Flashback Friday

The Backyard & Dinner

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Posted on February 20, 2015

We have been lucky here so far because while we have had a lot of rain of the past 48 hours we have not lost power. There has been a bit of wind but nothing of any consequence so I am hoping that continues to be the case.

The rain eased off for about an hour this afternoon so I shot this video of our backyard ‘lake’. I was standing on the verandah.

The view at the beginning of the video is where the water comes out of the drain which runs under our driveway. It is not much more than a trickle when I took this but earlier in the day you could have white-water rafted from the top of our driveway to the rainwater tanks if you were feeling adventurous! While some of this water is what falls on our property, the majority comes from the top of the escarpment which forms the rear part of our property, via a couple of substantial waterfalls, then heads down the roadway until it reaches a low point – the puddle near the western boundary of our place and the neighbour’s property and thence into the lake.

The ‘lake’ exists because the driveway of the property to the east of us creates what is essentially a dam wall. In 2011 the volume of water flowing into our property exceeded the available space and overflowed down the road, damaging the surface and creating problems for properties on the low side of the road. Ah, the joys of living on the side of a mountain!

Enough of the weather and floods. It is highly likely that we will get more rain over the next couple of days but as long as we do not lose power that will be fine. I have plenty of sewing to keep me occupied.

At the end of the working week it is time for a quick and easy ‘takeaway’ meal. Here is one of the pizzas I whipped up with some home-made bases that I partly cook and freeze. A few things from the fridge and here it is ready for the oven.

And 15 minutes later, dinner was ready.

Do you have a favourite takeaway meal at home?

Foodie Friday – Keeping it Local

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Posted on March 15, 2014

I am sure it is still Friday somewhere – my apologies for the lateness of this post – it is Saturday morning here.

How do we feed ourselves? Food prices keep increasing, labelling laws are ambiguous, processed foods contain unfamiliar additives and food allergies appear to be on the rise. Add to this, a desire to eat organically-grown food which I believe is better for my health and the health of the planet and it starts to feel a bit overwhelming. While we are at it, the wasteful packaging needs to be minimised as well as transport costs, both monetary and environmental. Don’t forget ‘food security’ – the latest catch-cry. This is the ability for us, as a nation, to feed ourselves in the event of natural disasters or major changes to the world order.

Have you thrown up your hands in despair? Fear not. You can begin to solve all of these issues with a single action – grow some of your own food.

The Duke and I have a somewhat neglected but productive garden which sometimes surprises us with its bounty. We both work full-time and have minimal time to spend on tending a garden. We try to grow some annual vegetables but the real secret is in growing trees and perennials. We have an avocado, peach, fig and several citrus trees. There are blueberry bushes as well as self sown cherry tomatoes and pumpkins. The clump of parsley has been in one spot for so long that it has a stalk that looks like the trunk of a tree.

It may seem obvious but it is also important to eat (or preserve) what you grow. Do not let the harvest go to waste.

Keep your eyes open for food producing plants in your neighbourhood that are not being harvested. Don’t be afraid to ask if you may have some. There are many reasons that people do not harvest – lack of time, knowledge or health are but a few.

The last few weeks we have had access to the following (either fresh or frozen) from our own property or nearby – corn, blueberries, avocadoes, mangoes, figs, lemons, beans, pumpkins, and pineapples. At times I have felt overwhelmed by the excess on the kitchen bench but I have endeavoured to make sure it was used or stored for later use.

Last weekend I kept track of what we ate.

SATURDAY

Breakfast – buckwheat blueberry pancakes

Lunch – platter of cheese, cherry tomatoes, avocado, dried figs and mango chutney

Dinner – Salmon with mango salsa and vegetables – everything came from the garden except the salmon and onion which I used in the salsa.

SUNDAY

Breakfast – mango and pineapple smoothie

Lunch – Pumpkin soup

Dinner – grilled chicken with cherry tomatoes and mango/avocado salad

We certainly will never be completely self-sufficient but being able to produce at least some of the food that we eat goes a long way to addressing the myriad of issues that I identified in the first paragraph. Eating local food also gives you an appreciation for what is in season in your area. I really look forward to the new crop of things such as figs which have a short season. We eat them constantly while in season then it is but a distant memory until next year.

You do not need a huge amount of space and even though you could not grow some of the thing that we do in your climate, the reverse is also true. What do you grow?

The Production Line

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Posted on September 16, 2013

Having a productive garden entails more work than just planting, watering and harvesting the crops.

The next step is to make sure that the produce is used wisely. It is difficult not to have some wastage, especially when there is a glut.

At the moment we have an over-abundance of lemons and grapefruit and are doing the best we can to deal with them.

On Saturday evening, The Duke and I juiced and froze about 3 litres of lemon juice and a litre of grapefruit juice. Most of the lemon juice is in 1 litre quantities so that I can thaw it and make cordial when required. However, I did put some into ice-cube trays for those moments when I just need a tablespoon or so of juice. We have 2 lemon trees and it is only a rare time when there are no fresh lemons available but it is best to be safe and have some on hand.

You can also see more beans and carrots that we picked on Saturday.

What are you harvesting at the moment?

What a Weekend!

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Posted on August 4, 2013

Our weekends are usually full of activity at home because we are at work all week. This one was no exception and I have to admit that it is great to get to Sunday evening and feel a real sense of achievement.

Of course there are all of the basics to be done so I had 2 loads of washing done and hung out on Friday evening. The weather has been fine and dry for the past few days so the washing almost dried overnight. This meant that I could do the ironing on Saturday morning.

Our first job was to split and stack some more firewood.

We will probably not use the fire much more this winter so there is now plenty of wood split and ready for next year.

There was a huge pile of logs that needed splitting and they are almost all gone now. Just lots of smaller pieces to be sorted and stacked into boxes. It was great to get this done as we will be keeping the woodshed but dismantling the adjacent chicken house before long. That is because we a building a new run for the chickens.

The new chicken run has been a considerable time in the planning and preparation but now you can actually see some progress. We have dug the holes and set the 4 corner posts in concrete. There are another 4 intermediate ones done, too.

There are still 6 more holes and posts to do so we are hoping that the fine weather continues so that we can do them next weekend.

The garden is looking really good at the moment as you can see.

The lemon tree is groaning with the crop.

Vegetables are growing well. We need to have bok choy with a few meals this week before it completely overwhelms everything else.

The azalea is looking particularly pretty.

In between the outdoor work, I managed to do the shopping at the local Co-op, fruit and vegetable stall and Aldi as well as host some guests through AirBnB last night.

Here is a final shot looking down from the verandah of the area which will be the chicken run. There will need to be some re-arranging of some of the plants that fall within the area, although I think the mango tree will probably stay. This was taken late in the afternoon but you can see the peach tree on the left of the photo which is already starting to blossom. In another couple of weeks it will be in full flower.

All in all, it has been a fun and productive weekend. How was yours?

Crash!

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Posted on June 28, 2012

Last night when we got home we discovered that another large limb had come off the poinciana tree. The tree is close to our boundary and this has fallen across the fence and into the neighbour’s ‘paddock’ near the front of their block. Undoubtedly, the wild weather of the past few days has contributed to this latest loss.

There have been at least 3 other occasions where sizeable branches have fallen from this tree and we had decided that it really needed to go and were planning to have it lopped later in the year. This latest incident has forced us to re-think our plans and move them forward so I have contacted a tree lopper. He is going to come next week to give us a quote.

As well as having the tree lopped, we also plan to get it mulched so that we can use this in our landscaping. We have decided that we can better utilise the mulch than making more firewood as we really have plenty and this type of tree does not burn well. I am hoping they will be able to grind the stump so that we can then decide what we will plant in this area.

I took these photos today. You can see that I am very thankful that no people or property were in close proximity.

Shopping In The Garden

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Posted on June 21, 2012

This afternoon I went down to the garden and picked a bucketful of oranges, some mandarins, limes, perennial onions, grapefruit, chili and avocadoes as well as collecting 16 eggs.

Here is some of the haul.

Mandarins

Eggs

Ornages , limes, grapefruit, onions and chili in this bucket.

I set the oranges out ready to juice them.

These yielded 3.5 litres of juice and enough pulp to make 2 dozen orange and poppyseed muffins.

The juice is frozen in single serve (250ml) portions.

Here is the orange juice packaged and ready to freeze. Once it is frozen I will remove it from the containers and place in double plastic bags for ease of storage.

I took a pack of grated zucchini (from the garden last summer) from the freezer and made a zucchini quiche for dinner. While this was in the oven I made the muffins and a Lemon Delicious for dessert as well as roasting some sliced pumpkin ready to use on home-made pizzas tomorrow night.

The 2 grapefruit are prepared for The Duke for his breakfasts and the mandarins will be used in packed lunches.

The avocadoes are in the fruit bowl as they will take about a week to ripen.

I chopped the chili and onions and added to some cold rice. Lime juice, oil and pepper made a dressing to toss through the rice and we had this and some carrot sticks and sliced mushroom with the quiche for dinner.

I used 9 eggs in my cooking and am left with 34 in the refrigerator. Must be time to give some more away.

We are lucky to have a productive garden so it is important to make sure that we use what is available and store any excess so that it does not get wasted.

Don’t Forget the Peaches

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Posted on October 13, 2011

Most of the sewing I have been doing recently has been clothes for various members of the family but I have been doing other things as well.This bundle of fabric has been in my sewing room for a couple of years since I bought it at the op shop with the vague idea of using it to exclude fruit fly from the stone fruit. We have since removed the peach and 2 nectarine trees that we planted because, although they produced heaps of wonderful fruit the fruit fly infestation was just too awful to contemplate.

However, we did keep the dwarf peach as it seemed less vulnerable to attack by the fruit fly and also it would be easier to manage some sort of exclusion since it is a relatively compact tree.

I had hoped to use this fine mesh curtaining to cover the whole tree but that was not an option so I have been making bags to cover at least some of the fruit.

I sewed the bags and then threaded kitchen string through the mesh using a large, curved needle to make a drawstring.

The finished bag ready to be used.

Here is the peach tree and the photo below shows a close-up of some of the fruit. I hope I am not not late in covering the fruit. I do know that I will have all my resources prepared and ready for next spring.

Here are some of the bags in place protecting the fruit. I am looking forward to a harvest of unblemished fruit.

I have about 12 bags on the tree so far and about another 20 to finish making. Some will be a sleeve with drawstring openings at each end so that I can slide them over the branch where there are a lot of fruit along the length of the branch.

We are very lucky in our garden as we generally do not have extremes of temperature, frosts or long periods without rain. Too much rain and fruit fly are our only real challenges. What pests and hazards do you have to cope with in your garden?

Grateful For My Garden

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Posted on August 10, 2011

In the midst of all the turmoil going on around us some things remain constant, and for that I am thankful. We seem to be surrounded by uncertainty whichever way we turn.

It may be natural disasters of flood, drought, earthquakes and cyclones, the unrest we see in the traditional troublespots of the Middle East or less expected but no less traumatic violence seen in the running battles in London and other major cities in Britain.

Today, I was doing my paid work from home but I managed to sneak in an hour in the garden. I picked the beetroot and in its place I planted out 12 of the strongest bok choy seedlings which I have grown from seed. I usually buy punnets of seedlings as I simply do not have the time to dedicate to raising seedlings at the moment but this was an exception and they have been a great success so far.

I also picked other things from the garden and here it is spread all over the kitchen bench waiting for me to weave my magic and turn them into nourishing meals.

The pumpkin didn’t make it into the photo – it is already in the slow-cooker, being turned into pumpkin soup.

The garden does not get a great deal of attention but we still manage to grow quite a bit of our own food. I know that it has not been sprayed with chemicals, travelled halfway around the world, been kept in cold-storage or picked when nowhere near ripe. All of these things add up to real, full-flavoured produce which often bears little resemblance to their counterparts from the shops which are lacking in flavour. Apart from the obvious cost savings these are the things that making growing our own food worthwhile. We also have the knowledge that if ever things get really tough we could spend our days growing and preparing our own food to eat.

Although we have a small acreage, area we have for food production could easily fit into a good-sized suburban backyard. The only exception is the avocado tree which is enormous. Even if you do not have a backyard or are renting your home, there are many ways that you can grow some vegetables.

This is an old esky that the drain hole plug had broken as well as one of the lid attachments. I removed the lid and drilled some large holes in the base. I plan to grow some more of the bok choy in this, but more importantly, it will be useful for growing lettuce during the summer. I will be able to move it out of the hottest part of the garden and into some semi-shade when required and also put it under the house to avoid the lettuce becoming water-logged during our heavy summer rains.