MY BLOG HAS MOVED!

You can now find this blog at www.gardeninginamberley.blogspot.com.  Since we have moved it seems the sensible thing to do...I am not in Cromwell anymore.

October and it must be planting time

Mother Nature has not forgotten to let us know that she has not quite finished with colder weather yet.  Just to prove it, yesterday HAIL and today a frost.  Still, I braved the morning cold, and set out mit gumboots to conquer the garden.

Here is a shot of what it looked like before I started today.  The cleared off bit is what Albie and I did a week ago, which took us a whole morning.

I managed to clear two large rows and plant 26 seed potatoes (Jersey Benne).  We also unearthed some more spring onions, and leeks which the previous people had planted.  It's starting to look like it should do, a proper Mr McGregor's garden.

A row of carrots went in, and Hamish very kindly put plastic  around the rest of the fencing,( and tidied up the fences I had already done, apparently they didn't meet his strict quality control).  Our chooks, not content with the 12 acres to roam, got into the garden through the fence the other day and ate 6 small cauliflower seedings, hence the drastic plastic measure.

Montana-Rose helped me to plant some lettuces also, and had fun hunting for more beans.  There  are a whole heap of dried beans on dead vines against the fence, and she has been podding them for me.  I have no idea what variety they are, but am placing my bets on scarlet runner beans.  Time will tell, as I plant to pot some up and see what comes up.

In the afternoon I finished sewing M-Rose's latest dress..

Clearing the new garden

We are moving house...*sigh*, but the good news is that the very historical home we are moving into had wonderful previous gardeners.  Their vege patch must have been a glory.  It is now overgrown with chickweed and mallow.

But today Albie and I spent the afternoon making a start on it.  We have slashed and dug and raked and hoed, and now there are some free beds where we have transplanted some of our seedlings from our current house.  In went garlic, in went cauliflower, in went rhubarb, in went snow peas and in went a raspberry cane.

Now we are exhausted.  Photos to come soon, I promise

A third snow

Can you  believe it? we had a third snow morning.  Just a dusting of icing sugar for the grass, and a good frozen one on our cars.  It is virtually unheard of to have more than 1 snow a year, we have been so privileged.

The garden didn't seem to mind.  Once the snow melted it left puddles everywhere and the garden had needed a nice drink.  Even a week later we still have some big puddles.  And with warm weather, well everything is growing.  I found a tiny rhododendron bush in the undergrowth, and the jasmine has started to flower.  Such a beautiful fragrance in late afternoon when I walk past.

My basil hasn't come up.  Whether the seed just wasn't viable in the first place, or whether I have done something wrong trying to germinate them, I'm not sure.

This week we ate leeks and carrots and sprouting broccoli which had overwintered in the abandoned garden of what is destined to become our new home!  the leeks were enormous! and delicious.

Daffodils are out

The first daffodils have come out into flower.  I picked them and brought them inside, hopeful that spring must soon be on the way.

My motherinlaw had given me a bag of daffy bulbs earlier in the year, and seeing some in flower reminded me all about them.  Up until now I had only given them limited thought, but all of a sudden the rush was on to get them into the ground.  Some were already sprouting..eeek.

I also planted my first seeds.  Some basil.  I have been saving those plastic containers that lots of food items seem to come in, in the supermarket.  Plastic, with a lid, they look like mini cool frames.  So I have experimentally put basil seeds into one and if that is successful I will do all my seeds that way this year.

Yay for spring!

Snow, snow and spring

Well, for the 2nd time this winter, we have had snow and LOTS of it.  It's pretty much unheard of for Christchurch to have so much snow.  For 3 days the snowstorm raged in wages of cold and hail and then snow again.  Several dumpings over the days ended with about 18cm of snow.

With the thaw came lots of puddles and slushiness.  The garden sloshed in mud for days and is only just drying out now, a week later.

Christchurch's coldest day in years

Apparently Monday was Christchurch's coldest daytime temperature since 1918...and my garden looks it.  Not a dusting of snow, not a small amount of snow, but large, fluffy over 1/2 a foot of snow.  It was gorgeous.  It stayed for the 3 days on the ground in the coldest parts of the garden.  You should have seen the poor chooks wading around braving snow up to their bellies.

The only thing growing was snowmen.  This was the last, and smallest of a series, some I made with Matt, and then Montana-Rose made about three.  Apparently this one is a Snowlady, cute eh!

Grapefruit tree

Let's hope the Grapefruit aren't frozen solid after this

A blanket of Snow

My garden is now under the softest, whitest blanket.  It's cold, been snowing all day, and a lovely snowy coverlet lies over everything.

Garlic, better late than never, I hope

I am not on the ball..I went to the garden centre to buy garlic for planting only to discover that they have run out. The kind lady told me I could try and grow the stuff from the vege man next door, but it may be sprayed with a growth inhibitor?  I bought three cloves to try, and have put them outside for the frost tonight.   I guess I could try sprouting some of my own bulbs, its just that they are not as fat an juicy as the ones in the shops and I don't know if I would get much of a yield off them.

Who knows, we will wait and see...

I planted in some cauliflower and protected them from the chooks with cut off milk and fizz bottles.  I had some lovely big broccoli plants but last time I let the chooks out they headed straight for them and ate all their fresh green leaves, dammit.

Everything else is pretty much dormant, tho we still have plenty of silverbeet, celery and potatoes.

Potatoes

I love potatoes.

I reckon the Irish were onto a good thing, basing their life around such a staple, sustaining food.

Here is my favourite Potato dish, its an easy potato gratin.  Not a can of anything in sight, not a Maggi Mix, just pure, good ingredients.

POTATO GRATIN

Peel and thinly slice about 10 potatoes.

In a big pot put a 300ml thing of cream.  Rinse the container out with milk and add that to the pot too.  Stir in 1 clove of garlic, crushed, and some salt and pepper.

Add the potatoes and cook about 10 mins till it all goes thick.  Pile into a  baking dish and bake on 160C for about an hour, till golden ontop and all the cream etc is gooey.

EAT :-)

Still some Harvesting

Harvested from our garden and taken in our camper to Lynne and Simons:

3kg or so of beautiful purple potatoes
Some big sticks of celery
Rainbow silverbeet
A lettuce

These are really the last of the edibles before the big cold comes!

Campervan fun

Another nasty weather weekend, drizzle, rain and cold.  After spending the day cleaning out our chooks and putting clean straw in their nests, and giving them dry clean sawdust etc, I packed the campervan.  Off to Ashburton in our 6 wheeled wonder.  After stopping for dinner, the kids were tired, so we put them in their sleeping bags at the back of the camper where we could keep an eye on them, and did the second leg with them fast asleep!

Ranunculus from my Mother

When I was a little girl I was given a small piece of garden, it was sunny, but against a hedge and overshadowed by boundary trees.  I only ever grew two things, voilets and ranunculus.   The voilets were given to me as a cutting, by someone, I think my Nana- but I am not sure.  They flowered and flourished and filled up the whole garden bed and I loved the smell of them.  I used to pick bunches and put them in a glass in my room.

The ranunculus are so blousey, and overthetop, and out there, and they came up and flowered with abandon once a year.

My Mother recently gave me some while we were in Cromwell and I planted them but nothing came up, whether the chooks scratched them up, or it was too cold, I don't know.

Well, she gave me another lot, and by golly, I have them coming up!  I counted 7.  But....shouldn't they come up in Spring not Winter?

I hope to have a lovely display of them in the spring and can't wait to see what colours I have got.

Time away from the Garden

The garden looks messy at this time of the year.  The tomatos are scraggy and need to come out (I have already picked off the green ones and put them on the windowsills), the potatoes are dying off, everything is muddy and it just is not pretty.

Instead, we left the garden and went away for the weekend, first to Motunau Beach and then to Ashley Forest.

OK, so not really gardening related...but here is my latest quilt

Cupcake Heaven

Albie helped me make them using a Hummingbird Bakery recipe (way easier, no creaming of butter and sugar), and Montana-Rose helped to ice them.  Aren't they cute!

We have also done some Autumn Harvesting, I reckon our silverbeet could have won a prize at the Oxford show!  It is like palm fronds, it's so big.

What to do with a gazillion eggs - make Eclairs

Our chook girls are working hard giving us 6-7 eggs a day, and we are unundated with them.  We eat poached eggs, boiled eggs, make cakes and all the rest, but here's a good way to use up heaps.

Preheat oven to 200C.  Put 2 cups of water into a pot with 6oz of butter and bring to the boil.  Add 10oz plain white flour and beat till the mixture leaves the sides of the pot.  Remove from heat, add 1t vanilla and 2dessertspoons of sugar.  Beat in 8 eggs.  (my recipe book says to do each egg separately, but I whack the whole lot in and whizz with the electric beater).  You will end up with a mixture that looks like soft goop, like a paste.

Put large spoon fulls onto a baking paper lined tray, leaving plenty of room between them.  Bake 30 mins till golden brown.  Wait about 5 mins then slit to let out steam.  Let cool and dry thoroughly.  Fill with custard or whipped cream and top with chocolate ganache or icing.

Old Fashioned Picnic

Amberley School had it's end of term picnic, on the train from Waipara to Wairakei on the Weka Pass Railway. All the children were asked to bring an old fashioned picnic (no yoghurts, prepackaged food items, and only home baking).  And to dress in costume, don't Tana look great in her mop cap and tucker!

Getting the real Tomato flavour

We finally have some tomatoes and I have just had an amazing dish for dinner, which showcases Tomatoes in all their glory, along with some classic partners, Basil and Feta

Tomato, Feta stacks

Take each tomato, complete with stalk and slice a teeny bit off the bottom to make them sit upright in a dish.  Slice each into 3 thick slices.  Top the first two Tomato slices with a slice of feta and 2 or 3 basil leaves, then spray with oil.  Stack ontop of each other and then with the tomato top.  Secure with a toothpick.  Bake in a really hot oven for about 10 mins.

Simple and delicious.  They looked very like this!

What's ready in the garden in April

No matter that we planted our garden late this year (in January), here is a list of those things that are now ready and that we have been eating over the past few weeks:

Cauliflowers - although we did lose a few to white caterpillars
Broccoli
Spring Onion
Potatoes by the kilogram
Green Capsicum
Chillis (which are drying wonderfully on the windowsill)
Runner Beans

So, all is not lost!

Christchurch Earthquake - a Gardener's Prayer

These words come from an article in the Saturday Press 5th March 2011...  by gardener...  I have adopted them as my Gardener's Prayer.

May our new inner-city have many, many trees
Parks on every block
Wide river banks
Allotments for the inhabitants (of low wooden buildings)
 to grow their own fruit, flowers and vegetables
May it not only become the finest eco-city in the world
But may Christchurch's title of "Garden City"
 be truly warranted
Amen

Our part in the Christchurch Earthquake

It is so difficult to be a 40 min drive from Christchurch when there are so many people in need there.  We have been feeling a bit helpless and frustrated.

But, we discovered "The Rangiora Earthquake Express", an awesome group of people, with helicopter, who are flying goods and food into the worst hit suburbs, from dawn till dusk.  A round trip including loading and unloading is 1/2hr.  We made two dinners, a big salad, picked some grapefruit off our tree, and then headed to the Rangiora Welfare Centre.  There they gave us a list of items that were needed.  So we went to the good old Warehouse and bought batteries, nappies, and baby food and took them to the helicopter.

What an inspirational sight!  As we were there the helicopter arrived, was filled and flew away.  Plus I think they were trucking trailerloads of gear into town also.

Here's some links, including to some bad footage I took on my cellphone, with the sound of the chopper in the background.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJBlLcNqaUI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWwrUIqw-lo

and the facebook page for the Express http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Rangiora-Earthquake-Express/153841938005848

Go forth and do your work!

Green Beans - freezing freeflow

Picked the first amount of green beans today, here's how to freeze them.

Cut off the heads and tails, and either slice or cut into 2inch lengths.  Bring a pot of water to the boil, and dunk the beans in, boiling about one minute.  Drain in a colander and run with cold water to stop the steam when freezing.

Cover an oven tray with tinfoil, and lay the beans in a single layer on the foil.  Put into the freezer overnight, and the next day pop into a bag and back into the freezer.

You can then use them as and when you need, without defrosting, just pop straight into boiling water for a few minutes.

Red Chilli and Pepper Relish

I first tasted this fiery relish at my friend Jan de Voer's house, she had these marvelous jars of red, jammy, sticky, hot relish which we ate with cheese on crackers, with a devine result.  The original recipe comes from the books "Beach Bach Barbeque" or something similar, however I put more chillis in just because I like hot food.

Today, I put my hand to it:

RED CHILLI AND PEPPER RELISH

4 Large Red Capsicums
2 Onions, peeled and chopped roughly
1 large fresh red chilli, deseeded (I used 3!)
3 cloves Garlic
2c White Vinegar
800g sugar
salt to tast
2 kaffir lime leaves (or a lemon leaf from your lemon tree will do nicely)
1 bay leaf

Put the capsicums, onions, chillis and garlic in a food processor and whizz till the whole lot is a pulp.  Put pulp into a saucepan and add vinegar.  Cook about 20mins, then add the sugar, about 1t salt and the leaves.  Cook about 30 mins till thick.  Spoon into steralised jars.  Makes about 5 cups.

Will keep for 1 year while in the jar, and about 6 weeks in the fridge after opening.

Our new home - in Amberley

Finally, I have for you all, some pictures of our house in Amberley.  You can see we have a lot of land, lots of wayward grass, and not a lot else going on.

A new chook house and run have been built and we pick our new chook girls up next Friday.  I am so happy, I miss our chookies, and their lovely eggs.  Having to make do with supermarket eggs has not been the same.  Short note here: in the USA apparently they like their yolks white-ish and my brotherinlaw said he couldnt eat fried eggs/poached eggs/boiled eggs/omlettes because they just didnt look like eggs, dammit!

After Christmas we built a couple of rather large vege beds, and Mark's passion for potatoes shows.  We have also eaten lettuces, spring onions and spinach from this garden already.  The only thing really not doing well, are the beans which have been hit hard by the hot wind, and aren't going to do anything much.