The Christmas Harvest

If you're anything like me, you're pretty busy in the week leading up to Christmas, and not a great deal gets done in the garden. This year, as I didn't have to work until Christmas Eve, I did a lot of Christmas baking for gift and for our visitors on Boxing Day. I made my 'famous' shortbread, made with my late Grandmother's recipe, and highly anticipated by some members of the family; Christmas cookies, sugared peanuts (that turned out really well and were gobbled up by my spouse well before Christmas!); and Oliver and I made chocolates. I also made a yummy trifle as I do every year.

I find though, that once Christmas is done, I'm super keen to get my jobs done while I have some time off from work. So in the last four days I've been pretty busy. I did some indoor cleaning and organising, but also did a few things outside, including harvesting my first crop of apricots, which I'm confident will ripen nicely off the tree. The one I tasted was delicious, so much so that I took the ladder into the garden to make sure I picked the really high ones. I'm amazed at how big the apricot tree has grown since I planted it last year. It's easily twice the size of the apple trees in the same garden.

I also picked my first zucchini (yum!),

a bucket of potatoes (which I cooked straight away and forgot to photograph!) and in the next week or so will probably be picking several kilos of blackberries. I'll go out and take a photo of the bush tomorrow, it's amazing!

I also did a bit (OK, a lot) of weeding, tied up more tomato branches and cut off some more of the un-flowering leaves (I'm sure there's a proper name for them!). 

Grow your own breakfast

This morning, I really wanted a leek omelette. If you've never had one, I recommend you try it. I found this recipe a while back, but don't tend to use the salt, pepper or nutmeg. Just the leek is enough.

Even better is when you grow the leeks yourself.  The leeks I planted in October are just big enough for me to pick.

 So I pulled out two of those, and together with a couple of my eggs, I put together a little omelette and satisfied my craving.

Great way to start the day!

Vertical gardening

Despite having a big block, we're still always looking for more places to plant things. And I'm always trying to find ways to use the bits of stuff that Anthony collects for 'just in case we need it'.

So there were a bunch of old gutters lying around (don't get me started on why we have old gutters lying around!), and we thought it might be a good idea to experiment with some different garden arrangements.

Anthony screwed three of the pieces of guttering to the fence above my raspberry garden, on an angle one above the other so that they will (hopefully) drain OK. We then filled them up with potting mix, and planted a bunch of things, including strawberries, parsley, oregano, a chilli plant and some lemon grass.

If nothing else, it will be a good experiment. If it works, it will be a good way to do herbs (leaving me with more room for my vegies!). I do like the idea of using the unused space, and using materials that would otherwise be chucked out.

See all the yummy blackberries in the background? Can't wait until they're ripe!

I'll keep you posted about how they go.

A berry good harvest!

Super busy this weekend, but I did manage to pick some berries. A good punnet and a half of blueberries:

And the same of boysenberries:

I do so love boysenberries, but geez they're painful! If you've never grown them, they grow on branches covered in tiny little thorns that love to attach themselves to you even when you're just passing by.

We put our boysenberries in a few years ago, and then a few years later tried to take them out, but they send out underground sucker, so once they're in, they're almost impossible to remove. So I've given up and just let them grow in the little bed beside my driveway. Because they do taste very good!!!

Little Harvests

We have had a fair amount of rain (more than 50mm) over the last few days, with some big thunderstorms keeping things interesting (I love summer storms!).

I've been too busy to take pictures but the storm clouds have been amazing!

So I haven't been out in the garden much, but this morning was able to go and pull out a few weeds and pick some food!

A punnet's worth of yummy blueberries:

Some potatoes for dinner (slow-cooker vegemite roast lamb with home grown rosemary and garlic!):

 And my first cherries in a couple of years! YUM!

This a dumb thing to say, but the stuff you get to pick and eat is definitely the best part of growing food (oh, and we'll be a bit better off when the zombie apocalypse comes)!

Garlic....

“Without garlic I simply would not care to live.” – Louis Diat

I love garlic. It probably doesn't make it very pleasant to be around me sometimes, but it is one of my favourite favours (and aromas! There is nothing like the smell of garlic sautéing!).

So growing garlic is one of my favourite gardening adventures.

And today was garlic harvest day.

In January 2012, we visited a friend in Meander, Tasmania (an absolutely gorgeous part of Australia, if you ever get the chance to go there). When we were leaving (to do some more Tassie touring), he gave me three heads of beautiful organic Tasmanian garlic. Since then, I've been growing it. Today, despite my chooks' attempt to decimate the garlic crop a while back, I harvested 28 lovely heads, including an enormous one, at least 5cm wide!

My monster garlic head!

I know a lot of people don't think that organic makes much difference, but garlic is one of the vegetables where I can really taste the difference. This garlic tastes so good!!!

So I've picked it, braided it (I just watch this video for instructions- I still need a little practice!),

My 'braids'

and it's hung up in a little old caravan that I'm planning on turning into a drying/storage room.

I cannot wait to cook up lots of lovely garlicky things!

I love roasted garlic cloves with some roast lamb, or a bit of cabbage fried in butter and garlic (and perhaps a little vegemite!). My father-in-law used to swear by a raw clove of garlic and a slice of cheese every evening. What's your favourite garlic recipe?

The Vines

Not only are food plants amazing, they're also mulit-talented!

Today I'd like to introduce you to my vines:

My front door is in there somewhere...

Our front deck faces NorthWest. Which means it's full of beautiful mid-afternoon sunlight in the winter, but also very warm mid-day sunlight in the summer.

The only thing that can help you make you comfortable in both of those situations is a plant. If we had covered our front deck in colourbond, it would keep us nice and shady in summer, but would make it seem cold and uninviting. So, instead, we planted three grapevines. A deciduous plant like a grapevine loses its leaves in winter, and grows a thick canopy in summer.

The biggest we planted long before we ever considered a life of food growing. We built the deck in the early 2000s, and put in the 'ornamental' grapevine at pretty much the same time. It's now got two impressive trunks (and a lot of established growth).

Grapevine trunk (and its weed friends)

Of course, being an ornamental grapevine, the grapes are pretty awful. They're quite sour and full of annoying pips. The birds love them, and sometimes the bees, but they're not really all that good in a fruit salad.

Th old vine, on the northern end of the deck.

So, when we got a little more serious about growing food, we cut the old vine back, and planted two more vines at the opposite end of the deck. They're both red grapes, seedless, and very nice to eat.

The view from here....

Of course the best thing is that as they have all grown bigger and more dense, they have provided a lovely, sheltered space right outside our front door. In winter we can sit there and soak up the sun, but in summer, it's a lovely shady space. The air moves freely through the leaves and branches, but they still block out most of the sunlight. It can get pretty messy, but it's nothing a sweep can't fix, and the dead leaves are just more good organic matter to put back into the garden. And - bonus: they give us some great privacy!

Now, we just have to wait for the grapes to ripen!