Harvest Monday - 6th Jan '14

I've been absent from the Harvest Monday blog party the last few weeks.

Mostly because there was very little to show for my gardening efforts but also because Christmas and New Year intervened and I have taken very few photos of the pick.

But today as I was picking for the evening meal I decided to take a snap.

This little basket all went into a simple salad that accompanied a steak.

I did pick more than this over the last week but this is the only photo.

The tomatoes are Jaune Flamme, Green grape, Yellow Pear and Red Pear. The beans are Hawkesbury Wonder. The lettuce is a Butter lettuce (a little too soft leaved for me, I think I like my leaves more crisp). The cucumber is a Space Saver. I don't remember the radish variety. I also picked a little marjoram.

I'm contributing this post to Daphne's Harvest Monday. Pop over hers to see produce from others' gardens.

Grape Henge

Sun worship temple? Healing centre? 
Huge calendar? Site of ritual sacrifice?

How did they make this amazing structure using only found wood and twitching wire?

"Easy peasy", as the ancients would say!

All you need is a farm truck, a Lad handy with chain and pruning saw, crow bar, screw driver and twitching wire along with blessing and encouragement from 'The Vegetable Queen' and in no time at all you have a Grape Henge!

Our new grape trellis, located on the perimeter of Fortress Wallaby has been constructed and I am delighted. 

It's all wiggly found wood and a little wire. Not a straight line can be seen. 

This structure will form a frame for the four grape vines I intend to raise and the structure clad with large grape leaves will shade other vegetables beneath. 

That's the theory anyway. 

Let's consult the oracle to see what she foretells...

"I see a bounty of grapes of different colours, green, pink and black. I see fresh grapes full of juice, I see dried fruit - perhaps a muscatelle at Christmas?  I see stuffed vine leaves with rice and preserved lemon, and I see shaded vegetables under the protection of the grapes of Grape Henge". 

Sowing winter crops

I don't know if I am crazy or not.Yesterday I started sowing my winter crops.

It always seems so silly to start seeds for cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and other winter crops in January - there is still so much hot weather to come. But when I think about when I used to plant out seedlings of winter crops in Sydney, I always started in February. While we have a hotter summer here (and a cooler winter) than Sydney, I think the timing is pretty right.

Here is what I have started to raise.

Asian vegetables

• Red Pak Choi, Mini Wombok
  

Cabbage

• Mini Cabbage, Savoy

Broccoli

• Green Sprouting, Waltham, Romanesco

Cauliflower

• Purple, Mini

Kale

• Chou Moillier - this is a really weird plant that grows incredibly tall. I will grow it for green winter Chook food. I'm hoping it will handle our winter and become a permanent fixture in the garden providing shade in summer too. 

Herbs

• Continental parsley

Lettuce

• Freckles Bunte, Salad Bowl, Baby Cos

I started one punnet of each yesterday. I will put more seeds in over January and February and maybe March so that I can crop all thru the cooler months.

Are you thinking about winter yet Southerners? Are the Northern folk thinking about summer crops yet?

Tomatoes to come

Last post I reported on two of the varieties of tomatoes I am currently picking. I have many other varieties yet to ripen.

This year all tomatoes I put in were kindly provided to me, via the supply of seed by Yvonne. Her choices so far with the Jaune Flamme and Purple Cherokee have been spot on. These varieties have had great flavour and juiciness.

Now I can't wait till some of the others ripen.

The first Speckled Romans wont be far off now. One is already turning and others are developing their characteristic stripes. Why aren't they called Striped Romans?

I am also waiting on the Green Grapes to ripen. This plant is the sole survivor of the frost snap in late October. I had several more in but alas they were burnt off. It's sometimes hard to know when a green variety is ripe isn't it? Other than a by giving them a little squeeze? Does anyone have a technique or tip?

I am growing other small varieties. I am also growing a Yellow Pear and a Red Pear. The plant below is  the Red Pear ripening up 

The other varieties I am growing, again , all thanks to Yvonne's generous supply of seeds are, Peach -  it has a nice squat shape... 

Oxheart Yellow, and

Verna Orange (which has a little bit of a Blossom-end rot problem - see the fruit's flat bottom?).

Here are more Purple Cherokee on the way!

And more Jaune Flamme...

I am really looking forward to my tomato glut.  Happy Tomatoeing everyone!

The first of the summer pickings

It's taken a while. There has been late frosts, chaffer grub attacks on my borlotti and then very changeable weather followed by 5 days over 35 degrees. Finally however, there are some summer pickings.

The pickings are very small right now but at least there are some.

I have been picking about 2 or 3 Jaune Flamme tomatoes a day for a week now and they are delicious - they do apparently win lots of taste tests.

Mine don't seem to be as orange as photos on the web suggest. They are more a dark yellow colour.

Some have had a little blossom end rot - but that's pretty inevitable given the hot weather run we had. In any case, it's not too bad and easily cut off. The Jaune Flamme seeds were given to me by the lovely Yvonne - thanks so much, they are beautiful.

Then this morning I picked the first Purple Cherokee. They too were ripe and delicious. Again, all thanks to Yvonne for introducing me to this tomato.

Best of all, neither tomato had any fruit fly! (Shhh, I'm keeping it quiet in case they hear me!)

I have been picking the odd cucumber too - these have come off my Space Saver plants

They are a bit wonky but as the plants mature it seems as though the fruit straightens out too.

And there has been the odd yellow long capsicum and tip pickings of marjoram . The tomatoes, capsicum and marjoram went with leftover Christmas ham and home-laid eggs into a dish I call a rough omelette - a favourite easy dinner dish.

How are your summer pickings going? Did you have the fabled Christmas tomato?

Little bird lost - and then found

The other day while hiding inside out of the heat watching the cricket we heard a loud rip and crash.

A large branch of a Blakley's Red Gum had crashed to the ground taking with it on it's way a branch of a White Box and a good few meters of the fence line separating the House Yard from the Lower Nursery Paddock - one of the paddocks that our sheep lamb in.

We popped our heads out to take a look, sighed and then went inside again out of the heat.

The next morning while it was still cool we decided to inspect the damage and to clear the fallen timber from the fence line. The Lad got to with the chainsaw and soon we had a great pile of future winter fuel to show for our efforts.

Thankfully the fence wasn't in too bad  a condition - all the wire was recoverable and after The Lad got to work with the gripples (they are handy thingies for joining fencing wire together) and fence strainer, we again had an intact boundary. (Skilled isn't he?)

Soon we realised there was a more serious outcome of  the fallen tree...

We found this little fellow on the ground out of its nest. A baby Dusky Woodswallow had lost its nest and its parents. I took it inside and gave it a little water. When it looked like it had revived I took it outside again and set it up in the shade while we continued the tidy up of the fallen tree.

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We could see its worried parents flying around and calling to the little bird. The baby bird called back.

Soon it was up on its feet. It somehow climbed down from the little 'nest' I had made it in the shade in the top hollow of an old tree stump and was again on the ground.

Soon we saw it climbing, very ably up a Rough Barked Box tree near the chook shed, all the while with its parents cheeping (encouragement?).  Soon we lost track of where it was.

Did it make it to a safe place where its parents would continue to feed it?

Whatever the outcome we were amazed at the persistence of the parents to find their baby.We were amazed that after such a long period the baby bird was still alive. (We estimate that it was out of its nest for about 24 hours). We were amazed that the baby bird had the strength and skill to climb the tree.

Christmas Day pickings