Category Archives: Gardening

Berrylicious

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We have grown raspberries in two previous gardens. In South Australia we had a few canes but barely managed to pick any fruit as our dog at the time loved fruit and would help herself. Even the prickly stems didn’t seem to slow her down. At our last home in Queensland we did pick some fruit but the biggest problem was the actual bushes which spread rampantly and were a lot of trouble for the relatively small harvest.

When we moved here there was a small clump of raspberry canes against the back fence. I honestly wondered whether they would be worth the effort after our previous experiences. We had not made any decisions when, a couple of months ago, we suddenly noticed that the canes were absolutely laden with small green fruit. A couple of weeks ago we tasted a couple of raspberries but they were not quite ready. Today we picked the first decent harvest. 560g of fresh ripe raspberries.

Ice cream and raspberries for dessert tonight.

Raspberries are not the only berries around at the moment. There is a massive mulberry tree on council land in the middle of town so we and others have been collecting mulberries. It is a messy business and my hands have a distinct purple hue but it is worth it for the 5kg I have picked so far. About 800g went into making a mulberry and apple crumble for a BBQ dinner we had on the weekend. We got 12 serves from it and it was very well received. The remainder of the mulberries have been washed, destalked and frozen in 250g bags. I will check the tree again early next week and see if there are any more ripened.

Spring Blooms

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Today is not exactly spring-like – cool, grey and trying to rain.

However, the past month or so has been a delight to see spring flowers that we did not see when living in Queensland. I was excited to see the daffodils which I planted after we came here in bloom barely 3 months later. It seemed like almost every garden in town had daffodils. Some were neat clumps beside a fence and others were drifts of them and other bulbs under mature trees. I am looking forward to having some more next year. I also plan to plant some tulips, probably in pots. The tulips in the public gardens in Bendigo were a stunning display and yesterday I noticed that the Iceland poppies were in full flower. They are an old favourite from my childhood as are sweet peas which I have noticed in a couple of local gardens.

Meanwhile, I noticed this specimen in the garden today. It is lurking between the espaliered fruit trees and the fish pond so not the best location to show off these stunning flowers. I am thinking of relocating and incorporating it in my planned spring flower garden for 2024.

Garden Update

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It is nearly two weeks since my last post and I could make the excuse that I have been busy but that is not true. I have been well occupied and juggling a few different aspects and I have simply not felt enthused to write. However, I am back with a few blog post ideas buzzing around in my head so I hope there will not be quite such a hiatus in the foreseeable future.

Today I want to show off some of the progress we have made in the garden. As always, it is small steps.

The weather is slightly warmer, or perhaps ‘less cold’ would be a better description. Either way, the bulbs and spring blossom are in full swing.

I did not plant these daffodil bulbs until early June so they were a little later than many of the bulbs around our town which are almost finished. I am enjoying their sunny faces which are just beyond our back terrace.

While much of the blossom around town is ornamental, I am very excited by the flowers on our espaliered nectarine tree. If every one of those becomes fruit……….Yummo, in a few months time. I will keep my fingers crossed.

A couple of months ago we cleared out the remnants of last summer’s crops and I planted some garlic as well as cauliflower and red cabbage seedlings. I hastily covered them with some fine netting to protect them from any bugs.

Yesterday was a glorious spring day bathed in blue skies and sunshine so we spent a few hours out in the garden. The seedlings had grown enough that I really needed to create a better frame for the netting. I sourced some thin metal roads that we had salvaged from an old clothes airer and some irrigation piping that had been left by the previous owners and managed to create the perfect framework for the netting.

Here is a closer look.

Cabbages and garlic.

Cauliflower.

Some flat leaf parsley which GMan salvaged and repotted about a month ago.

Until next time.

Garden Notes – Getting Started

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For those of you who are interested in what is happening outdoors, here is a bit of an update.

While I have mostly been indoors due to being sick and the cold weather, GMan has been beavering away recently on numerous small but important tasks outdoors.

A sign on the side gate as a reminder to visitors. The small dog is not an escape artist but definitely an opportunist and we live on a major road.

The hose reel is mounted on the exterior wall.

The roses have been pruned.

When we moved from Maleny we left an area which hosted a wide variety of environmental weeds which thrived in the high rainfall, temperate climate. However, we have swapped them for some other undesirables. This time it is Red Valerian (centranthus ruber), quite a pretty garden plant which is self-seeding throughout our garden. It is rated as a moderately invasive environmental weed in Victoria so once we worked out what it was GMan set to work to dig it out of the many locations in our garden. We will need to be vigilant to remove any new growth but we are confident that we can keep our block clear of it.

There was quite a bit getting established in this garden bed.

It was also spreading quickly at the front. GMan also removed several shrubs from inside the front fence. We are still developing a plan for the large area at the front of the house but it will definitely include a new front fence at some stage once we work out exactly where the driveway will go.

In the Garden

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The past week has been full of activity which didn’t leave a lot of time for writing.

Lat week we had our first overnight guests as well as other visitors for lunch one day.

Meanwhile GMan has made a start on refashioning the garden a little. This photo shows the garden as we inherited it although the trees have grown somewhat. In fact they had grown so that much of the canopy was actually above the gutter. They are deciduous and as it is autumn (or officially winter in the past few days) much of the debris was ending up in the gutter. What wasn’t in the gutter was on the patio and subsequently being walked into the house.

So we agreed that these two specimens needed to go. This is the result. The next step is to hopefully dig the stumps out so that we can add some plantings more appropriate to the location and space.

Yesterday morning was a trip in the ute to the local rubbish dump to take a load of tree cuttings. The weather did not co-operate and this was the view. GMan persevered and had it unloaded fairly quickly.

We know that there will be more removal and renewal of plantings as we gradually decide on our preferences for the garden.

We would like to devote a bit more space to food production and some of this may be at the front of the house in the north-facing space but that requires some realignment of existing elements. In the meantime, we planted some broccoli seedlings this afternoon and rigged up some temporary fencing to protect them from the dog.

More Tomatoes

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Our garden is completely overrun with self-sown cherry tomatoes. Even after making a large batch of tomato sauce (read about it here) there are still literally hundreds of fruit ripening every day.

I now have several bags of whole tomatoes in the freezer. I simply wash and destalk the tomatoes then bag them up for the freezer. These provide a great alternative to tinned tomatoes for adding to casseroles and other dishes.

Another method that can be used is to puree the tomatoes in a blender (after washing and destalking them). This creates quite a watery mixture so I simmer it until reduced by at least half. You can also finish the process in the oven which seems to add some richness to the flavour, however, this is not an essential step. This is my version of tomato paste.

I spread the mixture into ice-cube trays to freeze.

Once they are frozen the cubes can be bagged up. This is 1.75kg of cubes which came from about 5kg of cherry tomatoes.

It is an easy matter to toss a cube or two when cooking for some intense tomato flavour without adding a lot of liquid.

I also use the tomato puree to make the tomato base for my homemade pizzas. I cook it to reduce even further and add some dark jam (Davidson Plum is my preferred jam but any plum or berry jam will do) and Tabasco sauce. This creates a rich, spicy sauce which we love on pizzas.

NOTE: I will write a separate post in the future with an exact recipe for the pizza sauce as I do not have the final quantities yet.

Replenishing Supplies

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We arrived home from holidays last Friday afternoon and in next to no time we were back into building up our food supplies.

Our kitchen overlooks the vegetable garden and I could a sea of red cherry tomatoes rambling everywhere. This, coupled with the fact that we had almost entirely depleted our stock of tomato sauce (ketchup) meant that this was a high priority on my ‘to do’ list.

The recipe for the sauce is here.

I made another batch of gluten free pizza bases. I make 6 at a time and freeze them ready for an easy meal.

Recipe for the pizza bases is here.

GMan got in on the act and restocked his homemade sourdough bread.

Finally, I picked a bucketful of Davidson plums from our tree (indigenous tropical fruit) and made what I regard as the best jam in the world.

I have included links to the recipes for the tomato sauce and pizza bases.

I will do full posts about the jam and sourdough in the not too distant future.

Also, don’t forget to check the recipe index on the blog. The link to the page is ‘Recipes – Food’ at the top of the blog.

Eggplant Everywhere

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For the past few years I have grown eggplant pretty successfully with minimal effort. In our climate it grows without supplementary watering, is generally resistant to pests and vagaries of the weather and, most importantly, the fruit mature gradually and I don’t end up with a massive glut of produce.

It is definitely a crop worth growing as they are generally $6.95/kg at our greengrocer.

I think eggplant are quite underrated. Here are some of my favourite dishes that I have made recently.

Roasted eggplant slices on a vegetarian pizza.

Ready to pop in the oven to roast.

The finished pizza.

Eggplant and Bean Curry

Sauteed eggplant and some leftover spicy chicken with a bit of tamari and served with cauliflower in cheese sauce. There is no photo of this one.

Eggplant often does not look particularly spectacular but I think it is definitely worth trying.

A New Garden

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There was an area on the southern corner of the house which had been a bit of no-man’s land. At times we had stored excess pavers and sheets of corrugated iron as well as some potted plants waiting to be planted.

A couple of moths ago I began working on cleaning up this area. Any remaining materials were relocated as were most of the plants. I decided to plant the aloe vera plants from multiple pots and edged the area with some rocks.

Then some cardboard to suppress any weed growth.

I had planned to put some mulch over the entire area, however, GMan suggested small rocks. There were plenty in our neighbour’s paddock next door as there was an enormous amount of rock and soil which had washed down from higher up the mountain during the recent heavy rains.

So I set to work.

That was a couple of weeks ago and then I was caught up in other jobs so it was put on hold.

However, this weekend GMan I spent several hours filling and moving buckets of small rocks to finish the area and here is the result.

I am very happy with how it has turned out. I managed to turn an eyesore into a low-maintenance feature. A definite improvement in my opinion.