Spring haz sprung

After the success last year of growing the butternut pumpkins I was definite that I wanted to put in another lot.

In the previous post you can see that the spot I had planted the pumpkins in last time has now been used to plant my dwarf orange and mandarin trees.  I had to set about clearing another patch!  It is hard work but luckily we have a mattock which helps.  There are so many thick roots and grass runners going in all directions.

Pumpkins and some spinach down the side for good measure.  You can never have too many spinach.  We use it all the time.  Even my fussy 10 year old will eat baby spinach!

So that was done a couple of weekends ago and I was thinking that there is still a lot of potential space in the front yard if I clear it.  This weekend has been spent clearing a third tier and also the space around my rose bush.

The rose has been here as long as we have and it produces such beautiful luscious smelling blooms so I wanted to keep it and I will find something to plant around it.

This weekend's efforts

Earlier in the year we also won that little green raised garden bed in a competition.  It came with some seeds and a $20 Bunnings giftcard.  We decided we would use it for our strawberries this year.

Mini Orchard ;)

After my summer of successfully growing butternut pumpkins, tomatoes and Lebanese eggplants in my front garden the season came to an end and I was thinking about what to plant there next.

After some discussions with Mum and a good friend (and after my new lemon and lime trees in the backyard) I decided to get two more citrus trees.  This time I planted a Valencia Orange and a dwarf Imperial Mandarin.

Swinging the mattock to dig the ground is heavy work but I am gaining muscles hehe. I had some leftover pavers so I made an edge.  It won't keep the grass from coming back but at least it will give me a barrier to work with.

It was a bit of a family effort.  Mum got in on the act and watered them in.  She is super for advice too having had many years of gardening experience.  Laila likes to potter around and help too so it was a three generation gardening day!

Feeling Fruity!

I was super happy to receive a Lemon tree for my birthday from two lovely friends just recently.  I decided to plant it in a half-wine barrel  and I was extra blessed to have another lovely friend give me money for my birthday so that I could buy one.

I got my husband to drill me some drainage holes in the bottom of the barrel then I threw in some gravel in the bottom to further assist drainage.  I also moved the kids' cubby house so that I could put the tree in a sunny position out in the back yard.

This is a Lisbon type of lemon which is fantastic as my other lemon tree is a dwarf Meyer.  Now I will have two varieties!  I think I'd really like a Lime tree now too hehe!

In other news - I was able to taste my very first rockmelon this week.  It had come away from the vine and was quite a bit smaller than the ones you get in the shops so I was a little concerned that it wasn't properly ripe.  I cut it open and it was the most beautiful deep orange colour and it tasted divine!  There are two more on the vine that will hopefully have time to ripen before the cold weather sets in.

Rockin' Rockmelons

I am always looking for things to plant in my garden that I haven't grown before.  When I saw some Rockmelon seedlings at Bunnings I jumped at the chance to try them out.  They were planted out a month or two ago and they have really taken off and are trailing all over the place.

There are lots of little yellow flowers on them and like pumpkins there are male and female flowers.  The bees have been doing a marvellous job so I was hopeful that we might get some fruit.

The other day I was out watering and was very excited to see one little fruit on the vine!  Hopefully there will be more over time too :)

Party time for the worms....

I had been wanting to get a worm farm for a little while....  I love the idea of being able to turn our kitchen waste into compost and fertiliser for the veggie garden.  On Valentine's Day my darling husband brought one home from work for me (how fortunate that he works in a building supplies store!)

Laila was very excited by the whole business and soon set about helping me put it together.

First of all you soak the bedding block in a bucket of water until it turns into a nice sludgy consistency,  We also tore up the packaging and placed it into the bottom tray.  The worms will eventually eat through this!
The kids loved stirring the sludge mixture hehe!

Next we emptied the mix into the tray and tipped in the box of 1000 worms (so it said - I didn't actually count them!).  We also got a worm blanket for the top which keeps it all moist and dark.  Lower right photo is Laila saying goodnight to the worms under the blanket.

Just had to have one more peep at the worms and have a hold hehe.  Standing very proudly with the farm!

We have had to shift it from this spot as we found it wasn't in the shade at all times and with this boiling hot weather lately it needed protection from the sun.  We now house it under the back porch which also makes it very handy and close for putting our food scraps in.

Laila told her teacher all about it and then was asked to stand up in front of the class and do a little talk about it.  It has been and will be a valuable learning exercise for her and all of our family.

A Plum In Your Mouth

Every year around this time, a neighbour from across the road turns up at our door with a big bucket of lovely Satsuma plums to give us from his tree in the backyard.  Two nights ago he didn't disappoint and we received a HUGE amount for which the kids were very excited about.

It was perfect timing because over the last month or so we were very lucky to have received peaches, nectarines and grapes from another friend who had grown them all in his backyard too.

The supermarket fruit just doesn't hold a candle to this homegrown stuff!  The nectarines especially were a real highlight and we all gobbled them down greedily hehe.

So with a big bucket of plums on my kitchen bench I set about deciding what to do with them all.  The first thing I thought to make was some lovely jam.  I do love making a bit of jam!  In the past I have made orange jam and strawberry jam and I also like making my own tomato sauce (but that is another story).

I used two kilograms of the plums and I was able to make ten small jars.  We have already given one to Mum and one to a friend.  I also owe a home-grown pumpkin to this friend so hopefully this will sweeten the deal until my next pumpkin is ripe hehe ;)

Tonight the kids and I marched over to give a jar to the neighbour who gave us the plums.  He wasn't home but his wife said he will be thrilled with it (even though he also makes his own!)

I also found a cool website called Jamlabelizer which has funky templates which let you customise and print your own jam labels.  I had lots of fun making these!

Last but not least - today I decided to make a Plum cake from a recipe another lovely friend had passed on to me.  If I can resist cutting it tonight I will take it for morning tea at her house tomorrow!

I still have at least another kilo left so I am open to suggestions on how to use up the last ones!  Leave me a comment with your ideas or even links to recipes you have used :)

Grow Food Not Lawns

I have been following this facebook page - Grow Food Not Lawns for a while now and really embrace the philosophy.  I now look at my front lawn (well lawn is an optimistic word - more likely weeds) and picture all of the lovely things I could plant in its place.

If you have followed my blog for a little while you may have seen my post about digging up some of my lawn and planting pumpkins.  This has been a roaring success with us having picked around 8 pumpkins to date and there are at least three more growing.  I have turned them into pumpkin soup and roasted veggie frittatas among other things.  I have also been able to give a couple away to friends which was great.

So, with that success in hand, I set my sights on turning another patch of weeds along the driveway into a productive extension of my veggie garden.

It took quite a bit of digging over.  The existing soil is virtually sand so I added in some compost and a bit of potting mix too.  Then I planted some silverbeet and a couple of beetroot plants.

I will take pics in a couple of weeks to show the progress.  I hope they will flourish.  I noticed today that they get all the morning sun but are shaded in the afternoon so we shall see if they like this spot or not.

Back into the swing of things...

As I mentioned in an earlier post I lost a number of my plants in some extreme hot weather we have had recently.  I am fortunate that I do get full sun for most of the day in my garden which, for the most part, is exactly what it needs but then occasionally we get this freakish 40C and above weather.

This past week or so the temperatures have been in the twenties so I have taken the opportunity to replenish and replant.

I am fortunate indeed to have a husband who works in a building supplies chain and is able to get us a good discount on anything we need in the way of plants and gardening supplies!  So I grabbed a few things...

Last year I happened upon some sweet potato seedlings.  I wasn't exactly sure how to grow them - whether you had to keep mounding them up like regular potatoes so they were a bit of an experiment.  After several months the leaves all started dying so I thought I had better pull them up and to my surprise found a heap of fabulous sweet potatoes underneath.  When I saw the seedling again this year I was quick to grab three for myself and one for Mum!

I also stocked up on spinach, parsley, a yellow caspicum and some white eggplants (just to be different).  I also bought some Rockmelon seedlings to try but I am going to have to read up on how to grow them.  It says on the tag to grow them on a trellis or fence (which I am) but I would have thought the rockmelons would be too heavy for that.  We shall see.  It's all about experimenting here ;)

The kids are starting to embrace the garden philosophy slowly and when we went to pick these out they both wanted to choose some plants of their own.  The both wanted a strawberry plant and then Laila fell in love with the purple Petunia and James the plant with the weird orange 'flower'.  He was quite chuffed with it when I told him I thought it was a very 'boy-ish' plant and not a pretty one like the one Laila picked hehe.

The garden bed is in need of some enrichment so I have been turning it over and digging in some compost.  The pots are coming along well too and I still have some spare spaces to fill.

I have plans to do more out the front (where my pumpkins live) but am waiting for some cooler weather as it is going to be quite a big job!  I will talk more about that another time.

Kale Frittata

Recipe time!

One of my favourite veggies would have to be *drumroll* Kale!!  Yes it deserves a drumroll because it is just.that.good!

Rich in vitamins A, C and K.  High in manganese and vitamin E and also a great source of protein too.

I have been growing it in my garden over the past two years but I lost most of it recently due to some extreme hot weather we had.  At the market on Sunday I consoled myself by buying a huge bunch and when the weather cools again I will be getting some more to plant as well.

Anyway onto the recipe!  This is one of the ways I like to use it - in a frittata.

You will need:

300-400g Kale washed and roughly chopped.  (I like to remove any really thick stalks too)
1 onion chopped reasonably fine
2 cloves garlic
2 eggs
4 eggwhites
1/4 cup low fat ricotta
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
Salt and Pepper to taste
1 tsp mustard (optional)
Olive oil

Here is how it goes:

Oil frying pan and fry the onion, garlic and Kale until almost cooked through.  Remove from pan and wipe out.

Mix together eggs, eggwhites, ricotta, parmesan, mustard, salt and pepper.  Carefully mix in Kale/onion mixture.

Oil frying pan again and gently pour in the mixture.  Cook over medium heat until set and bottom is starting to  turn golden (sneak your egg flip under and have a peek).

Now if you are lucky (unlike me) you might have a frying pan that you can put under the grill so that you can cook the top without having to flip it.  If you do then please do this as it is much easier than trying to flip it.  Ask me how I know lol ;)  A metal-handle frying pan is high on my list of cookware priorities!

Otherwise you will have to be brave and do the frittata-flip dance.  Shake the pan a little to make sure it is loose and then invert onto a plate.  Slide it back into the pan and continue cooking until the other side is nicely golden and voila - Kale Frittata!

Serve with a side salad or serve it as a side to your favourite meal.

Eggplants

When I first started my garden over a year ago I planted one eggplant seedling in a pot as a kind of experiment to see how it would go.  It did very well indeed so I decided I would definitely grow one this year too.  I have, in fact, got three different plants this time around.  The regular one, the Lebanese ones (long finger-shaped) and on a trip to Bunnings one day I came across one called a 'Fairy-tale' eggplant.

The regular one out back has been doing fantastically.  I have made several vegetarian moussakas with what it has produced as well as included some in one of our favourite dishes - roasted veggie quinoa salad.

The Lebanese one out front (in my pumpkin patch) is also doing swimmingly!  These ones I have added into my roast veggie frittata and are also delicious cut lengthways down the middle and lightly pan fried in some olive oil and garlic.

My little fairy-tale one in the ground out the back hasn't been doing so well though.  I think there may be a problem with my soil or something because it really has not grown much at all since I planted it.  With the recent heatwave I almost lost it too.  It got burnt and I really didn't think it was going to come back but this morning when I was perusing the garden I came across three little eggplants hiding under some leaves!

Much excitement hehe.

These are my other two eggplants - 

The left one currently has four coming and the lebanese one has more than 30.

From my experience growing eggplants seems fairly easy so I would encourage you to have a go! 

Farmers' Market

One of our favourite places to go on a Sunday would have to be the Farmers' Market at the Adelaide Showgrounds.  It stands for everything we believe in and I will share their spiel from the website as it sums it up better than I could :)

The Adelaide Showground Farmers’ Market is the largest farmers’ market in South Australia. Established in October 2006, the not-for-profit organisation supports small family farms, agricultural diversity and fresh, regional and seasonal choices for consumers. The Farmers' Market attracts up to 5,000 locals and tourists every Sunday. It is a vibrant place where farmers and producers representing every region of the state bring seasonal produce sell direct to the public in inner-city Adelaide.

The Market inspires consumers to consider where their food comes from and how it is produced. Producers  also maximise their profit margins by selling direct to the public and receive instant feedback from customers about product quality and preferences.

Link to the website for more info: ASFM

It really has a great atmosphere.  Something about the place makes us feel like we're part of something special :)  The farmers are friendly and more than happy to talk to the kids about it all (and even give out freebies of fruit to them).  

There are plenty of other stalls to peruse besides the fruit and veg as well.  You can buy your eggs, milk, olive oil, organic breads, smallgoods, honey, wines, fresh flowers, plants and a whole lot more.  They also serve up a mean breakfast and, in our opinion, some of the best coffee in Adelaide (fair trade and organic).  There is also an amazing patisserie stall that sells the most amazing Macarons.  I would have taken a photo to show you but we ate them for morning tea while we were there hehe.

Each week in the Kids Club, kids can get 'hands on' with some food preparation, gardening and cooking.  A great learning opportunity!  There is a market kitchen too where chefs do cooking demonstrations using the lovely local, seasonal produce and turn it into something delicious!

Here is some of the lovely stuff we bought today

Totally love Kale!  I do have some growing in the garden but not enough for a nice big frittata so I had to buy this glorious bunch!  The strawberries from the market are to die for!  They actually taste like strawberries are supposed to taste.  Nothing like the ones you find in the supermarkets!  The apples are lovely too - so crisp and juicy - and the kids go mad for the grapes.

If you live in Adelaide I really recommend having a look sometime.  We would be down there every weekend if we could!

"Ice Cream"

The reason I have called this post "Ice Cream" using quotation marks is because, technically speaking, it isn't real ice cream that we made tonight.

It is ice cream with just one ingredient - bananas.

I cannot take credit for this fabulous idea though.  I'm not sure where it started but I have seen it in several places around the internet like Pinterest for one.  It is also featured in one of the latest issues of the Australian Healthy Food Guide - the only magazine I buy religiously every month.  Full of great tips as well as recipes.  I highly recommend it!  No they aren't paying me to say that ;)

I digress - so yes, banana 'ice cream'.

Firstly you chop the bananas and freeze them.  It is best to use bananas that are not green but also not old and bruised or black.  Those bananas are better off in your banana bread or cake where you want soft ones to mush.

When they are frozen you tip them into the food processor.  Now I encountered a problem here trying to tip them of my plastic container.  They were quite frozen to the sides so I got in there with a knife (I didn't have a hammer) to loosen them and oops - broke my container.  They also came out (eventually with some coaxing - "Who's a pretty banana then hmmm?:") in one big container-shaped blob so I just chopped into it a bit to break it up.

Once in the food processor you just turn it on and watch the magic happen!  If you like you can say 'Abracadabra' a few times but it will still work without doing this.  You will need to stop it a few times to scrape down the sides.  It takes a couple of minutes and at first it doesn't look like it is going to work and get all soft and ice creamy but stick with it and you won't be sorry.

Now I'm going to be honest with you here.  My husband and I loved it!  Tasted great and much lower in calories than full fat diary ice cream.

The kids, however, were not really sold on it.

BUT...

Next time I make it (and I will be!) I am going to add some chocolate chips and a tiny bit of condensed milk for them.  There are also endless other options for jazzing it up - strawberries, mangoes or other fruits.  Ooh what about drizzling some caramel sauce on it?  Of course adding extras means it won't be quite as healthy but we all deserve a treat sometimes (you know - like for getting through another day of the school holidays without duct-taping the kids to the clothesline etc).  

I can see peanut butter/chocolate flavour in my future... but it really is lovely just as it is and I can't wait to make it again!

Harsh Summer

One thing really don't like about Adelaide is the hot summers.  I should have been born in England or another  cold place like some of my grandparents were!

Unfortunately the horrid heat this week just past got to temperatures over the 40C mark and one day we even reached a maximum of 45C.  Really not my kind of weather at all and not only did it make me grumpy - it also damaged, and in some cases destroyed, several of my plants.

The last of my tomatoes look similar to this one above.  One of my Kale plants (top right) got so badly burned I'm not sure it will come back and even my blueberry plant got singed on the tips.

Fortunately a couple of the plants that didn't make it were at the end of their season so I am really looking forward to some cool weather when I can replace things and fill up the enormous amount of spare space I have.  There is no point doing so until we are out of this heat wave though.

Some good news to finish off.  My lebanese eggplant out in the front garden is going fantastically.  I have already picked enough for two veggie frittatas and as you can see there are oodles more coming along :)

The Good Life

Since we started digging up our front lawn to grow food some of our family have started comparing us to Tom and Barbara Good in the BBC show 'The Good Life' hehe.

We live on the high side of the road thus our driveway is on quite a steep gradient.  All we have managed to grow there previously is mangy looking grass so I had an idea to dig up the very top (where it is most level) and plant some pumpkins.  It was my vision that they could then trail down the hill.

We have successfully accomplished this!  It took some digging and preparing the soil (which is very sandy) to enrich it.  I also covered the area with bark chips to act as a mulch and stop water evaporating so quickly as the patch gets full sun for most of the day and would quickly dry out.

To maximise space I also planted a Lebanese eggplant and a Tomato bush along with the pumpkins.  They are doing very well.  Much better, in fact, than most of my garden out back which has been suffering in the high Adelaide temperatures over the last few weeks.  In the late afternoon there is some shade across the pumpkins which is possibly the clincher.

We have picked five pumpkins so far.  Some have been large and some smaller ones.  There are still about four nearly ready to pick and more are forming.  I was able to pass one on to a friend along with some eggplants and capsicum as a thank you for some lovely peaches he brought us from his tree.

I would love to live in a place where we could barter with fruit and veggies!  Perhaps I'm just a wannabe hippy ;)

Peachy Keen

An old friend dropped by the other day with several large bowls of fresh peaches he had grown in his garden.

They are just so juicy and delicious.  Far removed from most of the ones you see in the supermarkets these days.  It has come to the point where I don't like buying summer fruit because I am so often disappointed.

As I have such a glut I set about looking for some recipes to use them up.

Today we came up with refreshing Peach flavoured Iced Tea and then a Vanilla Peach Cake (thanks for the recipe Tash).  I have frozen the cake because the dear friend who gave me the peaches is coming to visit again on Thursday and I will serve it up for afternoon tea so he can share it with us :)

A New Year - A New Blog

Where to start?  A little about me and my reason for starting this new blog.

My name is Jodie but you can call me Jojo - it's a name an online friend gave me that kind of stuck.  I am a stay-at-home Mum to two kidlets who are my world.  My son is 9 and has Epilepsy and Aspergers.  My daughter is 5 and starting school this year!  My husband Keith is my soulmate and we have been together for  almost 17 years now (married almost 14 of those).

18 months ago Keith and I became vegetarian.  I won't go into the long winded reasons why but there are three main points that factored into our decision - 

• we didn't want to eat animals any more 
• the huge environmental impact of meat production
• the health benefits of eating a plant-based diet

Becoming vegetarian has forced me to expand my horizons around food and cooking.  I get passionate about trying new recipes and then I bore my friends on Facebook by bombarding them with lots of pictures of what I make lol.

Like this for example

Roasted Vegetable Frittata

We believe strongly in eating seasonally and sustainably as much as possible and like to source our fresh food from the Farmer's Market when we can get down there.  I thought it would also be a great idea to try my hand at growing some of our own veggies.

Now if you know me in real life you might be familiar with the fact that before I started this 'growing our own' escapade about 18 months ago - I was THE WORST GARDENER ever!  I couldn't even keep a simple pot of parsley alive!

By some miraculous turn of events I am now doing quite well!  Some of the veggies/fruits I have successfully grown include: broccoli, eggplant, rocket, chilli, sugar-snap peas, potatoes, spinach, kale, strawberries, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchinis, sweet potatoes, silverbeet, blueberries, pumpkins, carrots and more plus lots of different herbs like parsley, basil, chocolate mint, lemon balm and others that I can't remember off the top of my head.

Now judging by that long list you might think I have quite a large back garden with lots of room.  Actually the opposite is true.  We live on a Villa block and almost all of our backyard is paved (ok WE paved it but that was before I had my gardening epiphany).  

There is one 10 metre long by about 40cm wide strip along the back fence where I grow things and everything else I grow in pots and containers.  Oh, recently we dug up a patch of our front lawn too and I have some very robust pumpkins (as well as tomatoes and an eggplant) growing there now.

It just proves that you don't need acres of land to grow at least some of your own food!

So this blog is going to showcase what is growing throughout the year, problems I encounter and also some recipes using our produce.  I'm also a bit of a baking nut so there will probably be some cake pictures forthcoming :)

Thanks for reading and I hope someone will find this interesting.  I would love to hear about your own garden or cooking experiences so please fee free to leave a comment.