Harvest Monday - April 25th

The basil has been fantastic this year.  I planted one punnet of mixed varieties and about another eight plants of sweet basil from seed and we've been overrun with the stuff.  With the cooler weather around the corner I decided to cut some of it down. Basil doesn't do well once the temperature drops.  I didn't weight the harvest but it filled a huge bowl.  My little helpers ,LittleFB and his best friend, sat with me in the afternoon sun and helped me strip the leaves from the stems, although this quickly became a hunt for green caterpillars (four of which are now living in a plastic tub in LittleFB's bedroom. Lovely.)

What to do with such a mountain of basil?  Make pesto of course.  I used the recipe from Stephanie Alexanders Kitchen Garden (1 packed cup basil, 1/2 cup olive oil, 2 cloves garlic, 60g Parmesan and 1/4 cup pine nuts) , although I did cut down on the oil a bit and I also had to substitute toasted cashews for the pine nuts in the second batch because I ran out.   Stephanie Alexander reckons that pesto stored in the fridge with a layer of olive oil on top will keep for months.  See the pretty little Fowler's jars?  They were a gift, and just the right size for  a 2-3 person serving but I won't actually heat-process the pesto  for long-term storage (it isn't safe to do this because pesto is not 'hostile' enough to prevent the growth of nasty bacteria so there is a risk of food poisoning). Instead I'm just using them to store the basil in the fridge and to give some away as gifts. 

The garden continues to provide other harvests too.  Tomatoes - not many but still, it is almost May, beans, Asian greens pumpkins and capsicums.  And the street apple tree provided another 10kg or so at the weekend.  For more harvests head over to Daphne's Dandelions.

Lucky op shop find and a spot of quilting

Lucky op shop find and quilted table mat

As you may have guessed,  I love op-shops and I am a regular visitor to the ones in my area (of which there are many).  That's the key to successful op-shopping - regular visits and an open mind; you never know what you are going to find. 

Recently I popped into my local St Vinnies with the idea of picking up some fabric and I spied this lovely orange coffee set in the bric a brac.  In fabulous condition, there was a $6 sticker on the bottom of the coffee pot and a mark that read 'Fine China, Made in Japan'. I asked the guy behind the counter whether this was for the whole set and he confirmed, yes the $6 dollars was for all six cups, saucers, the coffee pot and the little sugar bowl.  Feeling pretty pleased, I bought it thinking how lovely and cheerful it would look in the kitchen, maybe I could even use the little cups to serve dessert.  I was just about to leave the shop when a man who had been browsing too, called me over. He told me (in hushed tones) that he was a second hand dealer and the set that I had just purchased dated from the 1930's and was quite valuable, maybe worth over $100!  How about that?
 
To bring me back to earth after my antiques hunting high, I did some quilting.  I'm still learning and I wanted a small project that I could practice on.  This table mat, based on the pot-holder that I made recently. came together well and was really fun to make. The fabrics are all op-shopped pillow cases or gifted scraps and it's sandwiched with a wool batting.   I'm thinking of using a similar idea for a quilt for LittleFB, but using cotton for the sashing (the bit round the outside) rather than the linen. I'll let you know how I get on.

Harvest Monday, tree-dwelling pumpkins

We turned about a third of our front lawn into veggie patch last year and planted a couple of Queensland Blue pumpkin seedlings in among the fruit trees and other assorted veggies.  The seedlings were planted into mounds of  dirt/poo/compost scraped out of the chicken coop and promptly took over half the front garden and the side of the house.  Despite the rampant growth, I could only see one pumpkin, although it was impressive in size.  This weekend we decided to do some clearing, and noticing that the pumpkin was getting munched by millipedes, and that the vine was starting to die off, decided to pull it up.  I was tugging at part of the vine that had climbed up the camellia bush and another big pumpkin came down with it!  Then, a few moments later MMSTL who was clearing the tangle of couch grass and rose bushes found another one!  All in all an impressive and rather surprising haul (over 14kg in total).

Even though they could probably do with some more ripening time, one of the pumpkins had quite a bit of bug damage so last night we roasted most of it up and made a yummy pumpkin risotto. There were leftovers so for tonight's dinner I roiled the mixture into balls, stuffed in a little cube of cheese and dipped in egg and breadcrumbs before frying in olive oil.  These were really delicious.

 I've left the two remaining pumpkins with a length of vine attached to dry off in the sun for a few days. I'm hoping that they will store a bit longer, especially the one that was up in the tree that escaped all insect damage.  In fact, I might try and encourage pumpkins up trees next year!   

I can sew zips!

This might not be a big deal to all of you expert sewer-types but I've never sewn in a zip before and, if I have to be honest, I was a bit daunted by the prospect.  But, encouraged by this great tutorial for a lined zip purse, I popped the zipper foot onto the sewing machine and gave it a go.  LittleFB chose the fabrics, a bright stripy one from Spotlight for the outside and some retro purple flowers for the lining which was a sheet that I picked up in Savers (an op/thrift shop) for a few bucks.  I left out the  zip covers, and the trickiest bit was getting all the layers in the right order but the little purse came out quite nicely.  LittleFB calls it his "very special" bag and puts "special" things in it like little crystals cut out of paper.

He's actually been a little obsessed with crystals lately and we have a few science experiments going on in the kitchen; pipe cleaners suspended in sugar syrup to make rock candy and more pipe cleaners (this time in the shape of a snowflake) soaking in a Borax solution to make crystal snowflakes.  We found out how to do them here and I have to admit it's been kind of fun.

A week or so ago I made another bag from this free tutorial, the same blog that the other bag pattern came from. I love old doilies, there are always heaps at the op shop for a dollar or less,  They are so intricate and it seems like a lot of work went into making them so I like the idea of giving them a new life. It wasn't too tricky; after cutting out the pattern pieces I placed the doily in the corner and sewed around the edge with a zig-zag stitch in matching thread and then trimmed the excess before doing the seams. The outside of the bag  is a grey wool and the inside is linen. Pretty cute eh?

And here is the our new front porch sofa cushion. The front is made from a scarf that picked up in an op shop ages ago but could never quite find the right use for.  It is very thin fabric so I ironed it onto some heavyweight interfacing and  made the back of the cushion it with some grey hessian fabric scraps.  I think the end result is kind of funky, especially against the grey wool blanket (another op-shop find) that covers the dodgy sofa underneath. Dall this crafty fun, I have also been out in the garden and we've even built another garden bed!  More on that later....

Harvest Monday - April 11

Pretty little pumpkins all in a row

A real autumnal harvest today - golden  nugget pumpkins and apples.  All the pumpkins all came  from one bush  and there are some more to come - about ten in total I think.  Would I recommend them?  Well, they are a good choice for a small space as they are much more compact than vine-type pumpkins (mine grew to about 1.5m by 0.5m) and they look really pretty, but they don't have a really great flavour and need spicing up a bit.  We had one for dinner,  halved and roasted until soft, filled with a green veg curry and baked for about 15 mins which was  delicious.  The apples were a gift from my neighbour. We are going to have another preserving session tomorrow and these will be chopped and added to the Fowler's jars with a light sugar syrup.  

And here are those green  green tomatoes which are still waiting to be made into something other than chutney. Still working on that one.

Happy harvests everyone! For more, head over to Daphne's.

Preparing the garden for winter

I've been neglecting the garden for my new found love- sewing - but it was such a beautiful day yesterday, with rain forecast for the later afternoon so it was time to get the gumboots on and get into it. 

Cleared beds, planted up with green manure

The first job was to clear all the last of the summer plants that have been struggling on for the past few weeks.  It was sad to pull out the amazing zucchini plant that has produced and produced all summer, but it was time.  We also pulled out most of the tomato plants and trimmed the few that were left to just the stalks.I'm not sure whether the tomatoes will ripen on the bushes- here's hoping.  I was still left with a few kilos of green tomatoes which typically would be made into a green tomato chutney. However, given MMSTL's dislike of the stuff, I'm seeking some new recipes.  Ideas anyone?

Half of the garden is in shade for the winter so I tend to let it rest. I broadcast (I like that word) some green manure seed mix from Eden Seeds over the bare patches and covered it with Lucerne hay.  Normally I guess you wouldn't use mulch in the winter but our little kitty just loves to use the garden as a toilet and the mulch acts as a deterrent. The green manure will be dug in once it reaches knee height; I did this last year and it worked a treat.
 

Broccolli, silverbeet and celery with the cleared tomato bed in the background

Garlic shoots

We've already planted a lot of our winter crops - carrots, turnips, beetroot, bok choi, lettuce, spring onions, garlic, onions, broccoli, rainbow chard, celery, snow peas, choi sum, Chinese broccoli and tatsoi. The cleared beds were dug over and some mushroom compost dug in.  They will be left for a week and planted  up with broad beans and more peas.  We didn't have a very good year for peas last year so we are hoping for a better crop this spring. For all of you in the southern hemisphere what veggies do you have in for winter?

Sewing projects

I've been bitten by the sewing bug recently, inspired by my endlessly creative neighbour, and the many crafting blogs that I like to visit, like this one and this one.  Anyway, I've just been feeling compelled to sew -and wanting to try something apart from the softies that are slowly filling up every spare centimetre of LittleFB's bed.

I may have mentioned before, but I am lucky enough to be given bags of fabric scraps from my cushion-making neighbour.  In the last bag there were some quite large pieces - enough to make a wrap skirt from the pattern in Sew La Tea Do.  It was a fairly easy project, the only really tricky bit was managing the really long tie,  but a very satisfying one - my first piece of clothing and for very little cost. I've just realised that I don;t have a photo.  Will take one soon...

I do have a photo of this quilted pot holder - a gift for MMSTL's Mum.  Again, it was made fabric scarps, linen and cotton and sandwiched with cotton batting. I added a little tag with a bird motif which would have been even nicer if it I hadn't sewn it in backwards :)  I did some wonky quilting using my new walking foot. What a cool little gadget this is, it just powers right through those thick layers of fabric quite happily.

Last, a bag using this free pattern. Isn't it nice when people take the time to put their patterns on the web for free.I think this might be my favourite of all the projects. It was made of (you've guessed it) more fabric scraps  and the lining was an pillowcase from the op shop. It's even got a little pocket inside for keys and whatnot.    Right, better get back into the garden now.....