Too hot to garden. I'm making cushions instead

It's 40C outside; too hot to be in the garden.  I went out early and gave everything a good water and tied up some shade, an eclectic mix of old pergola covers and op-shop sheets.  I'm not sure whether they will help but at least the garden is looking colourful.  I'm a bit worried about my tomato plants.  Some of them are not looking all that good; more yellow leaves than is normal and this hot weather won't help.  I've just checked on the chickens and they are OK.  I changed their water, gave them some watermelon from the fridge and made them a little mud bath in their coop to try and keep them cool.  Chickens are a bit silly sometimes and tend not to drink when their water gets a bit warm so in these extreme temperatures it's important to provide them with fluids.

 

Instead of gardening outdoors, I've been inside doing some sewing.  The creative energy level  in our street is high at the moment.  My friend and Humble Habit blogger DuckEggBlue has been sewing up a storm at her place, making pants and cute bunting decorations for her family.  It inspired me to organise my fabric stash and make some cushions.Most of my fabric (including this georgeous yellow velvet) comes from the op shop or from my lovely neighbour who makes cushions for a living, and occasionally passes on big bags of fabric goodies.  I made the pattern up as I went along, using patchwork for the front and two pieces at the back to make an envelope to slip the cushion pad into

Here are the results:  a nice bright one for the sunroom and some more earthy-toned ones for the lounge.  Happy New Year everyone!

Beetroot filo scrolls

I'm pleased to report that the beetroot and filo pastries were a success - the beetroot had a nice texture, the orange and mint added a nice flavour that worked well with the buttery pastry.  They were a BIG hit with LittleFB who announced that they should be called 'snails that are full of blood that comes out" and proceeded to massacre his with a knife  (before demolishing the lot!)

Beetroot and filo scrolls (or snails with blood that comes out!)

4 medium beetroot, peeled and grated
1 red onion, finely chopped 
Grated zest of one orange
Couple tbsp orange juice
6 mint leaves, chopped
100g goats chees (or feta), crumbled
Salt and pepper
12 sheets filo pastry
50g butter or olive oil

Fry the onion in a little olive oil until soft. Grate the beetroot into a large bowl and add the orange zest, juice, cheese and mint. Add the onion and season to taste.

Take 3 sheets of the filo and brush two lightly with butter. Put sheets one on top of each other and lay them on the work surface with the long edge facing towards you. Put a quarter of the beetroot mixture about 2cm from the edge nearest to you, along the whole length of the pastry.  Roll up into a long roll and the coil it round into a scroll/snail.  Transfer to a baking sheet and brush with butter.  Repeat to make 4 scrolls.  You could sprinkle them at this point with sesame seeds. Bake for 15-20 mins in a 180C oven until golden.

Serve with an orange and mint salad.

And there is the scene of the snail massacre.....messy.

Harvest Monday - 27th Dec

The zucchini and summer squash are starting to produce well now.  I'm growing three varieties, one plant of each: Blackjack, Round de nice (an Italian heirloom from Diggers seeds that came free with my membership) and Button squash. They were all grown from seeds planted directly in the ground in October.  I'm still at the stage of the summer when zucchini are a treat rather than a burden and this little harvest, including the blossoms, was made into a grilled zucchini, mint  and goats cheese salad, dressed with a little olive oil and lemon juice. 

 I also harvested some decent-sized beetroot( that I forgot to photograph) which I am going to use to recreate a delicious dish that MMSTL and I ate at the Post Office pub last week.  For all the Melbournites, I can highly recommend this place.  Until recently it was a fairly dodgy pub but after a radical makeover and  under new ownership it has been transformed into a welcoming space.  The best part though is the food; the chef used to work at MoMo but the prices here are much more affordable. For our appetiser we shared the beetroot scrolls with a mint and orange salad and they were quite lovely so I'm hoping that my version will turn out alright.  

Most of the northern hemisphere is under snow so it is impressive that there are still some harvests to be had.  To check these out, head over to Daphne's Dandelions.

Christmas Blooms

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas yesterday, however you spent the day.  Here in Melbourne we had a low-key day; presents in the morning for LittleFB, followed by lunch with friends.  I even managed to fit in a short potter in the garden in the afternoon . All in all, a very nice day!

Harvest Monday - Dec 20th

First of all here is the harvest basket that I took to the food swap at the weekend:  herbs (cinnamon basil and thyme), the first decent sized zucchini, leeks, baby beets and eggs.  As usual it was a lovely event.  The organisers generously hosted it at their home because of the inclement weather and provided tea and coffee, delicious mince pies and yummy bread with home made jams.   As well as the usual herbs and veggies there were some interesting new things to try. 

One harvester who runs her own edible landscaping business brought along cinnamon myrtle which can be dried and made into tea and some babacos which I had never seen before (top of the picture above), and certainly didn't know could be grown in Melbourne.  They are also known as champagne fruit because their juice is effervescent.  I took home half of one to try; it tastes like a lemony pineapple and is very refreshing. I  might have to find space in the garden for a tree!

Other notable harvests this week are the beans.  The climbing beans only have tiny beans on, but the dragons tongue bush beans are starting to  produce well.  I love their pale green and purple-flecked skins.  This bowl didn't make it to the pot - LittleFB and MMSTL munched them for morning tea!

Urban harvest on Saturday

Anyone living in the inner-northern suburbs of Melbourne might be interested in the food swap happening this weekend.  I'll be going along and taking eggs, some beetroot and whatever else I can rustle up from the garden. These food swaps are springing up all over the city and are a fantastic opportunity to exchange produce, and have a chat with fellow gardeners.

Harvest Monday - Dec 13

Many dedicated garden bloggers take the time to weigh their harvests each week.  Some even calculate their annual 'profit' based on the market price of the produce, minus garden-related expenses.    I'm not that organised, but in the spirit of tallying up the harvest, here is mine for the week:

Kilpfer potatoes: about 20, varying sizes
Baby beets - 3
Cavelo Nero - small bunch

Baby carrots -20 or so

and not photographed:
Big bunch of basil (for walnut and basil pesto-yum!)
Leeks - 3
Spring onions - 3
Lettuce - enough for 3 nights of salad
Zucchini - one, but the first one! 
Other herbs, mint, thyme and oregano

It has been a strange summer so far in Melbourne.  We've had a lot of rain, and not many hot days so far.  Today was lovely though - 21C and sunny, and the garden has really started to take off. As well as the first zucchini, fruits are forming on the cucumbers, pumpkins and a few of the tomatoes.  The Dragons' Tongue bush beans are starting to form, and the climbing beans have flowers on them.   It's a very exciting time in the garden!

Preserving stuff

This summer, MMSTL and I have decided to put some effort into preserving fruit and veg.  Hopefully this will be include our own (probably mainly tomatoes) and fruit from friends trees, but also the abundant fruit and veg available at local markets in late summer and autumn.

When I was growing up, mu parents preserved a lot of produce from teh garden  - frozen veg and berries, jams, and pickles (although I have to admit to an ardent dislike for piccalilli and picked onions!).  I've made jam and marmalade a few times, with varying degrees of success, and tried my hand at pickled zucchini (utterly disgusting). So, there is much to learn.


These are the 3 main ways in which we are planning on preserving our food:

Freezing
Our freezer space is limited and although I did toy with the idea of getting an additional freezer, there isn't really a good place to put it. However, with some careful packing, there should be enough room to freeze beans and some tomato sauce.

Dehydrating
After much deliberation, I recently bought a Valcola dehydrator on Ebay. It has  4 trays and works by blowing warm air through the food. I also invested in a couple of fruit leather trays which will be very useful for LittleFB's school lunches.  It got its first test run last week and I have to say, I'm very pleased with the results. I experimented with a tray of strawberries, one of pineapple, a mango and strawberry leather and a rhubarb, honey and strawberry leather.  The leathers were easy to prepare.  For the rhubarb and strawberry one, I pureed 1 cup of (homegrown) cooked rhubarb with some honey and 4 cups of strawberries.  The mango one was even easier - 1 punnet of strawberries and a ripe mango pureed together.  The drying time was quite long 10-12 hours, but the result was fantastic.  The fruit leather has already all gone and we are going to make another batch this weekend. I'm looking forward to drying tomatoes too - I'm growing a variety especially for drying called Principe Borghese.







Bottling/Canning
The Americans call this process canning, and the Aussies call it bottling; packing fruit into jars, covering with syrup (or ensuring that the food is sufficiently acid that it doesn't spoil) and heating in a large pan of water at the recommended temperature.  The Fowlers Valcola unit used to be in practicallu every home in Australia from the 1930's until they started going out of fashion  so when I saw a retro orange and yellow one for sale on Ebay (yes, it has been a busy time on Ebay recently!), complete with jars, I couldn't resist.  The jars in particular are lovely, especially as some of them are the old green glass variety.  We haven't used this yet. It needs a bit of a clean, and we are waiting to the fruit glut to come along but I'm looking forward to opening a bottle of home-grown tomtatoes in the middle of winter!

Harvest Monday - December 6th

The harvests have been picking up lately. Beets, carrots, leeks and potatoes have all been featuring regularly on the menu, plus lots of herbs -  the basil is doing particularly well - and plenty of eggs from the girls. The broccoli in the picture was the last. The plants are now finished and I pulled them out last week to make way for beans.  The beets were roasted for one of my favourite salads, with feta, thyme, olive oil and lemon.

The baby carrots here are from shared seed and have done really well this year. I've left a few plants go to seed so that I can sow more later on in the season. I grated the carrots and the beets to make a simple salad which we ate with leek fritters - recipe from Stephanie Alexander's Kitchen Garden Companion.

Raw beet, carrot and apple salad (serves 2-3)
3 small beets
4-5 small or 2 large carrots
1 green apple
Lemon juice and olive oil

Peel the beets and cut of any straggly ends. Peel the carrots if necessary. Grate the carrots, beets and apple using a coarse grater.Warning - the beets will stain your hands! I do each side of the apple so that only the core is left.  Add lemon juice and olive oil to taste and mix well (the whole salad will turn a lovely shade of pink).

A special compliment

Today I had a visit from the old Italian guy that lives at the end of our street. His garden is incredible. Towering tomatoes, lemons the size of grapefruit and bunches upon bunches of onions. I always stop and talk to him to try and learn from his decades of gardening experience; very occasionally he comes to have a look at my garden. Two years ago my eclectic planting style and close-spaced plants made him sigh in an exasperated fashion. Last year he noted that things were "better" but still "too close together". But today, first of all he said that my tomatoes were "very good" and then, that the garden was "90 percent better'  I'm very proud.