Curing olives, flowering sage, and cuttings

Our 10 year old olive tree

Just got a couple of things to blog, cos it may be a few days before I get to do the next one. Here is the olive tree - or one of them. I think there are about 7 and we plan to put 3 more in where the lavender was, along the pool edge. If they are pruned regularly they keep a good shape. Or certain varieties do. We will see. The other 3 I got in the supermarket - and they are different varieties, but the first and biggest tree is a manzanillo Spanish olive.   We have had limited success with curing. Once it worked well, and this current batch may be ok. But I would like to learn from someone who knows. ???

Katie gave me a stoneware olive curing jar, which has a lid to sit on top of the salted olives. This does keep them submerged, and therefore less likely to go off. But the flavour is not good- still too bitter. I have tried a few people's recipes,but am hoping that Fresia, a Chilean woman we met here, will come and show me what to do, exactly.

Here is the salvia that grows so easily. I love it, because the flowers are pretty, the bush easy to care for, and you can plant cuttings straight into the ground and they will grow. It's the sort of encouragement you need sometimes in the garden!

Our Thai basil grew very well this year. I found it didn't go well as a substitute for Italian basil (not surprising really), but it is good in spicy dishes, with chillies.

Here are the cuttings for next season's rosemary and lavender. I'm hoping they won't need watered through autumn and winter, and will be ready to plant around the garden in spring.

And here is one of the grandchildren, Will and Leah. They are both on solid food now, and growing noticeably by the week! I never thought I'd be a doting grandmother, but I am! Ali made Leah's overalls with the Mum's old sewing machine.

Alzheimer update
Speaking of which, Mum is well. I took her out to lunch in Mt  Eliza  today. She said the food in the home is a bit soft and soggy. Mum loves good fresh cooking so I'm sure it isn't easy. She found it quite hard to remember our family get-together last weekend, and she also showed me a photo of Ken, and asked who it was. Sometimes she doesn't recognise me, but other times we have a good conversation. It seems to be a sort of mist that rolls over her memory, shifts at times, but settles over some events and she can't recall things in that sector at all. I explained to her who Carol, her niece, is, but she seemed to struggle with those memories. Then she got frustrated. I imagine it must be horrible, to know there are things that she can't bring to the surface. But mostly she is pragmatic, and grateful for the good things in each day. Rod calls in most days and has a joke with her, or shares supper from the hidden minifridge Brian got her!

Autumn and quince puree

Today a funny thing happened. It was about 3pm, and I was picking quinces from the tree.I looked up through the netting and saw this grey fur in a hammock-like shape above me. As soon as I realised it was the quince thief it leapt down and flew off so fast that I couldn't get a good look to see whether it was a large rat or a small possum!
So I picked all the quinces, and composted the ones "it"  had gnawed. Wish I'd seen what it was, but it was so unexpected! We did catch a rat this morning in our alcatraz trap.

today's quince crop!

So here was the quince. You'd figure if the possums/rats are eating them raw they must be ripe.

So in they were brought, peeled and chopped. Put into a saucepan with a bit of water and stewed for about an hour. Then I added a quarter of a teaspoon of calcium and a teasp of pectin with a cup of sugar. That way it doesn't go lumpy. It didn't take long to thicken- just thick enough to add a few tablespoons to an apple crumble was the consistency I was aiming for. I also added a teaspoonful of pomegranate molasses to finish off the bottle. (It's lovely stuff in Tunisian food).



Then when the mixture was coolish I bagged it ready for the freezer. I got 8 bags and a generous few mouthfuls for the cook.


ready for the freezer

Jim reckons these look like Dorovitch's bodily samples...which rather takes away from the evening's work!!!

It would have been good to have made a paste rather than a puree,but I wanted to get it done quickly so pureed it is.

Autumn is really here. Today was one of the last swims in the pool this season. Nice though! It's not me in case you think I'm going topless....



What's eating my quinces???

quince eaten through netting!

Rats! or possums! or parrots?  Still, maybe if they are good for the animals they are actually ready to pick???  I love quince - it would have to be up there with the best stewed fruit in the world. I don't understand why it is not more popular. Is it just the work involved in peeling and stewing? Or is it the taste?

At least the grapes were luscious! Thank you Dan and Mark for the cuttings. Both lots have taken and next year I will net early and thoroughly!!

However, the cost of netting will probably mean

I could get a taxi to the markets in Melbourne weekly for the summer season and bring back ripe fruit for less money...We didn't really know what to do with the grapes- so we washed and juiced them, and then boiled it for 30 mins or so, and put in containers in the freezer. Next year, I'd like to try sorbets or even have a go at a wine, but would need a good recipe. The juice is very very sweet, so we've been using it like cordial and it's delicious.

lavender and rosemary boshes at the back

The garden generally is slowing down  though a few things are in flower. On the right is the greenhouse, but I find it is not really useful for long, as it gets so hot, and I have no water supply to it.
It is really useful in October to get seedlings started, but even one unexpected hot day will cause them to shrivel.So different to the N. Hemisphere, where I remember my grandfather having a fabulous peach tree growing permanently in the greenhouse!


And so to family. Here is a clip of cousin Deb, and her mum, Aunt Lizzie, with Will on the left and Leah on the right. We had a big family get together on Saturday, which Mum really enjoyed though she was particularly frank with her comments which is not how she used to be. She expressed surprise that one of her nephews had produced such a nice child!!! He (the nephew) said he had thick skin , so I hope he forgives her. She would never have thought that, much less said it, before Alzheimer's kicked in.

Aunt Lizzie, Will, Leah, and cousin Deb

And just to finish, cos it's so neat- here are bibs I bought for the grandchildren - they are padded, edged in bias binding, and have studs, which form the neck closure, and form a pelican pouch to catch food, but are machine washable. Clever idea I thought.

Autumn Fruits

Well hello again. Today it is raining, fast and furiously. Yesterday we were in the pool - the water was 27 degrees, so it was cooler than it's been, but not too much of a shock. Last night I picked the biggest watermelon of the 6 or so that we have, to see if it would be ripe. It is a small variety (sugarbaby)


sugarbaby on the kitchen bench

and it felt "springy" to touch. It was delicious. The first time I have ever eaten a watermelon that grew in my garden!

That one grew in the rich soil of the asparagus patch which had been really well composted. Not sure how the asparagus will go next year after the melons but I am finding that the self seeded asparagus around the garden is nearly as good as the tended patch. Also we are often away when the season starts and asparagus need lots of water to grow luscious.

The feijoa trees have lots of fruit on them but that doesn't mean we will actually get a good crop. Not sure how the local wildlife feel about eating feijoas. Feijoas have a relatively soft skin when ripe, it seems, which is not a good omen for human consumption. However, the first one to ripen fell off the tree and I sampled it last night... after  the watermelon... It was really good!  An unusual taste, sort of between a pear and a pineapple. Really sweet!  Apparently the fruit is named after a Brazilian naturalist who died in 1824. I think they are street trees in established suburbs of Melbourne.

A sick looking rabbit has just loped into the neighbour's garden. Rabbits are a major pest around here. Every time there is a big drive to poison them people around here object saying the bait will kill wildlife, so a halfsupported eradication drive never works. They breed prolifically as any evening walk will confirm.


Doesn't Rhyll inlet look nice on a dull day? Autumn is a good time of year, but winter can be dull and miserable sometimes. Hamilton Island calls!!!


Ryll inlet



Today in the Garden

Last of the tomaoes

How sad - summer is nearly over. What a great one it was for swimming and the garden!


Our chutney is nearly all gone - that's what happens when it tastes good!

pineapple guava

The pineapple guava is fruiting for the first time - the tree is about 7 years old, but was only grown from seed so not really expected to do well.  What can you do with the fruit ? Is  it a jam making fruit? You can't see them very well from this photo but they are about egg size and hard.







tamarillo tree with fruit

The tamarillos are still green but last year we had buckets of them- only they don't taste very nice. At least I don't like them much.. But our friends Dan and Grace, who gave us the tree as a cutting,  do like them so hopefully the fruit won't be wasted.




Here is the baby watermelon grown from seed, from Digger's. How do you tell if it is ready? I've lifted it over, out of     the asparagus patch where it grew. Surprisingly, nothing seems to have eaten it ...yet. 
There are about 7 or 8 of  them but this is the biggest.



Hey ! check out this site!  www.honeybee.org.au   It's got the manuals for Cert 3 in beekeeping. How interesting is that!!! Did you know that a hive of bees use about a litre of water a day, and a hive has about 40k bees?




 No update on Mum this week but there will be one soon.

Jars and grandchildren

Well,apparently I'm not posting often enough!!! I do have a life going on on the sidelines too... But have just got a website ( from my hairdresser, as you do) that sells all kinds of glass jars for marmalade or chutney or whatever. Cos I have a vacola thingy in the garage that Dad gave me, but when I last used it it leaked and I had tomato purée in my hair. Hence I tend to cook the chutney well in a preserving pan and then bottle in sterilized jam jars. But they would look so much nicer in cute new jars...perhaps with a grannielines label??? Anyway,here is the link .www.plasdene.com.au Thanks Darren! (brilliant hairdresser on the island.makes you feel beautiful for a couple of hours at least).

A word of advice,too. If you have a perfectly good lavender hedge, that you could remove because it's about 7 years old and might get leggy if you don't look after it, DON'T!). It will increase in bulk a hundred fold until you need to mulch for hours and annoy the neighbours, or make so many trips to the tip that you could landscape the whole garden for the petrol costs, and everybody will have aching backs and sore muscles from moving bits of hedge, and then...it will take years for such effective screening from the neighbours to grow (so you can skinnydip or whatever you want to do privately in the pool(the mind boggles...), so all in all, just leave it to become someone else's problem after you die. Yes. Make the kids earn their inheritance.

                                     Speaking of which here is a pic of each grandchild


Leah with her knitted doll

Will playing the saucepans



More garden stuff soon...

I'm moving to Prahran

Who would live in the bush???

After a few days without going into the garden(beautiful grandchild to entertain) I was really annoyed to find nearly all the quinces on the  one tree I've planted (there are about 30 altogether) have been gnawed or pecked or something- not sure if it's a bird, a possom or a rat to blame but it is really frustrating after tending the tree and even picking off the pear slugs by hand so no spray was on the leaves or fruit. It is now netted but only attached with clothes pegs and the birds can pull those apart. Also I only have ugly white netting which looks revolting, but better than nothing I guess. You can just see the tree to the right...

Here's a better photo. Doesn't it look ugly netted with white netting? The neighbour's shed doesn't help either... I don't want the trees to get big so I keep cutting the tops. Can anyone advise about pruning quinces?

The pomegranates are better cos I don't think they appeal to birds. Then again, I thought that about quinces... Today was a public holiday in Victoria, and we spent it in the garden.

I took the lavender cuttings and spread them around the apple trees. First I weeded well, then I spread a couple of buckets of compost with lots of worms in it. Then I watered well, and added the lavender mulch and watered again. Experience has taught that you don't leave any bare earth or you end up with weeds galore.







And here is my Mum. She was born in Preston, Melbourne, in 1931. She has 4 children, three of them in Australia. She has a son Ken in Belfast, and he and his wife have 4 children.The eldest of them, Debbie has 2 girls - Emma and Alice, so Mum has 2 Irish great grand daughters, but she has never seen them. 

Will, her only great grandson, loves the attention she lavishes on him. This was taken a few weeks ago when he visted her at TheTerraces, the home in Mount Eliza that she lives in.

Phillip Island as a place to live...

Well, given that I have lived here for the last 8 years,it obviously has some appeal for me. This is what it looks like about two hundred metres from our door. Fresh clear air and lots of spiderwebs at this time of year...

There is a boardwalk by the water and a mangrove swamp with wallabies coming to nibble nearby grasses in the morning and evening...
You only hear about the penguins at Phillip Island but I know lots of people living here who've never seen the penguins....

A spare square metre of earth was available in Dec., and a scattering of seedlings from the greenhouse grew despite the heat. I did water them this year- on the basis that our water bill is mostly fixed charges and little for the volume consumed. Besides we have all the hassle of extra traffic and roadworks because of the nearby Desalination Plant. So a well watered garden is fair enough I reckon - if it's water for food at least. The tank which is 2,000 litres is fine for drinking water (which we filter) and veggies and trees within watering can distance.


Alzheimer's in the family...
Here is Mum on her 80th birthday. She had a party with lots of her "old" friends attending. Beforehand she behaved almost as if it were a wedding, wanting place cards and whatnot... but on the day it was a lovely celebration for her. She really enjoyed the limelight. Friends were kind- some brought parents from a long way away. Mum displayed the excitement of a child, but she was quite alert and aware of who was who. I think she has lost a fair bit of memory in the last year. She now struggles to remember family names, but then at times is still surprisingly lucid. One of my brothers, who lives near her and visits most days sees better what her real state of mind is. He bears the brunt of the problems too, so we have just recently changed Mum to a doctor who does housecalls, which means no transport worries. Mum has a taxi card but for some reason refuses to use it. I remember Grandma was the same- they think family should take them where they want to go. Another sign she is changing - Mum was never the type to expect family to come to her rescue when she was well...

Garden in the Rain

Here is the garden today after pouring rain all day. There are bad floods in NSW, and heavy soaking rain here. The soil changes from a dusty grey to a healthy looking peaty colour which reminds me of Ireland.


It has soaked the fruit and made the skins of grapes and tomatoes split with excess moisture. It's lovely to wander in the rain with the dripping leaves sending drops down my neck when I reach to pick a ripe fruit.
The cover on the pool looks less than appealing, but it keeps the water temperature up - it's currently about 28 degrees despite the rain. It also prevents evaporation, though that is not a problem today.





Time to make chutney with the tomatoes and onions. I bought some green apples and raisins to put in with the spices, and used a recipe from www.allrecipes.com  that was called apple and tomato chutney.
It worked well - and I added a spoonful of pectin with the sugar which gave a good consistency.(Thankyou Katie). It's probably a bit too sweet but quite edible.

And we can't let the season of summer pass without making lots of tomato sauce. Onions (both red and spring onions) from the garden, local garlic, and a bit of basil added at the end of a slow gentle cooking... We bottled some, froze some, and ate some on wholemeal spaghetti, with a fresh pesto sauce from garden herbs. We didn't even need oil, though a good dollop of olive oil would have tasted good too.

 

Note on Alzheimer's.

Mum had another great session with great-grandson 1. She was rapt. He was amazingly compliant, and smiled and kicked again like he knew it would go down well.



Mum carried him down to show him off to the other residents (whether they wanted to see him or not). She again got confused with whose child he actually was, and whether he was a he or a she, but she did get across that he was somehow related, and she basked in his inherited good looks....


Children are often able to read  social situations somehow, and he certainly seemed to know what was expected.... He had, of course, had fun on a nearby beach beforehand, where he splashed in the sea and sat in a cabina when the sun got too hot, and played wigwams with his doting grandma while we all shoved tasty fruit morsels his way... Happy days!