Holidays

Well I've been on holidays for a week now and feel like I've not achieved half of the things I would have liked to have done. The time has been good though, I've had time with family which is something I always treasure, some time in the garden, and yesterday and today, some time in the kitchen.
We've had two new students arrive from China today. Amy and Rose (not their Chinese names, they take English names to make it easier for everyone while they are here) joined us yesterday and will stay for the next 6 weeks to get a taste of Australian life and learn english. At only 11 years old, it would have to be very scary for them coming all this way and living with strangers. We'll try to make their stay a memorable one.
With some time at home I've taken the opportunity to make some fruit bread today and a batch of yoghurt tonight ready to use in some new recipes I saw on the Food channel today. I was motivated by a recipe for spicy eggplant.


You can see the white eggplants here amongst other goodies harvested late last week.

I just happen to have about half a dozen little round egg shaped white eggplants I picked the other day just waiting for inspiration to strike. It necessitated a trip to the shops for all sort of spices I just don't (correction "didn't) have on hand. It was a joy to buy lots of new goodies, including All spice, Cayenne Pepper, Fenugreek, Black Mustard, Saffron and Cardamon pods. I can't wait to try them out tomorrow. They aren't all for the eggplant, some are for other dishes. I'm not sure if I'll get to try them all out before I return to work, but I'd really like it if I can.
The garden has had a bit of a clean up. Hubby insisted I chop down the choko vines that have not only run rampant through our garden, but also ventured into the neighbours trees. The chokos looked like Christmas baubles hanging off the branches of their palm trees! It was hard for me to do, especially as I was getting such a great crop off them this year, but Hubby is sick of them now, and groans with each new harvest I drag in. I can't complain, he has made heaps of pickles using them, and some Chutney as well. I've smuggled them into all sorts of meals, both savory and sweet, and we have more in buckets that we haven't gotten around to using yet, and they are starting to sprout! Definately a sign that the time had come.


Chokos hanging like Christmas decorations off the fence

Clearing all the vines has let more light into some of the garden beds. One I've planted out with some French bean seedlings and a few broccoli tucked into one end. The other had nothing much except a large old capsicum bush in it (after the chickens had excavated the snow peas for the third time and there was no saving them). The capsicum hasn't been producing well, so it was time for it to go. The beds are usually "made" over by the chickens (we place their pen over the garden, they dig it up and work in sugar cane mulch over a few weeks) but I've been too impatient to wait as they are still working what was the sweet potato bed and will probably be there for at least another week or so. I've mounded it up for the time being, placed some weathered sugar cane mulch into it and given it a top up with some composted cow manure and leaving it to sit ready to try some more peas, or perhaps some silverbeet or chinese cabbage.

You can see the French beans starting to come up around  a wire frame made from old fencing wire that is used as a trellis

There's still more clean upI'd like to do in the garden before my week is out, including pulling out the remaining pumpkin vines that aren't doing much now and tieing up my peppers that have fallen over with the support of the choko vines that had enveloped them. So little time, so much garden...

Measuring time in pumpkins

A photo of one of my very early baby pumpkins

Well it’s been way too long since my last blog, almost two months. I was wondering what on earth have I done with the time, where have I frittered it away too?

But I have been doing things, and my garden has kept growing. My pumpkins are now almost all picked. The ones from the footpath were the first to be harvested, but not at my doing!!!! People had begun helping themselves! The first couple to go were just roughly pulled off the vine, so I guess they were walking past and just couldn’t help themselves (they did look fabulous). I wouldn’t have noticed them disappearing except I put little pieces of broken tiles under each one to keep them off the damp ground (last year I lost quite a few to rot, not having known this little trick) and those naked little tiles bereft of their pumpkins stood out! The next ones to go however were very neatly “cut” off, so I imagine someone bought their secateurs with them on their walk, an act of premeditation…so it meant if I wanted to enjoy the fruits of my labour, it was time for picking!



Using broken bits of tile keeps the pumpkins from rotting on damp ground

I don’t like to pick the pumpkins that early. Normally I like to leave them on the vine until it dies back to the stalk leading to the pumpkin and then pick them. I believe that way the pumpkin gets the very last goodness from the vine. So my others within the garden stayed on for quite a bit longer and I now only just have a few left still growing or waiting for them to drain the last energy from their vines. In total I’ve had more than twenty pumpkins ( I forgot to count them all before I started giving them away). They add a feel of autumness inside the little blue shack, with their lovely creamy orange tones. Strangely even though some of them looked like they would turn out as large green pumpkins, and made me wonder how it was possible to produce such a variety of shapes and colours, they all changed to similar colours in the end.

The first made deliciously creamy pumpkin soup, a favourite as we start to get colder. One of course went to my parents, as they are still waiting on theirs. One made a lovely gift for my Nana, with a cheeky red ribbon tied around it’s stem, along with a jar of homemade passionfruit curd. Some have been roasted, and the rest await their individual futures.


Just some of the pumpkins waiting for use

 Well I needed to add an update here, I'm thrilled to say that when we gave neighbours one of our pumpkins,
they've given us some mandarins and a very large gourd in return. Hubby has turned the mandarins into the
most divine jam, (he experimented with our very sour and almost inedible tangerines a week ago, and now perfected it to a whole new level with the mandarins instead) and he's made enough that tomorrow we'll drop the neighbours a jar as a thankyou for letting us access their tree. As for the gourd, I have no idea what to do with it???? So I'm open to suggestions, but for sure I'll keep some of the seeds out of it as it is spectacular to look at if nothing else.





Simply divine Mandarin Jam