A happy traveller through life!
Right now living in NW Tasmania with a gorgeous Nurse-Husband, a fool of a Siamese Cat and several chickens.
We love our fairly simple lifestyle of growing a lot of what we eat and enjoying the stunning surrounds of our little patch.
I am sure I can’t keep saying “This is one of my favourite places” on all of these posts… But we really love driving about 40 minutes west of us to take a stroll on this rugged beach, which rarely has another soul on it.
Mid summer is probably different but we reserve our jaunts for the off season.
A walk with family
Its a great place to visit to relax, collect some shells, play about with the camera, paddle in the ocean if its not too cold and see what odd things the sea has washed up that day.
Fisheye view
Odd things –
Probably eggs of some sortClueless. Anyone shed some light?
I like the spikey grasses
Over looking “The Nut” at Stanley
and where the beach meets the river that is racing down to the sea
Rivers edge in constant change
I totally love driftwood. But there are limits to what I can fit in the car to decorate my garden with
I wasn’t allowed to bring this home.
It can be beautifully moody
Incoming weather
Or show off its colours
Almost tropical in colour!
The sand has artistic tendencies
Ripples
As does the water colour of the river
Tea trees up-river stain the water
We have a ridiculous number of these shells at home! I do plan to use them to edge my herb garden one of these days
It was a beautiful day today, and I didn’t care what needed to be done inside – I was going to be out in it.
My poor garden is in an appalling state! I really haven’t been keeping up – just accepting the food it gives us without maintaining it lately!
It was pretty refreshing to get in there and make a good start on prettying it up again!
Self seeded brassicas gone mad!
One of the raised garden beds was full of self seeded broccolini and mini cabbage, a few cos lettuce that went to seed, some rogue potatoes that I never even planted there and a single capsicum that hasn’t fruited but looks quite at home.
Time to get a bit ruthless and remove it all!
ok – I didn’t have the heart to pull up the capsicum. Its trying so hard!
Found plenty of fat juicy worms! The chickens suck them back like spaghetti – but only if they are lucky enough to find them by themselves. I prefer worms in the garden working for me!
Worm!
I hate twitch. Long ropey grass. I can never get it all – sometimes tempts me to move over to the dark side of chemical poisons. Resisting so far!
Twitch is never ending
I tried to choose the best of the moth eaten brassicas to replant under the ‘vegie net’ It took a while to carefully inspect every leaf for grubs and eggs and me flapping my arms about and yelling at any cabbage moth that came near. They look a little forlorn after their relocation, but hoping they will bounce back in a few days.
These guys have a chance now!
My best friend gave me these wonderful nets. She grew some beautiful non-grubby cauliflower over summer using these! I really should have put mine up again sooner.
And yes I know I have replanted in the same spot, but I like living on the edge – we shall see what happens!
Job one done
Moving right along to this mess –
Where to start?
It took a bit of time to pull up and remove a good portion of the unwanted plants and weeds in here – I didn’t quite get around to digging it over but there was a vast improvement by the end of the day.
Getting there
A small bit of excitement at one point as I disturbed a beautiful Redback Spider. These are famed for making life uncomfortable in the old days when you would find them under the toilet seat in the outside dunny!
Female Redback Spider
So I risked life and limb to put her in a margarine container and moved her to a more ‘photographable’ area so I could show you all 🙂 (Most of you are probably saying, please don’t bother next time!)
It was hard to get a decent shot of her as after her margarine experience she was a bit skitty, and wouldn’t stop the race for freedom.
There is an antivenom, but a bite will make you reasonably unwell. (and no – I don’t garden with gloves!)
OK – I did don the leather gloves for this baby –
The weaponry on this plant is brutal
They are the nastiest thistle around. And even with the gloves on I got stabbed right through a couple of times!!! Much more troublesome than spiders in my opinion. (Serves me right for letting the garden go so long!)
One of the nice things about working in the garden is being able to forage for lunch. I ate tomatoes and raw beans. I could have really gone wild and had a carrot, but maybe tomorrow 🙂
Fresh eggs
I gathered a few fresh eggs then came inside to wash off the dirt and get dinner on the go.
I had thawed out some mince but hadn’t made any grand decisions about what to do with it. I have saved some to make hamburgers tomorrow, but tonight I made one of my favourite Japanese side dishes, Koroke.
Mash some potatoes and fry up some mince (I like to add some curry powder to the mince.) (And don’t add milk or cream to the mash – maybe a bit of butter – if its too soft they will fall apart)
Love my old fashioned masher
Put some some bread in the Gee-Whizzer and make some breadcrumbs, and crack a couple of eggs –
The proper colour of eggs from free ranging spoiled chickens
Mix your mashed potato and mince and form into patties. Dip in the beaten egg and roll in the breadcrumbs
Time to get sticky handsReady to fry
Shallow fry in a pan of oil and you are done.
I usually have teriyaki chicken to go alongside this, but I wasn’t going to bother driving into town for it. (We top with the Japanese Kewpie Mayonnaise and Tonkatsu sauce)
Not glamorous but satisfying!
Such was my day! I hope yours was great too!
Cheers
PS Cari asked what a Granny Bonnet was, so I hunted up some photos –
Close up of the cool petal arrangementScale – you can tell they are quite a small flower and the heads hang down.
I have only been doing this gardening thing properly for a bit over four years. I enjoy learning new ways to grow vegies – trying fruit or vegetables I haven’t had before. So the idea of collecting my own seed just made so much sense. I have been getting into it more and more.
What I call my lazy approach of not bothering to pull up vegetables that are going to seed can actually be relabelled as ‘permaculture’ 🙂
I had a beautiful big patch of parsley last season. It eventually went to seed and I never really got around to pulling it out. Come spring, I had little parsley plants popping up everywhere!
Best buddies – Parsley & Zucchini
Its been growing madly all around the zucchini plants with no real assistance from me. A few were easily transplanted to the ‘proper’ herb garden too. Not only do you get free plants, but you can sell the excess, so what’s not to love about this?
The scarlet runner beans were the first thing I started to collect. They are just so obvious and easy. The pod that you missed picking at the right time becomes nice and fat, then browns off. You crack it open and ‘voila’ there are your new seeds. The fact that I have a huge mason jar full of more of these seeds than one person sensibly needs in a lifetime is neither here nor there.
Scarlett Runner Beans
Of course, seeds from zucchini’s, cucumber, pumpkins, melon etc (basically any that you can scrap out of the fruit) are so easy to collect. Just dry them out on some kitchen paper or newspaper, then store them in paper bags until spring. (Do yourself a favour and label the bags!! Captain Obvious I know, but for people like me who just think they will remember which were the capsicum (green pepper) and which were the chilli seeds… Well, you can imagine)
Mini Rock Melon
Can I digress for a minute? Capsicum. For all those in North America that call it Green Pepper. When you come down to Australia for your awesome holiday of a lifetime, don’t order green peppers on your pizza as you will get really hot chillies. My poor father in law, who is extremely sensitive to spicy food ordered EXTRA green peppers on his pizza. I thought we were going to have to jump start the poor bloke!!
Anyway – back to seeds 🙂
I have saved tomato seeds and tried to grow tomatoes every year, but they really don’t perform for me (yet – I haven’t given up) I prefer using self seeded plants (they come up everywhere now) or laterals (which I will save for another post.)
The theory here is that the seeds get the moisture and nutrients from the fruit for a better start.
Planting the slices of tomato worked well… most germinated, but I soon killed them 🙁
Other plants that you let go to seed and flower can produce a phenomenal amount of seed.
A single lettuce plant can produce enough for you to use for a few years. Although collecting it is more fiddly. The seeds are tiny – you pull the dried buds apart to get the seeds. I find seed collecting a very relaxing task actually…
Lettuce flowersDried off lettuce flowers – seeds ready to pick
Another advantage to letting your plants run to seed is that the flowers bring in the bees. I let a broccoli go crazy in the hothouse and it was very helpful in luring in the bees to do their work on the tomatoes, chilli and cucumbers.
This plant grew gorgeous huge broccoli, flowered like mad – and produced very few seed pods!!
My seedy broccolini in the outside garden totally exploded into seed pods! Many nights were spend in front of movies podding these teeny tiny seeds! The crazy amount of plants that have self seeded as well is now on my urgent “To Be Attended To” list.
Thousands of seedsBroccolini seeds alongside the snow pea seeds for scale
Fennel is a lovely plant. It thrives on neglect. I didn’t even plant it in the first place, but like a lot of things around here, it sprouted up and did its own thing.
Fennel flowers – pretty and delicateProduces masses of seed
I read that fennel attracts the kind of wasps that love to munch on codling moth, so we were thinking of creating a garden ring of fennel around our apple trees. Has anyone heard of this or tried it?
Collected fennel seed
The fabulously gnarly little silverbeet seeds (swiss chard) are starting to dry off –
Silverbeet seed
One thing I did learn – don’t put similar plants close together if you want to get seed. I had silverbeet and beetroot (beets) close together that went to seed. Cross pollination happened. What I grew from those seeds was really peculiar!! Lesson learned.
The basil flowers are going to seed too at the moment and I am watching them brown off. I picked one stem to see what the seeds were like and how to get to them. They will be fiddly as well – tiny seeds. But I don’t think you can have too much basil in the garden, so it will be worth the effort.
Basil seed pods
I collect some of the flower seeds as well – sweet pea (easy), Granny Bonnet (fairly easy) and sunflower seeds (dead easy)
Sunflower seeds – a beautiful fitSunflower seeds – and leftover petals
Garlic is another easy one.
I love garlic.
Just save a bunch of cloves to plant the following season. I was actually quite shocked how much seed garlic was to buy. One of my lovely cousins who was growing it in a big way started me off with some and I have saved and replanted my own ever since.
Easy seed to save
Another advantage to seed collecting is that you can make a few dollars off it if you have an outlet like a local market. I like to use my extensive origami paper collection (the collection that makes Jeff twitch a little bit) and fold envelopes for the seed. It all helps with the garden paying its way. Its just costs you a little time. They also make great additions to presents if you are into home made/grown gifts.
Seed for Sale
If you have a garden and don’t save seed – give it a go. Its pretty easy, it saves you money and its quite satisfying to grow food from seed you have nurtured yourself!
If you do collect seed and have any tips or things you recommend with the process I would love to hear from you.
I will finish up with a couple of leek seed heads photos because it took me a very frustrating hour to find these images (I have an extensive collection of photos lol) so I wasn’t going to not include them.
Cheers
Leek seed head with its cap onTiny leek flower sitting up
I know a number of you may be familiar with Ruby via some posts Mavis put up on “One Hundred Dollars a Month”
My aunt is an amazing woman – she is 99 years old, lives by herself, keeps herself fed via a fabulous garden and is an all round wonderful person to know.
I thought I might reserve Tuesdays to write an anecdote or two about Ruby, her life and stories from way back. (Yes – Tuesday – are you singing the song yet ?? 🙂 )
Summer Garden at Ruby’s
While Ruby’s daughter, Margaret and myself help out in the garden, Ruby does an awful lot of it herself. It gives her the independence to be able to trot up the back and ‘get herself a feed’
Cuppa tea time
During a recent afternoon cuppa together and chat, Jeff and I discovered that Ruby had never tried Fairy Floss before!! (Cotton Candy) How is it possible in nearly 100 years that someone hasn’t given fairy floss a go??
Ruby is a nurse from way back – and hospital matron! She informed us that she couldn’t believe people were eating what looked like cotton wool! She knows what cotton wool gets used for and eating it just wasn’t something she could bring herself to do!
Recently at Steam Fest, I found a van selling fairy floss, so I cheekily bought a packet then took it around to Ruby. She giggled so much, but she is such a good sport about the mad things I ask her to do, she dutifully tried it to please me!
I am not generally a list person. But today I thought I would give it a go as I am pretty much an aesthetically relaxed procrastinator so I thought it would help.
Plus crossing things off is quite satisfying.
I had been meaning to make up some cherry ice-cream for a while. I had bought some cooking cherries locally and froze what I hadn’t used. My parents bought us an ice-cream maker for Christmas! (I think they were playing favourites here as I do like ice-cream, but Jeff has an addiction)
In goes the cherry pulp
I made a traditional vanilla ice-cream base recipe and then just poured the pureed cherries in.
The final colour turned out pretty fabulous!!
No artificial colourings here!!
It taste tested up really well 🙂 But it has to freeze overnight to be ‘proper ice-cream’ (waiting – waiting – I wonder if its ok to have ice-cream for breakfast?)
Passed the taste test – I might have licked the bowl and stirrer too!
It was a beautiful day outside and I couldn’t let that sunshine go to waste without putting a couple of loads of laundry through –
Note to self – remove spider webs tomorrow
It was a good excuse to get out of the kitchen a few times and soak up the sun.
I got into those windfall apples and rescued what I could. Even the dodgy apples still have plenty of good bits to use. We have codling moth unfortunately that we haven’t got under control yet. At least they mostly burrow to the core so they are easy to cut out. This one was a bit more manky looking –
Hmmm – what’s lurking inside?
But I still got plenty out of it –
For the dehydrator
It was hard eyeing off the blue skies out the kitchen window, I wanted to be in the garden, but I knew the tomatoes were going feral, so I had to sort them out too.
I used a good amount in a slow cooked meal. I thawed out some stewing steak last night and added a couple of onions and a mix of beef stock, mustard powder and a liberal helping of my plum-Worcestershire sauce. (one of those make-it-up-as-you-go-along dishes!) I know these recipes call for browning the meat & onions first, but I am a huge fan of not adding to the workload or dishes – so, into the pot altogether at once!
Dinner
It worked out really tasty, which is lucky because it is going to be dinner tomorrow night too.
The rest of the tomatoes got sorted – either chopped and frozen or given to the chickens. I did not even glance at the tomato plants when I was in the garden!! I don’t want to know what’s ready to pick until tomorrow or the next day!!
Eventually I made my way down to the beach, but there was less kelp than yesterday.
Wynyard Beach – beautiful afternoon to be out
I was strong and stayed away from the shells
Lots to look at!
Funny thing was, as I was walking up the beach picking up lumps of kelp I could hear a conversation coming up behind me. I thought… that’s nice. Friends out for a stroll on the beach. Ha – one woman on a phone. She walked all the way along the beach above and back and she was still on the phone! I felt a little sorry for her. I guess I love it that I completely unplug when I leave the house. I see a walk on the beach as a way to unwind and just be with a friend or your own thoughts for a change, rather than organising those busy lives of ours!!
Anyway – I found it easy to fill two bags with kelp. There is a lot of grassy seaweed on the Wynyard beaches which makes fantastic mulch. (But there are a couple of girls coming to stay in April and that is a perfect job to get them to help me with -saving that task up for later)
I was a bit naughty and put the bags in the car 🙂
See how I responsibly added a tarp under the bags?
If you live by the sea and are allowed to collect kelp – this is how I make my ‘kelp juice’
Kelp Juice Recipe
Then your vegetables can grow big and strong –
Another of my supersized vegies! Mad beetroot! (or beet )
Despite my pessimism about the weather and a chilly start – it was a gorgeous sun drenched day, with minimum wind! Sometimes Mother Nature gets it exactly right!
I found my spot and parked the car and of course grabbed the camera and dashed down to the beach! All that kelp!!! (yes yes – the sunrise was quite lovely, but I was making plans for a return to stock up on kelp for the garden!)
Wynyard Beach looking back towards Fossil Bluff
By then I was sufficiently awake enough to start unpacking the car and setting up. I would like to take a moment to let you know that Jeff piked out on me and stayed home!! The advantage to this is he is not wandering the market unsupervised spending the money I am trying to make. The downside was at the end having to cross my legs a bit! 🙂 (The public loos (toilets) are waaaay down the other end of the market)
Gazebo up
One of the regular stall holders that I have gotten to know came and helped get my gazebo up – I can do it myself, but its quicker with more hands of course! One of the nice things about this area – friendly helpful people – although I must admit the man in question did tease me about actually turning up today!! He thinks I am a fair weather person!! I would totally agree!!! If you had experienced having a market stall on the foreshore when the wind was howling, the rain was coming in sideways and unexpected hail in summer – then you would think it was perfectly reasonable to pull the covers over my head and stay firmly at home!
Ready to go
Today was one of the more perfect days!
Blue!!
There were lots of people out and about today, but not so many reaching into their pockets to spend.
I was really pleased though, to offload almost all the boxes of vegetables that I brought with me. The jams & sauces keep, so no drama and less cooking over the next couple of weeks!
I also put a nice big jar filled with parsley on the table and offered it free to people who stopped to chat or buy. I have so much parsley I am happy for it to be used, and a small free thing cheers people up I reckon!
Parsley
I love meeting new people & chatting to the regular stall holders that I have gotten to know. I have made new friends with a couple and their young daughter who moved to Tasmania in their old bus less than three weeks ago and I have already run into them about 5 or 6 times. I am wondering if I should try to convince them I am not actually stalking them! 😀
People watching is fun, and customers are varied but mostly friendly and chatty. One lady made me chuckle a little today as she wanted some of my cherry tomatoes… I was offering that people could fill a bag for $2 (and telling them not to be shy about stuffing it as full as it would go) Anyway, she only wanted a few unripe ones, so she filled the bag about a quarter full or so and asked how much… 50 cents I say confidently. Her face fell and she spent the longest time trying to decide what to do!! I thought it was a pretty good price (hey we are talking organic here too!) Maybe I should have just said to take them gratis!! Sometimes I think of the best thing to do too late!
People watching from the shade
By 2pm, everything had died down, so I packed up as fast as I could (remember – crossing my legs now) and drove literally across to road to see my Great Aunt Ruby, as its tradition for me to drop in after the market and have a cuppa!
I caught her cat napping in the sun (perfectly reasonable for someone who is nearly 100 years old!) So I dashed past with a breathless “Hi Ruby – Its Lisa – I need your little girls room right now!!”
Once that was sorted I could give her a big hug and catch up. The darling had cooked me lunch!!!
A “Ruby-Nin” lunch
Everything from her garden fresh!! Oh did that go down well!!! Of course we finished up with coffee and sponge cake before I took my leave to get home and unpack the car. (A job almost as bad as folding washing, but not one I can avoid – pretty sure Jeff would say something about having to drive to work with boxes of sauces and market tables in the car with him…)
It was nice to sit down with Jeff and count up all my loot – $130 today which turned out a lot better than I had supposed so was totally worth getting out of bed early and spending a day not in the kitchen!
A quick wander about the garden is necessary – just to see what is happening. Jeff had done a lot of work weeding and trimming trees etc. Then I saw someone – who shouldn’t have been – in my vegetable garden!!! Bad Chook!
“What??”
After throwing the chicken back over the garden fence I ate a bean –
Fresh & sweet
and picked the last small corn cob to discover it had about 20 fat kernels – so I ate those too! So sweet – they just explode in your mouth!
With all the rain, followed by plenty of sun, the grass (and weeds) were shooting up at a rate you could almost watch!
And we were beginning to lose the cat –
Pip
So we did a much needed tidy up of the things that the wind had scattered about the yard and Jeff got out on his mower and sorted it out (I laughed when I caught him driving up to the apple tree to pick a snack for a break!!)
Drive through apples
I picked up all the windfall apples so he didn’t do a yard-size apple puree. Quite a lot of the windfall apples are ok for use –
The good windfalls
But a lot have been nibbled on – probably by our local possums or the single rabbit that has also taken up recent residence –
The not so good windfalls
The chickens had a perfectly lovely afternoon as they are not normally allowed up the ‘house side’ of the property (something about their insistence on digging up my strawberries and herb gardens) So they were thoroughly over-excited at this little extra freedom today.
She thinks I have foodOur beautiful Australorps
Its funny watching them zigzag all over the yard chasing bugs. But then finally they worked their way up into the strawberries and herbs so it was time to herd their little feathery butts back to the other side!
Not a bad herding job! The usually scatter in 9 different directions!
I’m actually trying to “Speed-Blog” tonight as we have to be up at silly O’clock tomorrow morning to get down to the local market and set up. I’d just like to take this opportunity to explain I am not a morning person. In fact “not a morning person” doesn’t even begin to explain how much of a morning person I am not! So tonight I would prefer to be in bed while the clock still says pm for a change
So I picked a few tomatoes –
I managed to separate a large crate of saleable cherry tomatoes out of these
All my jams/sauces are sorted out and other bits and bobs that I need are all in the car. We just have to (ok I am saying “We” here because Jeff still hasn’t fully decided if he is coming along with me tomorrow…) pick some parsley and silver-beet in the morning and shove the last boxes in the car before going. Early.
Goodnight all – fingers crossed that tomorrow the weather doesn’t do a nose dive back into the biblical-level rain of yesterday!
After a wet, howlingly miserable day that forced me into lighting the fire for the first time this season, Tasmania chose to say goodnight with a spectacular sky.
So I grabbed my camera and dashed across the highway so I could get some photos to share.
Fossil Bluff, with its beautiful sandstone cliffs, is less than 10 minutes drive from our front door. We often dash down here for a beach fix and to collect a few more pretty rocks from the shore. (We’re a bit nerdy like that! 🙂 )
Layers of the cliffs are embedded with fossils which date back 38 million years!! You’ll see mostly shells but Fossil Bluff has yielded a fossil wombat (Wynyardia) and a complete ancient whale (Prosqualodon). Cool huh?
Closer to the cliff layersSo many fossilsIts hard to believe these have been around for 38 million years!!
Its possible to walk a fair way up the beach at low tide
Low tide at Fossil Bluff
There are lots of nooks and crannies to explore
Jeff inspects the cliff faceCrack in the cliff
My favourite pastime down here is rock hunting. I am quite addicted to the amazing rocks we find at different beaches in our area.
Late afternoon overlooking Table Cape
You can find nice examples of Calder River Agate
AgateAgate – not the usual colour found here
And other pretties –
A mix of rocks we have found from Fossil Bluff and other nearby beaches (which I have polished)
Its a gorgeous photogenic area, so I rarely go down without my camera
High tideIts kinda like a lasagne 🙂The tide swirls over the rocksFollow the boardwalk and up to the top of the cliff for a great lookout
Its a fossickers little bit of heaven
Is it just me or does anyone else see the horse in the driftwood?Small stone crammed with fossils
Its the perfect place to run a visitor down to see when time is pressing, but I am just glad its a stones throw away from us to enjoy!
Since there is a market upcoming (although by the sound of the pouring rain as I type, it may be a no-goer) I thought it best to drag some of the umpteen squillion bags of raspberries out of the freezer and make some more jam. Everyone seems to love it. (Except my weird husband who avoids it because he is a sook about seeds in his teeth! 🙂 ) (more for me!!)
Sticky goodness
It was important to test it –
Fresh bread and jam
Tick.
Moving right along to make up that sweet chilli sauce
Sweet Chilli Sauce
Recipe for those who are interested:
You’ll need a long lead time if you want to grow your own chillies and garlic, otherwise its pretty straightforward.
Ingredients:
300 grams chillies (deseeded)
100 grams garlic
70 grams fresh ginger
1.2 litres of cider vinegar
2 kg sugar
1 teaspoon salt
Method:
Put your chillies, garlic and ginger in the Gee Whizzer with a bit of the cider vinegar to puree
Add to large pot with remaining ingredients and boil (keep an eye on it – horrible to clean up if it boils over)
Recipe calls for 25 minutes of simmering but I need a LOT longer (ie an hour or two) to reduce to the desired thickness
Do yourself a favour and DO NOT INHALE while cooking or even washing the pot. Seriously. Your eyes will water for a week.
Pour into sterilised bottles and enjoy.
Drizzle on cream cheese and biscuits (crackers) or very nice with spring rolls
Since I had made meatloaf yesterday I didn’t have much to do to get dinner ready, except trot down the yard to my personal supermarket to pull up some carrots –
Impressed with my carrots that I have mostly ignored all season!
Pick the first of the pumpkins It was so small but the plant has died back so why not try it? Glad we did – tasty!!
Cute teeny pumpkinLooks ok
And a visit to the herb garden for some basil, parsley and oregano. Honestly – have you seen how expensive ‘fresh’ herbs are to buy in the supermarket? Even if you don’t have a garden, grab a few pots and grow your favourite herbs. You won’t look back!
Herb Garden
I also had a taste for some stuffed tomatoes, so while the vegies were baking I prepared a few. Its another great way to make use of your excess tomatoes.
First whizz up some breadcrumbs and add some fresh herbs (or dry) and a bit of garlic salt
Breadcrumbs & fresh herbs
Get your tomatoes, cut in half and scoop out the centre.
Scoop middles
Smush up or whizz up the centres and add them to the breadcrumb mixture then spoon the lot back into the tomato shells.
Top with a bit of basil and a smidge of butter. They will take about 5 minutes under the grill so you can do them last thing before serving up dinner.
Ready for the grill
I have no photo of dinner because I was hungry and ate it – plus it wasn’t that photogenic anyway – but it was fresh and tasted not too bad at all!
