cabbage tree farm

Passionfruit curd

2012-02-15T13:57:00.004+13:00

One of our passionfruit vines is just starting to produce loads of lovely fruit. Apart from eating the pulp straight from the shell, I thought I would whip up a batch of passionfruit curd (or honey if you prefer).

Maybe I should have made it yesterday, continuing the love theme!

The recipe, I used this one, only called for 10 passionfruit, which was a relief for G as he loves eating them and thought he would be deprived since we are only just starting to harvest them!

Mind you it only made 2 very small jars!

Do you eat passionfruit and if so, what do you do with them when you have a lot to harvest?

Loveheart shortbread

2012-02-14T21:33:00.000+13:00

Today, being St Valentines Day, gave me the perfect reason to make some heart-shaped vanilla shortbread biscuits.

Co-incidentally I picked up my Little Oxford Dictionary of Quotations and the book fell open on, of all things, Love quotations! So here's one for the day:

"Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it. Let's do it, let's fall in love." (Cole Porter)

Hope your day was a happy one.

Dinner tonight was - homemade pizza:

Back soon with photos and a general update. Ciao!

Update

2012-01-22T20:55:00.004+13:00

I started this post a while ago and have just not been in the mood/had the time to finish it. Maybe I'll take a bit of a break from the blog since I don't seem to get around to regular postings. I originally started the blog for something to do, as we had just started working our land and I was keen to document the things we did here for our benefit and for those like-minded folk out there. I think I want to spend more time doing other things this year. D is off to school soon, so life will definitely be different. Who knows, maybe I'll start blogging more then!

Anyway, here's the post.

Isn't it nice to be given a homemade gift? We were given 3 jars of lovely preserves from some friends recently (thank P & C!). They are marmalade, rhubarb and strawberry jam, and tomato pizza sauce. I'm looking forward to trying the marmalade and pizza sauce, have already started on the delicious rhubarb and strawberry jam...

We were also given a jar of strawberry jam (thanks to my mother-in-law). The last batch of jam I made, which was a mix of strawberry, raspberry and blueberry, disappointingly did not set well at all, so it's great to receive some really well made jams!

We've been harvesting carrots and lettuce from the garden, as well as the usual herbs such as coriander, oregano, sage, thymes, rosemary and basil. My hops are growing really well, hopefully should get a reasonable harvest this year (their 2nd year) and I hope to make some beer with them as well as leaving enough to make up some herbal sleep sachets. My only concern is their location, at present they are growing along a wall in the veg garden, and are quite rampant! They could also do with something a bit better to climb along. I put them there as a temporary measure last year but we will have to plan a structure we can build elsewhere for a more permanent location for them. I recently re-watched the episode of Monty Don's Lost Gardens (Sutton Stop) where they put in a post frame to grow hops, maybe we'll use this sort of design to grow ours in a more permanent location

In the kitchen I've been as busy as usual. Yesterday I made these Chocolate and Raspberry friands, as the raspberries in the garden have been producing quite well:

I also made Cherry and Chocolate brioche recently, since it is cherry season. Didn't get a photo sorry, but they tasted good. The mixture was a little damp so took a bit longer to cook plus they didn't look quite as perfect as the photo in the recipe book, next time I will be sure to make the dough a little stiffer so they roll and slice more easily before cooking.

In the gardens, while the soil has suddenly gone very dry and hard as usual now that the rain has stopped. The potatoes G planted are all looking very healthy, despite lack of mulch (on the to-do list!).

In the garden here we have herbs, beans just starting up, shallots, tomatoes, blueberries (netted). Unfortunately a thrush got in to the blueberries despite the nets so there are hardly any berries left now. You can just see the hops on the right up against the fence.

We've had a regular visitor to the flax flowers in the garden. Tui are a native bird who have a beautiful bell-like birdsong and their wings make a fluttering sound when they hop around to feed:

Tui on flax flower

We've had a wet start to summer but then some nice sunny hot days. The sunsets are always good though -

Happy New Year

2012-01-03T11:10:00.000+13:00

A belated Happy New Year to everyone! Hope you enjoyed your Festive time and New Years celebrations!

I was working on both occasions so ours was a little quiet this year.

Having said that D was given a wee drum kit for Christmas! He loves it!

Wishing you all the very best for 2012.

Agapanthus flower (I prefer its alternative name Lily of the Nile)

Solstic sunset

2011-12-23T13:55:00.002+13:00

Hi everyone

Yesterday (the 22nd) was our Summer Solstice here in the Southern Hemisphere. Also known as the longest day. We enjoyed this beautiful sunset:

Hope you all have a great Xmas, with plenty of good food and company!

I am finally posting this photo of our very modest Xmas tree, linking to veggiegobbler's Festive Fallen Branch Friday over here! Not strictly a 'fallen' branch, it's a bit of native Totara that needed pruning from beside a walkway. D thinks it looks good anyway and that's all that counts! Mind you, that could have something to do with all the presents underneath...........!

Pohutukawa flower

2011-12-20T09:47:00.003+13:00

Sorry it took me a few days to get this photo, has been so windy and all the shots I took were blurred, then it rained and rained..!
Anyway, here is a close up of the flower as requested:

Busy time of the year for most folk. I am busy preparing last minute food gifts and will be wrapping presents to go under the tree - like to leave it to the last possible minute! It's a shame I am working this year but D and G will be enjoying Christmas dinner with his family while I sleep!
Hope you all have a lovely Christmas. We will probably celebrate the Summer Solstice on the 22nd too!
Season's Greetings everyone!

Baby chicks again!

2011-12-15T21:25:00.001+13:00

We moved our chickens to another area a few months ago. Since then one or two of them have flown the coop on occasion and gone walkabout. One of our old hens, an Indian Game, went missing and we were wondering where she was.
Well G found her the other day, near to the old coop but hiding in a spot near a fence. It was as we'd thought, she was incubating some eggs. And as of today she has 5 little chicks!

We've put her and the chicks into a little coop of their own to keep them safe from predators like stoats, wild cats and harrier hawks. When they get a little older we'll move them in with the other birds.

It was raining all day long today which is great for us. The plants have all had a good drink and should grow well now. Oops have just see the news about Nelson and the flooding/landslides..... not good for those down there at all. 2 months of rainfall in one day...YIKES.

Pohutukawa in flower

2011-12-14T08:05:00.000+13:00

December is the month when we get a special treat. It's looking at all the beautiful crimson flowers that are blossoming on the native Pohutukawa trees (sometimes known as the NZ Christmas tree).
Here is a photo of one of our young trees, which is flowering for the first time this year:

We have planted lots of these, as hedging, so in a few years they will look stunning when all in flower.

Here is a bigger tree down at the local beachfront:

And one up in Whangarei (our nearest big town):

For a little more on the NZ Pohutukawa tree see here.

Another batch of soap

2011-12-12T09:04:00.001+13:00

Over the weekend I got around to mixing up another batch of soap.

This is my third time of soap making. So far I'm sticking to this basic castile recipe, which has worked really well so far. Previously I have added in lavender oil, but this time I left it pure, just the olive oil and lye. The reason for this is that I want to hand-mill the soap to add in other things, such as botanicals like the calendula petals I added to the round soaps in the photo. The soap on the left is the pure castile, and I used a silicone loaf pan and roughly cut it into slices since it will be grated and melted in the near future.

Hand milling involves grating the soap then adding water and melting it before adding in additional ingredients. With this method since you are using pre-made soap, you don't need to take all the precautions you would when making soap adding lye (caustic soda), such as protective eye wear and clothing, also I usually put newspaper everywhere just in case of spills.

This was my first try at hand milling and I am quite pleased with the result, although have not yet tried the soap, it still needs to dry a little more. I didn't use any colourants, it just looks this colour from adding the calendula petals.

I want to experiment a little more with hand milling, on my list is rosemary soap (with rosemary leaves) and a citrus soap (maybe lime and coconut). I also want to get some better soap molds so will be on the look out for these on my next trip to the shops.
Does anyone have any good soap recipes/tips?

Liebster award

2011-12-10T12:42:00.001+13:00

As Shaheen over at A2K - Allotment 2 Kitchen says she is not eligible for this award - having more than 200 followers, I therefore chose Laura at Our Wee Farm (but I also don't know how many followers she has...!!) So Laura if you are eligible, please accept the award. I always enjoy your posts even though I don't always leave a comment!

And I pass the Liebster blog award on to...

2011-12-09T12:17:00.001+13:00

These 5 blogs (in no particular order):

Mrs Mac over at The Thrifty Garden/Home

Providence Acres Farm

Shaheen over at A2K - Allotment 2 Kitchen

BLD in MT: Living a Simpler Life in This Interconnected World

Ruth at Deep Into the Darkness Peering

I'm not actually sure how many followers they have, but if you haven't already visited, check them out!

I've been given an award!

2011-12-08T15:52:00.001+13:00

I've been given an award. Maa over at Maas Journal thought my blog worthy of the Liebster Blog award. This award is, as I understand it, to promote less well known blogs (or at least those having less than 200 followers) on the blogosphere.
I'm honoured. Thanks Maa!
Now I will have to think about 5 blogs I visit to nominate for the same award.....back soon!

Salt lick for the cows

2011-12-07T19:46:00.001+13:00

Check out our cows enjoying their Himalayan salt lick we got for them today!

Himalayan salt contains no less than 84 minerals, so apart from giving the cows something to do, it's also very good for them.

Thank you to my niece L (who is a qualified animal behaviour expert) for suggesting we get them a salt lick. We now have some curious, and presumably, happy cows!

Rosemary and mezzaluna

2011-12-05T20:19:00.001+13:00

One of my favourite new(ish) kitchen gadgets is this mezzaluna. The word mezzaluna means 'half moon' in Italian. It's great to use, and nice and stable with the twin blades (you can buy them with just the single blade).The concave board is made of coconut wood.

The mezzaluna makes short work of chopping herbs like this rosemary in the photo. I made foccacia (bread) today and topped it with olive oil (from olives grown by our neighbours W & P - lucky us!), rosemary from the garden and some sea salt (I use a brand that mixes NZ and Celtic sea salts with sea kelp).

I have quite a few rosemary bushes this year 3 in the ground and 2 in largish pots. The 2 in pots though are much smaller and obviously stunted. I'm not sure if I should keep them in the pots or plant them in the ground and free up the pots for the 2 gardenias we bought recently. Has anyone grown gardenias in pots and if so how big do the pots need to be?

Sculpture in the park

2011-11-27T19:50:00.001+13:00

I don't know the name of the artist who created this this fine looking piece. It is on display at a new park up in Whangarei. The Heritage Trail and Art Walk is at Hihiaua peninsula down in the town basin, alongside the Hatea river. I guess next time there might be a bit more information available, hope so anyway. I'll take some more photos of the other works too, a bit hard to capture them well with my camera (or is it just my photography skills - or lack of?!).

This sculpture was one of two standing close together, and standing tall too, around 5m high at a guess.

The Maori name Hihiaua apparently means 'fishbait'.

There was a lot of Maori history to read and take in, I definitely need to go back to spend longer there.

2011-11-22T19:58:00.001+13:00

We've been busy shelling peas and broad beans here on CTF. A job that D enjoys helping me with luckily. While the pea harvest has not been huge (note to self - grow more next Autumn/Winter!), what we have had we've really enjoyed.

Broad beans (fava beans), on the other hand, there are no shortage of, since I put in lots of plants with a view to not only eating the beans but to improving the soil - the roots have wee nodules that supply nitrogen to the soil. I have a few broad bean recipes I'm keen to try out, such as falafels (made combined with the usual chick peas), linguine with broad beans, bacon and mint, and ham hock with chorizo and broad beans. Not everyone in the household is quite so keen on them as me though, so I might have to make 'dinner for one'!

These frilly lavender blue sweet peas are just starting to bloom, their scent is delicious!

Other flowers in the garden at present are these geraniums:

Gardenias -

And this lovely pink petunia (thanks to my mother in law), which is called 'Raspberry Blast' -

Out and about

2011-11-09T18:43:00.000+13:00

Yesterday we visited Omeru Pa Scenic Reserve which we stopped in at (it's on State Highway 16) on our way home from Helensville. Helensville (originally known as Te Awaroa - The Valley of the Long River) is further south in Kaipara (see this map). There is some interesting information here about the Omeru Pa Scenic Reserve. I particularly like the Maori proverb at the beginning.

We all enjoyed exploring the old Maori settlement (hilltop fort), D climbed to the top at the earliest opportunity, we all walked through the bush, over bridges and up close to the waterfall. Magical.

Waitangi Falls

D at the top of the Pa site

Panoramic view from the top of the Pa.

Interestingly there were some old fig trees growing on the side of the hill. Wonder how come they got to be there.

Garden notes for early Nov

2011-11-07T20:16:00.001+13:00

Big bag of fresh broad beans (plus chive flower!)

Today D and I have been harvesting some of the broad beans which are starting to get to a reasonable size now (maybe a little on the small side but that's OK!). I will be giving away quite a lot of beans as there are many more to come, and I will probably freeze a few for us to have later too. We enjoyed some tonight with our beef stew (done in the slow cooker) and some mashed potatoes.

I've been doing some much-needed weeding up in the veg garden and am busy putting in some veg. D wanted his own garden this year so we are working on that at the moment. I will post some photos once we have worked on it a little more. He is quite enthusiastic about it, lugging up his watering can and watering the little seedlings. He even planted his cucumber plant all by himself (unbeknown to me until later!). So far in his garden we have peas, lettuce, corn, capsicum, cucumber, tomatoes and basil, dwarf beans and some sweet peas. D will be sowing some flower seeds too. He has also planted some 'King Kong' sunflowers along the fence. Can't wait to see it established.

Flowers at the beach

2011-10-30T08:40:00.001+13:00

Just a few photos of some lovely pink flowers at Uretiti Beach (about 1/2 hr drive from us here at CTF). Aren't they gorgeous?

Have a great Sunday folks.

Where to start?

2011-10-27T22:28:00.001+13:00

I've been away so long it's hard to know where to start!

Sorry for the long absence, I've been up to stuff ,but nothing particularly interesting to report on. Also have been working some extra nights at the rest home so that has gobbled up a lot of my time.

I used up the last of the stored pumpkins from last season, they kept remarkably well, although the woodlice/slaters did start to invade. I made us a lovely pumpkin pie a couple of weeks ago. I still have a few chunks and pulp of pumpkin stored in the freezer, no doubt another pie will be in the making soon (maybe Halloween if I have time). Outside I have a few pumpkin seedlings coming up for planting this year, and am growing the same varieties again - Musquee du Provence and Queensland Blue. When we get pigs again next year these will be useful food for them - as well as us of course!

I harvested some of the globe artichokes from the garden and with rather a lot on hand decided I would try making some soup. Previously we've just have them boiled with hollandaise sauce. I followed a recipe from my book How to Store Your Garden Produce by Piers Warren. Unfortunately it did not turn out well though, I think the problem was I used quite large artichokes and the result was a very woody mush despite going through the food processor, and when I sieved it I was left with only a tiny dribble of very thin artichoke 'milk'. Not a good result!! There must be some other recipes out there to try, or perhaps I should try again with smaller chokes.. I hasten to add that How to Store Your Garden Produce is, however, a very interesting and useful book! Does anyone have any tips/recipes for globe artichokes?

Lovely large artichokes

A lovely large mess!

We've also had Scottish shortbread. I dug out my wooden mold to make this one day:

I've been out in the garden when I can, lately digging up purple carrots, some of which are quite big, and hopefully not too 'woody'.

I'll be working up in the garden digging over the next few days as will be needing the space for summer veg soon. Plus by leaving all the weeds etc I'm providing a nice habitat for lots of snails and slugs..... I went on patrol last night and squished lots. Had to resort to slug bait around my pea seedlings as they are getting munched.

Today D and I made these Rocky Road cookies. We found a packet of mini marshmallows in the pantry, but I didn't have enough chocolate on hand to make true Rocky Road. Anyway, I found this recipe on the net (thank you Rachel) and we whipped them up in no time, actually D did most of the work on these. Here he is mixing in the marshmallows:

And here are the cooked cookies:

OK I'll finish here. Hope all's well with everyone.

Normal transmission will resume shortly...

2011-10-13T08:09:00.000+13:00

Yes I am still alive! Sorry folks for being offline for so long........will be back soon!

What is a cabbage tree?

2011-09-25T17:42:00.000+13:00

I'm resurrecting this old post to clarify just what a 'cabbage tree' as we know them, actually is.

In the southwest of England they are known as Torquay palms, but in fact are not a palm tree at all. They are a giant lilly.

They like wet conditions and so I planted out a whole lot in a boggy patch on our property. These ones are about 6 years old:

Small boy in photo shows scale!

Spring is....beautiful yellow kowhai

2011-09-25T08:19:00.001+13:00

Just a short post to show this photo of the native kowhai trees which are in flower at present. These trees are at the bottom of our property in the 'wetland' (or what used to be wetland prior to it being turned over to farming). It would be just fabulous to see the foreground filled up with cabbage trees at some point in the future. But that's a big project for later on, we are still busy with landscaping our immediate surroundings!

Have a lovely day everyone.

On my mind

2011-09-23T13:50:00.003+12:00

Those aren't weeds at the back that's coriander!

On my mind (mostly!) today is weeding. I've been up in the garden, at long last getting stuck into some much required weeding. I need a few more hours of hard labouring to get it looking better. Weeding (as G will gladly testify) is NOT my strong point. I see weeds and think "must get onto a bit of weeding soon" but then they grow so rapidly and spread everywhere, including the paths, that the job becomes a mammoth one and I procrastinate about doing it *sigh*.

However, this lovely sunny Spring morning I felt motivated to make a bit of headway with the long garden bed along the fence. I removed some shallots and replanted them elsewhere, dug right along removing weeds as I went, and left the 2 blueberry plants (was going to move them but it's too late now), a chilli plant which has a solitary chilli on it, my 2 hop bines, some lemon balm (although this is growing everywhere now and is invasive like mint) and some marjoram. I think I might put some peas, beetroot and lettuce along here with some calendula.
The job is by no means finished but it's a start!

Linking to Rhondas blog.

Bring home the bacon

2011-09-21T12:36:00.002+12:00

Literally!

Last night hubby collected the pork from the butcher (from our 2 pigs). We only just fitted everything into our 2 freezers (with existing fish/beef/lamb/pork). Now we have loads of delicious smoked bacon again! We also got some roasts, chops and a few hams.
YUM!

Important - proposed Food Bill

2011-09-20T13:32:00.000+12:00

Not content with meddling with our food by allowing GE into the food chain, the Govt is now wanting to restrict our right to trade seeds, food and natural remedies, making it harder to sell produce at markets etc......
Anyone from NZ should read this info about the Food Bill. Many thanks to from Romi at Kaiwaka Organics for permission to use the following text:

THE FOOD BILL

The government is being directed to take away some of the rights that you thought were eternal and inalienable. This will effect all of us. If you want to save seeds from your garden and share them
with other gardeners or seed banks this will effect you.

The Food Bill 160-2 (2010) is before parliament and has already passed through one reading and recommendations of the assigned committee have been made to parliament. This means that it is due to go for it’s second reading at parliament with the recommendations integrated into it. It could easily be mistaken for a Bill designed with public safety in mind, but a closer look reveals that this Bill would put an end to your basic right to freely share our food, seeds, and natural remedies.
Anyone selling their own produce would be required to gain legal authorisation to do so, at a cost. Small scale growers and sellers at farmers' markets would be hit with increased costs of compliance, that would of course push up food prices. hurting the growers and the buyers of produce. Not being legally allowed to share seeds without authorisation will discourage diversity of seeds, encouraging homogenisation of seed stock. This would provide massive market advantage to multinational seed corporations such as Monsanto.
You may wonder why the NZ government would want to push this bill through.There are many reasons, but the main reason being presented is that we must comply with the the rules set out for us in the World Trade
Organisation (WTO) which the the NZ government is a signatory to. So why is the WTO so important?
The WTO is the corporate/elite police which rules 'Free Trade', supervising tariffs, subsidies and export barriers. It’s rulings usually favour the US, it upholds the $US as the global reserve currency. This is the same struggle that is going on all around the world, involving 100s of millions of poor people, and it has been hidden from us by our media.
If this all seems surreal and overwhelming to you, you are not alone. This Bill is not yet law, and despite formal public submissions being closed (though few of us heard about it when the submissions were open), it is not too late for those opposed to the Bill to make our voices heard and have a very real impact on parliament as they consider it’s merits.
What can we do about this attack on our fundamental rights to food sovereignty? While there is very narrow provision within the law to opt out of this proposed law being enforced upon individuals this simply is not enough. We believe that it must be stopped! The law can be changed. This is a call out to everyone to get ready to take action.

Sign the petition on line: http://www.petitiononline.co.nz/petition/
oppose-the-new-zealand-government-food-bill-160-2/1301

We encourage everyone to forward this email to as many people as possible
There is some helpful analysis and other useful information available here: http://nzfoodsecurity.org/

You can also get an update from Sue Kedgley's blog: http://blog.greens.org.nz/2011/09/13/food-bill-update-from-sue-kedgley/

And you may also want to visit: http://www.combat-monsanto.co.uk/

Our hols and some pics

2011-09-19T16:03:00.002+12:00

Hi everyone, I'm back from hols. We had a nice little tour around, visited our lovely friends and had a break from the daily grind on the farm and our paid work.

Get this though, we got all the way to Mt Ruapehu and then could not get up the mountain as the road was closed because of snow and ice on the road.......GO FIGURE..! Not sure what the tourists here for the Rugby World Cup would think of that!! We were not impressed and D was disappointed. However we did manage to find a smattering of snow nearby so he could throw snowballs!

RUN!

We really enjoyed the beautiful scenery:


Tongariro National Park

Bush (native forest)

We happened upon the Old Coach Road and drove along it as far as we could following the track along farmland. We reached a gate and went through on foot and shortly we came across a beautiful sight:

Mountain Cabbage Trees


Just fabulous! We'd never seen so many together like this.

More beautiful bush and a mountain stream

Snow-capped mountains

Lake Taupo

Thermal activity by lake

The week went very quickly indeed. Now we are back on the farm, and it will be time to swing into action again with so many jobs still to do before the heat of the summer kicks in. We have just had a big thunder storm pass over so a hoorah for a bit more much needed rain water in the tank, but it has been a pretty dry Winter so we are conscious of the fact we don't have a lot at present. Getting the veg garden in order, seedlings underway/planted and also planting the last of the trees/plants we have sitting around the place will be our priority. Sometimes it feels like we're not making a lot of progress, but I guess we'll get there someday!

And lastly here is our lovely view of the kowhai trees with their yellow flowers. They blossom every Spring in early September and put on such a great show all along the wetland area at the bottom of our property.

Update

2011-09-10T16:23:00.003+12:00

Time for a little update as it has been a few days since my last post. May not be of any interest to the vegetarians among you!
As of yesterday, we no longer have our pigs. They have been home killed and are now with the butcher who will process them into the cuts we have asked for, mainly lots of bacon! but also hams, pork chops, roasts and belly strips. We ran out of our last lot of home grown bacon a couple of months ago and have since then been buying it from the local butcher in town, but this does not compare to the bacon from our own pigs! No photos this time. I happened to be out at the time of the home killing but can tell you the pigs had a very happy life with lots of space, good food and plenty of pats/scratches behind the ears from us here on CTF. Can't ask for better than that.
Last night we enjoyed a roast chicken dinner, the chicken courtesy of our own flock. This particular bird (one of our Light Sussex hens) had been flying out of the coop for a while now, and despite clipping her wings, was determined to continue. Since she had a habit of scratching around the newly planted citrus trees, I'm afraid drastic measures were needed to keep her from getting out. What a tasty table bird she made! Quite fatty, but the meat was very tasty indeed and tender too.
In the veg garden I have harvested the last of the purple cauliflowers. Only one of them formed a reasonable sized head -

I made it into a nice creamy soup, using this recipe. Pretty to look at, but not much actual density, which is what we prefer.
I am still harvesting the broccoli which is sprouting off the sides of the plants, although will be pulling these up soon to make more space for summer vegs.
The coriander is starting to go to seed, I will probably end up digging this up also, and the chickens can eat it, as I also need the space where it is growing. I have loads of coriander seed, so not a problem to get more going, although it does grow a lot better here in the cooler months.
Have not progressed much further with gardening apart from digging out a few seeds in readiness.
Next week we are heading away for a much-needed holiday so there will be no posts for a while. We are going south to visit friends, and to see some snow and mountains (Mt Ruapehu), and maybe take a dip in some thermal pools at Rotorua.
Bye for now!

Weeds

2011-09-06T20:13:00.004+12:00

Does anyone know what plant this is?
It came up in the garden and I (somewhat foolishly) left it there because the bees love it, but now it is appearing all over the place...arrrgh!
Weeding is not my strong point, as G will readily testify, and the little plants are not that easy to rip up by hand. Now I have some serious digging to do..
Other plants that are growing like weeds up in the veg garden are borage:

The bees also love this plant and it doesn't spread in quite such a rampant way as the unknown one above. It is also very easy to remove, although the leaves and stalks can be a bit on the prickly side.
And just look at the globe artichokes:

I gave last years plants a severe pruning and they have sprung up again really well. They do self-seed and in fact I did dig up and replant some of the little seedlings, but they didn't like the spot I chose for them (in the main orchard) and so I'm glad that these ones have done so well. They are quite large plants but aren't getting in the way of anything where they are at present.

On the bank garden this purple osteospermum, or South African daisy, is starting to bloom. I think this is a smaller variety of the red/pink flower I posted the other day, it certainly looks very similar.

However, these purple ones are on just little cuttings that I only planted a few weeks ago, so I was surprised to see flowers on them already. They obviously like the position they are in. I will try to get a better photo of the other one, it has several flower heads almost ready to bloom and they are very large - about 15cm across! These little purple ones though are only about 5cms! Still I like them with their interesting blue and orange centres.

Some photos of the new citrus orchard

2011-08-28T08:39:00.000+12:00

Frost cloth to the ready!

Hopefully a good spot, sheltered and north facing

A healthy Kaffir Lime

A Spring flower

2011-08-27T15:42:00.001+12:00

This is one from a plant cutting my mother in law gave me, but unfortunately I cannot remember the name. It's beautiful though and was blooming for the first time on the bank garden this morning, in the bright sunshine. It was quite hard to get a good photo as I kept casting a shadow on the petals! And now the sun has gone in so it's closing up!

On my mind..

2011-08-26T16:45:00.000+12:00

today is Spring! Here are more of those lovely little freshly pulled carrots from the garden. I cut some fresias and put them in a vase on the kitchen table - their scent is gorgeous.
I've been outside tidying up a few things and getting my potting area ready for seed sowing. During Winter I had given this area over to storing pumpkins (under cover), but now I have moved the remaining 7 pumpkins to another area to free up the space again. We don't yet have a polytunnel/grow house, so I'm making do with trays on tables, covered with plastic sheeting (I use hoops of wire to keep them off the seedlings) to make mini greenhouses. This worked fine last year and I raised some good seedlings.
Last night was very cold, with clear skies. I put the frost cloth back on the new citrus trees, but I don't think we got a frost in the end, just a lot of cold fog. Still the cloth would have hopefully kept the trees a little more protected from the elements.
Today though it was nice to potter around in the Spring sunshine, the temperature was just perfect and there was not a jot of wind.
I'm linking this post to Rhonda's On My Mind over at Down to Earth.

Afternoon tea and aristocracy

2011-08-25T23:53:00.002+12:00

We usually have afternoon tea. It will always be homemade baking. Most days I'll be whipping up a batch of cupcakes/muffins/scones/friands or baking a cake.

Lately it's been afternoon tea outside somewhere in the orchard, while G downs tools to have a well-deserved break. He's put a lot of hard work and effort into planting more lovely fruit trees for us.

This season we've increased our orchard majorly, adding a whole heap of new citrus in a much better location - mainly more sheltered from the strong winds we get here. He also put in loads more stonefruit and we have given all the trees that much required pruning. After we had a bit of advice from some local orchardists, we got stuck in and gave the trees a good trim. While it will put a hold on the immediate summer harvest for us, the trees will eventually be a more manageable size when fully mature and also produce better quality fruit. I anticipate lots of jam making in the future, as well as other fruity projects!

Talking of jam, we had plum jam and lemon honey/curd on some homemade pikelets (we knew them as Scotch pancakes in the UK) for our afternoon tea today. The recipe I used was from the Edmonds Cookery Book, which is a bit of a Kiwi icon. An easy batter that you fry up in the frying pan to make little thick pancakes. Very simple and quick. And the pikelets are delicious.

Back to the Edmonds Cookery Book. I have had my copy for several years. It was a preloved gift from my mother in law, and looks to be from the 60s but I'm not sure as there is no date inside. It's not a cook book that I normally get out to inspire me, more a book I search out if I need to look up a particular recipe, such as the pikelets I made today. I don't usually make pikelets, usually opting for muffins as a quick baking standby. I also got 'the Edmonds' out a few days prior to make date scones.

So when the latest copy of Cuisine arrived at my door yesterday, I was interested to read an article all about the history of The Edmonds Cookery Book! What I found particularly interesting was reading about the lavish morning and afternoon teas that the new settlers enjoyed because they were keen to live like aristocracy. Well while here on CTF we don't live like aristocracy, we sure enjoy our afternoon teas!

A few days ago D wanted cupcakes in silver foil with blueberries on top, so I duly made some vanilla cupcakes and iced them with butter cream icing, with a hint of natural pink colouring. He put the blueberries on top and then decorated his with a Space Shuttle candle for an added touch!

What do you enjoy baking - and then eating?!

Carrots

2011-08-18T22:05:00.000+12:00

I harvested these carrots today while up in the garden doing some bed preparation. These are the carrots I sowed in Autumn and are now getting to a reasonable size. We've had reasonable crops of carrots for a while now. In the next few days I'll be sowing some more carrot seed (Amerstam Forcing and a 'Rainbow' blend), hopefully these will do OK also. As a raw snack, these are just as sweet, crunchy and fresh as you'd imagine!

A Winter walk at the beach

2011-08-09T23:18:00.003+12:00

I went for a walk at a beautiful beach (Mangawhai Heads) today. The tide was out so I could walk a fair distance around the cove. Winter walks on the beach are great, there are hardly any other people about too (apart from a few dog-walkers) so it is nice and peaceful. Here are a few snaps:

Dog prints on black sand

The highlight though was seeing 3 Orca!

What a shame my little camera just couldn't capture their fleeting appearances! I watched them (I could see them surface with their distinctive fins) for quite a while until they headed further offshore. It was the first time I've seen Orca in the wild and I was pretty thrilled.

Should do this more often methinks...!

Tree planting time

2011-08-04T15:41:00.001+12:00

~~We have~~ G has been out in the orchard working away, weedeating/mowing, and digging lots of holes (with spade and post-hole borer) and then yesterday we planted out several fruit trees (about 20 or so!) to fill out some empty spaces in our orchard. The trees are mainly peaches, nectarines, a couple of apricots, a quince and a mulberry.

They are all locally grown, and mostly local heirloom trees which is really exciting. One in particular, the Pahi River Peach, is a special fruit tree - this is the one that started it all with Kay Baxter and Koanga Gardens in terms of saving the plants that would have otherwise disappeared forever. For more on that read here.
So I was thinking of this as we planted these trees yesterday and am grateful indeed to Kay Baxter, as I'm sure many are.

All the trees will need quite a lot of hard pruning, as will our other established trees as we've been a bit timid with pruning them! I also have to carefully map them out, otherwise we'll be wondering which tree is which when the labels blow off in the wind!

I hope they do well for us in the years to come.

While I don't have a photo of the river peach as we don't already have this variety in our orchard, here is a photo of the absolutely stunning, and truely delicious, 'Blackboy' peach. Bring on the summer stone fruit!

Anyone else busy planting fruit trees?

Making doughnuts!

2011-08-03T21:00:00.001+12:00

We had fun making these doughnuts today:

D enjoyed decorating them with the icing glaze and sprinkles. The other ones are dipped in cinnamon sugar. I got the recipe from this excellent video on You Tube.

I deep fried the doughnuts, although as Nicko mentions on the video, you could bake them in the oven if you are concerned about fat.

They were a nice sweet treat!

I'd like to try making ones filled with jam or apple too. Anyone else tried making doughnuts?

Mystery plant identified!

2011-07-31T08:24:00.000+12:00

After a bit of research on the good old internet, I found out that the mystery plant is a Shoo-Fly plant, or Nicandra physalodes, native to Peru.

See this link for more info and this one for a little bit about it's value as a companion plant.

Mystery plant and a treat for the pigs

2011-07-29T22:30:00.000+12:00

Does anyone know what this plant is please? It was given to me (as well as some seeds) but the plant name was unknown.
Apparently it attracts insects that would otherwise be munching on veg plants! It has purple/mauve flowers and they then turn into papery 'lanterns' which contain the seeds.

The pigs are enjoying some lovely creamy milk that G was given by a friendly farmer. Rather a lot of milk actually...this tank holds 1000 litres!

Our 2 pigs are drinking about 20L a day, on top of food scraps and crab apples. They also get the odd handful of pig 'tucker' (pellets).

In the garden I've done a bit of much needed weeding, plus shifted several (approx 40) strawberry plants into a nicely prepared bed - loads more to do. Also have purchased some lavender plants for a hedge. Although these are tiny plants now, I hope they do well in the spot I've got planned for them. They will be on a north-facing slop, bordering a pathway.
We also have the first of our new seasons fruit trees to plant. There are 5 peaches, another apple and 3 more mandarin/satsumas. These will be going in the ground ASAP.
Meanwhile in the kitchen, I still have lots of citrus to deal to - lemons, limes (from our trees), oranges and tangelos. I'm planning on making some marmalade and lemon honey, but also want to make some lemon pickle. I've made lemonade, and also have a batch of citrus cleaner brewing.

Busy, busy, busy, but all good down on the farm!

Banana cake recipes

2011-07-21T09:39:00.000+12:00

I'm posting these recipes today because Laura over at Our Wee Farm has lots of lovely homegrown bananas to use up.

My favourite banana cake recipe is one by Jo Seagar (from her book Jo Seagar's NZ Country Cookbook).

125g butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 eggs
3 ripe bananas, mashed
1/4 cup milk
2 cups SR flour
1/4 tsp salt

Mix butter and sugar, add vanilla, eggs, bananas and milk. Mix well, add flour and salt. Spoon into well-greased and lined ring tin. Bake 180deg C for about 35 mins. (if using a different shaped tin, i.e. square, the cake might take a bit longer to cook).

If you like, ice with lemon frosting: 2 cups icing sugar, 100g softened butter, grated zest of 2 lemons and a little hot water (about 2-3 Tbsp).

Also there is a fantastic recipe here for banana and coconut cake. Be aware though, it does make a very large cake, so you'll need a big tin. I used my ring tin and a loaf tin, and made 2 (one went in the freezer). I didn't make the frosting as I didn't have any cream cheese but would imagine it would be an excellent addition, especially for a special occasion.

Kaipara bush and beach scenes

2011-07-15T07:49:00.000+12:00

Native palm 'Nikau'

Kauri tree

Bush scene

Detail of Kauri bark

D exploring a local beach

We dodged the showers the other day and headed out and about for a bit of walk and exploration. We found a nice bushwalk about 15 mins away from home, and saw some lovely trees. D had a great time collecting things from the forest floor.

After the bush walk we stopped by a local beach. It was lovely to get out in the fresh air, despite it being a bit chilly!

Update at last and a nice cake recipe

2011-07-08T14:23:00.000+12:00

I'm finally better! We've all had a nasty virus but at last things are starting to get back to 'normality'. I had to have last weekend off work (can't risk spreading any bugs in a rest home, but in any case I was too ill to go). But the good news is my back seems to have got much better in the time I've been ill. After weeks and weeks of seeing an osteopath, and then doing some exercises from a great book called "Treat your own back" by Robin McKenzie, it seems to be a lot less stiff and painful. Hooray!

So anyway, time for a bit of an update here at Cabbage Tree Farm.

We're experiencing some very windy weather at present as a storm rolls across from the southwest. There was a hail shower about 1/2 hr ago and it's pretty cold out there. Because we've been sick, we haven't been able to progress very much with the jobs that need doing outside. One of these is planting trees to continue landscaping our land. We have managed to get a small number of native trees in, but have lots more to go. We also have more fruit trees on order which should be arriving very soon. Yes we already have loads of fruit trees in the orchard but figure you can't have too many when you keep pigs.. besides we just love eating all those juicy peaches and plums come summertime!

We also have a whole lot of shelter trees on order so we can continue with our boundary planting. G will need to fence these trees off once they are planted as we are putting them where our 6 cows graze from time to time! and we know what short work cows can make of trees...

Here are some of the girls:

So in a few weeks time we will be very busy planting trees!

In the citrus orchard the rangpur limes are doing well again. They are really quite hardy compared to most other citrus (from my limited experience anyway!). One of the little trees (less than 1m high) is covered in fruit, I would estimate about 2kgs or more. I picked some and made a nice Lime and Yoghurt Loaf, using a recipe from the NZ Gardener magazine which I subscribe to (thanks D!).

Here's the recipe:

1 cup unsweetened plain yoghurt
1/3 cup oil (I used sunflower)
1 cup caster sugar
2 eggs
zest of 1 lime
juice of 3 limes
2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
icing sugar to dust

Preheat oven to 180 deg C. Grease and line a large loaf tin. Beat together the yoghurt, oil and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, then beat for 2 mins. Add lime zest and juice. Sift in flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Fold in until combined, pour into tin. Bake for 30-45 mins until a skewer comes out clean. Cool in tin, then turn out onto wire rack. Dust with icing sugar if liked.

This was the first time I've made this and it turned out quite well. A very light and spongy cake with a lovely citrus flavour. Will be making it again!

In the vege garden things are doing OK considering the weather and lack of attention. Please ignore the weeds in these photos..

Amazingly I'm still getting chillies from my 'Asian Fire' chilli!

The broccoli is heading up now, but the caulis look a long way off!

The garlic is about 10cm high (some of these 'weeds' I'm leaving as they are Californian poppies and Calendula)

The carrots are growing at a snails pace though! I have loads of coriander! The broad beans are tiny but growing.

I have not made very much progress with planting out the bank with flowers. What has been planted is coming away nicely but there are still things to go in the ground to fill the gaps. Eventually there will be a retaining wall at the bottom to hold it all together! I'll post more photos as and when, hopefully this will look a lot prettier in the spring!

I also have not yet planted out my tulip bulbs..these will be going into pots. However I have had them in the fridge to give them an artificial winter! Hopefully they will do OK if I get on to it and put them in pots soon!

Last but by no means least, the piggies are growing well. They love 2 main things so far as I can tell... FOOD! (of course) and MUD..(of which there is no shortage..!):

Normal transmission will resume shortly...

2011-07-03T19:37:00.000+12:00

sorry folks have been under the weather with a nasty bug, will be back soon...

Ten good things right now

2011-06-10T11:29:00.003+12:00

OK, I'm picking up on this theme from Laura over at Our Wee Farm. It's pouring with rain today and D is sick so we're home and inside for the day, but I'm thinking of these 10 good things:-

Dilmah tea:

Yes we even have Dilmah cups!

Sorry but cheap quality teas do not cut it in this house! (Go ahead and call me a tea snob!)

And to go with that cup of tea, a nice piece of homemade banana cake:

Finding a bunch of lemons in hubby's lunch bag (he must have picked them from a tree):


Fresh lemons

D is watching Shaun the Sheep on DVD, he's so cool:

Shaun the Sheep

Maybe I'll get a quiet moment to practice my guitar today:

I love my dryer when it's raining, I'd accidentally left some towels on the washing line, so had to spin them and dry indoors. Actually I love my washing machine too! They're both made by Fisher & Paykel (NZ brand).

D and I had a nice soak in the bath!

Maybe I'll do a spot of knitting today too. I'm making D a scarf out of some used wool. I had almost finished knitting it into a baby suit for him when he was little, but unfortunately I didn't finish it in time!

Yay, the rain is topping up our watertank (we don't have town supply here).

Hot soup for lunch! Today I'm having curried kumara:

These are 10 good things today, what are yours?

Homemade sweet chilli sauce

2011-06-08T20:48:00.000+12:00

As I mentioned in a recent post, I had Thai chillies in the fridge to use up. Today I made up some sweet chilli sauce with them.
It's very easy to do.
In a food processor chop up about 15 chillies (take off the stalks first obviously!), and then add 1 cup of sugar, 1 cup of white vinegar and about 2 Tbsp chopped garlic. Whizz. Tip into pan and heat up stirring to dissolve sugar then boil for about 10 mins.

Add chopped coriander, about 1/2 cup:

Use funnel to fill a sterilised bottle with screw-cap lid.

These ingredients make just one 330ml bottle, but you can obviously increase to make more.
Store in the fridge.

Time for a new look

2011-06-07T22:12:00.000+12:00

I felt the need to give the blog a bit of an overhaul, looks-wise. Wadda ya think?

Have been out and about round the property, making mental notes of all the jobs to be done...and there are lots!

Small steps and all!

A couple of photos of our place:

Our own little forest!

The view from one part of our land

Questions and answers - I've been tagged

2011-06-05T18:49:00.001+12:00

Maa over at Maas Life Journal has tagged me. So here goes with the questions and answers:

1. If you could be any historical or current character who would you be?

I'm not sure I'd want to be anyone else but in terms of notable people Florence Nightingale would be up there, she really did amazing things to bring up the standards of care for the sick and also raised the status of nurses.

2. Name an interesting fact about yourself.

When I was young I found something. It was a hand grenade in our back garden at home...and Dad had to call the police and the bomb squad came to take it away! Exciting stuff!

3. If you could go back in time and change one thing, what would it be?

I wouldn't have wasted so much money buying 'stuff' I didn't need

4. Which character traits annoy you?

Overblown self importance and a tendency to patronise others

5. Name one thing that you would change in yourself?

I'd be less selfish and give more time to others

6. What do you consider your biggest achievement?

Can I give 2 answers? Giving birth would be up there, but I guess moving away from the UK too.

BIG fish and a few garden notes

2011-06-02T17:35:00.000+12:00

The one that didn't get away...!

Hubby caught his biggest fish ever, 18lbs (8kgs)!

We had lovely fresh snapper for dinner with homemade chips, and we now have some more delicious fish in the freezer.

It was nearly 2 1/2 ft (75cm)long!

Weighing in

75cm from tip to tail

The biggie compared with a normal sized catch

Other things that have been happening are, getting the garden planned - garlic going in soon. Have just harvested the last of the Topepo Rosso capsicums:

We had some BBQ'd tonight along with some pork chops and homemade kumara fries.

Other garden notes:

I still have some chillies on my Thai chilli plant, although they are taking a while to ripen.

I will be planting my garlic soon, have it in the fridge at present.

I also have some tulips in the fridge, must plant those in my flower garden - I am planting out a bank with all sorts of flowering plants, will take a photo once it's done.

Coriander is coming up everywhere!

Weeds are coming up everywhere too!

G has dug up more potatoes, Rua and the Maori potato Urenika.

We've eaten the last of the raspberries but I squirrelled some away in the freezer.

Broccoli and cauliflowers are growing well.

Carrots are coming along albeit slowly!

Marshmallows and a bit of an update

2011-05-20T10:34:00.001+12:00

It's been a while since the last post, sorry folks, been busy and also slightly lost my blogging mojo! But I'm back now!

Some time ago I watched an episode of River Cottage where Hugh makes beetroot tinted marshmallows. We recently tried some raspberry and rosewater marshmallows that I bought from Bennetts of Mangawhai This great place mainly make delicious chocolates, but on a recent visit I spied cute little bags of their marshmallows for sale. After trying these I was inspired to try my hand at making my own marshmallow. I used Hugh's recipe but as I didn't have any fresh beetroot on hand, I used a little natural pink food colouring:

Here is the mix being poured into the cake tin:

When set (took about 3 hours) I "turned" it onto a board heavily dusted with the corn flour and icing sugar mix. Actually it took quite a bit of prying out with a knife as it is very sticky until coated with the flour/sugar but at least it came out all in one piece!

The finished cut and dusted mallows:

And they taste delicious of course. Fluffy, light and very very sweet! I also had some in my hot chocolate last night.

On the gardening front, we harvested the kumara (sweet potatoes) recently. We got some very large ones, over 1kg in weight! They were really easy to grow to, the kumara sprouts don't look much when planting, so it's rewarding to see such large ones at harvest time. The supermarkets (or their customers) must prefer the tiny ones which take forever to peel if you need a lot of kumara! Anyway, we are sure that the Maori would have grown them as big as possible to use and store until the next season came around.

3 big kumara growing together

They are left to dry a little in the sun and stored in large paper bags out of the light just as you would with potatoes.


Last autumn harvest of strawberries

Amazingly we are STILL getting the occasional strawberry, it's been pretty mild up here in Northland - during the day anyway - nightime is getting a bit cooler, we're down to about 10 deg C at present.

Here are a few pics from around the farm:

Nerine in flower

Bird of Paradise

The last of the capsicums

Feijoas - juice and cake

2011-04-29T17:06:00.001+12:00

It's feijoa season here in NZ.
In some countries it is known as 'Pineapple Guava'.

A bowl of fresh feijoas from the orchard

This variety is aptly name 'Mammoth'

Love them or hate them? I like them cooked but am not wild about them raw. However, yesterday D and I made some apple and feijoa juice using the Reinette du Canada apples from the orchard with a smaller amount of feijoa fruit. And the verdict? - delicious!


Making juice gets the thumbs up

I also made this feijoa and coconut cake which is a lovely way to enjoy the fruit, using a this great recipe. From browsing the net I see that some people have made this cake and successfully frozen it, so I think I should make a couple more to put in the freezer for later. By the way, this recipe does make a substantial sized cake!

Coconut and feijoa cake

Pumpkin harvest

2011-04-26T07:41:00.000+12:00

Harvest time is here! We now have stored away 17 of the Queensland Blue pumpkins and 6 Musquee du Provence pumpkins. Although with 2 quick growing pigs around these probably won't last all that long!

Pumpkin pie time

2011-04-24T08:14:00.000+12:00

Yesterday I made a pumpkin pie for the first time in ages. I used some of the Musquee du Provence pumpkin. The recipe (I tried this one from a web search) only called for 2 cups of pumpkin puree, which did not use up very much of the huge pumpkin..! Never mind, now that we have pigs again, they will enjoy any leftover pumpkin!
Here is a photo of the pie, I might not get top marks for the cracked pastry, but it was delicious anyway!

New pigs!

2011-04-23T17:56:00.000+12:00

It's time for pig raising again. Yesterday we bought 2 little piglets, 8-9 weeks old. These ones are 'Large Whites'. Aren't they cute?

Pumpkins and kumara time

2011-04-15T14:29:00.000+12:00

Ripe at last! These are the Musquee du Provence pumpkins. They are very big pumpkins but the flesh wasn't too hard to crack into, cutting up was a breeze, just using a sharp knife. The flesh is a very dark orange colour. I roasted some of this but I imagine it would do well in a soup as the flesh was soft and creamy. In the seed catalogue it mentions this variety of pumpkin is often seen at farmers markets where it is sold in wedges - I can see why, it would take us forever to get through a whole one! Never mind, we are hoping to have more pigs soon and they will get through them all (we must have about a dozen) in no time!

Also in plentiful supply at present is kumara. We were gifted this haul from a friend who grew it in his garden. Some of the kumara are huge!

Homegrown kumara from a friend

Look at the size of this one!

So far I have made kumara chips in the deep fryer, also mashed kumara and these little cakes below which were very nice:

Kumara 'cookies'

Fruit and veg and baking

2011-03-23T16:32:00.000+13:00

I've been fairly busy, with one thing or another, hence the lack of posts - sorry folks! The garden is still producing well considering we are into Autumn. I have yet to get any winter veg in, but I guess there is still time for a few things.

However we're still picking tomatoes - I've been making loads of passata and bottling that, also freezing halved or chopped tomatoes to make soup and add to stews etc. I also made up a batch of tomato relish which we have yet to try.

I've also got a few chillies and capsicums ripening now, looking forward to those.

We've cut into our first pumpkin - one of the Queensland Blues - and it is a good pumpkin, nice solid flesh and not too hard to cut. Not sure how easy the Musquee du Provence will be to cut up! These ones are not quite ripe yet, although getting there.

A small Queensland Blue pumpkin, and one cut open showing the inside

Watermelons 'Sugar Baby' and raspberries

We're now harvesting a different watermelon 'Sugar Baby' which grew really fast. Probably a few too many melons for us to eat but we can give some away I'm sure! The raspberries (not sure what variety these are unfortunately) are producing quite well now for young canes (I think we put them in only a couple of years ago). So today I made some more friands:

And for the space crazy youngest member of the family who doesn't like the friands (yay!), I made some of these gingerbread cookies with my new rocket cookie cutter:

Eggplants/aubergines

2011-03-09T07:54:00.000+13:00

Here are some of the fruits from the 2 varieties of eggplant/aubergine I planted this year. The top one (all purple) is 'Long Purple' and the bottom stripy one is Tsasoniki'. So far we've enjoyed them simply cooked on the BBQ and the taste is fantastic, full of flavour.
However, now that I have received 'How to Store Your Garden Produce' by Piers Warren that I won from Spades and Spoons, I'm going to try out one of the recipes in this book called 'Brinjal Pickle', an Indian pickle with fresh ginger, garlic and various spices. Looking forward to trying that with a good curry soon, maybe lamb.

Rain and some photos

2011-03-05T20:02:00.000+13:00

Yay we've had a decent amount of rain, and it's still raining which is great for the plants and for our water tank!

Thought I'd post a few photos from around the farm as it's been a while.
The chooks are now allowed to roam freely in the sectioned off part where we grew the corn and some tomatoes. The pumpkins are still on the vine and ripening up nicely. The chooks really enjoy being able to scratch around and get the bugs. The 3 chooks on the right in this picture will soon be chicken dinners..and they were from this lot of chicks so they are approximately 16 wks old and should make nice table birds.

The big yellowy brown pumpkins are Musquee de Provence and the grey ones are Queensland Blue. Looking forward to tasting the M d P as I've not eaten this variety before.

The little Kumquat is doing quite well considering the dry summer and is covered in flowers which I'm pleased about. The citrus orchard is really not very impressive as we put it in before we'd established any shelter hedging, probably a bit too keen! However the Rangpur limes are still fine, they must be the most hardy out of all the citrus we have. The hedging is coming away now so in a couple of years things will look a lot better!

Here is part of another hedge along the front boundary fence which is currently in flower. The tree is called 'Lacebark' (Hoheria populnea) and is very pretty when covered in these lovely white flowers:

Lacebark 'Hoheria populnea' in flower

I crashed but survived!

2011-03-03T15:28:00.000+13:00

Well all I'm thinking right now (maybe I should have saved this post for tomorrow's 'On My Mind' over at Down to Earth) but gee am I glad to be alive today.

The other night at about 11pm I lost control of my car while driving home from work. After sliding on some loose gravel and going through a fence, then down a hill, I ended up on the roof in the middle of a neighbouring paddock...!:

The rubbish bin had food scraps for the chooks, which of course ended up strewn throughout the car interior, eewww!

The next morning after some help to right it

I probably would have gone a lot further down the hill if I'd gone off the road in a different spot and since it was late at night I doubt anyone heard a thing..

Yikes!

Bye bye little car, off to the wreckers!

After getting my seatbelt off and opening the door I clambered out and scrambled up the hill (fortunately I had a torch on my cellphone - no signal though to call for help!), climbed over the fence and walked home on the gravel road for about 500ms in barefeet..ouch!
After the initial shock, Hubby drove back to the scene in our other car to assess the situation and retrieve some of the contents that I'd left behind, which included groceries and the bin of scraps for the chooks!
Unbelievably I came off relatively unscathed, just a few cuts, knocks and bruises and my back is sore but otherwise hey it's great to be alive! and I'm SO glad I didn't have my wee boy in the back seat...
Best wishes everyone

Woohoo, I won something!

2011-02-26T14:34:00.000+13:00

It's a book! Check out Spades and Spoons.
Thanks Paola!

Plum jam

2011-02-20T20:10:00.003+13:00

Yesterday I made up a batch of plum jam. I bought the plums locally from a lady up the road who sells them by the roadside every summer. Sorry I didn't get a photo of plums prior to making the jam, but the skins and flesh were a deep purple colour.

Our trees are too young to produce fruit just yet, but I look forward to the day that they do!

I used the recipe out of my favourite cookbook, A New Zealand Country Harvest Cookbook, by Gilian Painter:

Lots of lovely plum jam

I think this recipe is particularly good as by counting the plums prior to cooking and then the stones as you boil up the jam, you can be confident that you won't crunch on a stone when you eat it!
The jam set very well and tastes delicious.

Peaches to die for!

2011-02-18T21:08:00.000+13:00

Peach 'Blackboy'

Today we enjoyed the first peach from one of our 'Blackboy' trees. If you're not familiar with this variety, I can assure you it tastes as good as it looks! Hopefully we'll enjoy many more.

This was definitely on my mind today (see Rhonda's blog for this regular post).

A day at the beach

2011-02-17T15:57:00.000+13:00

This morning I took D out to the beach (Waipu Cove) and met up with some of his Playcentre buddies. We all had such a great time, it was so beautiful. We all went beach combing to find various objects and then explored rock pools and dipping in the water.

Checking out the surf

Rock pools galore

A shelly cove to explore

Fun climbing on the rocks


Big gnarly pohutukawa tree

The 'treasures' we found


I found this interesting ?bulb skeleton

Photos of various fruit and veg

2011-02-16T22:00:00.001+13:00

I've been 'raving on' about the Brandywine Pink tomatoes that I've almost forgotten to mention some of the other tomatoes in the garden..!

Out of the other tomatoes I planted (see list here), 'Black Krim' which is also a beefsteak, is producing pretty well and is another great tasting meaty tomato:

Here is the inside of the Banana melon, which we're enjoying plenty of at the moment:

Banana melon

And the watermelon:


'Rapid Red' watermelon

The first peach off variety 'Spring Red'. The flesh is an unusual colour, but it was perfectly ripe, and boy was it delicious!
Oh the joys of summertime.

The flesh inside was a greenish white

Freezing some of the corn harvest

2011-02-15T21:53:00.000+13:00

I tackled this job today. I used my corn stripping gadget which has a long wide serrated blade at the back and a plastic clip-on front for collecting the corn (and measuring it should you desire).

With 'Oxo' corn stripper

Blanching the corn

1st chilling in ice cold water

2nd chilling in fresh ice-cold water

Draining on tea towel

Taking the kernels off the cobs and into freezer bag

All ready to freeze!

I got 1.2kgs of kernels from my 20 cobs which I'm happy with. The corn we planted this year is a mix of Florida Supersweet,
Xtra Tender Kernel F1 and Golden Extra Sweet. Not sure which is which here though sorry! Mostly it's grown very well, a few of the cobs have been 'mutant', with the kernels covering only part of the cob.

A little harvest

2011-02-12T08:51:00.000+13:00

A selection of veg from the garden last night:

We've got corn, zucchini (of course!), my first eggplant/aubergine 'Long Purple' (a bit on the small side), a chilli (Hungarian Hot Wax), some cocktail tomatoes, some Aunt Ruby's German Green tomatoes, and some basil.

The Aunt Ruby's German Green tomatoes are stripy on the outside but green on the inside. They didn't do all that well, so I probably won't grow them next year.

I re-boiled the tomato sauce this morning, and added some cornflour to thicken. I ended up with 2 less bottles but it is a bit thicker now which is good.

Tomato sauce time

2011-02-10T20:25:00.002+13:00

Finally I got enough ripe tomatoes and the time to make my tomato sauce! Similarly to Laura over at Our Wee Farm I loosely based my recipe on a combination of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's recipe that I actually found at The Paupered Chef and this tomato sauce recipe that I had in my recipe collection. It's just fantastic to be able to harvest these great big juicy ripe Brandywine Pinks. They will definitely be featuring in the garden next year.

So we start off with 6kgs worth of tomatoes:

Ingredients at the ready

Pressing the tomatoes and onion through the sieve
I found this process easier by whizzing it in the food processor first (post photo)

The pressed/sieve juice with added vinegar, sugar
and spices goes back in the pan

After much bubbling it's ~~thick~~ thicker!

So 6kgs of fruit produced 11 1/2 300g bottles - several hours later..
PHEW!

But hey, it's delicious!

We're currently harvesting.....

2011-02-08T19:00:00.001+13:00


Banana melons and watermelon

The Banana melons weighed in at around 2kgs each. The watermelon was more that 5kgs.

Here's a selection of veg from the garden. From clockwise top left:
Brandywine tomatoes
French beans, green and purple (they cook up green)
Maori pototoes (Urenika)
Strawberries (doing really well, we're getting lots again)
Green Sausage tomatoes, stripy green and yellow outside, green inside
Passionfruit
Yellow 'Peach' tomatoes - their skin is a bit furry!
Rua potatoes

Yesterday G picked a few kilos of the Brandywines so I will be onto making sauce in the very near future!

We're also getting lots of corn. Tea tonight was corn fritters, with fried Brandywine tomatoes, avocado, and tomato chutney, followed by Banana melon...YUM!

Always harvest your zucchini plants thoroughly!

2011-01-31T22:44:00.000+13:00

Otherwise you might miss one and end up with a marrow like these 2 whoppers!

The little one is about the size I normally harvest about 12 cm. The other two weighed in at 5.1kgs..and 15kgs!!

These 'babies' will be cooked up for the chooks I think. That's way too much marrow for us!

Hibiscus flower and RAIN - lots of it!

2011-01-29T19:39:00.001+13:00

This hibiscus (I think it is a Fijian one) has just started flowering and is beautiful. The flowers only last for one day (especially when it's windy!).

And we've had a lot of wind and tons of rain, the rain gauge is totally full from the dump of rain with tropical cyclone Wilma that has just passed over the North Island of NZ. So much rain that our pond overflowed, through the overflow pipe, but also over the driveway..not so good as we've lost a bit of the stones off the surface. Apart from that though, no other damage, the chook house remained standing, and the ground has had a bit of a watering, and the water tank is looking a bit more healthy.

From nothing to this in 24 hours!

How to use up those egg whites - make friands!

2011-01-27T19:44:00.001+13:00

Slack of me I know but I hadn't really bothered (until now) to find out what I could make with egg whites - apart from meringue and Pavlova of course..And I have rather a lot of egg whites in containers in the freezer, from all the ice cream recipes (will post on this topic soon) I've been making that requires yolks only...

Then the other night I was surfing the net and found this great blueberry friand recipe. I've made friands once before, a rather fancy chocolate and lavender recipe which used whole eggs, separated.

I think the blueberry friands taste delicious, and I'm so pleased to have found an easy recipe to whip up some yummy treats for tea time. Give them a go!

Tomato sauce recipe

2011-01-27T08:14:00.000+13:00

31/2 kgs tomatoes
1 onion, chopped
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1 cup sugar
1 cup white vinegar
1 1/2 tsp whole cloves
1/2 stick cinnamon (about 4 cm)
1 tsp celery salt (I left this out as I didn't have any)
4 tsp salt

Wash, peel, core and quarter tomatoes. Let them stand in a colander to drain off excess liquid.
In a large preserving pan mix tomatoes, onion and cayenne. Bring to the boil, cook until tomatoes are soft (about 15mins), stirring occasionally. Put through a sieve and press to extract juice. Add sugar and return to pan. Bring back to boil then simmer for about 1 1/2 hours until reduced by half.

In another pan combine vinegar, cloves and cinnamon (and celery salt if you have it). Cover and bring to boil. Remove from heat and let stand.

Strain spiced vinegar mixture into the tomato sauce. Add salt. Simmer until you reach the desired consistency (about 30 mins). Stir often.

Pour into hot jars and seal. Process in boiling water bath for 10 mins. (Leave a small headspace in jars if doing this).

N.B. I don't remember where this recipe came from so sorry I can't provide a reference.

New Seasons Garlic

2011-01-26T07:34:00.000+13:00

We harvested our garlic a couple of weeks ago and this year I plaited it up for storage. It wasn't too tricky once I got the hang of it. I used these instructions. We harvested approx 3kgs this year, each plait weighed in at approx 500gs and there were x6 in total when I finished plaiting them up. The biggest cloves will be saved for seed for next season.

Big mama tomato

2011-01-25T11:40:00.000+13:00

I roasted up a dish of fresh tomatoes (Brandywine) together with some freshly harvested garlic and basil from the garden, they were delicious in a pasta sauce with homemade meatballs.

And I picked the biggest Brandywine I could find, are you ready for it.....?...:

Possibly not quite ripe but I didn't want to risk losing it, especially after all the heavy rain we've had on the weekend. It's already starting to crack at the top.

This big mama weighed in at 733gs!

Brandywine Pink tomato

2011-01-22T12:59:00.000+13:00

A nice ripe Brandywine Pink tomato

Sliced and fried with breakfast

This morning I checked the tomatoes and found a nice ripe Brandywine Pink tomato, the first of many more to come. We had it sliced in two and fried with our bacon and eggs this morning. It was delicious, so tasty!

Banana and cranberry bread

2011-01-22T08:05:00.000+13:00

This cake came out very well, nice and moist and a lovely flavour. It will go in my recipe book for making again in the future. You can find it here. The only change I made was to add Cointreau instead of Bourbon and I used frozen cranberries (thawed) since they are not available fresh in my neck of the woods.

On my mind today...

2011-01-21T15:41:00.001+13:00

..are fresh tomatoes out of the garden. Here is a selection of what's ripe at present: Black Krim, Roma, Green Sausage and a 'Cocktail' mix. They taste wonderful. I'm really looking forward to the Brandywine Pink tomatoes too, some of which are not far off ripe and one or two are enormous! Will be great sliced or halved and cooked up on the BBQ hotplate... YUM!

This is my contribution to Rhonda's 'On My Mind' post over at Down To Earth.

New chicks - who's who

2011-01-18T08:47:00.001+13:00

I've been checking to see which colour chick is which breed and think I have them sussed!

Yellow chick is Light Sussex an the black one is Plymouth Barred Rock

The gauge of the chicken wire is a little bit too big for a broody box, they keep trying to go through it! Hence the yellow one sticking its head in!

Gold chick is Rhode Island Red and the brown striped one is Barnevelder

Mummy hen is an Araucana

Here they are enjoying a good scratch around the jade plants in pots.

Another photo of Myrtle

2011-01-16T14:14:00.000+13:00

The tiny flowers

Hi folks, here's a better photo to give an indication of the size of those flowers.

Myrtle

2011-01-16T09:11:00.003+13:00

My little myrtle tree is in flower:

Poor Myrtle, she's had a bit of a hard life. I started her off in a pot, then she was transferred into the ground, but not in a good location and didn't do very well. Consequently she's back in another pot in another location (more sheltered) and seems to be doing OK so far. Looking a bit woody though, so maybe I'll give her a prune when the flowers are over, although I'm loathed to chop too much in case she sulks! The flowers though as so delicate and pretty, like miniature pohutukawa flowers only white:

I read somewhere that in times gone by myrtle was commonly used in wedding bouquets. I can see why as it would be just gorgeous on mass. I hope I can nurture this little tree into one that produces a lot more flowers in the future.

Baby chicks have hatched

2011-01-15T19:33:00.000+13:00

Aren't they cute?

7 out of the 12 eggs I purchased hatched out over 12/13th Jan. Here are 5 of them that G managed to catch for the photo!

Update for early January 2011

2011-01-06T09:30:00.000+13:00

Greetings everyone
Time for a wee update here on Cabbage Tree Farm.
First off, we were given a cute little dish of homemade pate from our lovely neighbours (yes we do have some!!) D and M-F.

This recipe used rabbit and olives, and tasted delicious.

We've been enjoying some of the produce from the garden, zucchini (of course!):

Some nice sized beetroot, this one is Chioggia:

It has pink and white stripes when raw, but cooks up pretty pink:

Cucumbers ('mini white'):

We've also been enjoying lettuces, beans and herbs - especially basil (I made some pesto yesterday to go with fresh pasta). The tomatoes are starting to ripen, and the chillies are fruiting at last, this one is my Jalapeno:


Jalapeno chilli pepper

Happy New Year

2010-12-31T22:09:00.000+13:00

It's the end of 2010. The year has been quite a challenging one for us all here on Cabbage Tree Farm. Unfortunately this year the positive has been outweighed by the negative. I don't normally like to blog too much about personal matters. However since it is the end of the year I feel the need to divulge.
Earlier in the year I had a miscarriage which was hugely disappointing for us. We also had the anniversary of the death of D's brother in September. At the same time we had to deal with some very bad karma from our neighbours, after they accused G of doing something malicious (which he didn't do). The reasons behind their behaviour are still unclear, despite us asking them several times for an explanation. While this has been very stressful for all of us, it has - in a strange way - made us stronger as a family. It has reinforced to us that we need to look out for ourselves and focus more on what we are trying to achieve here on the farm. Produce as much food for ourselves as we can. Be less dependent on others, more self-sufficient. Make things when we can, buy less 'stuff'. And be happy with our 'lot'. You know the story.
So as you can imagine, we are looking forward to a new year, with a more positive outlook.
Wishing you the very best for 2011, and lots of good karma
.

Image from goodkarmaflags.com

Hoping for more chicks soon

2010-12-24T08:44:00.000+13:00

One of the Araucana hens has gone broody, so we've taken the opportunity to buy some more fertile eggs for her to incubate. We have to wait for 21 days or thereabouts.

She's sitting well (so far) on 12 eggs, which are a mixture of different breeds - x3 each of Rhode Island Red, Plymouth Barred Rock, Barnevelder, and Light Sussex.

We intend to raise the hatched chicks for table birds, however I am excited about the Barnevelder breed, they lay dark brown eggs. So if we get a hen, I might keep just one!

Lunar eclipse and solstice

2010-12-21T22:20:00.000+13:00

Today it was the Summer solstice here in NZ, also known as the longest day. Boy was it a hot one. Windy too.
But tonight the wind had dropped and with no clouds in the Eastern sky we were lucky enough to enjoy the rare lunar eclipse.
This photo does not do it justice at all, but it's the best we could get:

Red moon rising (light to bottom left is a house)

Just now (10pm) I've looked out again and the moon is getting brighter (coming out of the eclipse), with a bright crescent appearing at the bottom right, it looks pretty stunning with the constellation Orion just above.
Should be some good photos available on the net soon.
Happy Solstice folks!

Before and after in the new veg garden

2010-12-20T22:39:00.001+13:00

Here is the rather bare view back on 12 Nov:

And here it is today. The zucchini (in foreground) and pumpkins are doing quite well. The sunflowers all in flower as of yesterday, corn to the rear left.

Newly planted tomatoes, basil and lettuces.

Same view today, grapevine to right of picture.

The soil is in pretty good condition as a result of all the pig manure (as this was the pig sty area for the piglets for a few months). We should hopefully get a few tomatoes this year if we can keep a handle on the bugs. Mind you saying that it has been very humid already this summer, usually that does not bode well for tomatoes.. But who knows, we'll keep optimistic! In between the tomatoes I've planted some lettuces, and loads of basil, the essential summer ingredient especially with vine ripened homegrown beautifully fresh tomatoes......(Drool) Can't wait!
Hope your gardens are all doing well, especially with all the recent rains if you are in this neck of the woods.

Soap update

2010-12-17T21:31:00.000+13:00

The soaps came out easily from their molds

Ready for curing

Here are a couple of photos of the soap I made yesterday. I'm quite pleased with the result for a first attempt. The soap came out of the molds really easily. After slicing the soap made in the loaf pan into bars (approx 130g each) and also one of the oval sour cream shapes in 2, we ended up with 13 good-sized bars of lavender scented soap.
Now it has to cure for 3-6 wks, until the ph is 9.5 (or close to it) so that it isn't too alkaline, which can be a bit harsh on the skin.

The smell is fantastic!

Making my first batch of soap

2010-12-16T17:07:00.002+13:00

So as it was raining today and I was home by myself for a change, I took the opportunity to have a go at making some soap.
I used this Cold-pressed Castille Soap recipe. The only addition was some dried lavender flowers which I thought I would experiment with on one surface. I sprinkled these liberally in the base of 2 molds.
The only thing I hadn't really considered well was the use of the silicone loaf pan as a mold. It didn't keep it's shape when I poured in the soap. However, I'm hoping the silicone makes for easy release of the soap when it's ready to be cut into bars. I didn't use the other loaf tin as it was not required and I chose to use the silicone one instead..
This was a practice run before I try with the tallow I made recently (will post on that soon).
Here are a few photos:

The molds in readiness

Using the stick blender to combine oil and lye

The filled molds

I really enjoyed making the soap as I've been wanting to do it for a while now, the rainy weather certainly helped motivate me, but it also made it pleasantly cool to work. Of course I've still got to use it to see the results but from my initial attempt today I know soap making is going to feature frequently here at Cabbage Tree Farm.

Rain!

2010-12-16T16:07:00.001+13:00

At last after weeks and weeks of very dry weather (officially declared a drought here in Northland), we woke up this morning to lovely rain.
It's been raining fairly steadily since about mid morning and has just turned to light rain/drizzle now.
Our rain gauge even has water in it!!
The plants/fruit trees will have had a nice drink. It would be even better if we got some more rain over the next 24 hours to really make a difference to the dry conditions.

Rustic peach tart

2010-12-11T20:42:00.000+13:00

G had to pick all the peaches off the tree since the birds were going for them and really doing a bit of damage to the fruit. A bit of a shame since some of them would be better if they were riper. We will have to get some bird deterrents sorted for next season as even with the netting on the tree, the birds were able to get through to the fruit.

So with a large bowlful of peaches on hand, I was able to knock up this peach tart for dinner this evening. It was pretty good. We had it with a dollop of homemade vanilla ice cream.

Update on big fire

2010-12-10T21:36:00.000+13:00

I found this article about the big fire that was pictured in my last post. 115 hectares of forest (guessing it's pine). When I got up this morning I could smell the smoke and there was a haze.
See this link for the article.

Big fire on the horizon at sunset plus crescent moon

2010-12-09T21:45:00.001+13:00

This was our sunset tonight. Somewhere in the distance, someone was having a HUGE fire!
Crescent moon just visible top right of bottom photo.

Mystery flower - mystery solved!

2010-12-09T09:23:00.001+13:00

While checking out the suggestion from Killcrankie Farm that it might be a Tigridia, I found this link.

Looks as though the plant is actually a Neomarica caerulea, native to Brazil. The flowers are short lived, in fact this one only lasted a day.

Hoorah, I'm so pleased to discover what it is as I hate not knowing!
Thanks everyone for your suggestions.

Peaches from the orchard

2010-12-08T12:06:00.000+13:00

We've starting picking the first peaches of the season from our orchard. They are just as sweet and juicy as you would imagine them to be. The name of the peach is a bit of a mystery however. The trees we planted were labeled 'Nectarine Early Red' (an earlier post I had a photo of the tree with this name as the caption). So unfortunately we are none the wiser. But it won't affect us eating them however!

Mystery flower

2010-12-06T15:57:00.000+13:00

Does anyone know the name of this iris-like flowering plant?

Ham!

2010-12-04T09:39:00.000+13:00

This was the ham I prepared yesterday. It took about 4 hours to boil it, then another hour in the oven with the glaze. This was the first time I'd cooked and glazed a ham and am reasonably happy with it, perhaps next time I should do it for longer in the oven (or higher temp) as the fat was a little 'wobbly' not firm. But apart from that, the verdict from G was 'the best ham he's ever eaten' so it was a pretty good result. Our butcher did a good job on preparing the meat for us, the ham has a nice smokey flavour.

And I made a potato salad with chives to go with it - borage, calendular and nasturtium flowers on only 1/2 as I am more a fan than G!

Scallops!

2010-12-04T09:14:00.000+13:00

G went out on the boat yesterday and came back with these:

We had them simply sauteed in a little butter as a starter for our meal last night, yum!

Meat in the freezer!

2010-12-02T14:10:00.000+13:00

We picked up the remainder of the pork from the butcher, all the bacon and hams. So far we have tried the pork chops and pork fingers (belly strips) which were very nice. Looking forward to the smokey bacon! I will be cooking up one of the hams (and glazing it, something I haven't tried before) any day now.

We also collected our beef (1/2 beast as 'payment' for having the heifers graze our land), so the freezer is pretty full now! So we have lots of lovely steak, mince, stewing meat and roasts to see us through for a few months.

Some veg and flower pics

2010-12-01T09:50:00.000+13:00

Nasturtium

'Wando' pea


Bean 'Shining Fardenosa', capsicums in background

Swan plant to attract the Monarch butterflies

Thyme in full flower

Potato patch looking good

Flowering coriander

Nectarine 'Early Red'

Peach 'Black Boy'

Beautiful bearded iris - not sure of variety - was a gift from mother-in-law.

And this one is for Harvey who left a comment asking how my Tsasoniki eggplants were doing.. Well they are taking their time to get growing, maybe too dry despite my efforts to water them! -

Eggplant 'Tsasoniki'

Fresh peas

2010-11-28T08:07:00.000+13:00

Our very first pea harvest!

A nice bowl of freshly podded peas

These are the 'Wando Select' peas I sowed back in September. I'm kind of wishing I'd put in more, but at least we will get to enjoy a few more meals with fresh peas yet. They are nice and big too. They are the first peas I have grown, and will definitely feature in next year's Spring garden. I'm not sure if I left them just a wee bit too long for harvesting as some of the pods had started to go a slight bit wrinkly, but the peas inside looked and tasted just fine!

Time at the beach

2010-11-27T09:02:00.000+13:00

Yesterday we did our usual run up to Whangarei to do some shopping and on the way home we stopped off at Uretiti beach on the East coast. How wonderful to be able to pull off the main highway and after a short walk through the dunes, this beautiful place. Much enjoyment had, especially by D!