Feathers, Fruit and the Autumn Harvest

Flocks of birds have helped themselves to our vegie patch this summer.  They trade us exquisite feathers to find on garden strolls.  So many feathers.

 The beans were spared and we have now eaten all the beans anyone would care to, no matter how delicious and sexy they are. These bush beans grew beside towering corn plants, the cobs of which we are now harvesting and gleefully consuming, they don't always make it inside to be cooked. Each summer corn seems like such trouble, they are huge, take up much space, need side pruning, require heavy feeding and mulching, take an age to ripen, and are water hungry.  Come Autumn and those first juicy sweet bites of golden yellow, all is forgiven.

A mystery plant turned up amongst my corn and I was unsure what sister had mixed herself into the bean/corn equation. Finally they are ripe and the heavenly scent revealed them to be some type of rockmelon, only three melons but they grew without fuss and taste delicious, quite the rockstars. I am saving this mystery seed for another year.

Thursday I was filled with riveting conversation. "Gosh its windy!" "that wind is really strong", "that's a fierce storm out there". If there was a prize for stating the self evident I would have won it. It was the kind of day the weather could not be ignored as gale force winds buffeted against the window, threatening to take us to OZ. We had some big branches down, a few corn casualties and a leaning tower of mulberry.  We got off lightly compared to some Victorian towns, I just love the voice over on this video taken in Mulwala, so very Australian.

The branches lying around are a boon to our dog who like to pounce and attack them, dragging them with a gleeful trot and shredding gum leaves all over the yard.

Better gum leaves than pumpkins. I keep finding my pumpkins detached from the vine a little prematurely.  It seems Zef has a penchant for playing tug of war with the vine. The pumpkins certainly have a unique appearance this year, some sporting Freddy Kruger like slashes. I cooked a few smaller ones up recently and they were still tasty, if a little dwarfed in size.

Note the spud and onion box below (a lovely hand me down from nanna and pa), these two vegetables should never be put together as the onions encourage the potatoes to sprout, a serious problem when you have lots of potatoes.

Purple Sapphires, Purple Congos, King Edwards, Kipfflers and Dutch Creams. 

A healthier Autumn Easter egg hunt.

 I am a laggard with some things (like blog posting of late). This is my attempt at making the orange peel and vinegar cleaner that I've been watching everyone else make for years. Ridiculously simple.

 We have a tiny cumquat in a pot, this summer it grew enough cumquats to not do much with, but just before they all turned off waiting for me, I managed to make one delicious jar of my favourite marmalade. I am so excited the cumquats are the thin skinned extra juicy variety, that makes a wonderfully sweet and tangy marmalade, I will definitely give that bush some more love.

The nectarines were attacked by birds, they even got inside the nets, but the few that were left were so heavenly scented and sweet they were too good to waste, we cut away the bird pecked fruit and ate the remainder, savouring each mouthful. As we say every year, next year we will get those nets on early.

Cucumbers and zucchinis are filling my crisper with shades of green, pickles and chutney are on my to do list.

This year we have eaten a lot of grated raw zucchini mixed with herbs chilli, parmesan and olive oil on pasta, it is less soggy and sweeter than the cooked variety.

Tonight we had bruschetta with tomato and basil, so good. For the recipe visit Christine's blog
Slow Living Essentials, I was far too busy enjoying it to take a photo.

 In the evening gazing inside at us from outdoors are praying mantis  It seem a particularly favourable year for these fascinating and garden friendly bugs, they are hunting the moths and insects that are attracted to our house lights, they are awesome to watch, such speed and ferocity.

Unfortunately I forgot to turn the lights off at our house tonight.  I have been a supporter of Earth Hour since it began but somehow it slipped my mind, probably due to the deliciousness of that bruschetta and having one child away at Cubs camp, perhaps we will do a belated hour another night.

The Autumn Harvest

 The front vegie patch in all its oversized grandness. I am loving our sawdust paths.

 These Giant Russian Sunflowers are on steroids - around 7 foot and still growing.

The fence patch is close to trees, less rich, and drier and will take more improving before it does well.  The choko has died, and the spaghetti squash are only few in number.  The loofah looks happy but hasn't flowered yet so I imagine it will remain loofah less.  The scarlet runner beans re-emerged from last years crop and have been giving but not abundant.

The zuchinnis didn't like all the rain (at least 150mm in the last week).  They have become mouldy and slowed in production.  This is a blessing as I believe we may have turned a shade of green and gold (just in time for the Olympic Games) if we continued to eat them at the same rate. Such a small area for so much food. This many plants easily overfeeds a family of 5, and all their extended family, and non zuchinni growing friends. There is a very happy mulberry tree in the middle that like all the food and water it received over summer, a great way to establish a new fruit tree.

Just made a big batch of zuchinni pickles, more fritters, and gave away a bagful to the family yet still they linger, bulging out of their bowls.

 The potato patch keeps giving. Passionfruit planted at the start of summer and winding their way upwards.

Smaller sunflowers grow a 1/3 of the size in a shadier part of the garden. These ones came up from last years crop.

The corn and sunflowers stand seeking golden rays but the cooler weather and cloudy days persist.  I've never know Autumn to strike so quickly. My heart goes out to all those suffering from floods right now.

Mondays harvest, a beautiful rainbow of vegie delights.

The carrot patch keeps on giving.

Sweet delicious corn should keep us in food during March.

Crunchy stringless Bush beans, wish I'd written down what they were, such pretty pink seeds and my favourite bush bean to date.

 My cockatoo friends have struck again. This sunflower had barely unfurled its petals before receving a chomp. It's still beautiful with all it's imperfections.  The head is too large to sit up and bends forward forlornly, perhaps hiding its bounty from maraudering birds.

No pears for us this year, the Rosellas took a particular fancy to these. 

At least we had plenty of white nectarines, I am eating them stewed for breakfast, they quickly go mouldy unless you use them within a few days of picking.

So happy with the vegie patch this year, it has never been so productive.

Garlic Pride

 The last of the 2010 garlic harvest - I used the final cloves in a pasta sauce, they were a bit dried out and starting to sprout, but tasted fine, then a few days later.....

Fresh garlic ready for a plate of Nasi Goreng.  There are not many things I can say I'm self sufficient in, but garlic is one of them. I gifted a lot of the 2010 harvest and used a lot, because we had so many, and miraculously it was the perfect quantity. I'm also self sufficient in oregano, sage, parsley, silverbeet, chives, thyme and lettuce - which do a great job of planting and growing themselves. My garlic aren't huge but they're tasty, long lasting, and plentiful.

 Middle bowerbird helped me dig them up and he reckoned it was pretty fun. This is just a small portion of our garlic harvest. This years bulbs aren't super big, I may have dug them up a bit prematurely, but they were all falling over.  It will be interesting to compare these with those harvested a little later. I've got garlic in spots all over the garden.

Thinking this empty harvest spot might be a good location for a tomato or two, or maybe some beans. I've put all the bulbils back in the ground near the tree trunk to be dug up and transplanted when they re-sprout.

 I have found garlic don't like competition much and grow best with their own spot, this also helps with finding them when it's time to harvest.  I have allocated them a place under our fruit trees for the last few years, and whilst it's not the most fertile ground, they are very forgiving.  Most of the bulbs are from the plants I forgot to harvest that I find sprouting around the garden in late Autumn. Many of these were transplanted by my lovely vegie group friends. The upside to growing things under, or on the edge of the fruit trees is that I nourish the trees a lot more.  The Greengage plum these were under is set for a bumper crop this year.

 

 Garlic digging shovel casualty.

 Falling down garlic, could be more browned off but rain forecast and concern about losing them if the stems broke down got me harvesting.

Scapes, we have a few of these around the garden that I have let flower, and I now have bulbils growing at 2 year stage - it will be interesting to see how they go next year.

Super fresh garlic - plump, juicy, delicious. The best!

I'm gearing up for some garlic braiding.

More on garlic and all the wonderful varieties below. Not sure what ours are, a bit of a mix but they are often a beautiful shade of pink or purple. It would be interesting to do a blind tasting of the different varieties, I'm not confident I could tell the difference.

The Witches Kitchen recently had some excellent tips on growing garlic on her blog.

http://witcheskitchen.com.au/bringing-in-the-garlic/