Winter is here

Winter has come.  Depending on the weather it can be a balmy 20 degrees outside if the sun is shining, then down to low double digits or less if there's been overnight rain and the cloud is hanging about.  I've been working every second weekend and this weekend was my weekend off.  A chance to catch up on general house stuff, get back to the blog and into the kitchen.  As luck would have it, the weather was both sunny and warm and overcast and cool which meant perfect opportunities to get the outside and inside work done; even if it did rain just after we hung out the washing.

The chooks were well and truly due for a good clean out.  The Isas are so greedy they were even interested in the bucket of their own excrement!  Silly chooks.  They have been finding various hidey-holes in the grass for their eggs.  We were wondering if they'd stopped for winter - rather suspiciously all at once - until hubby found their secret stash of 13 eggs mid this week.  I try to leave an egg in one of the nest boxes but only one or two of them seem to understand.

While on the topic of chooks I have some sad news - It's been 8 days since my little cluck monster passed away.  I went out to feed the girls last Friday morning to find her lying on the grass.  She had no marks on her and not a single feather out of place which means I'm still at a loss to say exactly how she died - it may have been old age or perhaps lack of food coming into winter due to the bullying of the new chooks.  My main regret is that she never got to be a mummy chook.  RIP little Goldilocks, AKA cluck monster, fluffy pyjama feet, Little One, or as the neighbour's called her Mo.

Winter heralds the onslaught of the Colliwats; the first of which was picked today.  We were lining up for at least 20 of them until the Isas virtually demolished any of the vine that was remaining on their side of the fence.  Weighing in neatly at 4.5kg, this pumpkin is the biggest and first of the glut salvaged from destructive beaks.

Shortly after the pumpkin rescue the skies clouded over and rain was threatening to drench the newly hung out washing; which in due course it did.  Time to head inside and make even more of a mess of the kitchen.  I started with home made muesli bars.  You'll realise how much of rip off the shop bought ones are when you make your own, and also that they're probably not really all that healthy for you despite what the ads say.  In any case they are quick to make and a good pick me up if you need that sugar hit at work.  You can change the ingredients easily to accommodate your tastes or to suit what you have available in the cupboard.  These are raisin, mixed nuts, sesame and sunflower seed.  Dried apricot and coconut is also nice and I usually add pepitas but had run out this time.  I also use a little less butter than the recipe asks for (100 instead of 125g).  You can find the recipe here: http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/1457/homemade+muesli+bars  Do you make your own muesli bars?  I'd love to know what variations you use.  I'm keen to try cranberry and white chocolate some time.

Homemade muesli bars

Continuing my kitchen day I started a sourdough loaf of cinnamon and raisin toast.  For some reason I've been craving it all weekend.  It's possibly due to going a whole week without bread because I didn't have the time to make any last weekend.  It's funny that I've had raisins sitting in the cupboard for months and yet I've nearly used them all up in one weekend.

Sourdough raisin bread

The dough doesn't rise all that well on the bench in winter so keeping it next to the laptop air vent or in our lap does the trick!  You can probably tell hubby is helping out with this one today.  No doubt he'll ask for his dues once the loaf is done cooking.

While the dough was proofing it was time to try out one of Mel Kettle's recipes.  I'd been waiting months to find some tiny unopened button mushrooms and the time to put my mind to making this one.  I finally found some perfect sized mushrooms at the Rocklea markets yesterday and at $4.99 a kilo I was in there like a shot stuffing my reused paper bag to the brim.

This recipe combines so many my favourite things: mushrooms, lemon, vinegar, garlic, good quality olive oil and herbs fresh from the garden.  I can't wait until they're ready.

Lemon, thyme and garlic marinated mushrooms

When it's wet outside you have to bring the garden inside so I spent a bit of time preparing these asparagus seeds - some for the new place and some to give away at the next crop swap.  I know most people grow from crowns but the seeds germinate readily and mature fairly quickly.  I have a few tiny plants at the bottom of the ramp when I spilled some berries last season - read left them out so long they got knocked over into the gravel and rained on .  Please note the red berries are poisonous so if you have little ones make sure they don't pop them in their mouths.

Seeds - Aspargus "Mary Washington"

Now to tackle the mountain of dishes...

  

Whinny Poo comes around for tea

There are two properties around the corner from here that are home to horses.  Occasionally we see them ambling along the roadside and through the park.  It's a refreshing sight that contrasts with the trucks and traffic that pass by our house in ever increasing volume.  While we've appreciated their equine aesthetics for a while, it was finally time they contributed in a somewhat more substantial way to the garden.  We finally stopped on the roadside and dropped our honesty in the letterbox in return for two bags full of digested end products of what they once contained.  Thankfully its presence in the boot didn't pervade the rest of the car during the short drive home.

An old lace curtain was covering the compost pile in the yard for want of a better purpose; so now having one, it was used to wrap some lumps of horse poo.  You could similarly use an old sheet or pillow case to hold and filter the faeculent fragments.

Next step is to soak the poo parcel in a bucket of water for a week.  Then remove as much liquid as you need and dilute in water to the strength of weak tea.  I would suggest to avoid using it on root crops as it is fairly high in nitrogen and will make the tops grow at the expense of the tasty tap roots.  Finally, top up the water again and again until there is hardly any poo left in the bag.  Then top up the poo and start from square one.  I'm surprised how little poo is needed to make a fairly strong concoction.  A brew like this could be made with manure from any animal - sheep, goat, alpaca, cow even camel.  Plant material like comfrey or weeds that can't be composted can also be used.

Subtropical autumn

Traditionally we think of autumn as a time of senescence and bask in the glorious oranges and yellows that replace the sunshine as days get shorter.  Not so in sunny Brisbane.  Instead the skies shake off their stormy summer shroud and beam a brilliant blue; an entirely new set of plants flourish in the milder dry weather after muggy heat of summer.  It's one of the main growing seasons for the nostalgic British vegetables that we can't bring ourselves to banish from our plates in favour of their subtropical counterparts.

It's a gorgeous time of year to spend time in the garden so I thought I'd share some photos of a few new endeavours and old favourites in the garden.

The tea survived the summer and its blossoms have finally burst open for the first time.
Camellia sinensis

Asparagus berries (poisonous).  The spears grew over 6ft tall this year and are just starting to die back.
To me they look like baubels on a Christmas tree.

Tiny inconspicuous choko flower - I only discovered them this week.  It's the first time I've grown chokos and have to say they're not the rampant ramblers I'd been led to believe they were. Unless that's still to come of course.

Baby choko starting to develop in the leaf axil.

The Colliwats are back with a vengeance.  There are at the very least 10 pumpkins on this vigorous vine that has smothered the chook fence.

Cosmos.  Simple and white just the way I like my flowers.

Peas - snow, sugarsnap and telephone.  You can't beat peas fresh from the garden.  I'll never buy shop peas again.

Halleloofah (How to loofah)

As the warm weather fades and days become progressively shorter and cooler, some things in the garden lose their summer glory.  Others, such as the lowly lacklustre loofah, prepare to shed their skin and reveal their true purpose and inner beauty.  The first of these transformations took place at Colliwat Urban Farm today.  Grown from seed spilled by a previous generation, this vine grew in precisely the right place: in the new corn/cucurbit bed next to the fence.  

The cooling weather is slowly turning the skins on a few of the fruit brown so I thought I'd quickly show those of you who haven't done it how I process them for their next life in the kitchen or bathroom.

1. Take one browned loofah from the vine
2. Pull the round piece off the bottom
3. Shake the loofah to get the seeds out.  Dry them and save for next time you need to plant loofah.

4. Split the skin down the side and pull out the loofah.  It should be loose from the skin
5. Rinse with the hose or tap (it will be a little slimy)
6. Sit out in the sun for some natural bleaching
7. Think of plenty of uses for your new sponge - use in the shower, cut up for scourers...
8. Compost when you're done

Five new feathered friends

A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine known as Green Dean was wondering why on earth his chickens were squabbling more than usual.  Not to mention they were gobbling more feed down than ever before.  A head count soon revealed the suspected truth: five extra chickens!  Someone, somehow had taken it upon themselves to surreptitiously swell his flock of 13 to 18.  Now on acreage that may not have been such a bad thing, but on an urban block it posed a problem.  An increased feed bill, potential quarantine issue and introduction of infection or infestation was not a happy prospect so the chooks needed to go to a new home.  

I had been thinking of getting new chooks even before the loss of Wheelie about a month ago.  Declining egg production in my ageing flock meant we were nearly running out of eggs over winter, with the eggless period stretching for longer and longer each year.  The dilemma of ethics was what had delayed me increasing my flock thus far - to buy fertile eggs for the Cluck Monster and risk hatching a rooster; to buy sexed pullets or point of lay in heritage breeds; to rehome unwanted chooks from RSPCA and end up with more chooks without really solving the eggless period.  All this resulted in persistent pondering rather than decisive action.

Hearing of Green Dean's conundrum provided a solution.  He estimated the chooks to be less than a year old and he wanted all five to go together.  I had the space and was prepared to quarantine and feed them while they got used to my existing flock.

The new chooks not too impressed after their car trip

Alas, the sneaky chooks had other ideas.  After collecting them from Dean's I was running short on time so hitched up a fence in a corner of the existing chook pen with water and food and the shelter of a pumpkin vine.  When I got home from work however; I spied 4 out of 5 chickens roosting in the cage!  The only one that hadn't escaped was Hopscotch - the chook with a limp.  She gets around alright and can run on her leg which appears to be slowly improving but the height must hurt her to jump down so she was contentedly sleeping in a corner of the pen dreaming of the day when she too would escape to the greener pastures on the other side.

Quarantine aside, the only problem with the whole flock escaping has meant that the five of them now gang up on my existing 3 chooks when it comes to food time.  They are slowly starting to integrate with my 3 now beginning to challenge Hopscotch for food but the two flocks stay separate during the day. Although one of the five laid an egg while I was collecting them, we have yet to find any more.  Perhaps once they're settled in and finished their moult we will have eggs again.

Here's hopscotch - she's a little darker than the others

Feathers McGraw (after the penguin in The Wrong Trousers) Her comb extends over her head making it look a bit like she's an imposter with a rubber glove stuck on her head

The three below have yet to be named - let me know if you have any suggestions.  They are all Isa Browns and a bit hard to tell apart as you can see.

Sanctuary in the City Botanic Gardens

I loathe the city; the noise, the smell, the crazy-eyed zombie shoppers, the traffic and the cigarette smoke has me close to conniptions.  At some point in time; however, it's the only place that things are available and a trip to the city becomes requisite.  Alas, Thursday was one of those days and a survival plan was in order:

1. Write a list of everything that needs to be done or purchased in the city so you don't have to go back for another six months
2. Plan a lunch meeting with hubby (who, poor thing, has to work there) so there's something to look forward to for the both of you
3. Catch the bus - this avoids using the car, helps decrease traffic and keeps you sane because you then don't have to negotiate surprise one way streets and the dreaded infestation of peak hour traffic
4. Meet with someone who knows the city fairly well so they can direct you
5. Plan an afternoon in the City Botanic Gardens to reassure yourself that the entire world hasn't been engulfed in a concrete and glass tsunami and to cleanse your lungs of the grit and grime

I won't elaborate on steps 1-4 as there's not much to tell.  They did their part in keeping me on track and sane.  Step 5 turned out to be one of the most interesting and informative afternoons I've had in the city since school excursions.

The council runs free volunteer guided tours of the City Botanic Gardens on a twice daily basis.  The guides are dedicated to the history and plants in the garden.  Being a weekday, the small tour group comprised two guides, a trainee guide and myself (running a tad late as usual).  I was immersed in a wealth of botanical, cultural and historical knowledge while exploring the gardens.  As you can see I had a very hard time culling the myriad photos.  There was so much to see so I recommend embarking on a tour if you've ever got a free day in the city and need to escape the consuming hordes.

Elephant apple blossom and tree (Dillenia indica).
he fruit pulp is edible and used in curries and chutney.

Elephant tree

The characteristic twisted appearance of the blue quondong (Elaeocarpus angustifolius).
Unfortunately they had finished fruiting.

Ficus sycomorus - yes this is the tree you may have read about Zacchaeus climbing.
It produces funny projections on its branches that fruit at the tips which are edible.

Flood markers from 1974 and 2011

Times are a-changing.
This is a green manure crop (lablab) that the gardeners will dig in before the spring planting.

The first ever commercially planted Macadamia (integrifolia).
It still produces a crop after more than 100 years.

Kapok tree (Ceiba pentandra)
The cottony lining of the seeds pods was used in mattresses as a down substitute until synthetics came along.

Ginkgo biloba

Lady's slipper vine planted to commemorate the volunteer guides (past and present)
(Thunbergia mysorensis)

Tipuana tipu
Did you play with the seeds as helicopters when you were little?

Water fountain added by Walter Hill once Brisbane had reticulated water

Logwood tree (Haematoxylum campechianum)
If you've ever done science or histology  you'll be interested to know the blue dye is derived from the heartwood of this tree.

Tamarind flowers

Davidson's Plum  - I love tart foods so this was a hit with me, not so much for the guide.

Davidson's Plum (Davidsonia ?sp)

Qld Kauri (Agathis robusta) and robust it is!

Male cycad flower

Coral dredged from Moreton Bay - it's amazing to think there was once reef there.

 

Bunya "pine"
(Araucaria bidwillii)

A Japanese lantern donated a second time after the first was vandalised.

Loafer turned loafer

Cobber's first cob - sourdough of course

I've started evening and night shifts this week so after a little pleading hubby attempted his first ever hand-made sourdough loaf all on his own.  He was surprised how easy it was to make and that he could actually turn out something edible with fairly little effort.  Admitting this was fatal error number one because now he really has no excuses when it comes to making another loaf.  It's been great being able to sleep and still eat well after a night shift.  Luckily for him I do enjoy making bread so I won't be recruiting his help too often.

Domestic diablerie

The first two lemons on the tree are slowly turning yellow so I've been dreaming of all the ways I could employ their wonderful juiciness.  For my prized first lemons it will most likely involve consumption of a culinary kind but I thought I'd share with you another use for when (I'm still dreaming) my tree is laden with fruit and the happy yellow of another lemon drives me to delirium.  By this stage I imagine all I'll be wanting to do is shove lemons down the toilet in order to banish them from my sight so they may as well prove practical on the way:

I've found lemons are a boon in the bathroom and when combined with bicarb results in a kind of arcane alchemy with fantastic fizzing and foaming.  The alternative is vinegar but I find that lemons give an extra clean, bright scent to the bathroom.  To clean the toilet simply cut a lemon in half and rub it over the inside of the bowl, squeezing it to release the juice.  Give it a good wringing at the end to get the rest of the juice out and if the lemon isn't particularly juicy, use both halves.  Next sprinkle a good dose of bicarb around the bowl.  This is when the fizzing and foaming will commence.  If you find your foaming insufficient, try squeezing a bit more lemon around, then tilt your head back and cackle like a witch as your domestic diablerie comes to fruition.  Then sadly it's time to return to the reality that the bowl you are staring into is that of a toilet instead of a cauldron.  Clean the toilet with the brush as usual and sigh.   With any luck your partner will have heard you and will gladly volunteer to do it for you next time lest your departure from reality becomes rather prolonged.  There you are: simple, effective and you know exactly what the ingredients were and you don't end up with horrible warty looking blisters all over your hands as your contact dermatitis sets in from who-knows-what was in that bottle of cleaning solution, making you actually look like a gnarled-handed witch or wizard.

Lemon juice is also good for chasing away the calcium build up around taps.  Rub the inside of the lemon half on the build up and walk away for 5 mins.  Upon your return (or sooner if you were enjoying a lovely long tea infused interlude) it will have magically disappeared.  After dispensing far too much elbow grease on this issue I was so relieved when I found out about this little trick.  Now my elbows can keep their oil.

Feel free to impart to me any of your lemony lore or divulge developments in domestic diablerie!

Winging it

The ceaseless string of rainy days has meant that the soil has become waterlogged and is pooling in parts of the yard.  The chickens are enjoying the high life as they now have a small private lake in part of their run.  Too bad they aren't all that partial to being out in the rain or boating in lakes.

The wet weather has also meant that planting and seed sowing have been put on hold for a few weeks now and I've been reduced to relying on what crops are already in.  Fortunately I've been slowly converting us to more tropical varieties of the usual fruit and veg that aren't so put out by having a prolonged foot soak.

A few months back I was trawling through my seed box looking for seeds to sow and came across some winged bean seeds that I'd got from a garden visit/seed swap day a couple of years ago.  Taking my chances, I decided to plant two of the old seeds in the hope that I'd get something out of it.  It took a fortnight or so but the seeds eventually turned into seedlings and slowly but surely the vines grew up the string on the fence.  They've loved the recent rainfall and are now long enough to grow along the fence and have started to produce masses of soft blue flowers and pretty little corrugated seed pods.  They'll soon be big enough to eat - fingers crossed they're tasty!  I've also read that all parts of the plant are edible, including the root.  I think I'll start with the beans and then see how we go from there.

It seems to be the year for vines - or perhaps I've had a thing for vertical gardening recently.  The choko barely survived the long dry spell but is now enjoying the prolonged precipitation and clawing its way up the fence.  I'm not sure it'll have the time to mature and reach its purportedly prolific production before the cooler weather knocks it back.  I suppose time will tell.  Until then it's helping to cover the fence and provide a little more greenery.  Not that that's in short supply considering the currently 5 foot lawn (read marsh).

The loofah (luffa) has taken off again.  I didn't even have to plant it - it simply grew from some seeds left over in the soil.  I've been giving away some of the dried sponges so I let them grow this year to replenish my supply.  This one is a beautiful long and cylindrical specimen.

The pineapple is growing well.  For some reason only one of the plants from the twin top has flowered.  It's not too much of a problem; however, because I'm not sure we could get through two pineapples simultaneously.  Hopefully the excessive rain hasn't washed out the flavour.  In the meantime, the tubular purple flowers are quite lovely and provides me a foreground distraction from the disappointment of my dragonfruit that remains devoid of fruit while my parents send me photos of their dinner-plate sized flowers on their's.  Not that I can complain really as I've been rather neglectful of the prickly specimen which is shoved up the back of the block.  Overall, despite my absence the garden seems to be quite happily developing and producing on its own.  I guess I shouldn't be so concerned about having to wing it in the future.