Our compost bins in the kitchen have broken one by one. They were made of plastic. The last one seemed so sturdy but no. The handle came off and left a big hole. Now it will be a planter instead. Anyway we bought a tin box aimed for First Aid and Mick put two handles on it. Now we will see!
Had visit from friends, from our old life that is. We showed them around the property and garden.
We not only try to get a vegetable garden going but also we are interrested in native foods. We want to cultivate some of those native edibles.
So we were pointing out whatever you can eat both from nature and from the plant beds. Both mother and daughter ate happily everything I stuck in their mouths. (The dad took pictures.) Then we came to Lomandra or Mat Rush which we have not yet tried out but mom, without hesitation, trustfully pulled out a Lomandra leaf and started chewing. “How does it taste?” She began laughing. She was actually the first to taste it! Jen can be very convincing sometimes.
that stuck in the throat.
Våren är här: Welcome swallows are back! Väkomstsvalorna är tillbaka!
Men hoppsan frost igen dagen efter! Hard frost again the day after!
Jaha, gjorde vin enligt ett recept som kallades fängelse vin (prison wine) där man bara använder socker och frukt. Det gick bra ända tills dagen för flaskhällning då, över natt, hade vinet förvandlats till vinäger och vi tänker inte slösa våra få flaskor på hemgjord vinäger. Alla burkar och flaskor är vigda till saft och sylt… och vin. Men skam den som ger sig vi provar på nytt men den här gången enligt receptet för guavavinet. Med jäst alltså. Sen har vi också provat att göra godis. Kumquatskalen är söta – jo prova. Ät bara skalet och inget annat! Så koka socker som till pepparkakshusklister och släng in skalen. Första försöket funkade inte alls så vi kokade om och det blev jättegott men fortfarande inte knäckigt så ett försök till sker snart.
Vintersådden har just varit det blev bara snow peas som är ungefär som sockerärter. Hittade ingen bra översättning. Och mer sallat. Lite spenat blir nog sått nästa vecka och sen är det bara att vänta till början av september då det blir dax att så i småbyttorna igen och kanske en del frön hamnat i landet.
Sista frostdagen var sept 6 förra året. Annars växer det fint i grönsakslanden. Ettan haltar lite men 2:an och 3:an går bra. Vi skördar palsternacka, morötter, broccollini, kålrot, bok choy, kinesiskt kål -Granat, rukola, daikon massor av citrus – lime, citron, kumquat och grapefrukt -snart kommer några apelsiner också. Sen har vi fått massor av pumpor från olika grannar så vi står oss nog fram till och med vårsådden.
Vi har inte grävt så mycket på kommande grönsakslanden 4 och 5 men vi har hela augusti på oss så det är lugnt.
Men än är det kallt och vi sitter och trycker framför spisvärmen morgon och kväll.
Lilla barnbarnsbebisen är 1 månad. När ses vi?
Ok, so the prison wine failed. Stirred and stirred and it smelled Godsent but on the day of bottling it had turned to vinegar. And no we have no bottles or jars we can use for vinegar. They are all promised for either jam or cordial or the real thing – wine. We have actually no bottles left at all after last bout of cordial making.
Winter sowing: It is midwinter now and not much to do in the patches more than weeding. But everything is growing nicely oddly enough so we are harvesting daikon, carrots, broccolini, parsnip, swedes, Chinese cabbage, bok choy and rocket (rukola). Lots of citruses and all the pumpkins we got from nice neighbours so we are pretty fixed for food hopefully, until spring sowing starts. We have not dug any on the new patches in a while but we have all rest of August to do that job so we are in no hurry.
Today is kumquat-wine-making-day and need not bottles or jars until in 42 days. This time we add yeast but still none of the rest of the additives ordinary wine makers add.
Yesterday Jen made candy on sugar and the kumquat peel. It turned out really yummy but the sugar is not hard enough so next trial will be much better. Will cook the sugar in the cast iron pan until it´s almost like making glue for the ginger bread house. Just want to say read on the internet that kumquat peel is sweet and it is! so peeling them and cooking them in sugar = candy yum!
Still cold mornings and evenings spent by the wood fired stove. This week we are expecting some very cold nights and maybe some hard frost. We´ll see. Working outside in the sun in t-shirt works fine now though.
Grandchild is 1 month. When will we meet?
Well the kumquat prison wine failed. Will try with yeast tomorrow. but 7 bottles of cordial got made! Boding well for hot summer days.
We´ve had a few really cold days and a long bout of morning frost. On Tuesday we went to Kemp for some errands and it was a pretty nice windy and warm day. A day with few errands but a doctors appt. and getting the ute’s brakes fixed. It ended up with us being sent both here and there and the whole day was totally full and we got home in the dark. Phew.
Good thing was we only had to buy food for ca 100 $. We had 20 days of food at home this time. And we have veggies for all that time. Only bought cauliflower and some green beans. Wow!
The garden is thriving. Especially patch 3! Incredible! Even though we´ve had many frost mornings but light frost. We are flabbergasted. We have a lot to learn about the weather!
Jen vaknade tidigt och gjorde iordning elden. Hade en lugn stund med en kopp te innan maken vaknade. Skickade en näthälsning till doterns födelsedag och skrev ett brev till dotterdottern och hoppas att det ska locka till läsning. Gjorde disken, limesaft, kumquatsaft, pannkakor med fyllning och ost, räkmackor, rörde om i vinet som står på jäsning och avslutade dagen med lite F1 på datorn. Ingen Key Lime Tart blev gjord, det saknades condenserad mjölk på burk. Inga utejobb blev gjorda för det regnade hela dagen.
Läser en jättegammal bok och skrattar högt åt stavningen och orden de använder. Jajaja med det är sååå kul!
Jen woke early and got the wood stove going. It rained all day. We did the dishes, sent daughter a birthday card, wrote a letter to granddaughter in hopes she´ll read it, made double kumquat cordial (this year it is quite weak in taste compared to last year), limeade, prawn sandwich, pancakes with stuffing and cheese, rinsed the guava leaves and set them to dry, no Key Lime tart –had no condensed milk, stirred prison wine and ended the evening with a bit of F1 on the computer. No outside jobs got done. Too much rain.
Reading a very old book and the words they used and the spelling makes us laugh sooo much. Can´t help it!
Svenska under bilden.
We are both feeling down in the dumps.Our bodies are tired and our minds don´t agree. No dishes were done, no laundry either but we did a lot of pruning on our trees.The two Yellow Guavas, one of the Mulberries and a Lilly Pilly. This tree we pruned a bit last year and it was in July. It lost tons of green hard berries. Jen made them out to be some kind of Lilly Pilly but could not find out which. This year when we had pruned it good she found some ripe Magenta Lilly Pillys on the ground. So it we have two Magenta Lilly Pillies. That is great. Also just found out The Magenta is and endangered species which means we probably should try to propagate some more somewhere on the parcel. After having pruned a wallaby came along and sat among the branches on the ground. Jen was gathering some of the good looking leaves for tea and said to the wallaby it could eat the leaves, hahahahah, The wallaby jumped along a bit and sat down to eat off the Guava leaves. When we both went inside to have a cuppa´ it came onto the yard and ate from the weeds in the grass! How cute! After tea we cleared out all branches to the meadow and sorted the bigger chunks of branches in one pile and let the others just lie spead out. We let nature help us and dry the leaves to drop off and later be sucked into the lawn mower and spread on the compost heaps. the Patches look fine. We also measured out our two new patches for the spring. Tomorrow we will start digging them out.
Vi känner oss båda lite nere. Våra kropparna är trötta men våra sinnen inte är överens med kropparna. Ingen disk gjordes, ingen tvätt heller men vi gjorde en hel del beskärning på våra träd.Två gula Guava, ett av mullbären och en Lilly Pilly. Detta träd beskar vi lite förra året och det var i juli. Det förlorade massor av gröna hårda bär. Jen fann att de var någon form av Lilly Pilly men kunde inte ta reda på vilken. I år när vi beskar det fann hon några mogna Magenta Lilly Pillys på marken. Så då vi har två Magenta Lilly Pilly träd. Det är bra. Också fick reda på att Magenta är en hotad art vilket innebär att vi förmodligen bör försöka att sprida lite mer någonstans på vår mark. Efter att ha beskuren kom en wallaby och satte sig bland grenarna på marken. Jen höll på att samla några finare blad till te och sade till wallaby´n den kunde äta bladen, hahahahah, då hoppade wallaby´n längre bort och satte sig att äta av Guava bladen. När vi båda gick in för att fika lite kom den in på gården och åt ogräs! Hur söt! Efter fikat rensade vi bort alla grenar till ängen och sorterade de tjockare grenarna i en hög och låt de andra ligger precis utbredda. Vi låter naturen hjälpa oss att torka bladen att släppa och senare sugas in gräsklipparen och spridas på komposthögarna. Grönsakslanden ser bra ut. Vi mätte också våra två nya grönsaksland för våren. I morgon kommer vi att börja gräva ut dem.
Så vi fick en ny liten Baron i familjen. Det har vi missat att notera. 1:a Juli kom hon lillungen! Så nu är vi både farmor och farfar och mormor och morfar. Tyvärr så bor de alla så långt borta.
No frost! Jen woke with the bad back ache, it’s been eight days now, and took the day off after most chores were done. Mick joined her.
So inside work got done. Baked bread in the new pans. The old Danish big ones are loosing their black coating more and more. Straight into our stomachs no doubt. We bought new pans.
The bread came out well but not perfect. For some reason the oven died at some point. So bread got baked, then banana bread and macadamia cookies. All set now for coffee brakes. Still gotta make some more Key Lime Pie.
Pancakes for lunch and then a lot of dishes to be cleaned. Did some raking below the house and watered the patches. Something has started to eat on the Basil so arranged Parlsley all around it. All the Chinese Granat was eaten in patch 1.
Doing some macadamia nut outer part removal every day as they start cracking up.
Oh yeah tried out the Guava tea. Very odd taste. Not like Guava fruit and not like grass.
A giant dishwashing, split wood, lunch. Sawed up the rest of the tree we took down yesterday then split the logs at home. We now have wood for a couple of weeks to go. We found 2 lizards in the logs and put them in the lomandra with some grass over. Dinner of lamb, rice and a homegrown grapefruit each. No rain but very cloudy. The ground is still very wet.
Yesterday while out cutting down trees we found black berries on a vine. We have seen them before and searched books and internet a couple of times these last years but not found them. Today we found them on the net and they are Kangaroo Vine and are edible. Great. Tried half of one berry. It was super tart with a wiff of sloan berry. Read than one can make jam on them. Gotta try this. Not much written on this otherwise and everyone had copied someone else but not tried it themselves it seemed. See if we can get some pics another day.