Rain

small creek emerging on the veggie path

Goodness me, the rain we had last night and this morning!  Apparently Sydney's wettest day in 5 years.

We are all ok here, a bit of water in the garage, but basically dry up here on a small hill but those by the Cooks River I guess are a bit wet!  Are other Sydney bloggers ok?

Whatever we got is  nothing compared to what our country cousins on the Murrumbidgee and the Lachlan and in northern Victoria have had to suffer, it must be terrible.

This picture shows the view down to our vegie patch ( thru the arch).  You can see a small creek rising -  that's  the shiny patch running under the arch so the path to the vegies was pretty wet.  But I checked the vegies and even after 110 mls in 24 hours, they all looked fine!

Baby rocket and lettuce

The rocket and lettuce babies are fine, there are even self-seeded tomatoes coming up.  The snow peas are looking terrific!

Happy baby snow peas

Wet Laurie and Keates

But poor Laurie and Keats the Rainbow Lorikeets were completely drenched. What do birds do in such rain?  They turned up looking for food and were very bedraggled. (For those unfamilair with these birds, their wings should be bright green.)

Frog playground

The frog pond was full to the brim and looked just lovely.  I hope that the tadpoles didn't get washed out of the pond.  Hopefully they stayed safe in their favourite place - the mud at the bottom of the pond.

I hope everyone is dry, your veggies  are well drained and that you haven't got the latest Sydney plague - not stink bugs, not aphids  - leeches!

Retro apron inspiration

Lots of rain means going inside and going inside means... sewing!  I have been making aprons - 3 of them.

There are two types -  one is a one-piece skirt variety like this blue squiggly one...

and this pink and orange floral one below. They are both edged with bias and with a little ricrac and bias on the pocket.

They are based on an apron I picked up from somewhere some time ago...The original is this pink one below, its old and the fabric is so soft, but I swear it will just disappear one day the fabric is getting so thin. 

 

Then I made this one - a wavy purple background one with goldfish blowing bubbles.  This has a three-piece skirt with the joins covered with ricrac. Its got ricrac and bias on the waist band as well.

The three-piece skirt one is also based on an old apron -  'the artist's apron' - here it is.



What am I going to do with 3 new aprons?  I don't know yet, perhaps people might get them as gifts... but they cost almost nothing to make especially with my discounted fabric from local shops and they are a bright way to beat a rainy day.

Question - is ricrac one word?   Or two -  ric rac?

Postscript -  I now have my own little shop called Cumquat with these aprons and a few other things....

Celebrate the wonky, the curly, the pale and the dark

Celebrate the curly

There are many great things about growing your own. I needn't tell you what they are...you already know!

But one of the things I most enjoy is that your produce looks 'real'.  Home grown veggies are like real people, they are unique, not like the 'super models' of the supermarket.

Celebrate the wonky

Do you have pictures of your wonky veg, your curly veg?  The 'imperfect ones' that are never seen in the supermarket? I bet you do. 

Celebrate the pale, the dark and the in-between

In transition

the snow peas are up

 Picked

• yellow-green chillies
• lemons (gathered fallen ones)

Planted

• lettuce seedlings
• cauliflower seedlings

With a  bit of sun to inspire, I inspected the garden to observe goings on. The garden is in a real transition phase. Some of the summer things are still powering on, some of the winter crops have gone in. Unfortunately I am not picking very much at all - bad planning.

The snow peas ARE ok.  They are all up, every single one -  they didn't rot in the soil like I had thought.

broccoli with self seeded sunflower

The broccoli is going well but getting the first of the cabbage moth visits.  I will need to check under the leaves each day and wipe of their eggs from now on and watch out for the first of the green grubs.  I find this surveillance works well enough for me.  I might have ragged edges to my plants but I always have lots of veg.

Some sunflowers have self seeded - strange time of year for them to to that.  I am leaving them in for the moment to see what happens.


The eggplant seem to have a second wind and are flowering furiously. Same with my brown berry tomatoes. They look like they think its October or November. They are green and upright and setting flowers -  will they set fruit I wonder?

a lime crop after all

the eggplant just keeps coming

I AM going to have a lime crop.

praying mantis eating a house fly

The giant praying mantis was spotted eating a house fly - go praying matis!

A glut of chillies (5)

Picked

Harissa

• chillies

I am coming to the end of my fresh chilli supply.  It is a sad time of year, while I could keep the plants going over winter (and might), I am soon to lose all those fabulously bright red fruit.

I have already preserved this year's chilli glut in  many ways -  a sweet tomato chilli jam, a savoury chilli jam I call rocket fuel, red and green curry paste, two types of pickled chillies - one pickled with Chinese rice vinegar and one pickled with Western wine vinegar - and by freezing some.  Today I made harissa a North African spice sauce.

Harissa
This is a recipe I quickly jotted down when I chanced upon  a Christine Manfield mini cookbook in a cafe.  I think it was a series that came free with one of the newspapers. The measurements are true to her recipe, but the method? I just made it up cause I didn't have a chance to write it down.  The original recipe uses 75g dried chillies soaked, I simply replaced the dried ones with fresh ones and upped the amount a little to account for the water that would be absorbed.

100gm fresh chillies
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
1/4 teaspoon caraway seeds
2 large cloves of garlic
1 teaspoon salt
50ml tomato paste
100mls water
60 ml olive oil

Rough chop fresh chillies. Dry roast seeds and smash with a mortar and pestle. Put all ingredients, except the oil  in a food processor and process.When it is a consistency you want, with the motor running, pour in oil a thin stream slowly as you would with making mayonnaise. It changes colour from a deep red to a dusky orange, strangely, exactly the same colour as my blog header...

Put in sterilised jar, cover with oil and store in fridge. I'll use this to marinate meat, add to couscous and put in a favourite carrot salad, although it may need some caution -  this might be very hot.

Water, water everywhere - much too much to drink

More eggplant pictures - you'll be glad when summer's over wont you!

 Picked

• lots of chillies
• 1 cucumber
• enough beans for two for dinner

Lots and lots of rain, more to come (it's forecast till Sunday!). The frog pond is at its limit, our city's water supply dam is going to overflow and my private tank is already overflowing into the storm water. Perhaps we should have got two tanks! 

The veggies continue to drain well however, after a day of constant wetness and even the little new seeds that have sprouted and that are still at dicotyledon stage are not waterlogged. I am a little worried that the snow peas will ahve already rotted in the soil though. But in general I am feeling very pleased with my soil development. 

Last night David excelled! Two curries with brown rice ( I love brown rice) a chicken one and this yummy eggplant one.

Curried eggplant * from the garden

eggplant*
olive oil
onion
garlic
ginger
chillies*
vindaloo curry paste (or any other paste you like)
cherry tomatoes*

Cut eggplant and cook in quite a lot of olive oil to soften. You might want to drain some of the oil off.  Add onion and cook and then add all other ingredients and a little water. Cook till eggplant soft and all flavours melded.
 

Homecoming

Plenty of those lovely spiders that live in curled leaves.

Back at home.  Phew!  Survived the retreat without saying or doing anything embarrassing.

After greeting the man, it was into the garden to survey, prod, determine progress, revive. Here are some things I found.  All is well with the universe!

And the big round spider is in its usual little nook on the eucalypt.

The lambertia is flowering (some might know them as 'mountain devils')

Laurie (or is it Keats?) still dropping in.

The radish and the rocket I planted in seed form on Saturday are already up! - this is the radish.

A cucumber is ready to pick