Funkbunny's kitchen garden

Harvest Monday Jan 30, pre and post holiday harvest

2012-01-30T21:00:00.000+11:00

It's a bit tricky going on holiday when you have a veggie garden. We've went away camping over the Australian Day weekend. We found the ideal spot, swam at beautiful quiet beaches, hiked, relaxed, laughed and ate nice food. Lovely. The weather was quite pleasant where we were, but in Melbourne it was hot and despite a good water before we went and a token watering by a neighbour when we were away, the garden suffered a little bit and we returned to brown leaved tomatoes and rather wilty cucumbers. Looking on the positive side though there are still harvests and some things - like the basil - even seem to have liked the heat and put on a growth spurt.

Anyway, onto the harvests. This lot was picked before we went away - cucs, beans (purple king and borlotti), round zucchini, blackjack zucchini, green capsicum, basil and lots of tomatoes (katinka cherry, red beefsteak, Cosimo special, black cherry and husky red).

This are the post-holiday harvest. Our first red capsicum which might be Franks Red but I'm not sure. The fruit grow in a different way to the other capsicums - upwards from the base ather than hanging down. I grew it from seed that I was sent by some kind person but I sowed 4 different varieties and then forgot which ones germinated... Suggestions welcome as to what it might be! Also in the harvest: a cuc, zucchini and a round zucchini that time forgot.

Here are all the tomatoes that ripened in the heat. The greeny-yellow one at the top is a KBX. Someone sent me this seed as well. The plant hasn't done well which is unfortunate because this tomato tastes really very good indeed. Ah well, I've saved seed and might try it again next year. The other yellow ones are lemon boy and the red ones a mixture of tommy toes, black cherry, periforme and red beefsteaks.

For more harvests - pop over to Daphne's.

Harvest Monday Jan 23rd and a recipe

2012-01-23T21:28:00.000+11:00

Phew! It's hot in Melbourne right now. 34C today and more of the same tomorrow. Well, at least the eggplants like it; we picked the first couple yesterday. Also in our (daily) harvests this week were lots of tomatoes, cucumbers, basil, spring onions, zucchini of various varieties, corn, green capsicum and our biggest strawberry haul in one day yet - almost half a kilo which were eaten before I got to take a picture!

I used the eggplant to male eggplant parmigiana, but a slightly more healthy version because I baked the eggplant instead of frying and omitted the mozzarella mainly because I didn't have any. I forgot to take a picture but I can assure you that it was really yummy and it took a lot of willpower not to eat the whole dish between two of us.

Eggplant parmigiana- serves 4

2 large eggplant, sliced into 0.5 cm thick slices
100g breadcrumbs
100g grated parmesan
1-2 beaten eggs (depending on the size)

Tomato sauce
1 onion, finely diced
1/2 kilo ripe tomatoes
handful basil
salt
2 cloves garlic, chopped
olive oil

To make the sauce, fry the onions in a little olive oil until soft. Then add the tomatoes, garlic and salt and cook on low heat into a thick sauce.

Oil 2 baking trays lightly with olive oil.

Mix the breadcrumbs and half the parmesan together and season with a little salt and pepper. Dip each eggplant slice into the beaten egg and then te breadcrumb/parmesan mix. Arrange the slices on the oiled baking tray and drizzle over some more olive oil on each (just a little bit). Bake the slices for about 20 mins in a 200c oven , turning halfway until golden and crispy.

In a baking dish put a layer of eggplant, then a layer of sauce and sprinkle over some parmesan and a few torn basil leaves. You could also add some mozzarella. Repeat with more layers until all the eggplant is used up (I got 2 layers). Top with some cheese and bake in a 200C over for 30 mins until the cheese is golden.

Harvest Monday Jan 16

2012-01-16T20:00:00.001+11:00

I've been super-slack at posting harvests recently so here are some from the past week or so...

Japanese cuc, strawberries, rhubarb, tomatoes (from top - Cosimo special, katinka cherry, black cherry)

Corn, basil, button squash, blackjack zucchini and amarath

Button squash, round zucchini (these are the most prolific this year), gem squash, lemon cucumbers, Tomatoes (Tommy toe, Cherokee purple and an unknown red beefsteak ) and amarath

Another one of these huge trombone squash. this one is a metre long. I'm not kidding you.

Beets, really sweet and delicious

Pink fir potatoes. First time growing these and they are so good in potato salad.

Strawberries. We are picking a good handful every day and most of them are not being munched by bugs.

And finally this is today's harvest: Blackjack zucchini, green capsicum, spring onion, corn and tomatoes (black cherry, red beefsteak, Cosimo special, purple cherokee katinka cherry and black cherry).

Phew! That's a lot of fruit and veg. Even though I've not been posting we are keeping a tally, by weight, of everything we are growing this year. Ive just got to work out how to put a clever widgit thingy in the sidebar like Daphne. And talking of Daphne if you want to see more harvest, just pop over to her place.

My creative space: two new dresses (Simplicity 2209 and 9909)

2012-01-14T08:11:00.000+11:00

I made two new dresses during my Christmas staycation. How lovely to have the time to do some relaxed sewing, and I even felt confident to put in a zip (more on that later).

The first dress is of course, made from a sheet albeit a vintage floral one. I was planning on making this the muslin, but I decided that I liked the fabric too much and ended up tweaking a few things so that I could wear it (serious sewists gasp in disbelief and horror.... ) The pattern is Lisette Simplicity 2209, the Passport dress. There are loads of lovely versions on Flikr and I was a bit daunted by a) making something fitted and b) adding a zip. Up until now I have gone down the 'it doesn't really matter if it's too big I can always wear it with a belt' route. Anyway, I took a deep breath, reminded myself that: I have put zips into purses, the fabric is a sheet for goodness sake so it doesn't matter if you stuff it up, and got on with it.

The pattern was really clear and easy to follow. It's also got some really nice details like a cross over dart at the front. I cut out a size 12 in the bodice according to my measurements on the pattern envelope, and graded down to a 10 at the waist and hips. The bodice ended up not being a great fit - there was a big gape at the back, a small gape at the front and it was also a bit too big under the arms. Because I didn't make a muslin (doh!) I ended making two small darts at the back which fixed up the gap, and also took in the sides a little. It's not perfect but it fits such better now.

The pattern calls for finishing the armholes with bias tape but I didn't have any in the right colour so I made my own in the same fabric which did the job. I didn't go a great job of matching up the back darts on the skirt with the bodice darts - but I can see how this should be done now and as I'm planning on making this again, I'll pay more attention to this part.

Finally the zip. I didn't have a regular zip that was long enough so I attempted an invisible zip. You can't see the zip so I guess that's good, but it's not perfectly aligned at the top and there is a weird bulge at the bottom which I'm not really sure how to fix.

But, all in all I'm really pleased with this happy, summery dress!

front view

back view

Somewhat ambitiously I started dress two on the 30th Dec to wear to a New Year's even party. Hmmm, no pressure there then. Actually it wasn't to hard at all and I did get it finished in time. The pattern is Simplicity 9909, a vintage 80's sundress pattern and I made view A without the lace front panel. I used some quilting cotton that I bought on sale for $4 a metre - blue with white yellow and red triangles. Like Humble Habit, I'm loving yellow and blue together at the moment.

The pattern was a 10 and the only alteration I did was to take in the sides a little bit and gather the back more by shortening the elastic because I have a very narrow back. It did involve a little bit of hand sewing as the front band needed to be finished by hand so that the stitching doesn't show on the front, and the straps are also hand sewn. I did take some short cuts with the belt though and topstitched all round the edged instead of whip-stitching the gap closed. It's got pockets too, which you can't see on the picture.

I love this dress and with the twirly skirt it was perfect for new year dancing!

Flea market finds, vintage loveliness

2012-01-08T16:36:00.003+11:00

Does it count when the flea market finds are gifts from a neighbour who used to run a vintage clothes shop? I hope so because I've been given such a lovely collection of vintage clothes and I need an excuse to show them off. She told me that she used to buy the clothes by the bundle, and many of them are from overseas. She also kindly lent me the dress form which has been very useful, not only for photographing clothes, but for using in my sewing efforts and it (or should a dress form always be a she?) is about the same size as me. I feel very lucky to have been given these amazing clothes - some of them need some fixing up and I'm planning some alterations on others. I can't wait!

This is a handmade dress possible from the 50's in a pink and yellow cotton. Amazingly it fits me perfectly but is in need of some repair so I'll need to reattach the bodice and fix the rips. I'll probably take off the bows at the neck and pockets too.

A 70s maxi dress. I'm not sure about whether to shorten this one or leave it as is.

A 60's shirt - no alterations needed here.

A really great chiffon dress; not sure of the era, maybe the 70's. One sleeve was hanging by a thread so I took it off and I'm planning on taking the other one off as well to make it sleeveless. Then I'll need to add binding to the armholes and take in the bodice a bit.
She also gave me some red high-waisted pants from the 70's. These just about fit me, although in my post-Christmas excess state I have to breathe in :) and I love them, especially with my new shoes....
For more flea market finds, pop over to Sophies.

Harvest Monday, Jan 2

2012-01-02T16:08:00.002+11:00

It's going to be 40C today so we went out early and watered, covered up the garden with some shade - it's now festooned with vintage sheets! - picked what we could find and hid back inside.

Here is the first ripe tomato of the season, a periforme (piriform?) and it was delicious. I ate it for lunch with some pasta, freash basil and parmesan.

Also in the harvest were some beans (purple king, blue lake and a borlotti that my Italian neighbour gave me), round zucchini, button squash and trombone zucchini. The latter was picked at a sensible size.

This is what happens when your almost 6 year old son claims ownership of a trombone squash and wants to see how big they will grow. It reached 89cm until the weight of the fruit made it fall off the vine. Pretty impressive!

Last some apricots, not from our tree, but our neighbour's (but we did help pick them). I'm making the most of the hot days to start drying them - I've used the trays from the dehydrator under a fly screen with glass on top. It seems to be working quite well!

Happy New year colour

2012-01-01T13:43:00.000+11:00

Our sunflowers bloomed today to welcome in the New Year - what a lovely cheery sight. We've were out early watering in preparation for the hot days ahead (40C forecasted for Melbourne tomorrow- yuck!), so we'll be out in the morning rigging up some shade.

Happy new year everyone!

2011 sewing round up

2011-12-31T09:43:00.000+11:00

Everything I made in 2011. Well, almost everything - there are a few dresses that didn't make it into the photo montage including a New Years eve dress that was frantically being sewn today!

Crazy climbing curcubits!

2011-12-28T15:28:00.003+11:00

We've gone vertical in the garden this year with lots of trellises for the pumpkins, cucumbers and zucchini to climb up. And climbing is what they are doing! With all the rain and now sun they are growing at a rapid rate. The trellises are working well and I reckon they are a great way to grow rampant vines like pumpkins if you don't want them to take over all the ground space. Ours are nothing fancy - just some twine strung between nails in the fence and pergola for the smaller squash and zucchini, and thin wire for the heavier pumpkins like the Queensland blue (too thin and there is a risk of the twine breaking under the weight or cutting through the vines). The cucumber trellis is a gate that we found on the side of the road and we are even using the chicken coop as support for a pumpkin!

Gem squash - we've been harvesting lots of these

Trombone zucchini

Queensland blue pumpkin

Butternut pumpkin

Another Queensland blue on the back fence with some corn in front

Compost pumpkin (trying to encourage this one up the tree)

Can you see the holes in the the leaves of the bottom picture? This is the result of the huge hail storm that hit us on Christmas day. We actually got off lightly compared to some. Poor Phoebe's garden was completely trashed. :( LittleFB is very happy that we are growing so many interesting (and big) zucchini. In fact, he was so taken with this giant trombone zucchini that he wanted to sleep with it last night. We compromised and it spent the night on his bedside table, "as decoration".

How are your pumpkin/zucchini/cucs going this year?

Christmas sewing

2011-12-17T22:24:00.000+11:00

1, 2. Advent calendar
3. Christmas bunting for the kitchen
4, 5, 6. Gifts - Zip purses from this tutorial
7, 8. Another - Linen patchwork cushion (with a zip in the back - yes, I'm overcoming my fear...)
9. A doll for a neighbour's new baby using this free pattern

Have you been sewing anything nice for Christmas?

Harvest Monday Dec 12

2011-12-12T21:24:00.000+11:00

It's all been happening this week - lots of lovely veggies to harvest.

Clockwise from top left: very big beetroot, salad leaves and the first dragon's tongue bush beans, shallots and potatoes (unsure of what variety)

The shallots were planted out the front and did much better than the garlic. I was planning on drying them out for a bit on the porch - any suggestions as to how best to store them? We have actually harvested a lot more potatoes than those in the photo. We dug up one of the beds (we have 3 this year) and dug about 8kg of spuds.

We've been eating then in a variety of ways, but a favourite is to cut them into large chunks, steam until tender and then fry in a little olive oil, smoked paprika, salt, pepper and garlic until golden a crispy. Particularly delicious with some greek yoghurt on the side. We also made a version with sumac and garlic which were good too.

Happy harvests everyone! Head over to Daphne's if you want to see some more.

My creative space

2011-12-08T21:13:00.002+11:00

In my creative space this week I finished the the bike baby quilt. I've loved this project: especially choosing the fabrics which are a mix of new and recycled. I quilted it with straight lines, roughly 1/4 inch apart but I didn't worry too much about whether they were straight or not.

It's backed with some soft blue white and blue cotton (recycled pillowcases) and I decided to bind it in a green and blue stripe using the instructions in The Practical guide to patchwork which were really clear and easy to follow. The binding is machine stitched to the front and finished by hand on the back. It's the first time that I have done binding like this - for the doll quits I used the backing as binding - but it was actually quite straightforward.

I have found it really good to practice on a smaller size quite before I take the plunge and finish LittleFB's quilt which has been sitting waiting for a while now.... For more creative spaces, visit here.

Re-building the chicken coop Day 3 - It's finished!

2011-12-04T20:11:00.000+11:00

Fence looking much better after a coat of paint

Food and water supply

Lots of room inside for nesting

It's all done. Quite an improvement on the last version, complete with feature door handle, chalkboard sign and easy-access door for food and water changes. We even managed to plant an Apricot tree inside the run. All the materials were salvaged apart from the stain/varnish and we had a fun couple of days. A special thanks to our happy Friday helper Mr M and our lovely neighbours, the B's.

Rebuilding the chicken coop Day 2

2011-12-04T07:31:00.000+11:00

We made good progress today - today we just have to cover the run with chicken wire, make a door and add the finishing touches. And the chickens certainly seem happy inside their new home!

Re-building the chicken coop #3, day 1

2011-12-03T08:25:00.000+11:00

The last chicken coop that we built from the old fence has served us well, but it was starting to fall apart and now that we have discovered the fantastic source of cheap recycled timber in the tip shop we decided to have another go. As with most stuff that we build there was a design of sorts (sketched out in the pub the other night!) but we tend to make it up as we go along, making use of the materials that we have., or get from our neighbours (thanks Mr B!)

Yesterday was spent building the frame, cladding and getting the roof sorted then the whole thing got a coat of stain.The side design was an accident - we were just trying to use as many pieces of ply to fill the space- but I love it : I think it looks like mountains. The sign is painted in chalkboard paint, perhaps we can keep an egg tally or a note of which chickens are 'in'!

Today: cladding the back and sides,putting a door handle on, lifting it up into place, painting the back fence, trimming back a tree, planting an apricot tree in the coop and building the run. Yikes! better get on with it.

A gem of a Harvest Monday

2011-11-29T21:42:00.000+11:00

that's a really corny title and I'm a day late with posting my harvest for this week: the first potatoes, some carrots that have done surprisingly well in the clay soil and what's that green thing at the back I hear you ask? Why it's a gem squash of course ! (seeds kindly sent to me from Phoebe over at Balynoe Cottage). I hadn't heard of this vegetable before but I did a quick bit of research and found out that they are commonly grown in South Africa. It seems to like the Melbourne climate though - it has grown into a rapidly spreading/climbing vine with heaps of little fruit on it.

This picture (it's the vine on the left) was taken about 10 days ago bit it's doubled in size since then! We are training it up a trellis that we 've constructed by stringing twine between the two upright posts on the pergola - there is a trombone squash on the other side.

Apparently gem squash can be picked at any stage of their development - they grow to about the size of a cannonball - and the skin thickens up as they get more mature. This one is about golf ball size and I added it to a vegetable tagine. Yay for swapped seeds and finding new things to grow!

Veggie tagine (serves 2 hungry people)

1 gem squash (or zucchini)
2 large carrots cut into chunks or a bunch of baby carrots left whole
1 onion, sliced
2 sticks of celery
2 cloves garlic
5-6 small potatoes, halved
Tbsp preserved lemon, finely sliced
1 can tomatoes
1 can chickpeas
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 tsp ground coriander
1/4 tsp ground ginger
Salt and pepper to taste
Coriander/parsley

Put the onion and celery in the bottom of a tagine (you could also put everything in a casserole dish) then layer up the rest of the veg, finishing with the tomatoes. Add the chick peas and spices and give everything a light mix. Add a splash of water, put the lid on a cook for 40 mins either on a low heat on the stove top (give it a stir from time to time) or in the oven at 180C until the veggies are tender. Serve garnished with coriander and/or parsley with some couscous.

Cargo pants for active boys (Burda 9641)

2011-11-26T08:49:00.001+11:00

"Stand still so that I can take a picture of your new pants"

Well, that worked well. These are Burda 9641 and I used view B, the long pants with side pockets. LittleFB had picked out the fabric a while ago - he's keen on camouflage and anything that looks 'army'. It's a cotton drill and was easy to sew with. I made the size 6 and they just fit, perhaps a little too snugly through the hips so I'd make them a bit bigger in this area next time. I added the back flaps but LittleFB declared them "too confusing" so I took them off again*sigh*. The side pockets sit well and the stitched 'fly' adds some nice detail without having to put in a zip. It's the first time that Ive used a Burda pattern and did find some of the instructions a bit confusing. For example the pattern said to "baste then sew" many of the seams which didn't make a lot of sense to me, so I skipped the basting bit. I also didn't really understand the waistband finishing so I just turned over the raw edge and stitched close to the seam on the front of the pants. I'd make this pattern again - maybe in a lighter linen for summer with some pockets from the cool bike fabric that found it's way home with me recently.

Florida weave - how to do the weave

2011-11-25T15:14:00.002+11:00

I wrote a few weeks ago about setting up our Florida weave. Since then the plants have grown so much that I've added two lines of twine. I'll take you through how to do this here.

When the plants reach about 30cm in height, start your first 'weave"

1. Tie the end of the ball of twine onto the upright stake, about 10cm from the top of the plant. I always work from left to right but it doesn't matter. I also leave a little tail end on the string which will be useful later... I'm on the second line here using green twine so you see that I have started higher - the first line is the brown twine lower down.

2. Holding your ball of twine pass the string behind the first plant, in front of the second plant, behind the third plant and in front of the fourth plant. I have 4 plants in my row which is probably one to many. When I got to the last plant I passed the string behind again, and round the stake on the other side of the row. This diagram probably explains it better than I can.

Image from www.finegardening,com

3. Now it's time to come back along the row, 'catching ' the stem of each plant in between the twine as you go. So, make sure that the twine goes on the opposite side than before so the stem is held between the twine. Continue down the line until you end up where you started.

4. Watch out that you don't catch any flowers in your twine - you don't want them to fall off! Any leaves or stray stems can be tucked in afterwards so don't worry if some are outside your twine.
5. Make sure that the twine is taut, but that it is not strangling the plants - move it up or down the stems if necessary.

6. Cut your twine and tie the end to the extra bit that you left earlier and you are done! Stand back and admire your handiwork (or think about starting on a basket).

Repeat this every 20cm of so as the plants grow. You will probably need to keep them pruned so that there are only 2 or 3 laterals which keeps them manageable. Happy weaving !

Harvest Monday Nov 21st

2011-11-21T20:38:00.000+11:00

Buckets of broad beans were picked, shelled and frozen this week! We've had a great crop this year. We ate a really yummy dish at a friend's house which I attempted to recreate - broad beans with ricotta, mint and preserved lemon. It's worth double podding for this recipe - the bright green beans look lovely against the white ricotta and flecks of yellow lemon.

Broad beans - about a cup, double podded
1/4 cup fresh ricotta
5-6 mint leaves, torn
tsp preserved lemon, cut into strips
olive oil, tbsp

Mix everything together, season to taste, and enjoy!

The onion harvest this year was very disappointing, small bulbs and not many at that, as was the garlic. In fact I'm not even going to post a picture of that :( I'm not sure why - both were planted in well composted beds and we had plenty of rain. I heard at the recent food swap that some other Melbourne gardeners had garlic problems too maybe it was just a bad year?

Fortunately it wasn't the same story for the beets - we've got heaps of these, and more left in the garden. Good job as we all like them here, especially in a salad with feta and thyme or made into beetroot and quinoa burgers from this recipe.

And here is a little sneak peak of harvests to come... the first tomato. It's a "cosimo special" named after my Italian neighbour who gave me the seedlings a few years ago and from which I saved seeds. Can't wait!
For more harvests, visit Daphne's !

Rainy-day quilt

2011-11-20T22:01:00.001+11:00

It was cold and rainy here yesterday. What else to do but settle in for a couple of hours sewing. Instead of finish off any of my unfinished projects (of which I have many) of course I started on something new- a baby boy quilt for a friend who had his second bub recently. He's mad on bikes so when I saw this linen bike print fabric in Spotlight the other day I couldn't resist. The rest of the fabrics are, as usual, mainly op-shop finds, with a few quilting cottons thrown in. I followed this free pattern from Oh Fransson! which was easy to follow and the top came together quickly. I'm thinking of quilting it with straight lines, and binding with a green blue stripe. And then I'll finish my other projects.....

Spring garden - before and after

2011-11-19T07:57:00.000+11:00

With good Spring rain and warmer temperatures in Melbourne - it was 34C yesterday - for the past few weeks everything has been growing nicely so I thought it was time for some before and after photos. The three pictures at the top were taken on October 23rd and the bottom ones today, Nov 19th. That's 27 days for those who have a mathematical brain (I had to count on my fingers.....)

From L-R Potatoes (foreground) , broad beans (background); tomatoes; beans and carrots (foreground), potatoes (background)

Pretty impressive eh?! The potatoes have gone from just poking their heads up to knee-height bushes, the tomatoes are really starting to take off and the beans are starting to climb up their strings. I love this time of year!

Flea market finds - Nov 13

2011-11-13T20:08:00.000+11:00

We had another successful trip to the tip shop at the weekend. We went there mainly to pick up wood for the new chicken coop but let's face it, pictures of wood aren't really all that pretty so I'll spare you those. Mind you, MMSTL was very happy - we got a couple of sleepers as well as lots of other 'good wood' for 25 bucks. Here are my (hopefully slightly more photogenic) finds:

Retro lamp base, vintage pillow case and lovely wooden tray - $10 for everything. The lamp works, but needs a shade, I'm thinking a large-ish drum type, covered in some vintage fabric.

Patterns - some vintage. My list of 'things to sew" just keeps getting longer :)

For more flea market finds, pop over to Her library adventures

Doll quilts - finished

2011-11-12T09:24:00.001+11:00

The doll quilts for the school bazaar are finished just in time.

I'm not sure which one I like best. Maybe the colours in this one?

or the wiggly quilting on this one? (it's the first time I've tried this and it was fun).

I like them all! Hopefully some small people at the bazaar will too :)

A new dress for Spring - Happy Homemade Vol 1 (Dress C)

2011-11-07T21:28:00.000+11:00

This lovely yellow linen was an $5 op-shop find and was just calling out to be made into a spring/summer dress. I used a pattern C from Happy Homemade vol 1 which has recently been translated into English (still not brave enough to try these books in Japanese...). I made a few alterations: I cut out the size 8 but ended up taking in an extra 5cm at the sides, tapering into the arms and did binding instead of facing at the neck so that the contrast fabric (a vintage sheet that I just love) could be seen. It's an easy pattern - only two main pattern pieces so it was quite quick to put together. I especially like the large box pleat that comes off the front and the pockets of course!

Like most of the Japanese Dress patterns it is a bit tent-like so it works best with a belt, although I guess it might be OK worn loose with leggings. The neck could be a bit smaller - probably my fault for not doing the facing, but it's wearable and does makes me feel very summery, (or springy).

Florida weave - setting up

2011-11-06T19:42:00.002+11:00

Last year I tried Florida Weave as a way to keep my tomatoes under control and it I liked it enough to try again this season. It's easy to tie up the tomatoes and uses less stakes than other methods. I learnt a few things along the way which I will share here:

1. Use really tall stakes. Last year I started with smaller ones, thinking that I would add height later but this didn't work well and I just ended trying to stick more stakes in the jungle of tomatoes.

2. Make sure your stakes are really solid. This year we lashed them to a nail hammered into the edge of the garden bed on one side and on the other we put in a couple of star pickets to add strength. The reason for this is that when the plants grow their weight pulls on the stakes and unless they are really secure, they pull inwards and collapse.

3. Plant the tomatoes about 75cm apart and keep the plants pruned to two or three leaders (leaders are the main stems). Mine are still small but I've been pinching out the side shoots.
4. I planted 4 plants between each stake last year and this worked quite well so I'm going with that again. Three to four plants is a good number I reckon.
5. Use small stakes to support each plant until they are about 50cm high and then begin the weaving process. I was a bit too eager last year and ended up with a mass of twine from the base of each plant at about 10cm intervals - way to much.

Here's the tomato bed with the stakes in place. I haven't started to weave with the twine yet but I'll give you an update when I start. How are you managing your tomato plants this year?

On my mind... free bamboo!

2011-11-04T09:16:00.000+11:00

My neighbour has out-of-control bamboo along her fence line. Not good for her but great for us - she cut some down recently and I was quick to collect it, the plan being to build some trellises that we can move around the garden when needed. Bamboo is an amazing material (although the running kind is very invasive). It is very strong and light and, being a grass, grows incredibly quickly.

There is still a lot of bamboo left, more that we need so what is she going to do with it? Give it to the zoo of course! They come and collect it to feed to the pandas and elephants. Now that's good recycling.

Harvest Monday Oct 24th

2011-10-24T22:01:00.002+11:00

I planted the tomato plants out last week but we'll have to wait a while before I start posting about their harvest. Not that I'm complaining though. This week we picked another enormous cauliflower which I forgot to photograph but it weighed about 1.8kg. I did take a photo of what I made with some of it, a cauliflower cheese filo pie- yum.

The snow peas are still going.I used some of them and the first of the broad beans in a simple risotto.

Here is the start of the strawberry harvest, although of course with LittleFB around the strawberries never make it inside. But that's the way it should be.

For more harvests head over to Daphne's Dandelions.

What's new in the garden?

2011-10-23T22:07:00.001+11:00

We are trying to grow a few new things in the garden this year. These weedy looking plants are oca or New Zealand yams. Despite their namethey are not a yam at all, but part of the oxalis family. I bought 5 tubers from Diggers and planted them about two months ago into a bed out the front. You can see three plants in the front and one at the back, and a volunteer tomato... and lots of weeds. The NZ yams have a really long growing period - 9 months I think - and the tubers should be ready to harvest when the tops die down, a bit like potatoes .. MMSTL is excited because being a Kiwi he has a fondness of them. I've never tried one but they are supposed to taste quite nice, and get sweeter if you leave the tubers in the sun for a bit (it reduces the oxalic acid content which is quite high ). Has anyone ever grown these successfully?

We've also put in some berry bushes out the front, a jostaberry, a red thornless gooseberry. There is also a thornless blackberry that I got at the last food swap waiting to go into the ground. Ignore the random cabbage - I couldn't wait to clear the bed! We already have lots of strawberries planted under the fruit trees and they are doing great this year - the first ripe berries are just starting to come now.

Out the back we've put in a male and female kiwi vine. We need to build a proper support for these especially the female because apparently when mature the vine can produce up to 50kg of fruit. That's a lot of kiwis... I should confess to not having a very good track record with kiwi fruit. I've managed to kill three so far, but MMSTL is also very keen on kiwis (do you see a New Zealand theme creeping into our garden here?!) so we are having another go.

We also have some new dwarf fruit trees in pots: two nectarines, a each and an orange which don't have any particular nationality but MMSTL is keen on them anyway. Are you trying something new in your garden this year?

On my mind - sewing for the school bazaar

2011-10-21T08:33:00.001+11:00

I'm loving putting my fabric scraps together (some nice florals from the recent Vintage sheet swap, now closed) to make doll quilts for the school fete. I'm not quite sure what it is about making quilts that makes me happy, but it does. Find out what others have on their mind today at Down to Earth.

Op-shop finds

2011-10-16T20:42:00.000+11:00

I find Savers to be a bit hit and miss and their pricing is all over the place. Often items are priced really high, especially if they are 'vintage'. For example, I recently saw a fake fur jacket for sale for $150. It's an op-shop for goodness sake. So, I was pleasantly surprised to find a big bag of vintage wooden sewing spools in a whole range of pretty colours for $2.99.

I also picked up fabric; not for me, but for the school bazaar - I've volunteered to do some sewing. Still deciding what to make, but am thinking messenger bags and some doll/bear quilts with the vintage sheets. Anyone got any other good ideas?

For more flea market find, head over to Her Library Adventures

Harvest Monday - Pumpkin!

2011-10-10T20:18:00.001+11:00

No, I haven't moved to a different hemisphere. In fact only I've only just planted out my pumpkin seedlings but its true - we 'harvested' a pumpkin that had been in storage since April. It's one of the tree-dwelling Queensland blue pumpkins and it had stored beautifully for 6 months in a dark cupboardd in a cool corner of the house. We left the pumpkins on the vine until it died, left a long piece of stalk on each and left then on the front porch for a few weeks before we brought them inside. This one was the best, with no blemishes on the skin and despite changing colour from a grey blue to a orangey-grey the taste was still good.

We've eaten it so far in a spiced Indian Pumpkin dish from Madhur Jeffrey's world Vegetarian (picture above, yum!), pumpkin pie from this recipe (yum again) and there is still half left of the pumpkin left. I hope we have as much success this year.

Other, more seasonal harvests this week included lots of snow peas, cabbage, spring onions, herbs, the first of the broad beans, beetroot, carrots and cauliflower.

We had friends round for lunch and had fun cooking with some of the harvest - baby beet, mint and haloumi salad, spicy stir fried cabbage, quiche with broccoli and eggs from the girls, and steamed snow peas and carrots with walnut and coriander pesto. A very tasty spring garden meal.

For more harvests, probably also including pumpkin, head over to Daphne's Dandelions.

Tomato seedling update

2011-10-09T20:47:00.000+11:00

These tomato seedlings were planted as seeds about six weeks ago into paper pots. All but two of the 18 varieties germinated (Stupice and bush champion didn't want to cooperate) and a couple of weeks ago, once the seedlings had their first set of true leaves, I transplanted them to larger pots containing a mixture of potting mix, worm castings and compost with some sulphate of potash mixed in, to help with the fruit production, and watered the whole lot in with some seasol.

They are still living in the laundry at night but I have been putting them outside during the day to soak up some sun and harden them off a bit. I think I'll wait a week or so before I put them in the ground. Tomatoes don't mind getting a bit root bound - apparently it helps them fruit better once they are planted. I did plant this one though- husky red hybrid - because I ran out of pots so it will be interesting to see how it goes compared to the others.

So, at the moment I have about fifty seedlings in the laundry, WAY too many for us (although I am planning on growing about 20 plants) but it's always nice to have some extras to give away. How are your little tommy seedlings going this year? Have you planted in the garden yet?

Harvest Monday - bring on the brassicas!

2011-10-03T20:29:00.002+11:00

The brassicas this year have been mostly successful - check out this monster cauliflower and cabbage! These were planted at the front of the house in the bed that MMSTL dug out while ago. Before we planted the seedlings of these (back in Feb I think) we dug in a few bucketful loads of dirt/compost from the chook run and the plants seemed to love it. I say that the brassicas were mostly successful because we had no luck at all with growing Brussels sprouts. They grew to about 1m tall, taking up a heap of space, developed lots of tiny promising looking swellings up the stem and then about two weeks ago every single plant went to seed. Bugger. Not sure what we did wrong - maybe planted them too late and the warm-ish days we had a while ago just sent them into a spin. Anyone in Melbourne had Brussels spout success?

Anyway, not to dwell on the negatives, here is a picture of the cauli head on the scales - 1.2kg. A whopper as my Dad would say. I just picked it in time: you may be able to see in the picture that the head was just starting to break up. We had friends round for dinner and I made some curries so this found its way into a potato and cauliflower dish with mustard seeds, ginger, garlic among other things, based on the potato dosa recipe fro Stephanie Alexander's Kitchen garden. Yummy!

Shedding the shed

2011-09-26T22:30:00.002+10:00

I posted a little while ago about how our backyard has slowly evolved from a typical suburban block with a lawn out front and back to an productive space with fruit trees, veggie beds, chickens, water tanks and a worm farm. The extra garden beds have rewarded us with an ample supply of veggies, even through the winter but we are always looking for ways to squeeze in a few more square meters of growing space so over the past few weeks we have been working on the area at the back of the garden which used to house a large shed. First the shed came down.....

...behind which was a lot of dirt, concrete, stones and bricks and a really ugly fence. We used some pavers and pots as a temporary retaining wall...

... and painted the fence, until we decided what to do next. When we had a plan we dug out all the dirt and rocks...

...used some hardwood from the salvage yard to build a retaining wall...

And filled it in behind with some earth, compost, straw and manure as a sort of no-dig bed.

We also picked up a couple of benches from the salvage yard and potted up some dwarf fruit trees. And hre is the result: a completely transformed area with heaps more growing space. We've planted a passionfuit in the corner which will hopefully cover the back fence and plan to grow a summer crop of tomatoes and corn in the beds. It gets the morning sun too so it's a perfect spot for an early cup of coffee and a little bit of garden zen.

Stylish Dress book: Dress E

2011-09-23T13:08:00.000+10:00

For a while now I've been admiring all the dresses online that talented people have made from Japanese dress books, but my complete lack of understanding of Japanese and novice dressmaking skills meant that I haven't been brave enough to try them. But when I found out that Stylish dress book 1 had been translated into English I thought I'd give it a go. Here are a couple of things that are useful to remember when making patterns from these books:

1. All the pattern pieces are printed on a few sheets of paper so all the lines overlap which can be a bit tricky. You need to trace off your chosen pattern piece in the right size - fortunately the translated version of the book comes with Australian sizing and the lines were different colours for the different dresses. I used easy trace lightweight interfacing for this which was great to work with.

2. Seam allowances are not included so you'll need to add these. Usually this is 1.5cm but some pieces have smaller or larger allowances. It tells you in the instructions and I found I had to keep checking as I was cutting out the pieces.

3. The instructions and diagrams in the book are really clear but not as detailed as some other patterns that I've used so you have to do a bit of working out from the picture about how pieces are attached etc. There is also a fair bit of cross-referencing between patterns

Here's my first attempt at Dress E. The fabric was a sheet that I got at Savers for $4.99 but I liked the print - it reminded me of an Anna Marie Horner fabric (or maybe I'm just kidding myself and it actually just looks like a sheet). The black trim at the front was a bit tricky and I stuffed up a bit at the bottom but it's not terribly noticeable. I cut out the size 8 but the dress is way to big to wear without a belt, even though the Japanese models are all tiny and look good. Paisley tent is not such a good look on me, so I made a thin tie to go round the waist.

Here's me in the dress. MMSTL said that I should be looking pensive and holding a lamp or other household object like the lovely Japanese ladies in the book but I thought that would make me look even sillier, so I'm just doing the hand on hip thing.

Harvest Monday Sept 19

2011-09-19T20:21:00.000+10:00

Lots of lovely things from the garden today: the first cabbage, heaps of snow and sugar snap peas, some rainbow carrots, coriander and broccoli (we've picked most of the large heads now but the plants are still giving us plenty of little side shoots to enjoys.

With the cabbage, I made bubble and squeak for dinner - adding the cooked cabbage to mashed potatoes , a grating of mature cheddar and frying the mixture in a little olive oil until crispy on the both sides. I used to eat this when I was growing up and I still love it! We ate it with poached eggs and steamed peas with tamari and sesame oil. I made coleslaw too, with the carrots, cabbage and some homemade mayonnaise. The mayonnaise recipe was from Nigel Slater's Appetite and can't believe I haven't tried it before; it was actually really easy. I'm imagining more of this in the summer with steamed new potatoes, or green beans mmmmm.....

For more harvests, head over to Daphne's

Flea market finds

2011-09-18T21:01:00.000+10:00

Well, tip-shop finds again actually. We love that place. MMSTL got lots more hardwood for the new garden project (more on that later), LittleFB insisted on bringing home a 'real gold' vase and I found a few bits and pieces.

Vintage sheet - actually more green than it looks in this picture

Biscuit tin, a bit worn but I liked the colours.

And not a flea market find but a treasure nonetheless, the first roi de caroby pea flower. They are just so lovely in the garden.

To see other finds, head over to Her Library Adventures.

Harvest Monday and an award!

2011-09-12T21:52:00.001+10:00

I know, it's been too long since I've blogged. We've been busy in the garden, and I've been sewing mad - turning all my op-shop fabric and sheets into clothes and other fun stuff. Will share some pics soon.

As far as harvests go it's been all about snow peas, carrots and broccoli recently. Not that we are complaining - just look at this lovely garden lunch we had the other day. The hummus with fresh coriander and smoked paprika is a favourite and really easy to make.

And...I got my first ever blog award from Veggiegobbler. I'm very pleased. Not only because it's nice to know that someone actually reads my ramblings, but also because it gives me the opportunity to nominate some other bloggers that inspire me about all sorts of things, from sewing, to cooking to growing veggies. So, without further ado, here are my nominations for the award:

1. Duckeggblue at Humble Habit has simply lovely photographs and a funny and honest view on motherhood. Great recipes too.

2. I would not have been brave enough to bottle tomatoes in the Fowlers without Tayna's helpful tutorial at Suburban Jubilee who writes about simple living in Tassie.

3. Blogging again after a brief hiatus, Alison at Melbourne Seasonal Eating has heaps of delicious healthy recipes made with mainly locally-sourced produce.

4. Phoebe from Ballynoe Cottage is not afraid to embrace her inner plant nerd and I love reading about her little slice of rural-life in this part of the world.

5. Ivy Nest is a gorgeous blog full of stunning photos of Tania, her family and house as they follow a path to a simpler, less consumer-driven way of life.

So, there you go! The idea of this award, as a recipient, is to nominate another five bloggers with less than 200 followers. If you decide to do this, just follow these guidelines

• Thank the giver and link back to them.
• Nominate 5 others and let them know with a comment on their blog.
• Copy and paste the award to your blog.
• Have fun blogging

And finally, did you know that it is Free Money Day on Friday? Check it out....

Leaning tower of peas

2011-08-30T20:23:00.000+10:00

Our peas are flourishing this year. The plants are almost 2m tall and full of flowers but the trellis that we built to support them is, frankly, shonky. It was cobbled together from wobbly branches, stakes, some plastic trellis and wool. Wool?! What were we thinking?

The thing is we do this every year and only realise that the structure is woefully inadequate once the peas/beans/pumpkins have grown and we end up madly trying to put in more stakes and wrap wool around everything to stop them falling over.

Not any more.

MMSTL was a bit fed up with all of this and decided we needed a more permanent approach; one that would use all the vertical space in the garden.

A quick trip to the tip shop (try saying that fast 3 times) yielded some good long pieces of hardwood and we picked up nails, screws and twine in the hardware shop. He measured the posts and cut them to size then banged in long nails every 15cm along the length of the post. Then he screwed the posts into the fence, about every 2.5m making sure that the screws went into the parts where there were supports on the other side of the fence. Then came the fun part. Remember these 'String Art" pictures from the 70's?

It was kind of like that, except on a fence. We wrapped the sisal twine round each nail, in a zig-zag pattern, keeping it as taut as possible.

Viola! One fence-trellis for a total cost of about $15 and our very own piece of string fence art. I'm not sure how much weight it will support and we'll need to replace or restring it after a while but I hopefullly it will be fine for cucumbers, peas, beans and climbing zucchini. We'll test it out this summer.

More tip shop finds

2011-08-28T21:48:00.000+10:00

We went to the tip shop again yesterday. MMSTL was looking for wood for the new trellis (which he found) and I picked up a couple of vintage patterns for 50 cents each. They are from the 60's and will need some alteration for my size. Still, I couldn't resist - one even has a matching scarf! The tray will be good for all those breakfasts in bed (hint hint) and I found another old bone-handled knife, rather worn-looking but I rather like that. .

We also found these great old paint boxes - four in total - which we will use as planters. One has already been filled with strawberries.

For more flea market finds, pop over to Her Library Adventures.

Planting heirloom tomato seeds

2011-08-22T21:36:00.000+10:00

I usually plant tomato seeds around now. Over the past few years I have accumulated - through swapping, saving and the odd seed catalogue purchase - quite a few different varieties and, as I don't have enough space to plant them all the selection process is important. No, really it is.

Anyway, here is my 2011 /2 tomato list:

Beefsteaks
German Gold - bi- coloured beefsteak with orange/red marbelling
*Rainy's Maltese - pink beefsteak
Grub's Mystery Green - supposed to be a great tasting tomato
*Purple Cherokee - large, deep pink beefsteak, a favourite of mine from last season.
KBX - High producing, orange beerfsteak. These seeds were sent to me; haven't seen them in seed catalogues.
Red beefsteak of unknown name - good tasting variety that I got at the foodswap earlier in the year and saved seeds from.

Medium size salad varieties
*Lemon boy - prolific last season
*Tigerella - grew these 2 seasons ago. Lots of fruit.
*Green zebra - MMSTL loved these and the birds didn'tt. Also lots of fruit.
Stupice - early variety from Czechoslovakia praised for its flavour and excellent growth in short seasons

Sauce tomatoes
Cosimo special - from my Italian neighbour
Periforme - Italian heirloom, put these in too late last year and got a poor yield. Worth trying again

Cherries
*Tommy toe - loved by everyone here
Black cherry - rated very highly for taste. I was sent the seeds
*Katinka cherry - prolific sweet orange cherries
Yellow pear -saved seeds, nice shape.

Bush/dwarf tomatoes
Bush champion hybrid
Husky red hybrid

* I've grown these before.

I've also put in four varieties of eggplant and three of capsicum.

All sitting in their little origami paper pots in the laundry. Grow little seeds, grow!
What tomatoes are you growing or have grown this year?

Tip shop finds

2011-08-21T21:14:00.000+10:00

We paid a visit to the tip shop on Saturday and we found heaps of great stuff. MMSTL was very excited to find a big pile of bricks and a lawn edger - no photos of these because, well they aren't very pretty - but I did find some other lovely things which are photo-worthy.

Little cups

Vintage sheet, cafe curtain (love those pineapples) and pillowcase

Amazing hand- appliqued and embroidered tablecloth.

The tablecloth is just amazing, It must have taken someone hours and hours of work and I'm happy to give it a new home. All the fabric, two tablecloths, the cups and a couple of other bits and pieces were under $20. Loving the tip shop.... Pop over to Sophie's Flea Market finds for more pre-loved loveliness :)

Time to plant potatoes

2011-08-13T21:43:00.002+10:00

I tend to put my potatoes in at the start of August, or thereabouts which, in theory means that when the leaves appear in early Spring, all risk of frosts has passed. It's been a bit chilly in Melbourne this winter so here's hoping they will be OK.

We are growing two varieties this year - Dutch Creams from the local garden centre and Pink Fir from Diggers. These are seed potatoes which means that they are certified free from disease. I'm not 100% whether planting seed potatoes makes a difference to the crop (my Dad, for example. grew a massive crop of potatoes from a couple of supermarket bags of spuds)

Most of the potatoes were on the small side and had one 'chit' (the sprouty bit ) so they were left whole. You can cut larger potatoes into pieces so long as there is at least one good sprout on each piece. Apparently the chits should be dark and sturdy, and not pale and weedy like this:

These freakish looking ones were left over from last year and were ~~lost in the vegetable basket~~ stored carefully in the way that you are supposed to store potatoes. I planted them anyway just to see what would happen.

Each potato was planted in a furrow, spaced about 30cm apart with the sprouty bit pointing up and covered with soil. As the potatoes grow we will 'hill' them up with soil and other organic matter to (hopefully) increase the yield. And then we will eat a lot of mash!

Have you planted your potatoes yet?

Flea market finds

2011-08-07T17:17:00.000+10:00

A couple of op-shop visits in the past few weeks turned up these little treasures:

Thread for sewing projects - $1 a spool. Such nice colours.

Necklace made of (I think) pumice stones, $3.

Possibly 80's T -shirt pattern and a couple of metres of navy and white jersey fabric. I think the boat-neck version might look good in this?

Bone handled knife, sheffield steel. This was in the "three for $1" knife box. Unfortunately there was only one of these!

Linking up with Flea Market Finds at Her Library Adventures.

Finished projects - Simplicity 3835 dress and some cushions

2011-08-06T20:47:00.001+10:00

I finished the dress version of the Simplicity 3835 pattern (excuse the dodgy "in the mirror with the camera picture"). I picked up about 10 metres of this cheery vintage (?) green flower print for $9.99 from the op shop and was all set to try version A, the dess with the zip and gathered collar but I chickened out halfway through and went with the easier elasticated collar; so the dress is basically just a longer version of the top that I made before. This time I cut out the size 8 but used the size 10 sleeves and the fit is pretty good. I'm quite narrow across the shoulders so I think I could go a little smaller in the back and I'm still in two minds about the pockets. I like having them there but I'm not sure whether they make the dress look a bit apron-like. Think I'll live with them for a bit and see....

I also made a few patchwork cushions/pillows for our new (well, op-shopped) grey couch using the colourstory pillow instructions from the Modern Log Cabin Book. These were actually quite quick and fun to do: I picked 4 colour groups - green, light blue, dark blue and black/grey and alternated the strips in the order suggested in the book. Some of the fabrics were left over from LittleFB's quilt with a few vintage pillow cases and other bits a pieces added in. The best part of this type of quilting is that you don't have to be really accurate with the seams; my blocks ended up a bit wonky so I just trimmed them to size at the end. I quilted roughly in the middle of each strip in a continuous line going round and round, pivoting the needle at each corner). A great tip from the book is that it's not necessary to pin each strip, so I just lined them up, sewed, and finger pressed each seam away from the centre as I went - easy!

Harvest Monday 1 August

2011-08-01T19:33:00.000+10:00

August. Still winter in the southern hemisphere although for the past two days it would be easy to think it is Spring already with the temps reaching 19 and 20C. It isn't going to last, but we'll enjoy this brief preview of what's to come in a month or so. I shouldn't complain about our winter though. We rarely get frosts so veggies, selected carefully and planted in sunny spots, grow all winter long. I picked a few of my favourites for dinner tonight: cavelo nero (tuscan kale) and broccoli. It's the second year that we've grown the kale and as well as looking so pretty in the garden I love its dark green goodness, full of iron. It's perfect for adding to soups or just lightly steamed with olive oil and lemon juice or tossed through a walnut and coriander dressing/pesto. I have to thank to my friend for this delicious recipe which is also good on other cooked green veg and carrots. I'm not 100% sure whether I have got the quantities right so it might need some tweaking for your taste.

Walnut and coriander dressing

1/2 cup toasted walnuts
1/4 cup olive oil
Juice of a lemon
2 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
1/2 bunch parsley
1/2 bunch coriander
Salt and pepper

I think she also put sumac in it (I'll have to ask her)

Blitz all the ingredients in a blender or food processor until smooth. Use to dress lightly cooked veggies while still warm.

Colourful weekend

2011-07-31T21:21:00.000+10:00

This weekend was filled with colour.

Beetroot and quinoa burgers using this recipe. Delicious, filling and nutritious. We ate them with labne and salad from the garden.

Cutting vintage sheets and pillow cases into fat quarters for the vintage sheet swap over at Green Tea and Red Nails.

Playing on the lawn in the warm winter sunshine.

Multicoloured lunch with friends. Green broccoli and white carrots from the garden (with walnut and coriander pesto), green lentil and capsicum salad, twice-cooked eggplant salad and red salad with beets, tomatoes and red onions. Served with homemade sourdough bread. There was also pumpkin pie but I forgot to take a picture. It was good though - home-grown pumpkin, eggs from the girls, cream, orange zest and spices.

A new patchwork project from this book.

Harvest Monday July 25

2011-07-25T21:08:00.001+10:00

It's been ages since I've posted about Harvest Monday. The garden is actually pretty good right now, and we are picking something most days for dinner. Anyway, here is a round up of what's growing in our cold, damp Melbourne winter.

Daikon radish and turnips. These were grated and quickly stir-fried with some brown mustard seeds, ginger, coriander and lemon juice to go with Aloo-Gobi.

Rainbow chard, always so pretty in the garden, grows like a weed and is good for you.

Last of the capsicum, more turnips, celery and sprouting broccoli.

This isn't my harvest, it's from the food swap a little while back but it was too good not to share. Beautiful grapefruit, chokos (haven't tried these yet, anyone know what to do with them?), passionfuit, parsley, coriander, basil-mint, curry leaves and kale. Must think about adding some of these herbs to our garden.

For more harvests pop over to Daphne's Dandelions.

I heart op shops

2011-07-24T20:38:00.002+10:00

I meant to spend more time in the garden this weekend, really I did, but instead MMSTL and I re-arranged the kitchen and decided that we needed to fit a couch somewhere for lounging and socialising and the like. So we walked to the op-shop at the end of our road and found this.....

A perfect sized couch in near-new condition for $60.

We also found these funky, and comfy olive green 70's dining chairs to replace the worn out bum-numbing ikea ones that we had before. We scored seven of these for a great price especially as most of them are in near-perfect condition.

A vintage sheet (yes, another one but in my defence I do have some sewing projects in mind).

This funky plate.

And these leather boots - just in need of a bit of polish.

Because we only live down the road from the op-shop we borrowed their trolley to move all our treasures back to the house. Up and down the road, with sofas and chairs on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

The kitchen is now transformed and we have many more comfy places to sit. And I have a new pair of boots to wear to work tomorrow.

Linking up with Flea Market Finds at Her Library Adventures.

Weekend

2011-07-17T21:27:00.000+10:00

Baking sourdough

Fresh eggs for breakfast: the girls are laying again.

Admiring the pea flowers in the veggie garden

A new sewing project

Picking camelias for the mantelpiece

I hope you all had a lovely weekend, whatever you did.

Sewing Simplicity 3835

2011-07-16T15:36:00.000+10:00

I finished the quilt top and have decided to take a little break before I do the back and quilting. It's been fun but my eyes have gone a bit funny looking at all those squares. That's not to say that there is no more sewing..and I will finish the quilt soon, I promise.

Browsing the blogosphere I found some really nice versions of the top and dress from this pattern - like the ones here and here and was lucky enough score one from Ebay in the US. The pattern is out of print and difficult to find. In fact, I was outbid on the first pattern that I tried to buy but the nice Ebay seller emailed me and offered to sell me another one that she had because she knew that I wanted it. Yay!

This was my first attempt at making a top so I started simple with the View C, top but adding some darts in the back from the dress. I picked up the fabric from the op shop and I think I like it. Maybe a bit too curtain-like? I can't decide. Anyway, it came together OK, I took my measurements and cut out the size 12 which was bigger than I needed because I ended up taking the sides in quite a lot and it is still quite loose. Mind you, the sleeves fit OK. Next time I'll cut out the smaller size in the body part and leave the sleeves in the bigger size. the only other tricky part was getting the elastic through the casing. I didn't leave quite enough room and had to really pull it through with a bit needle. I enjoyed making this. Next I'm going to have a go at the dress but with the elasticated neckline - those neck pleat things look way too complicated for my newbie sewing skills! If you have made this pattern how did you get on?

Quilt progress

2011-06-29T07:39:00.001+10:00

42 blocks done, trimmed, pressed and laid out on my 'design floor' ie the lounge room (that's OK, we spend all our time in the kitchen anyway). I think I'm happy with the arrangement, there was a fair bit of swapping around to get the prints in as random order as possible.

Now onto stage two, sewing the top together!

Harvest-ish Monday and sprucing up the front garden

2011-06-27T20:21:00.001+10:00

Today is harvest-ish Monday because this bowl of beautiful lemons and oranges didn't come from my own trees, but rather the food swap that was on recently. I've blogged about this fantastic gathering before. This time we took along celery, asian greens and herbs and returned not only with the citrus but bread, olives, cake and preserves. We've been enjoying the lemons, especially the Myer's which have a lovely, sweet flavour, in tea but I think I'll have to make some marmalade or cordial to get through this lot!

Orange tree with plum and apple to the left

Hopefully in a few years we will be able to share our own harvest. MMSTL and I spent a happy day in the garden on Saturday doing some work. About a year ago he dug up about a third of the front lawn and put in a barrier to stop the couch grass invading. The front garden gets a heap of sun, even in winter so it's an ideal spot for edibles.

Dwarf apple under planted with strawberries

We'd already planted an orange, dwarf apple, donut peach Myer lemon and pear in that area and over the summer we grew a pretty successful crop of tomatoes, basil and capsicum. Since then though it had all got a bit weedy and overgrown so at the weekend we got the worst of the weeds out, trimmed back the large Camellia against the fence line and put in some meandering paths between the fruit trees. What a lovely day it was to be working outside too.

We bought a couple of new trees - a bare-rooted grafted blood plum (2 varieties on one tree to ensure pollination) and a tangerine. The deciduous fruit trees are under planted with strawberries which are gradually filling out and there are some other edibles scattered here and there - Rhubarb, a goji berry, fejoas and strawberry guavas. Still in the planning stage is a berry patch, I'm imagining raspberries and loganberries.....The idea is the front becomes a sort of edible orchard, the new paths totally transform the area and are a big hit with the kids too who can now explore the space more easily. Now all we need is for the trees to bear fruit!

Op-shopping: vintage patterns and (more) fabric

2011-06-19T22:29:00.001+10:00

I've found a few treasures recently. These lovely amber glasses and a vintage sheet. I like that the glasses are all slightly different shapes and thicknesses.

Sewing has been on my mind so I couldn't go past these vintage patterns from the 60's and 70's and a huge piece of green cotton fabric with white flowers ($7.99 from Savers). I'm thinking a skirt maybe? I made a little discovery in one of the patterns, this letter:

It's a rejection letter for a sales job at a Sydney wine merchant. It was in tucked inside the pattern that was dated 1968 and I wonder what became of the person who didn't get that job. Maybe they went on to be a sales representative somewhere else? Maybe they did something completely different with their life. That's one of the reasons why I find buying second-hand things so much more interesting. There is a story attached to them, perhaps not as obvious as this one, but I like to imagine how these items may have been worn, used and enjoyed by others and it's nice to be able to give them another home. Oh and I've recently found a great blog where people can drool over other fab op-shop (thrift) finds. It's called Flea Market Finds and is hosted by Sophie Isobel at Her Library Adventures every Sunday.

Starting my first quilt

2011-06-14T21:09:00.000+10:00

After a lot of procrastinating over colours and designs, far too much time spent browsing quilting blogs and a few practice efforts with small projects like these and this one, I finally started LittleFB's quilt. I'm using this free patten (thanks Fresh Lemon Quilts!) but in browns, greens and blues. I chose this design because there is a bit of randomness about it, and because the blocks are trimmed to size before piecing the whole thing together - which means that it should be forgiving of my wonky sewing!

When picked the fabrics I I tried to choose something that would appeal now (he's 5), but that he's still be keen on in a few years. The fabric is just georgeous, look at those little robots!. Most of it is from a mixed bundle from Fabricworm with a few other bits and pieces mixed in, and I decided to use a linen/cotton mix from my 'stash' for the neutral bits. I'm doing it the slow way, one block at a time so that I can get a better idea how the fabrics look in each block and it's coming together. 11 blocks down, 31 to go :)

Oh, and LittleFB is happy already. When I asked him whether he liked his future-quilt he threw his little arms around me and said "I love it". As if I needed another excuse to sew....

Harvest Monday June 13

2011-06-13T15:54:00.000+10:00

It's the queen's birthday today so we get a holiday here in Australia. I know that we are part of the Commonwealth and all that but I've never really understood why there is no such holiday in the UK where the Queen actually resides. Not that I'm complaining, it's been a nice day off.

Here is the today's harvest, a small but brightly coloured basket of beets and rainbow chard. I just love growing this chard, it brightens up the garden, grows like a weed and is really versatile. I decided to make a dish based on a recipe from Plenty. It makes a great, quick lunch or you could serve it with bread or even over rice for a more substantial meal. I usually use chick peas but I only had a can of mixed beans which also worked well.

Carrot, chickpea and silverbeet saute - serves 2
Olive oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
2 carrots, peeled and cut into 1cm dice or diagonals
5-6 stems of silverbeet or rainbow chard, stems separated from leaves and chopped
1 small clove garlic, crushed
Can of chickpeas (or mixed beans, Cannellini beans might also work here)
1 tbsp mint, chopped
1 tsp coriander, chopped
Lemon

Good olive oil and yoghurt to serve

Heat a couple of Tbsp of olive oil in a large frypan and add the cumin and carrots, cook for a few minutes. Add the silverbeet stems (not the leaves yet) and cook for another few minutes until just starting to soften. Add the chickpeas (or beans), and silver beet leaves and cook for another few minutes with the lid on. Add the garlic, herbs and season to taste Cook for another minute. Finally add a good squeeze of lemon juice. Serve with a dollop of yoghurt and a drizzle of good olive oil.

For more harvests, pop over to Daphne's.

Winter garden tour

2011-06-08T20:41:00.000+10:00

Don't worry, I didn't venture out in the garden today give then weather. These pictures were taken last weekend when the weather was beautiful and MMSTL and I spent a happy few hours outside dealing with the weeds and getting things in order. The garden has been very weedy this year, and we are battling with oxalis, an annoying weed that spreads with bulblets in the soil so it is a complete pain to get rid off. It's everywhere out the front garden and we've also found it in the back now :( It's very had to get rid off, so we are resigned to regular weeding (and swearing) sessions. Anyway, enough whinging. Here are the nice veggie pics....

Snow peas

Asian greens (Asian broccoli ,tatsoi and bok choi), broccollini, spinach, lettuce and rocket. These are all growing in the new bed that we built a couple of months ago. We dug up all the couch grass, dumped in the contents of the compost bin, covered with some soil and mulched heavily with lucerne. The greens seem to love it.

Celery, chard and broccoli in the no-dig bed. The celery in particular is doing really well this year with all the rain we've had in Melbourne.

Garlic (in the foreground), some beets, onions and at the back, Brussels sprouts and cabbage.

There is some other stuff growing too - carrots, turnips, kohlrabi (a first for me), broad beans and leeks. It looks like the weather might be a bit kinder to us at the weekend so there might be a chance to get out there again. In the meantime I'm off to put on another jumper and have a hot cup of tea!

Bad blogger...

2011-06-02T20:16:00.000+10:00

That's me. It's been so long since my last blog post that I almost forgot my password. I don't have a very good excuse, although I was in China for a few weeks where access to all blogs is blocked (as well as Facebook) and before that, well just busy.

So, I've got some catching up to do. The winter garden is going well and producing lots of green things: bok choi, tatsoi, broccoli, celery , lettuce and the green manure crop is about 20cm high. The weeds have taken over the front and need a good session to tidy things up, and I still want to get some peas and broad beans in.

As for non-garden activities, before I went away though I indulged in a little bit of op-shopping and got this great dress. It is perfect for winter layered with a top, tights and boots. I love the belt too. It's not an op-shop find, I got it from Novica which is linked with National Geographic and sells products from local craftspeople all over the world. They are based in the US but their shipping rates are really good. As well as belts and other leather goods, they have heaps of other things, including some really lovely glasses from Mexico and categorised by corporate gifts, green gifts and unique gifts.

OK, I'm off to plan the weekend gardening now...

Busy weekend/sewing frenzy

2011-05-01T20:19:00.006+10:00

It's been a busy weekend in my small corner of the world. The weather was just beautiful on Saturday so MMSTL and I planted out more onions into a new bed at the front that he made last week. Then I snuck into the house to do some sewing. I've been mad for sewing recently, especially patchwork. A few things about it really appeal to me. First, choosing the lovely fabric. I really like putting different colours and prints together, and have been busy building up a bit of a 'stash' of (mainly recycled) fabrics so it's fun to go through them all when I'm planning a project. Second I like the idea that I am learning a new practical skill which I think is important. Last I like showing my finished projects to LittleFB, MMSTL and my neighbours, all of whom make lots of appreciative "oohing" noises.
So, here are a few of my recent sewing projects.

Patchwork cushion

Cushion cover made from gifted fabric scraps (mainly linen) and some pillowcases from the op-shop. I made the pattern up, and did an envelope back - easy, no zips!

Patchwork pincushions

These pincushions are for LittleFB's school's Mother's Day fundraising stall. I can't claim credit for the idea; I saw something similar on Etsy. They are made from recycled fabrics (my Mum will recognise the orange and green apple one!), linen and doilies from the op shop with vintage buttons.

Quilted patchwork cushion

Finally a quilted patchwork cushion. The centre part is a kind of log-cabin block and I used some white cotton round the edges to make it stand out. I did straight line quilting using my walking foot, starting in a small square in the middle and working out. I used blue painters tape to mark the first few lines and then used the side to the foot as my guide. Once I got the hang of it it was quite easy. For the back I made some patchwork binding, using instructions in my I love patchwork book. I really like how it came out and now I'm one step closer to making a whole quilt!

Harvest Monday - April 25th

2011-04-25T20:19:00.000+10:00

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

2011-04-23T16:11:00.000+10:00

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

2011-04-18T20:44:00.000+10:00

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!

2011-04-17T20:37:00.001+10:00

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

2011-04-11T21:50:00.000+10:00

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

2011-04-10T19:18:00.000+10:00

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

2011-04-03T21:54:00.001+10:00

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.....

Harvest Monday - Thanks Mr Street-tree!

2011-03-28T21:04:00.002+11:00

This week's harvest Monday comes courtesy of the apple tree in our street, on my lovely neighbour's nature strip. I'm all in favour of growing edibles on the nature strip even though it's unclear whether it's legal or not (check out Veggiegobbler's post on this) but someone many years ago must have felt the same because the tree stands at least 5m tall and this year is laden with apples. The rainbow lorikeets have been feasting on them so at the weekend we decided that it was time to claim some of our own. The apples are reasonable - a bit sour for eating fresh and on the small size, but fine for cooking and of course, free.

Half an hour later with some help from LittleFB and his friends we had most of a laundry basket full. A bit of chopping and cooking later -I did about a third of the basket- there were two freezer containers of apple pulp and four sheets of apple leather going in the dehydrator. The apple pulp will be good for using in desserts (I like the look of the apple custard shortcake recipe from Out of the bottle by Sally Wise)

I added some honey to the pulp before dehydrating to sweeten and a bit of cinnamon . It's best not to use sugar as this makes the leather brittle. I might make some apple jelly with the remainder. Anyone have a good recipe?

So, yay from street fruit trees. I think every street should have at least one!

Harvest Monday - Parsnip-tastic

2011-03-22T18:50:00.001+11:00

Ooops, I forgot to post this yesterday but here is our parsnip haul - pretty good I reckon, especially with the problems that I had last year. The reason why there were all harvested at once is because I needed the space in the bed to grow garlic, and I decided that freezing them might actually improve their flavour a bit.

So, the parsnips were peeled any any big ones cut into pieces. Then I blanched them in boiling water for 3 minutes and popped them on a freezer tray. After they had frozen solid I packed them into freezer bags (a good tip here is to close the bag almost completely, put in a straw and suck all the air out before quickly sealing up the last bit) Now there are a a couple of kilos in the freezer ready to be popped in the oven for some roasted parsnipy goodness. For more harvests head over to Daphne's Dandelions.

We did it! We preserved tomatoes in the Fowler's!

2011-03-20T21:27:00.001+11:00

Yesterday our friends called us from the farmers market - they were thinking of buying a box if tomatoes and could they come over and use our Fowler's unit to preserve them? This was just the push that we needed to learn how to use the unit and also preserve some our tomato harvest.

They arrived today at around 11am, armed with tomatoes, two kids and a delicious lunch of bread and cheese. Between settling the baby and pulling out piles of lego and train tracks for LittleFB and his play-buddy, we set up the preserving station - jars were washed and dried, lids and seals prepared and cutting boards and knives laid out for everyone. I went online and found the 'written especially for me' tomato bottling tutorial by Tanya of Suburban Jubilee which was incredibly helpful.

What a nice way to spend the day. We chopped and packed the tomatoes into jars to which a little vinegar had been added, just to be safe. I know that this isn't done by everyone, but it's our first time doing this and we wanted to err on the side of caution. How pretty the multi-coloured heirlooms looked in the glass jars. We had a few spare so we did three full of apples and pears from yesterday's foodswap (more on this later).

The jars were sealed with new rubber seals and clean lids, and the clips fastened before they went into the Fowlers. After a couple of hours heating and some cooling time they are now all sitting on the bench top waiting to have their seals tested tomorrow. All-in-all a learning experience, and very satisfying to know that we will be able to open a jar of hom-grown summer goodness in the depths of winter!

Harvest Monday - Autumn abundance

2011-03-14T20:36:00.000+11:00

The kitchen bench has been overflowing this week. This time of year always brings an abundance of produce and it's very satistsfying to see such a sizable harvest, although keeping up with it all is actually quite a challenge - in the past week I've made: zucchini bread, two batches of tomato sauce for the freezer, zucchini and tomato risotto and a pumpkin lasagne. It's a good job I love cooking!

A mixture of heirloom tomatoes. Most of the plants are slowing down now but I reckon there are still 10kg or so of green tomatoes left on the vines. With the nice warm weather we've been having, and a sunny dry forecast for the week ahead I'm hopeful that they will ripen. Also in the basket are some zucchini from the never-ending zucchini bush which has provided us more than 50 fruit, and in the foreground some amaranth. I'll do a separate post on this soon because I'm so impressed with this hardy summer green. We've been eating it wilted in a pan with some browned onions and a bit of chilli and a spoon of labneh on top. I discovered this yummy yoghurt stuff recently and can't stop eating it. It's especially good with spicy beans or beetroot or on a curry.

Here is the last of the corn, more tomatoes, beans (blue lake, purple king and dragon's tongue), eggs from the girls and a pumpkin. You can see how the pumpkin has some dryness on the skin. This happened to a few of the pumpkins on this vine (which has almost completely succumbed to powdery mildew). Two of them split and were inedible. This one was OK, although the flesh was a bit dry. I roasted it and made a pumpkin and ricotta lasagna which went down a treat with the boys.

And here is a close-up of the enormous beetroot. I actually gave this to my neighbour as she makes a yummy beetroot relish (I'm just hoping she gives me a jar in return!). I hope all your harvests, big or small are make you smile and I look forward to reading all about them at Daphne's Dandelions.

A creative weekend

2011-03-13T20:44:00.001+11:00

We've been doing lots of sewing recently which I've been loving, especially as LittleFB has been really interested in helping. Here are a few of our projects:

This is Goosey Lucy from a free pattern available from thelongthread. She was lots of fun to make - the only tricky part was attaching the beak to the body Do you like the fabric? I couldn't resist buying a few bits and pieces in Spotlight the other week especially as the spotted cotton was only $3 a metre. I appliqued the heart by using that clever fusing stuff that you iron on and then went round the edges with a narrow zig-zag stitch. I reckon she turned out quite well - a bit wonky in the eye department but perhaps that adds to her charm.

Which one is the real cat?

LittleFB was very keen on making his own softie so I suggested that he drew what he wanted onto some plain fabric using a fabric marker pen. He drew our cat, Anastasia and then we cut round the outline, added a backing and stuffed the body. The legs were added separately, and she was finished off with a collar and sparkly button, all chosen by him. He's very pleased with the result and so am I even though she does look more like a mutant cow than a cat.

Next I put together a couple of fabric flowers using this tutorial from wise craft. These are actually really easy to make and require very little sewing. I sewed a safety pin onto some felt and attached it to the back so now they are ready to brighten up a jacket or bag. Endless accessorising possibilities!

Last a project that I did today with LittleFB and his friend. They wanted to make "treasure maps on the sewing machine" so this is what I came up with: they chose fabric and told me what shapes they wanted to cut out. then I did some dodgy sewing to fix everything in place. They were fun to make and a big hit - they spent the rest of the day using them to find treasure round the house and playing pirates.

Are you trying to lead a "simple life"?

2011-03-09T17:51:00.000+11:00

Over the past few years, I've been consciously trying to lead a simpler, less consumer-driven life. We grow food, cook from scratch, and I'm learning to sew. We'd rather spend time with friends and family hanging out on the porch than expensive nights out in the city and it is reassuring, through reading blogs from all over the world, to know that there are many others who choose to live this way too.

The Simplicity Institute has recently been set up and they are conducting a survey on simple living. Here is a bit more about it and a link to the survey. It's genuine and you won't get bombarded by spam if you provide your email!

The Simplicity Institute is an organization dedicated to research and policy analysis around the topic of simple living, downshifting, and similar lifestyles. This research is profoundly important as it touches the core of global problems such as climate change, over-consumption, work-life balance and a host of other social and ecological issues.

The Simplicity Institute's current research project is focused on people who have chosen a 'simpler' lifestyle, including changes such as reduced or restrained income, reduced consumption or reduced working hours.

If this sounds like you, then you are part of the most promising social movement on the planet. Learning more about people like you is therefore extremely important, so if you can spare 4 minutes to answer some quick questions then please do! As an added incentive, if you participate you'll go into the draw to win an exciting book package on the topic of 'simple living'.To learn more and help build a better future, click below:

http://simplicityinstitute.org/phpQ/fillsurvey.php?sid=2

Harvest Monday - March 7th

2011-03-07T21:34:00.000+11:00

We picked a few of the borlotti beans this week. I just love their beautiful pink mottled skins and the pretty pink and white beans inside. It's the first time that I've grown these and am pretty pleased, although I was expecting them to be a climbing bean. Instead they stayed about 30cm tall so they must be a bush variety. I got the seeds from Andrews Stockfeed, a great place that sells everything that you need for chickens, birds and pets as well as some seeds, straw and compost. Anyway, despite failing to climb up the elaborate string and stick frame that we built for them the beans are lovely. We cooked these in some stock for about 30 mins before adding them to some homemade tomato sauce which we all enjoyed.

I also harvested some corn from the front garden. The cobs were rather short and fat and not as sweet as the corn that I grew last year but still, corn from the garden - what could be better? We ate it with some leftover home-grown potatoes, beet leaves and garlic chives just fried in a little olive oil and served with some beetroot filo scrolls.

Making more softies...

2011-03-01T20:59:00.000+11:00

I had time this weekend to catch up on some projects that I had been meaning to get to for a while. In the garden I cleared all the dead leaves from the tomatoes and zucchini and had a bit of a tidy up. I also tied up the tomatoes into the florida weave that I've been trialing this year. Ive learnt a few things during this process which I will share in another post. On Sunday the weather turned rainy, perfect for some sewing.

LittleFB picked out this little guy from the Softies book and I made him over the weekend from scraps of op-shop and gifted fabric. He was fun (if bit fiddly) to make. LittleFB has named him 'Rocky' and likes him very much.

Harvest Monday - Feb 28th

2011-02-28T21:04:00.001+11:00

A few harvests to show this week. More tomatoes - lemon boy, green zebras, break o day the mystery orange and a red beefsteak and some basil.

More basil, It's been a great year for this herb with all the rain we've had so the bushes got a big prune at the weekend!. I made a jar of pesto with some of it and blitzed the rest with some olive oil and garlic and froze in ice cube trays. This way I can just add a cube when I need it, or add cheese and nuts to make pesto later on.

Parsnips, a little weird-looking (a bit too much nitrogen in that bed). I haven't made anything with these yet but I'm thinking maybe some parsnip and potato rosti?

And lastly a random mixed basket that collected when I was having a big clear up in the garden at the weekend: some green tomatoes that fell off when I was pruning, a funny-shaped cuc, some beets, some yellow zucchini and a couple of small carrots (and an egg)

I love this time of year in the garden when there is so much to harvest, it's very rewarding. The only challenge is keeping up with it all! I hope all the southern hemisphere gardeners are enjoying the your own late summer harvests. To see what other gardeners are up to, including many in the northern hemisphere, pop over to Daphne's Dandelions.

Tomato chipotle jam (relish/chutney)

2011-02-26T16:01:00.002+11:00

I've been wanting to make some tomato relish for a while but MMSTL isn't keen in it, although I'm convinced that I will be able to make a version that he will. I made-up a recipe last week containing tomatoes, onions, cloves, cinnamon, vinegar and sugar but it didn't go down to well. Not wanting to give up quite yet, I found this recipe which looked like it might taste more like his beloved chilli sauce. Actually it turned out so well that I don't actually mind if he doesn't like it - I'd happily eat the whole lot myself! It's quite sweet but with a lovely smoky warmth from the chipotles and a hint of ginger. Chipotles are smoked, dried jalapenos. I've had mine in the cupboard for years and I think they are more common in the US, but I found them online in Australia here. If you can't find chipotles, you could substitute some smoky paprika and some ordinary chilli powder or dried chillis. The original recipe has 8 cloves of garlic which I was planning to put in, but forgot. Tastes fine without though.

Making the jam was straightforward, the only really time consuming part was peeling and slicing the onions, which I did on my mandolin - with the guard on of course - the rest was just boiling time.

Recipe (adapted from French Tart's recipe on recipeshare)

2 kg ripe tomatoes (I used a mix of what I had - yellow, green zebra and red ones)
1 kg red onions, cut in thin half moons
250ml red wine vinegar
500g brown sugar
1 inch fresh ginger, peeled and chopped finely
10 Cardamon pods, crushed with the back of a heavy knife
4 dried Chipotle chillis, crushed in a pestle and mortar

Put all the ingredients into a large heavy bottomed pot and bring to a simmer. Simmer gently for an hour and them bring to the boil, boiling rapidly until the mixture is reduced, glossy and syrupy. Pour into hot steralised jars and seal. I turn the jars upside down when the lids are tightly on to steralise the top. I think that to preserve this properly it should be put in a hot water bath. I'll have a think about that. I prettied up the jars with some map wrapping paper that I bought for Christmas, just in case I give them as gifts.

Note: I checked the jars this morning and all the buttons on the lids had been sucked down so I think they will be OK. I'll probably store the jars in the fridge just to be safe though.

The evolution of our backyard or, how to fit in as many veggies as possible into a small suburban block.

2011-02-23T20:36:00.001+11:00

When I first moved into this house - a 1920's weatherboard (wood) house in the Melbourne's inner-Northern suburbs, it had a 'nice' garden. There was a patch of manicured grass out the front, surrounded by a border of roses, all mulched with red bark. See how neat and tidy it looks!

2008

Out the back there was another patch of lawn and a mix of shrubby natives, and some mature natives, including a bottle brush. I've always loved that we are surrounded by trees - there are some huge ones in neighbouring properties that attract lorikeets, parrots and a whole host of other native bird - but ever since I have been fortunate to live in places with some outdoor space I can't help feeling that the space needs to be used productively for growing edible things.

In the first year here, I stuck a few tomato plants in among the natives. They struggled. I didn't know much then about improving the soil and probably didn't water enough. Undeterred the next year I moved some of the natives and planted four zucchini and more tomatoes. Four zucchini? What was I thinking? We were overrun with the things!

2010

With the help of blogs and books I started to learn more, and over the next year - with the help of Dad and MMSTL - we cleared more space to use as veggie beds. We added compost and chicken manure to improve the soil, mulched with lucerne and pea straw and the veggies grew. By this point I was hooked and needed more space to feed my veggie-growing habit! We built a no-dig bed over the lawn and edged the existing beds in recycled wood and planted some fruit trees out the front. We've kept all the mature native trees. The bottlebrush is spectacular in spring and they also provide good shade in summer.

When MMSTL moved in, and inspired by the many productive gardens in our neighbourhood, we decided to make the most of the space out the front. I've always wondered why people don't grow more edible plants in their front yards. Sure, there is always the chance that they will get stolen but I think its worth the risk. Front yards often benefit from more sun too. We (ok, he) dug up about a third of the grass, put in a barrier to stop the roots invading back into the space and topped up the soil. It was hard work but worth it. Result? Tons more growing space and a much more interesting garden!

The back corner of the garden BS and AS (before and after shed)

Our most recent project has been to move the large shed in the corner of the garden. It was useful for storage but took up so much space in a prime spot . Instead we got a couple of slimline sheds that fit down the side of the house and took it down (fortunately someone was more than happy to take it away when I advertised it for free on Gumtree). It's amazing how much it has opened up the garden. We painted the fence, put a little bench there, surrounded by pots, planted up with veggies and herbs of course and now have a perfect spot to survey the rest of the garden and enjoy the afternoon shade.
There is still work to do: a wall to build out of reclaimed bricks and new garden beds to plant up - all part of the evolution of our little backyard but it's getting there, and we enjoy our weekend projects. The guy who came to pick up the shed was a concreter and remarked "I guess you don't need my services because it looks as it you are trying to turn every square inch of your backyard into veggie garden" Not quite, but it is certainly a lot more interesting and productive place to be than it used to be. So, anyone thinking of digging up some lawn - front or back - or the nature strip I say go for it. Make your outdoor space productive for growing food. Not only will you be reducing your food miles, it's fun.

Harvest Monday - Feb 14

2011-02-14T21:44:00.000+11:00

Yup, more tomatoes. Some new varieties to show off this week: an orange beefsteak variety that came from seeds saved from a mystery mis-labeled seedling that I grew last year, Lemon boy, Break O Day, Rainy's maltese, Cherokee Purple and Green Zebra. A couple of the plants aren't looking too good, but I gave them a spray with Lime Sulphur at the weekend and I'm hoping this might help. It's the first time that I have used this and the smell was pretty overpowering!

Melbourne had a few cooler days at the weekend and MMSTL suggested roast veggies for dinner. What a good idea. We picked potatoes, beets, and drumroll please... parsnips! My last attempt to grow parsnips, or rather harvest parsnips was a disaster. This time the seeds were planted in a semi-raised bed in much lighter soil so were much easier to pull uo. Like before, they lacked the sweetness of parsnips grown over winter, but they were tasty nonetheless. The root veggies were joined by some red onion, home grown garlic, thyme and lemon, and some beans and cherry toms were tossed in for the last 15 minutes. Delicious!

Preserving tomatoes

2011-02-13T21:38:00.000+11:00

It seems a shame to turn heirloom tomatoes into sauce, especially as they are delicious for eating fresh, and so pretty but the tomato bowl (all other fruit has been outed!) was overflowing, despite me taking in a selection to work for a much-appreciated tomato tasting.

I was hoping to bottle tomatoes this year. We picked up a second hand Fowler's preserving unit recently but first we haven't got around to getting any new rubber rings, which are essential for successful preserving and second, I have to admit that I am a bit nervous of getting the process right. It seems a bit complicated: getting the right acidity, temperature, making sure the seals are good etc etc. As they are a low acid food, tomatoes are easy to get wrong, and botulism is a risk (hmm, scary!) so I might need to do some more reading first. In the meantime, this batch of sauce is destined for the freezer. It should last a good few months.

The recipe, such that it is, involves sauteing a finely chopped onion and 4 cloves of garlic in some olive oil, adding 2.5kg of roughly chopped tomatoes, a tsp of salt, a few springs of basil and some fresh oregano in a big pot. Simmer for 1.5-2 hours until thick, then pass through a food mill.

I also dehydrated a batch of cherries and Principe Borghese, which are supposed to be the best kind of drying tomatoes. I'm going to dry them until they are semi-dry and then pack them in oil. Should be tasty!

Harvest Monday - Heirloom tomatoes

2011-02-08T20:00:00.000+11:00

These are some of the beautiful heirloom tomatoes that were harvested this week, Clockwise from top: A red beefsteak variety, no idea of the name (the seeds were saved from a friend's grandfather's crop); Rainy's Maltese, a delicious pink low-acid variety; Principe Borghese; Tommy Toe; Break 'O Day; Green Zebra which have a nice zingy taste; Purple Cherokee which are probably my favourite; and in the middle Yellow Katinka Cherry which, according to MMSTL taste "like a party in your mouth".

It is amazing how varied the tastes are and we've enjoyed eating them in their multi-coloured glory on fresh sourdough with some basil and just a touch of olive oil and salt. A perfect taste of summer!

Holiday time: how the garden fared when we were away

2011-02-06T09:51:00.004+11:00

Sunset at Lake Colac, Victoria

The weather this week has been crazy. Three days of hot, hot hot, hitting 40C on Wednesday and now over 60mm of rain in the past 24 hours - the moisture from Cyclone Yasi travelling down from Queensland. We missed the heat as we were on a little holiday down at the coast. What a wonderful time was had by all. We relaxed with friends, chatted, and ate communal meals in the evenings - some of the veggies brought from the garden here. LittleFB ran and ran on the beach, totally free. It will be my enduring memory of that holiday, his little feet darting in and out of the water on an empty stretch of sand. After the beach we went bush camping, the first time for LittleFB and he loved that too, especially cooking marshmallows over the camp fire. He's already asking when we can go again. We really enjoy camping too. In addition to being able to spend time in beautiful parts of Australia, often away from the crowds, it is a reminder to simplify, and to make do with what you have.

One challenge though, of going on holiday is making sure that the garden and animals are taken care of.
Fortunately we have wonderful neighbours who agreed to look after things in our absence. We assigned tasks to the older children - one took responsibility for feeding the cat, another the fish and rabbit and our friends fed the chickens and watered the garden. It certainly needed it on those hot days.

Many, many zucchini... and a cucumber

We returned to find a pumpkin climbing up the windows at the front of the house, a few kilos of ripe tomatoes, a collection of huge zucchini (we always called them marrows when I was growing up in the UK) and squash and lots of beans; the garden largely unscathed by the mini-heatwave. The one black jack zucchini plant in the garden has been amazing this year. It's about 3 metres long and been producing and producing for a month or so now. I spent yesterday morning trying to figure out what to do with them. I baked a couple of loaves of zucchini and cranberry bread (although I halved the sugar), and last night we had baked whole marrow stuffed with spiced rice. I made up the recipe and it was pretty good. With two still to use up, I might do the zucchini and tomato bake that I made last week, recipe from Veggiegobbler's blog (thanks, it was very tasty!)

What to do with a glut of apricots

2011-01-25T20:35:00.002+11:00

As I mentioned last week, my neighbour has an apricot tree laden with fruit and has been kind enough to share her harvests. My jam attempt actually worked out quite well. I used less sugar than the recipe, and probably could have added some pectin because it is a little runny but the taste is superb. We've been enjoying it on fresh baked sourdough bread and yesterday had some in an improvised trifle (custard, bananas and jam layered in a glass!).

I also tried the apricot paste/cheese recipe from Sally Wise's book, "A year in a bottle" It's got some really nice recipes for jams, pickles and cordials, as well as all sorts of useful advice on preserving your harvest. I think it might be on my birthday list.

The recipe was a bit more involved than making jam, although you don't have to do all the steralising of jars. It did involve a long time of standing by the stove and stirring, which I didn't mind, but you might not want to make it on a 40C day. I wasn't too sure when to stop cooking it, and I think it could have gone a bit longer because my finished product was definitely more paste than cheese. Nonetheless, a delicious alternative to quince paste and quite yummy paired with some goats cheese.

Apricot and citrus paste/cheese
1.5kg apricots, stoned and halved
Juice and zest of 2 oranges
Juice of 1 lemon
1 cup of water
Sugar

Put the apricots, water, lemon and orange juice and orange zest in a big heavy saucepan (I used my Le Creuset). Cook for about 30 mins until the apricots are soft. Pass though a food mill or sieve and return the pulp to the cleaned pan, adding 2 and a half cups of sugar for every 3 cups of pulp. Boil the mixture until the sugar is dissolved, stirring and continue to boil rapidly, stirring all the time until the mixture is reduced down (about 30 mins). At this stage you can stop and eat it as the paste, or keep boiling for a further 15-20 mins. Pour into greased, foil lined slice tins and leave to cool. Cut into squares and store between greaseproof paper (although I'm keeping mine in the fridge).

Harvest Monday - tomato time!

2011-01-24T21:02:00.000+11:00

It's all about tomatoes this week (at last!). The first ripe Cherokee Purple, a Break 'o day, some Katinka Cherries and a few Principe Borghese.

The star of the show was definitely the Cherokee Purple. Not only was it HUGE - weighting in at almost half a kilo - the taste was just sensational. MMSTL's parents came over for brunch so I used it, together with some of the other tomatoes to make a simple salad with some purple and sweet basil and dressed with some good olive oil and just a splash of basalmic vinegar, salt and pepper. To go with the salad I made some corn fritters from the first cobs of corn using a recipe adapted from Bill Granger. Really delicious.

First corn. Mmmmmm!

Corn Fritters
1/2 cup semolina flour
1/2 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/2 cup water
2 cups corn kernels, cut from 3 large cobs
4 spring onions, finely sliced
Oil

1. In a bowl, sift together the rice flour, flour, baking powder, salt, coriander and cumin. Add the egg, lemon juice and water. Mix until smooth.

2. Add the corn and spring onions, and stir until combined.

3. In a large non-stick frying pan, pour in a splash of oil and spoon 2 tablespoons of batter for each fritter into the pan.. Cook over medium-high heat for 2 to 3 minutes, until golden brown underneath, then turn and cook the other side for about 2 minutes.

4. Serve immediately.

This year I think the garden is the most productive that it has even been. Sure, there have been failures. The watermelon isn't looking too good and the chickens dug up my second sowing of corn but the zucchini, tomatoes, pumpkins, basil and cucs are all storming away. I hope all your harvests, big or small bring you joy this week. For more, visit Daphne's Dandelions.

Harvest Monday - Jan 17

2011-01-17T21:37:00.000+11:00

Well, there have been a lot of zucchini but I have already posted a lot of pictures of those, so instead here are some very large beets that I am yet to cook, but may be destined for relish. The lovely apricots are not mine unfortunately but from my generous neighbour (although we did have to go up the tree and pick them ourselves!) There must have been 4 or 5 kilos of them, enough to dehydrate a batch, make some fruit leather in the dehydrator, and start some jam.

The jam recipe comes from Delia Smiths Summer cookbook and is online here. It involves layering the fruit overnight with sugar and the juice of one lemon. I'm always a bit shocked at how much sugar goes into jam so I did cut it down a little bit, although I realise that this means that the jam won't keep as well. I'll update you on the results later on.

And finally, a taste of harvests to come. These whoppers are an orange variety from last year's saved seeds -they were labelled as Mortgage Lifter but I'm pretty sure that they aren't but they were just delicious. We are looking forward to sampling some of the green zebras and cherokee purples too.

On my mind... noisy wildlife in my backyard

2011-01-14T14:32:00.001+11:00

Image from here

Cockatoos... lots of them in the back garden, perched on the neighbouring fruit trees, squawking away. A lovely thing to see and hear first thing in the morning and a reminder of how important it is to share my backyard with wildlife. On my mind inspired by Rhonda from Down to Earth.

Summer diseases and pests

2011-01-13T22:41:00.003+11:00

Organic gardening certainly has its challenges. This summer there have been some new pests and diseases to deal with, as well as the return of some that I battled last year. Fun! Here is a list of what I think my plants have got, and how I have dealt with them. If anyone has better (organic) solutions, then I'd love to hear them!

White fly
These were all over the carrots and the lettuces early in the season. In small numbers they don't cause too much damage, but when their populations increase the leaves start to suffer. MMSTL and LittleFB tried to make some yellow sticky traps by painting some pieces of wood with yellow paint and smearing with vaseline but these failed dismally! In the end, a good spray of Natrasoap did the trick.

Spider mites
Despite my best efforts and regular sprays of Natrasoap, these have taken over the dragon's tongue bush beans. Like the white fly they do not cause too much damage at first, but when their numbers increase the leaves start to look pale and mottled and the plants suffer. I'm trying to control the spread of these with regular spraying, and perhaps the wet weather of late will help - they prefer hot, dry conditions.

Powdery Mildew
I think this is what might be going on with my tomatoes. Last year I had problems too when the leaves turned yellow and dropped off (possibly verticillium wilt) but this year I think it is a different problem. The leaves have developed greyish-yellow patches and some of the stems have a grey powdery substance on them. I've cut off all the affected leaves (and disposed of the carefully) and gave the plants a good spray with a home made fungicide that I found on the Gardening Australia website:

2 litres of water
Drop of vegetable oil *helps to fix the spray)
Drop of detergent (helps to spread the spray over the leaf)
4 teaspoons of bicarbonate of soda (the active ingredient - makes the leaf surface alkaline and inhibits the germination of spores)

Mix well in a sprayer, agitating regularly to keep the ingredients mixed.

Apparently this fungal disease thrives in humid, but not wet, conditions. The plants do look a bit healthier; I;ll give them another spray when it stops raining. I'll also give them a dose of Seasol which is high in potassium and helps strengthen the cell walls.

Cabbage white caterpillars
I only have one brassica in the garden (a rather forlorn looking cavelo nero plant) which is full of holes from these caterpillars. Unfortunately though they also have a taste for tomatoes and I've picked off a few big ones from the plants. Time for a spray with Dipel, which is an organic product especially formulated for caterpillars. I'll also be trying a homemade repellent made with garlic, chillies, a little oil and a drop of detergent.

Cherry pear slug
These are particular yucky - brown, slimy, sluggy - and they are not even slugs! In fact they are caterpillars and have really gone to town on the poor pear tree. They are also very hard to get rid off, despite repeated sprays of Dipel. Maybe it's time to try something else.

Harvest Monday - 10 Jan

2011-01-10T22:08:00.000+11:00

Look at this! I managed to fill the entire chopping board with this week's harvest. Clockwise from bottom: yellow button squash and round zucchini, baby lettuce, baby amaranth, beet leaves, bok choi, nastursium leaves and flowers and chive flowers, baby beets and lots of basil. I made pesto from the basil and the leaves and flowers went into a delicious summer salad. I love adding edible flowers to salads. Not only do they look beautiful, they taste nice and impress your friends who don't realise that flowers are edible.

The first ripe tomato (yay!) - Katinka cherry. The tomatoes are ripening much later this year. Last year I picked my first ripe tomato on December the 20th, almost a month earlier. Granted it was from a shop-bought seedling rather than one grown from seed like this year, but I guess the cooler weather in spring and early summer has impacted too. Never mind. Most of the tomato plants have quite a few trusses of green fruit and plenty of flowers.

More squash and zucchini . not quite a glut yet but I have started giving them away...

We weren't going to harvest potatoes but the chickens went for a run around the garden and dug them up for us!. The beans are a mixture of purple king and dragon's tongue.

And the smallest, but very tasty part of the harvest. Two blueberries. Needless to say, I didn't get a chance to taste these as LittleFB scoffed them both. It looks like the blueberry harvest will be disappointing this year though. The bush has been ravaged by some kind of bug and most of the leaves are a bit brown and chewed up. I'm hoping a good spray of Natrasoap will do the trick. I hope all gardeners who can't harvest at the moment are enjoying thinking about the upcoming growing season. For those who have garden bounty to share, hop on over to Daphne's Dandelions for Harvest Monday.

On my mind

2011-01-07T23:25:00.001+11:00

A stack of colourful fabrics from the op shop, waiting to be turned into something else: a belt, a bag maybe? Or I could just enjoy looking at them. Inspired by Rhonda from Down to Earth.

Harvest Monday - 3 Jan 2011

2011-01-03T20:41:00.000+11:00

The harvests are ramping up now. I'm picking zucchini and beans every day . My favourite so far are the dragon's tongue bush beans. They have a really nice, sweet flavour and are not at all stringy, and the colour is just beautiful. New this week are purple king beans, cucumbers (spacemaster and a bush variety) and pak choi. I'm especially happy about the cucumbers since last year I failed to grow any and the year before that I managed one! So, here are this week's harvests..

Blackjack zucchini and blossoms

Baby beets, bush cuc and more beans

Beans (purple king and dragon's tounge), garlic chives, purple and sweet basil, mint, wok bok and spacemaster cuc. This lot is destined for a cold noodle salad for my lunch tomorrow!

Carrots, button squash, zucchini, bush cucs, beans and pak choi

Kipfler potatoes and baby beets

For more harvests, head over to Daphne's Dandelions.

My, how you have grown

2011-01-02T21:12:00.003+11:00

At this time of year it's pretty obvious that stuff grows FAST, but until I had a look at some pictures from a few months ago I didn't realise just how fast. The unusually wet spring and the lovely sunny days we are getting now have made the veggies go nuts. In each of the pictures below the photo on the left was taken on November 10th and the one on the right was taken today - 53 days later

Climbing and bush beans, and zucchini

Tomato bed 1

Tomato bed 2 (back) and potato bed

And most impressive of all, the jungle down the side of the garden...


Corn and curcuibits (watermelon, pumpkin and cucumbers)

I love summer!

Too hot to garden. I'm making cushions instead

2010-12-31T17:52:00.004+11:00

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

2010-12-28T21:29:00.003+11:00

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

2010-12-27T16:23:00.000+11:00

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

2010-12-26T09:22:00.001+11:00

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

2010-12-20T21:00:00.000+11:00

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

2010-12-16T22:07:00.000+11:00

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

2010-12-13T21:21:00.000+11:00

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

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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

2010-12-06T21:08:00.000+11:00

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

2010-12-04T22:55:00.003+11:00

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.