Hello! How is everyone doing during the lead up to the festive season? Christmas and end of year parties happening? I did some posting (real mail not internet) and shopping. I have a few pavlovas to make up for Christmas lunch.
I popped down to the garden for some lettuce late this afternoon and got carried away. I don’t know how someone accidentally starts digging for potatoes. 🙂
Some more of the garlic is forming up into bulbs, so maybe it won’t be a total loss for the garlic this year. I wish it would get on with it – I could really use the space in the garden!
Lots of cucumber doing their thing… getting bigger daily noticeably
Apparently sunflowers and cucumbers are good companions. I have a sunflower right next to the cucumbers, so I wonder if they will taste better??
Looks like these aren’t far away from showing us their faces!
The Russian Black tomato in progress
Something had been ravaging the tomato plant – think its one of those green hiding grubs!!
Its really hard to find grubs in the dense foliage – but I did find two that had spun up a bed
I smashed them. I will have to spend some more time looking to see if I have missed any. They have had quite the feast!
And lastly… two cherries! Actually I think the tree has a grand total of about 7.
My God-Cousin Michael, his wife Phoung and little boy Andy came to visit us today! Phoung’s sister and brother in law live in Tasmania, so they came along too and it was a lovely day!
Searching for strawberries
Phuong is originally from Vietnam and the culture is based heavily about food, so they had a splendid time grazing their way through the garden! We shared gardening ideas and they were able to take a few plants/seeds home with them
Andy
Its the first time we have met Andy, and he is a delightful little chap! So happy and friendly!
Andy enjoys a run around while Mum picks more strawberries!
Phuongs sister & husband live in Tasmania, as she is studying nursing here. Its nice for us, as Michael & co come to see us as well when they visit family.
Checking out the potatoes!
In between eating and wandering about the garden, we managed to make a bit of time to get down to the beach – only Fossil Bluff as the tide was fast coming in and it was the closest beach!
Enjoying family time
I have pretty much known Michael since we were babies. His parents are my God-Parents (I always refer to his mum as my Fairy Godmother (Because its always great to have one of those 🙂 ))
Growing up, we lived in the country and Micheal’s family lived up Sydney way. Â Many happy memories of holidays spent together – either us going up to their place, or them coming down to us!
Hi and Mung (I have no clue how to spell their names… I will ask and correct them later!)
We also enjoyed meeting this lovely couple for the first time!
Was cute watching Andy enjoy himself on the beach. Sometimes its good to be reminded that all you need to be happy is a rock and a stick!!
Well… not much got done today… visitors didn’t materialise… but at least the house is clean and I had dinner prepared!!
So – Let me tell you about Tasmania’s Opium Poppies!!
Keep out or die. Fair warning….
The farmer over the road from us has put in a crop of poppies. Tasmania produces about 50% of the worlds supply of licit poppy straw which is then refined into opiates like morphine and codeine.
They are a pretty sight at this time of year
Its a lucrative crop, but tightly controlled as they can be deadly if ingested. In fact several people over the last decade have died trying out some ‘poppy home brew’
Once the flowers die off, a capsule is left. (The part which is harvested and sold) Theft of these capsules happens – A total of 516 capsules were stolen in 2015-16, up from 331 the year before, although far below the 3,923 capsules stolen in 2013-14. Don’t ask me how they know precisely how many they have and how many wander off!!
Its quite the tourist attraction, with visitors stopping by the roadside to take photos (and possibly souvenirs!!)
Irrigation at work
A total of 653 licenses were issued last financial year. There is a control board that regulates all aspects of the crop – including areas where regrowth occurs. Obviously you don’t need a whole lot of these randomly self seeding about like my broccoli! Mayhem!
I started off this morning (lets call it morning, shall we? Because technically it was) popping down to the markets to deliver Maureen her calendar and collect some $$ from another friend for purchasing three more!! I managed to find Jeff the perfect Christmas Present, but I can’t tell you because he wanders through my blog every now and again!
I also bought these lovely little thyme plants from Maureen’s stall – fifty cents each!!!! She sells lots of seedlings at crazy prices – pretty much because she wants people to get into growing their own food and as she says, 50 cents isn’t much of a risk if it doesn’t work! How fantastic is that?
(Talking of $$ I have now tipped over into the $800 area for my savings to get to Texas next year!!!)
Liliums have started blooming!
It was a lovely day today – as equally nice as it was terribly yesterday! Even though I had indoor tasks to do, I figured I could get onto those when the sun went down (which may explain why I am baking a banana raspberry loaf at 11pm)
Aaaanyway.
Got onto my kelp-juice project.  I collected a feed bag of kelp the other day. Today I washed off a bit of the sand, then dumped it all in one of the big garbage bins and topped it up with water
Slimy job!
Once topped up with water, I put the lid on – job done.
Now I have to wait for a couple of weeks for it to break down into the water a bit, then will decanter into bottles to be then used on the garden.
The hothouse is going really well. The tomatoes are not turning red as yet, but I would be surprised if they did before Christmas. The heirloom capsicums and the chillies that I grew from seed are growing steadily and happily.
The self seeded beetroot is a monster!
Russian Black tomato – thriving in its corner!Last seasons chillies coming back to lifeFantastic basil with a bunch of self seeding tomatoes!!Fabulous sized leaves! These were chopped up and added to the salad tonight at dinnerCucumbers making progress
I went back into the raspberry patch to finish laying the last of the seaweed down that I had.  I think I over estimated the size of the bowl I needed to harvest my 20 raspberries!! 😀
Not many but I was so happy to eat these!
I have also decided that to save on multiple swear words I need to take my pants off to go picking raspberries!!! How many times did I have to stop to unhook my backside from the netting?????
OK – to be fair to passing traffic it makes sense to take a pair of scissors to every button on my gardening pants rather than prancing about in my undies!
Beautiful sweet crunchy snow peasUnplanned garlic – took them out of the herb garden – at least one is a decent size but they all will taste fine!
We have visitors coming for the day tomorrow, so I pre made up some rissoles (hamburger patties) I am pleased to have some things from the garden to put into the mince… like the beautiful fresh garlic –
Fresh herbs too –
Parsley & oregano
Home made bread, breadcrumbs, home made plum worstershire sauce and a lovely fresh laid egg!
The colour a yolk should be!
It will be easy tomorrow to cook up the patties since the mix is all ready to go. Just add some buns, home made sauces, fresh lettuce, mayo (and of course pineapple!!) and people can make their own.
I’ll even share my home made strawberry ice cream!
Anyway – bedtime for me! Hope your weekends are going along splendidly!
Cheers!
I think the escaping chook broke the stem of this one… so it gets to live inside.
Well… I was a bit disgusted with the weather today!! I am sure no-one believes we actually bother with summer in Tasmania!! The wind was howling… every 30 minutes it rained sideways. I am about to turn my electric blanket on (because I am cold and I am a sook) and snuggle into bed!
Since my strawberry ice cream worked out so well… I thought I would make up another batch. Can’t have too much of a good thing can you?
This is how I did it in case anyone else needs to have a go. We have an ice cream maker to do the churning, but you can just make it and freeze it. You will have to take it out of the freezer for a short time to let it become less than rock hard to scoop it – but its totally worth the effort.
I made a basic ‘Old Fashioned’ vanilla ice cream
300ml milk
pinch salt
half cup of caster sugar
one teaspoon of vanilla essence
one egg – well beaten
250ml cream
DIRECTIONS
Put milk, salt, sugar and vanilla in saucepan and over medium heat, cook until almost boiling.
Pour half the mixture into the egg – as you whisk/mix
Pour entire lot back into the saucepan and cook over low heat until it thickens slightly. Take off the heat, let it cool, then chill it in the fridge.
Once chilled, take out and whisk the cream through the mixture.
If I am not making pure vanilla ice cream, I usually take 300g of pureed strawberries (I have also done raspberry and cherry) and mixed that in -Can I just interrupt here and say the cherry ice cream is the most amazing thing ever?? Look:
Anyway put it through the ice cream maker or just put in container and chuck it in the freezer.
Its sooooo much better than shop bought!! Especially if you grow your own fruit!
Anyway – I went out to a party tonight. Dressed like a hippy. Had a whole glass of wine!!!
Party. Animal.
Bedtime for me!
Enjoy your weekend!
Was so good to have a few more new potatoes on the plate tonight. Along with home grown salad, some sausages from a local farm & with some home made sauces…. was a good dinner!
Looks like we might be adding cucumbers to our salads in the near future.
Oh – I don’t have a photo, but I did a batch of strawberry ice-cream. Bliss!! I might have been recently standing at the freezer with a spoon to re-sample it.
I have the ice-cream maker container back in the freezer as I absolutely want to make a lot of this!!
Anyway – Seaweed
Finally the ocean washed up a good section of seaweed so I hooked up the trailer, grabbed all the feed bags I could find and headed on down.
I think I have filled and distributed close to 40 bags today!
First load
The first load I took around to Ruby’s and dumped it all in a big pile so I can go back sometime and start spreading it out over wherever I have weeded.
The second load I took home and mulched everything in sight
The zucchinis and tomatoes got new beds
Snug zucchini
The outside basil and heirloom capsicums (which are all soooo sloooow)
The other outside heirloom capsicums. (The carrots are finally starting to look ok)
I finally got back into the raspberry patch to graze on a couple of berries but also get a bit more newspaper and mulch down. I will need another load of seaweed to complete that job!!!
Well – last night I put the fire on because it was cold.
Today I think I got a bit sunburned… 🙂
Anyway – perfect day to be outside getting a few of the jobs ticked off the list.
Lost the path
Since the snowball bush (Gilder rose) has finished flowering we thought it time to cut back some of it to clear the pathway again
I wasn’t doing a good job here so I got fired and moved on to power tools and sorting out some of the fence palings!! 🙂
Wanted to turn all of Ruby’s old fence into kindling for next season. I cut them all into reasonable lengths, then split them by hand.
My high-tech wood splitting tools
Meanwhile:
Clear path
Jeff finished up path maintenance and came to help me split some wood, when the second stray dog in the last couple of weeks came in to visit!!
A beautiful (but grubby and hungry) border collie. Jeff got her some water. I found her a lamb bone. Â She was so hungry though!! I also fed her some leftover chicken burrito and a sausage!!!
She was a lovely natured girl. No collar, no id. We called the pound to come and collect her. I might have welled up a bit to put her in the car!!
I hope she finds her home.
This was last weeks dog, Benji:
Happily Benji had a collar and phone number, and we were able to return him directly to the neighbours down the road a bit!
Break time, an ice block and a sit down seemed in order after our emotional parting…
Back to work – Finished cutting and splitting, clean up time.
Messy palings dealt withKindling box at back door filled
All the rest of the cut-to-size-but-not-split wood went into our other big kindling box. Job for another day.
A few gardens got a bit of a weed-overhaul by Jeff
Was good to get out into the sun today!
But for now – time to step back into the kitchen and make up part one of the strawberry ice cream I am planning!
Hello! Midweek been and gone!
Not much happening today at Norwich House! The wind was insane – it was hard to work outside. I get skittish!
I did manage to pick another 600 grams of strawberries! Some of them were pretty big too!!
Sweet Handful(About 20 oz)
I had to do an emergency netting yesterday – then went back and re weighted it down as the wind was blowing it everywhere
A few of the corn stalks had been nibbled (Probably one of our possums) so I needed to try to protect them a bit more
Thankfully not too many had been wrecked. I think the animal was just doing some random samples
The zucchini and pumpkins are getting to be a much better size… I am even seeing some flowers
Poor beans were getting blown about today so I also made a bit of a makeshift shadecloth windbreakThings looking pretty good overallLiliums close to blooming – be nice if the wind dropped so they could bloom and not be shredded!!
Must get back into the ever needed weeding tomorrow (in between strawberry milkshakes!! 🙂  )
I popped out to see Ruby and dig up a few weeds today. Mind you – she had been pretty busy in the garden before I turned up!!
Ruby filled the entire wheelbarrow with weeds today!
I think Ruby’s weeds are growing faster than mine – if thats possible!!
Time to wage a small war on the Oxalis!
Its so slow going trying to clear the Oxalis! I am trying to dig under it enough to get a lot of those little seed balls that explode everywhere!! I am getting a lot, but missing a lot too!
Doesn’t seem much for an hours worth of work does it??
I want this patch cleared so we can spread out the beetroot and also some self seeded pumpkins that are growing in clumps!
One of Ruby’s grandsons, Simon, is still here in Tasmania and has been working like a demon around the property – clearing rubbish, building fences and fixing things around the houses of both Ruby and Margies.
Final stages of finishing the back fence
The back fence really has stayed up more out of stubbornness than anything else!! Simon has been pulling things apart and rebuilding things
Not far to go – then will be leveled.
The back gate also now has a working bolt – so the brick that kept the gate shut is now obsolete! 🙂
A good crop of peas coming along!
We had a bit of fun talking about Ruby’s early nursing years. The time when she was made acting Matron – almost immediately a couple of staff fell sick (and not just sniffles… appendicitis for one!!) which was quite an issue as they were already badly understaffed.
The young nurse going into theatre was in tears, so Ruby gave her a good talking to – how she was lucky she was about to get fixed up and how important she was to get well again because Ruby needed her! 🙂
Ruby also told me that the same day she went into a shop wearing her uniform and was served by a young lady that recognised her Launceston Hospital badge. It turned out that the young woman was a trained nurse and Ruby asked straight away “What on earth are you doing behind the counter in a shop??” Apparently the lady couldn’t work the hours offered in the hospital and was stuck doing shop work instead. Ruby immediately asked her to come up to the hospital to see her and work something out. They were so desperate for nurses at that time!
She not only managed to sort out suitable hours for this young woman, (who was thrilled to have a job in her vocation) but also a friend of hers who was in the same position!
Nurse managers/Matrons had a bit of a juggling job to make sure they could get all the staff they needed!
Its not only the snow peas that hide from me! I couldn’t work out what was stripping the laterals that I had in a jar bare!!
I finally had a really good look and found this really fat grub!! Damn. Most of the leaves have gone now!!
Its also fast. I intended to sacrifice it to the chooks – but I went off on a short errand, came back and it had totally disappeared!!! I wonder what it is eating now?
Anyway – most of my day was wrapped in in domestics, so I shan’t bore you with that!
