Returning to the Garden

 It's been two years since I really put any effort into my vege garden.

I started working full-time, with two hours a day travel, while still spinning and weaving and keeping up my small business.  It hasn't left me with a lot of time left over for any gardening.  Add to this, now, I'm also studying online in my own time.

But the world is going to hell in a handbasket and it's easy to feel hopeless about large international events that will impact and are impacting us here.  And the Muppet show that is our current government isn't helping (while I try not to get political normally, recent statements and law changes are steps too far). Someone said to me "Yeah, but what can you do?"

What can I do?

A great podcast that I follow (Do You F*cking Mind on Spotify for any who are interested) is all about mind health, and some neuroscience.  Alexis frequently says to concentrate on the things you can control.  I can't control inflation, I can't control other peoples' poor choices, I can't control what is looking more and more like another major war impending.

I can grow food.  I can ensure that my family and close friends are fed.  I can provide ordinary veges that only cost me time to grow but cost an arm, leg and a kidney in the supermarkets right now.  I can preserve my glut so that all my family have access to soups and sauces over winter.  I can host a regular family dinner that brings everyone together and ensures that they have a good hearty meal every so often.  

I had previously put a lot of work into improving the soil, the weeds loved my work and as a result, it had become extremely overgrown.  We had made a start to it in summer, but a wet and colder than usual summer meant that harvests were pretty dismal.  Still, it gave us a starting place.

I enlisted Hubby to help build the beginnings of planter boxes.  These have all come from the scrap ends of new rail fencing to replace the fences that were crushed under the fallen trees in some of spring storms we've been having over the last few years.  As more fences (and my new cattle yards!!) are completed, there will be more scrap ends and I'll raise it higher again.  I'm getting older and a bit broken physically, so anything we can do to make the job easier is of value to our future selves.

I didn't want to buy in soil to fill the boxes.  I've heard stories of soil that had some sort of poison in that killed anything planted in it and not even weeds or grass would grow there. Plus all the constant stories of oxalis or similar growing rampant in bought soils.  I've been working to build up my own soil.  I'm  composting as I'm planting in it.  Hubby cleaned out the gutters, so I put that in.  We cleaned the chookhouses, so I put that in.  Fireplace ash and lawn clippings.  I'm ensuring that I dig it into the existing soil and mix it up in diagonal layers.  Leaf Litter and roadkill are also going in shortly - the roadkill will be well buried of course.

Hubby built some covered planter boxes to protect my broccoli and cauliflower from the brassica moths a few years ago.  This has worked well, although I have to be careful to pick them before they grow through the netting.  It also keeps my feral hen that thinks she's the dog's pet (long story) out of them too.

The dags and bellies from shearing and the neps and double cuts I find when spinning wool are the base for my path, covered with wood mulch.  Some of the wood that has been mulched is probably too fresh to put directly in the garden, but it can work for this year in the path.

I'm buying plants and seeds in small amounts when I see them available.  I'm trying to keep it manageable to plant and maintain.  So far, my humble vege garden is boasting broccoli, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage, beetroot, onions, peas, boysenberries and strawberries.  I'll plant some beans in the next few months and Hubby's patch is always filled with self-sown potatoes - I know we didn't get them all last year.  Wow.  I didn't realise the variety I had until I typed it in just now.

While I have struggled in recent years to find something to grow that both Hubby and I will eat - as I usually grow too much for just one of us - I am now growing for my wider family too.  This makes it easier to select and makes for some small economies of scale when I'm buying plants.

We are making plans and organising materials for the next stage.  Watch this space!

Returning to the Tunnel House

This year I thought I'd try to repeat and build on the success of last year's vege garden.  I did want to include the tunnel house.  It was something we've discussed over and over.  Ideas, disagreements and all sorts of plans have been made and discarded. I decided to just do what I wanted, sometimes, it's better to ask forgiveness rather than permission.

I cut open the back of the tunnel house, partly to make it a natural extension of the vege garden and because I couldn't be bothered walking around to the door through all the long grass.  I know myself well enough to know that it's something that I'd avoid doing and everything I tried to do in there would fail because I don't like slogging my way around to the door.  To be fair, the tunnel house is a bit broken anyway.  The nasty wind storm a few years ago blew the plastic sheet off the netting, weather has taken some of the plastic sheeting off the roof.  The roof support structure was badly made and needs some work. And there were two plum trees growing in there.  There is also the family of blackbirds that return every year to nest in a hole in the wall where a speaker used to be.

A few years ago, I put some chooks in there.  They were some end of lays and injured birds from the egg farm I worked in.  It was a good, gentle place to get them used to being out of a cage and learning how to free range.  Until a family of ferrets visited.

The soil in there had originally been a mix of a bought bio-blend, pig manure and our crappy sour grey soil.  After the chooks, it was a strange pale brown, with sawdust and rat droppings.  A while back, Dad thought he'd help us out sieving the soil.  Until I looked at the stones he was sieving out with his bare hands and pointed out that it was at least half rat poo.  The stones that were in there originally were similar size.

I spent many hours weeding the end where I'd cut the door then sieving the soil to put into the tyres.  I put the stones around to form a path and hopefully keep the weeds down.

I planted as I filled the tyres.  Cucumbers, rock melon, tomatoes, capsicums and chillies.  

I've spent so much time in there, the garden hasn't gotten much attention and is still mostly a jungle of waist high grass and thistle.  The down side to doing so much work on the soil is that the weeds grow very well too when not constantly being removed.

Even half done, the tunnel house has been a triumph so far.  I've grown the best green cucumbers I've ever tasted, my tomatoes are starting to ripen and I've grown the biggest capsicums I've ever managed. They're still green, my research says that if I want sweet red ones, I need to wait until they turn red on the plant before I pick them.

I live in the hope that I'll keep working on the garden around the tunnel house and gradually get it back.

Growing Tomato Plants From Lateral Cuttings

Years ago, someone told me to put my laterals into soil. Just pinch them off as you do and put them directly into the soil and they'll grow.  I tried it and while I got some small plants, life happened and I didn't look after them very well. 

Every year I try to do it, but never really pay enough attention to them.  I'm quite terrible really, I start off with the best of intentions and lose my motivation to do more than water them and pick the tomatoes.  I think there's also a fear of doing something wrong, I never trust myself to actually know what I'm doing.

This year, I decided to really go hard on the tomatoes.  I wanted to grow a lot of tomatoes and determined to look after them properly. The best place to do this is in the tunnel house.

After a fair bit of work, taming the tunnel house, I planted out my tomatoes.  They are all in tyres, filled with a mix of sieved soil, chicken manure and tomato mix.  With some lawn clippings and sawdust as mulch on top to keep the moisture in and the weeds down.

I gradually bought tomatoes and planted them out as I cleared and filled each tyre.  I have Brandywine Pink, Black Krim, Russian Reds and my all time preference, Beefsteaks.  There are also two varieties of cucumbers, a rock melon, an eggplant, two chillies and several red capsicums.

They mostly have strings from the roof to grow up and each day as I water, I've been true to my intentions.  I give them a twist on the string, I pick off laterals and make sure the roots are still covered. 

One of the capsicum plants got broken off (or eaten by something) just above the two first leaves that each plant gets.  It's still alive, it just hasn't done anything more.  So I stuck a lateral I'd just pinched off into that tyre.

I've been hearing from people with all the urban wisdom that laterals might grow but they don't fruit.  This one is now six foot tall and bearing fruit.

So now, I have pots for my healthy laterals to go into.  They are almost all rooting well and several have flowered and are now growing small green tomatoes.

My plan is to see if I can keep the tunnel house growing tomatoes throughout winter.  If I can have a year round supply, it will save a lot of money - we eat a lot of tomatoes. 

Yarn From Dog Hair

 Just over a year ago, I was at a festival with some friends. Over a few drinks and amidst stories about keeping turkeys and peacock impersonations, one friend mentioned that when she brushes her Samoyed dog she gets enough hair off him to make another dog. 

There were a few laughs and the suggestion of spinning it.

I had mostly relegated that entire conversation into a 'fun times with friends' file and forgotten about it. 

Then in February, the friend I travelled to this festival with passed away. It was devastating for me. Totally unexpected and I was lost.

A parcel arrived on my doorstep from the friend who has the dog. It contained a lot of lovely white fibre. It was fine, soft and strong. I'd forgotten about our conversation and it was a bit painful to poke at the memories so it took me a few guesses before I realised what I had. 

Hubby was disgusted at first. He couldn't understand why someone would send me dog hair. But it made me laugh. It lightened my days and gave me something fun to do. 

I started spinning. At first it was lovely and clean, it spun a beautiful fine thread easily. Then as I got down through the bag, I reached the stuff with lots of dander.

By the time I finished, I was needing to stop every 10 minutes to wash my hands and blow my nose. I had a pile of doggy dandruff an inch deep beneath my spinning wheel. 

I did a lot of thinking while I was spinning. This tends to happen anyway. I wondered why yarn is always assumed to be sheep's wool, or lately alpaca or possum. Why aren't other fibres considered? I'm guessing it's mostly tradition. 

The yarn was plyed and washed. What am I going to do with this? I wanted to make something for the friend who'd given it to me and finally settled on gumboot socks. She's a dairy farmer and I'm sure good, warm gumboot socks would always be welcome. 

I worked on them while I was at the market. They made a great conversation starter, especially when crafters are comparing notes about some of the strange and wonderful things they've made. They knitted up so nicely, I'm currently working on a pair for myself and considering some mitts too. 

The knitted yarn feels so soft and warm that I'm excited to get mine finished. 

Getting Fruit on Fruit Trees

 I've got several fruit trees that had never produced fruit. 

Well, that's not entirely true. Our first Summer and Autumn there were apricots on the tree. One of the cats would climb the tree and play with the apricots like those dangly cat toys until he knocked them off and then the dog would carefully place them between his front paws and lick them down to the stone. All before they came ripe.

We didn't get any more fruit for the next six or seven years. 

There were lots of theories and wisdom offered as to why.

So one year, as I pruned it, I told the tree it was its last chance. If I didn't get any fruit next season, I'd be cutting it down. 

Next season and each season since, there have been plenty of apricots. 

So I tried the same thing on my feijoa trees this year. I've never had fruit on them in the eleven years we've been here. 

Until now.

It's very late in the season, and I'd given up on seeing anything on them a couple of months ago. 

Hubby and I were going past them on our way to ready the borrowed ram to go back home. As we were walking past the feijoas, Hubby said "what's that?" Pointing to a large feijoa on the ground. 

Looking up at the tree, we saw lots more in various sizes. On both trees.

There's certainly something to be said for threatening fruit trees. 

Zucchini Flour

 There's been a post doing the rounds detailing how to make and use zucchini flour. 

It says that it can be used to replace up to 1/3 of wheat flour in any recipe without any noticeable changes to taste or texture. It also recommends zucchini flour as a gravy thickener. 

It's easy. Cut a zucchini or a marrow is better, into thin strips. Dry it thoroughly, overdry is better than under. Run it through a food processor until finely ground and voila, zucchini flour.

Since I had found two large marrows and already had plenty grated in the freezer, I thought I'd give it a go. There is also the war in Ukraine and the unusual weather here and in Australia affecting crops. Maybe it would be a useful backup to have.

I used a potato peeler to cut my strips and it still took three days to get two whole marrows dried. 

I ran them through the food processor until I had a faintly green tinged dust rising from every little hole and opening in the bowl. 

I poured it through a sieve and the coarse stuff went back into the food processor. It wasn't enough, so I ground it in my mortar and pestle. 

A day of grinding and sieving and grinding some more. Of cleaning the dust from under my fingernails. Of redrying the powder in case it was still a little damp.

I have finished with maybe one cup of zucchini flour. 

I'm not convinced it was worth it. I don't use wheat flour much anyway. 

I tried a recipe for marrow soup today that was delicious. I think it will be a better use for my marrows.

Black Grapes

 For the last few years, I haven't gotten any grapes. They were growing just fine, quite abundantly in fact, however, the birds were eating them all before they'd even showed signs of ripening.

So last year, I decided to put up some bird netting.  It was quite the mission to net over and under the grapevines growing over the arch.

We spent several months watching the grapes grow and ripen.  It was quite impressive just how many there were and the sizes the bunches were growing to. The odd thrush managed to make it's way inside the nets and usually had to be helped back out.

Miss Fifteen and I picked a bucketful and barely touched the grapes that were there.  

I washed and weighed some trying to decide how much would be Black Grape Wine. The thing is, the huge volume of wine I made four years ago has barely been touched.  I've used it more for cooking than I have for drinking.  More of it has been gifts.  I didn't want to make a heap that would just end up getting dusty in my wine rack.

So I used 6kg of grapes and made about 16 litres of wine.

That left about 6kg of grapes still from the first picking. I didn't want to waste them, so I decided to make raisins.  I've done this previously as an experiment.  Unfortunately, since my grapes aren't seedless, this is quite a labour intensive process.  I cut each grape open and remove the seeds before putting them into the dehydrator. 

So approximately 12kg of grapes has become 16l of wine and a 1.5l jar of raisins.  I still had at least four times the amount of grapes still on the vine.

Hubby suggested Grape juice.  I went Googling and found a recipe.  It started very similar to starting wine.  Wash and mash grapes but then it said to boil them vigorously for about 20 mins. Add sugar to taste and strain gently overnight.  It said that it didn't keep for too long and wasn't particularly nice if frozen.

I was talking to a friend before I had the opportunity to try it.  He told me his grandfather used to make the most amazing grape juice but he never boiled his.  It was a very long slow process and would keep for years.

I decided to try it.  I washed the grapes and filled my stock pot.  No water added except for where the grapes may have still been wet from washing. I turned my pot on very low and watched as the grapes gradually reduced to pulp, seeds and juice. I kept it going for hours and gently strained the juice out.  When I say gently strained, I mean that there was no squeezing or pressure.  I would put a few cupfuls into my muslin lined sieve and let it strain until it stopped dripping.  I would then return the pulp to the pot and do it again until there was no more liquid in my pot.

An 8 litre stock pot filled with fresh grapes became 1.5l of grape juice.  It's a little thick and syrupy but not unpleasantly so.  It didn't need any sugar added, it tastes wonderful as it is.

I looked at the colour in the pulp and wondered if I could still use it.  I know that it's the skins that give wine it's colour, so out of curiosity, I refilled my pot with water and the leftover pulp and heated it gently in much the same process.

It has come out just as dark as the grape juice, so we'll see how it goes as a dye.

Grape Juice

Washed grapes

Place the grapes in a large pot and heat very gently.  They will reduce by about half.

Strain without squeezing, sweeten if needed and bottle.