which will be enough for a loaf of bread or 2 - I think.

Fruit Trees

Oh how I would love to have the backyard of my childhood!

We had plum trees, apple trees, pear and peach trees, apricots, nectarines and quince.  There was even a loquat tree over one of Dad's chook sheds - this was usually used for climbing in.

Needless to say his backyard was quite large for the suburbs.

My backyard is about 17-20m wide and around 8-10m deep - enough I suppose for fruit trees.  We have 2 sheds at one end, a small wood shed near them, a Lilac and a Birch tree next to the wood shed, a small aviary at the other end of the yard, a clothesline in the middle and another Birch and a large Plum tree next to the clothesline.  We also store 2 trailers and have 3 dogs that go in and out of this area.

The Birch next to the Plum died over winter - not too sure why.  I think maybe that the Plum strangled it or took too much of the water the Birch needed - but who really knows.  So over winter it will be coming out. 

Now the Plum tree is really out of hand.  It is too large to manage and we don't actually eat the fruit from it - it's a type of Green Gage so the fruit is small.  This season the cockatoos had a ball cracking all the fruit open and then the seeds to get to the kernels.  They did this when the fruit was still green - what was left was not enough to bother with.  So as far I am concerned this tree is also to go.  I will miss the shade it provides though - even if it's not on the house.

Hubby has graciously said that once they are chopped down he will square off the bed they are in and I can do what I like with it.  So this means I can put in other fruit trees - dwarf varieties.  I just have to decide which ones.  I am thinking apples and maybe a nectarine.  If I could find a skinny growing type I wouldn't mind putting another one in next to the red rose and something else along the back fence between the sheds and the wood shed.

Something like this....



I am also thinking of pulling out some of the flowering shrubs along the driveway and putting in berries instead.  Blueberries and raspberries would be nice.  I could train them to grow sideways along the fence.

What fruits do you have in your backyard?

Eating our own produce

Not that we have been doing a lot of that.  The odd handful of peas before Christmas, the even less frequent handful of beans since Christmas.

We should do well with the tomatoes though.  The bushes are huge and there is even fruit on them.  Maybe I should have staked them up and even done some tip pruning - but oh well.  Now to wait for the fruit to get bigger and to start to ripen.  I will have to keep a close eye on them as lots are hidden under leaves.

What I have picked though is Rhubarb - my first ever large fistful.  Didn't think to take a photo of it before it got cut up and cooked.  Some of the stems were easily 45cm long.  The variety I have is a green stem variety.  I am thinking I will get 2 more that have red stems.   Here it is all cooked and waiting to be eaten. 

 

I had an order for peach cobbler too.  So it got made with apricots 'cause that's all I had in the cupboard.  Here's the last of it on the left of the plate.  On the right is home-made granola topped with my rhubarb.  A more delicious breakfast I have not had in ages.

 

 

The granola (or muesli if you want to call it that) is a mix of rolled oats, corn flakes, rice puffs, desiccated coconut, chopped peanuts, dried pineapple, dried cranberries and honey.  I put it in the oven for around 20 minutes - minus the fruits - to get the honey to mix up a bit more.  It is quite nice.  Next time I will try to use shredded coconut instead and will crush the corn flakes slightly.

 

 

I am also playing with making my own sourdough bread.  This is my starter that I put together today.  It's 1/3 cup flour, 1/3 cup water, 1/3 tsp sugar and a tiny bit of dried yeast.  This will sit on the bench covered with a tea towel for 3 days before I add some more flour and water to make a loaf of sourdough bread.  I should end up with enough for 1 loaf and a bit more starter.

 

I am using a recipe/method from Linda at Greenhaven - here's hoping it works.