One of the reasons that I have been a little quiet in recent times, is the abundance of tomatoes the garden has given us! We were picking up to 7 kilograms at a time, and that meant that the kitchen was where I needed to be.
This season I planted quite a variety of tomatoes: Continue reading
I hope that I am not becoming to boring with all things rhubarb, the vegie patch and the greater garden… Today I am going back to Rhubarb, yet again. It is proving to be a great staple in our home.
A vegetable that masquerades as a fruit, this wonderful plant is so easy to grow, and even easier to use in the kitchen where it can be prepared for breakfast or dessert, turned into an accompaniment for your favourite pork dish or charcuterie or cheese platter, gosh, it can even be made into an amazing salad! Continue reading
Duchess and I have decided to take you on a stroll through our garden.
It has been a dry and cold winter and we are hoping to get some spring rain sometime soon. In fact I had a grin from ear to ear one morning earlier this week as we received just a few mls – it was nice to watch and listen to the rain falling.
The garden is coming along nicely and our citrus are now happy with their new home, luckily they survived the harsh frosts, unlike many in the area.
This year I was gifted an abundance of olives, so with a recipe given to me by my mother, I set to work. The first batch of olives came from our family home in a little town called Navarre. Picked by Gary, my two sisters and myself. To prepare the olives, they were sorted and washed, then each olive had to be cut with a knife (a tedious, but necessary part of the process to allow the brine to penetrate the olive, removing the bitterness and acting as a preservative). Next I prepared the brine and chilled it down, then with the blackest olives in one (food grade) bucket, and the greener ones in another, I poured in the brine, ensuring they were well covered, popped a plate on top to hold them down, and finally put them on our front porch where it is nice and cool. Continue reading
As mentioned in my last post, we recently endured a spate of heavy frosts. While the visual effects were stunning, the aftermath in the gardens has been quite destructive! Citrus, lemons, limes, mandarins, etc literally froze on the tree, and because there was no reprieve from the frosts – they just kept coming, night after night after night, the fruit did not recover and turned to mush. Initially the fruit looked perfectly normal, but when you touched it, it was soft and squishy, and finally it just fell from the trees. That is not all, people in the district fear that their precious trees may not recover from the trauma, and it is the centre of many conversations within the community. That is just the citrus trees… There has been so much more destruction in the garden, and many have lost so, so many of their treasured plants and trees. Fortunately we were very lucky and my wonderful husband’s diligence saved so much. Continue reading
