Garden Share Collective - Colour

March has rolled around and Autumn has arrived.  The nights are drawing in earlier and we have had some heavy dews in the morning.  This month for the Garden Share Collective the focus is colour.  We are still desperately dry but fingers crossed the forecast rain arrives this week.  With a second dry summer the trees are changing colour and dropping leaves already.


The roses have been fantastic this summer.  As always I planted the garlic around in the main rose bed and got a reasonable harvest from that.  Garlic is considered a good companion plant for roses and is used to keep aphids away. Parsley, marigolds, lavender and thyme can also ward of harmful pests.

Late summer stone fruit is beckoning and I can't wait for the Blackboy Peaches to be ready.  I'm going to try them in the dehydrator as well.  It's been a fantastic purchase so far.

The bees have loved the borage and calendula that is dotted around the garden, and with more herbs being planted in the orchard it will help with future pollination, as well as attracting beneficial insects.





 

Short catch up this month as I was away enjoying family time over Easter.  We enjoyed 5 days of off grid living with no access to technology at the crib.  Bliss!



 

 



Garden Share Collective - Preserve

This month I am back into blogging and back into the Garden Share Collective.  I look forward to continuing to be involved with this network of likeminded gardeners and sharing in their experiences each month.  This month's topic is Preserve.

Coming to the end of summer Preserve seems logical as fruits and vegetables are running rampant in the garden and it is time to fill the cupboards for winter.  Apart from bottling fruit and making jam this year I have added a dehydrator to my arsenal.  When we had mushrooms appearing daily in the paddocks I took the opportunity to store some away for hearty stews and risottos.  Likewise my sulphite free dried apricots will be great in homemade muesli bars.  As the apple tree heaves with Peasgood Nonsuch beauties I will be turning to the dehydrator again to make some apple chips and if I can beat the birds to the pears I will try some of them too.

One of my favourite ways to preserve fruits is in liqueurs.  Fill a preserving jar with fruit, add sugar and vodka/gin.  Shake daily for a week, then leave for 6 months.  Strain and enjoy.  I have done some Damson Gin and Vodka this week and have plenty more fruit to do a couple more jars.  Give it a couple of months and I will be doing the same with the Medlar.  I have also made apricot and raspberry jam although I still have Damson jam left over from last year, as well as bottling apricots, plums and peaches.

I had always dreamed of a pantry full of colourful preserves.

Gardening with animals and children can be a challenge at times and preserving my sanity is something I am continuing to work on.  I have finally grown tomatoes so successfully I have more than we are eating!  I made some pasta sauce, and since I was so inspired I made some homemade farfalle pasta to go with it.  Some sauce did make it into a jar as well though!  I have grown a number of Heirloom varieties of tomatoes this year including Black Krim, Green Zebra and Brandywine Pink.  Once the fruiting is over I am planning to save some seeds as well to use next summer.

The glasshouse grown Brandywine dwarfs the outside grown Black Krim.

My forest garden project is coming along nicely with the purchase of a dozen herb plants yesterday.  I am embracing chop and drop mulching, and reading anything and everything I can find related to this.  Watch this space....

Garden Share Collective August

This year is whizzing by and already it is time for the August update for the Garden Share Collective.

Just when things seemed to be drying up we got another 20 mm of rain and everything turned to mush again.  The goats were marooned for a day and ducks reappeared in the 'pond' in the paddock.  We had been having lovely days, frosts in the morning and sun, and even a couple of Nor'wester winds to dry things up.   Some days have felt almost spring like and I had to shed a layer of clothing.  It certainly is hard to know what to put on in the morning!

I have had a go at making some apple cider, using apples from a tree on the roadside outside our gate.  It is a simple recipe so fingers and toes are crossed it is successful. 






I froze 1.5kg of apples for a couple of days.  Semi thawed them, chopped them in food processor, and put into 10L bucket with 5.7 litres of cooled, boiled water.  Leave for a week, stirring morning and night.  After a week, add juice and zest of 3 lemons and 1kg of sugar and bottle.

We have been having lots of apple crumbles too, and the windfall apples have been getting fed to the sheep, much to their delight!

 

 

I have been busy pruning the fruit trees and sorting out the berry garden, and purchased a Hybridberry and Boysenberry on sale to add to the collection.  The Hybridberry is a Boysenberry cross so it will be interesting to see how it goes.

 

 

Things are fairly quiet in the vege garden so I have been taking the time to prune my roses.  18 done yesterday was a good start and it's sunny again today so I should get stuck in and do some more. 

 

The jonquils, crocuses and snow drops are flowering, the days are lengthening and the mud is drying.  I'll enjoy it before the forecasted wintery blast on Thursday!

 

 



 



Garden Share Collective

The shortest day has been and gone.  Traditionally this has been the date when garlic should be planted and then harvested by the longest day.  It has been so wet here I have held off getting the garlic in the ground too soon but with a fine week things have dried out a lot.  I will be using some of the garlic that I grew last year, which has without doubt been the best garlic I have ever used.  It is crispy, juicy and extra tasty.  Can't see me ever going back to shop bought garlic.

I have been tackling the pruning of the fruit trees.  I have to admit that some of them haven't been pruned in the two years we have been here, and are a bit overgrown.  I have given an Apricot tree a stern talking to as it has yet to flower and it is well and truly established so it might need to go and make way for something else!

The currants have all been cut right back, cuttings put in pots with fingers crossed, and when I clean out the chook house, the manured hay will be put around the currants for mulch.

The hens are still laying and I have been regularly getting 4-5 eggs a day from 8 hens.  As they are all 2+ years old I am more than happy with that at this time of the year.  We have been getting some good frosts, so the girls are pleased to see me in the morning with their warm rolled oats breakfast. 

I have collected some hazelnuts and almonds and am looking forward to eating them super fresh. 

The hazelnuts have their catkins on for winter.  They are fascinating to watch as they emerge and open out.  Such a nice contrast to the naked branches.

In the next month I intend to have the rest of the fruit trees pruned, the vege garden cleared out  a bit and some compost spread about in preparation for spring planting.  Then again, it is cold so I may just stay indoors and read some other blogs from the Garden Share Collective.

Garden Share Collective

Another month down and another update due for the Garden Share Collective.  May saw me picking Medlars.

 Medlars are an unusual looking fruit grown on a small compact tree which has a lovely white blossom in spring.  I covered them this year and managed to harvest a lot more than in the last couple of years. I am looking forward to Christmas this year and the chance to indulge in a little Medlar Liqueur.  By then I will probably not still be breastfeeding, and if I am it will be maybe one to two feeds a day so a wee snifter at night should be ok.  The liqueur has a light fruity taste a bit like apple or pear.

Medlar Liqueur
500g ripe (bletted) medlars
500ml vodka
375g sugar
Place the medlars in a large sterilised jar.

Warm the vodka just enough to dissolve the sugar, then pour the mixture over the medlars and seal the jar.

Shake the jar each day for a week, then leave in a cool dark place for 6 months before straining and bottling.

As I make mine in large Agee preserving jars I had to make some modifications.
490g medlar (the jar full)
400ml vodka
320g sugar

The garden is heading for hibernation and so am I.  This past week we have had a really cold snap, with the first snow of the year on the hills.  We have had 4 hard frosts this week and a lot of sad looking plants round the garden.  The last of the tomatoes are ripening in the glass house so I will probably pick them green and let them ripen indoors.

The rest of the garden is quiet.  The broad beans I planted in April have come up, the brussel sprouts and kale are lethargic at best and the ground is water logged and cold.

In an attempt to produce some more greens my daughter and I are trying our hand at microgreens.  We were sent some Cabbage Rubies free with the Go Gardening Magazine.  We sowed half in a pot and waited.  The packet said they would take 4-6 days to germinate and by the fourth day they were up.  They are meant to be ready to cut at 2-3 weeks.  Ours at one week are looking pretty healthy so it is time to sow the other half of the packet.

 

 

 

Time to put the fire on and read gardening magazines and seed catalogues and start dreaming about spring.

Autumn antics

Another month down and another monthly report for the Garden Share Collective .  Autumn is definitely upon us with the trees turning beautiful oranges, browns and red.  All this mean the rake is about to get a workout as will I.  We have a lot of deciduous trees in our garden but it is all great mulch and adds essential carbon to the compost heap.  My Father-in-law has also been busy raking and we now have a large area of the flower garden heavily mulched with these leaves.

My kale is coming on and I have been picking leaves for my green smoothies.  My sprouting broccoli has been flowering so I think I am going to have to pick it quite small to avoid this.  The brussel sprouts are growing well although they have a way to go before they will be producing anything.

We are getting lots of Cherry tomatoes but I have to say the other tomatoes are doing very little.

The apple tree on the roadside is looking good and the birds are starting to take an interest so it must be time to pick some.

I sowed a couple of rows of Broad Beans the week before Easter.  My Mum always said they have to be in before Anzac Day so I am to achieve that.  I will probably put some more in as Miss 6 likes them and they freeze well too if we end up with too many.

As to my jobs from last month

• Clear more tussock grasses for compost area and berry/currant garden.  All tussocks from this area are gone.

Preserve Blackboy peaches - All done until next year.

Wage war on weeds in the vege beds - A work in progress.

I also want to get some mulch down on the flower beds to reduce weeds in the spring.  Thanks to my F-I-L a good chunk of the garden is mulched.

To do list for May

• Weed and mulch vege beds
• Sow some peas and more broad beans
• Harvest medlar and leave them to blet

Things are cooling down here with night temperatures approaching 0 degrees.  It doesn't encourage me to go and work in the garden when the soil is so cold. It's getting close to hibernation time.

It's raining, it's pouring...

 

Another month has flown by and it is time for an update for the Garden Share Collective.  Well the weather man was right. It is raining and is expected to last over the next few days. It has been a lovely sunny autumnal week and I am not complaining about the rain.  It saves me watering, although I had hoped to pick some Black boy peaches and do some preserving so I guess I will have to brave the weather to collect them.

 

 

 

 

In other happenings my coffee grinds do seem to be keeping slugs and snails at bay so my kale, brussel sprouts and broccoli might stand a chance.  The strange cold/hot/cold/hot weather has caused one of my broccoli plants to go straight to seed with the first shoot it produced.  It is a sprouting variety so hopefully I still get some from it.

The tomatoes are ripening well now on the Sweet 100's, and I have managed to salvage a few Peasgood Nonsuch apples that the birds did not eat!!

There is a good crop again on the Medlar tree and this year I have been more organised and covered the tree to keep the birds away and hopefully increase the amount of fruit I will pick in late May/June.  Medlar is an ancient fruit that has a lovely blossom and unusual looking fruit.  The other odd thing about it is that it needs to "blet", a process that basically sees the fruit start to rot, before you use it.  This year I will be making another bottle or two of Medlar liqueur (medlars steeped in vodka for 6 months), and also some cordial.  You can also make Medlar Jelly, in a similar way to Quince jelly.  I have made the liqueur before and it is delicious, like a fruity cordial but with punch.  It definitely has an apple/pear sort of flavour and is really yummy.  I'm looking forward to indulging in an alcoholic beverage over the summer as I'll probably be finished feeding bubs by the time the liqueur is ready.

My Mum has been keeping us in Courgettes after the slugs ate my plants.  My husband is not a big fan but I have discovered he doesn't mind when it is in a chocolate cake.  We have been eating lots, and I have also used the same recipe to make muffins which I have put in the freezer so the glut is not wasted.

I have been digging the potatoes as I need them.  Last year I cleared an area in the vegetable garden, spaced out some sprouting potatoes and covered them with pea straw.  I left them alone until now and we are enjoying some nice tasty potatoes.  It is the ultimate in lazy gardening but worked well as I was 8 months pregnant when I was planting them so I wasn't looking for anything too labour intensive!

In the next month I plan to continue work on berries and currants area.  I have been clearing tussock grasses in an area of the garden to set up my compost bins and also plant some raspberries and more currant cuttings.  I have been feeding the tussocks to the goats, much to their delight. 

I have a buck turning up on Monday to hang out with my 3 does for a while, so fingers crossed we will have kids in September.  We are borrowing a ram from my sister as well so we will be lambing about the same time as kidding.

My to do list for April

• Clear more tussock grasses for compost area and berry/currant garden.  This is an ongoing project as there are some Silver Birches to be removed before it will be completely finished but at the moment I am getting the compost sorted and taking some cuttings of my existing bushes.
• Preserve Blackboy peaches - fruit in syrup, stewed, jam, fresh in my tummy.....
• Wage war on weeds in the vege beds
• I also want to get some mulch down on the flower beds to reduce weeds in the spring.

How did I do for March?
I started digging the potatoes as we need them.
Hazelnut suckers removed and some hazelnuts appearing on the tree.
Cuttings taken and some more to be taken for berry/currant garden.

All in all not bad considering the month flew by and my bouncing baby boy is now 18 weeks old.

Garden Share Collective - March

This is my first post as part of the Garden Share Collective, an initiative where like-minded bloggers join together and share the happenings in their gardens.  It's a great way to share ideas, get motivation and encouragement as we endeavour to provide produce for our families.  If you are interested in joining contact Lizzie from Strayed from the Table.  Her blog is well worth a look, and also has links to the other members blogs too.

February brought with it 58mm of very welcome rain, and the promise of a bumper crop of Black Boy peaches. They have swelled noticeably since the first rain earlier in the month. The Golden Queen Peach is bare, and the Peasgood Nonsuch Apple and the pear have been attacked by some very hungry birds.  I have hung some old Cd's in the trees in the hope that will scare the birds....

Oops seem to be a bit lopsided!

I have spent more time in the vege patch in February, taming the wild jungle that had taken over in the months prior to the birth of our son in November. 

Currently growing in the garden are silverbeet, kale, brussel sprouts, broccoli, pumpkin, carrots, and beetroot.  In the glasshouse I have tomatoes, and a cucumber.

Kale, Brussel Sprouts and Broccoli protected from the chooks.

The Damson Plums have finished and I managed to get a little over 5kg of fruit.  This was turned into Damson Plum jam, vodka liqueur, cordial and a bottle of Damson gin for my Mum.

This month will see me

1. Resting the bed that had the Broad beans.  I'm layering various compostable materials and will let that sit over winter.
2. Digging up potatoes.  These were planted in a 'no dig' fashion with seed potatoes put on bare soil, then covered with layers of pea straw.  I am planning to plant my broad beans in this area in April.
3. Harvesting Tomatoes that are starting to ripen .  We have Sweet 100, Money Maker, Black Krim and an unknown variety from my Mum's neighbour.
4. Starting a new compost heap.  I have got coffee grinds for this as well as for snail/slug protection as I mentioned in a previous post.
5. Pruning currants/raspberries/blackberry, and taking some cuttings for more plants.
6. Clear space for a new berry garden.
7. Sow some more carrots.
8. Remove suckers from Hazelnuts.

I am hoping that by writing down these it will motivate me to get things done.  It can be a challenge in between caring for bubs, taking Miss 6 here, there and everywhere, looking after the animals on our 7 acres, and everything else an "Undomestic Goddess" does!  I'll update my progress throughout the month.