More tales from the garden.

Look at this idyllic verandah. This is the very first house we rented when we moved to southern Tasmania. It was in a small village on the D'Entrecasteaux Channel. An old farmhouse on six acres with cottage gardens, creek, paddocks with grazing belties, apricot orchard and a beautiful old willow tree with obligatory tyre swing. Sadly, we only had a short time at this lovely cottage, in between old and new owners. But it did give us brown thumbed city slickers the chance to cut our teeth on looking after a big garden. I had never pruned a fruit tree in my life and got to hone my skills on on a whole orchard, whilst four months pregnant, (hope they're still alive!) and the massive cottage garden beds gave us plenty of practice in weeding. And seed saving. The garden was home to a massive amount of colourful spires of Russell Lupins. And I saved the seeds in brown paper bags and took them with me when we moved.
And here they today are in my garden, planted two years ago and at last showing their magnificent towering blooms. I sowed the seeds, watered and weeded the seedlings and built ugly wire contraptions over them so the rabbits wouldn't eat the little green leaves. Now looking gorgeous, not only am I amazed that I actually grew them, they also remind me of very special times at a very special place. Isn't that something?

Summer Harvest Part 2 - The apple of my pink eye

Here are the first potatoes from our very own garden! Wowee! Check them out. I do get pretty excited about the humble spud, in fact, Tasmania's delicious potatoes were a big motivation, for me anyway, to move here. Upon arrival I knew I'd hit the jackpot when the local greengrocer had eleven different varieties on sale. Eleven! And that's not including washed or unwashed. Sure, sure, the cherries, the berries and the apples are great, but it's the potatoes that rock my world. The little waxy yellow ones to be precise, like these here pink eyes. When freshly dug up, steamed and served with a little butter and salt, they are delicious. Nothing like what you buy in the supermarket.
Sadly potatoes, cooked in any manner apart from chips, are pretty high on the disgusting list according to my children. So I tricked them by using Nigella's recipes for fishcakes from How to Eat. For those who don't know, it has an incredibly helpful chapter on feeding babies and small children. They loved them. But by now I've realised I could crumb and fry anything and my children will eat it.

For the grown ups, it's a meal entirely from our own garden, some eggs, potatoes and garlic, (sadly too dark to photograph). Zero food miles. Sure it's a small step in the scheme of things, but it means we're doing our bit for climate change, one tortilla at a time.

School holidaze

I gotta admit, I'm running out of things to do these school holidays. I'm feeling a little drained and the creative ideas have run dry. It's lovely not to rush out the door in the morning, but yet, there's no denying it's hard work keeping the children amused. And still another month before school goes back. Oh what to do today...
...So in a flash of what I thought was pure brilliance, today we headed off to the local PYO farm. A gorgeous place in a secret little valley.
They only had raspberries today, so after being given a vintage pickers' bucket, we were pointed to the direction of nirvana. Rows and rows of lush ripe red raspberries. We have raspberries in our garden, but not enough to make any jam, so I figured a few kilos were in order. We picked and picked for what seemed like hours. For sure we'd have at least 4 kilos.
When the sun got too hot and the children started to look a little pink - and not just from the scoffing of raspberries, we took our massive haul to the farmer to be weighed, for which we paid the princely sum of ten dollars for 1.5kilos.
Boy it's hard work too. Miss E did a fabulous job before the farm's slippery dips beckoned, those steep cool old school metal ones, long banned by councils for being too dangerous.
So, that took up a good, oh, three hours. What's next?