Great Day in the Garden

What a great day in the garden! Daphne has just started to flower - I love her beautifully sweet, rich scent. Have you noticed that many winter and early spring flowers have a particularly appealing scent? I wonder if they are calling the bees?

The great maize experiment has come to a close for now. We have had a few heavy frosts now and so I thought it was time to stop hoping for much produce. We didn't get much suitable for grain, but we did get quite a few "baby corn" cobs, which I intend to bottle and use in stir-fries. I've gathered the silks and will dry them to use as a herbal remedy (great as a diuretic and for soothing cystitis), as well as gathering some long leaves, which I will use to try some rush work. So, we may not have obtained what we hoped, but it certainly wasn't all in vain. I'll definitely be planting it earlier next season.

This morning I planted a packet of globe artichoke seeds (37), so hopefully we will have some baby artichoke plants by spring. Globe artichoke is a fantastic food - full of nutrients and a great tonic for tired livers.

I cleared the asparagus bed of the spent ferns today and there was a bonus - red berries, full of seeds. Normally I wouldn't bother with the seeds, as it takes quite a while to grow them to harvest size and you have to sort out the male from the female plants. But this asparagus is rather special. I bought it to replace the crowns that were overpowered by parsley a few years ago when I was ill and couldn't tend the garden. I had ordered both green and purple asparagus crowns, but when the order arrived, there was only purple asparagus because they had run out of green. The purple was merely to satisfy my curiosity, but it has proven to be a very prolific and delicious asparagus. It's not in the catalogue anymore; hence, I thought it might be worth trying to propagate some from the seed. I can't remember whether it was a hydrid or not, but I guess its babies will let me know the answer to that. Anyway, the asparagus bed is now fed and mulched and ready for next season.

Remember those cheeky potatoes surviving under the asparagus ferns? Well, the frost had knocked them back as well, so I harvested their produce - a couple of kilos of nice, red potatoes. They'll make a great meal.

Oh, and I picked the last of the tomatoes this morning - I'm blown away by the fact we still had tomatoes on bushes (albeit rather dead looking bushes) in open ground in Canberra in mid-July! It must be a record of some type, I'm sure. This winter has been rather mild until the last week or so, so maybe that accounts for it. I've collected both red and green tomatoes, so when I find my green tomato marmalade recipe, I'll be in the kitchen cooking some up - it sounds weird, but is truly delicious.

Unfortunately, with the frost the nasturtiums are looking rather sad and the peas, onions, leeks and shallots are not making much progress. But the broccoli is still producing madly and there's a couple of nice cauliflowers ready for picking, not to mention the ongoing Asian greens and the baby beets.

I'm fairly pleased with my vege garden - my aim is ultimately to produce fruit and vegetables all year round, so we are more self-sustaining. There will be some limitations, though - mangoes, bananas, pineapples and pawpaws are not likely to grow here. But we'll be happy with what we have.

love and light
naturewitch

Garlic Time

Someone once told me that you plant garlic on the shortest day and harvest it on the longest. For those of us here in Oz, this weekend is garlic planting time (Saturday is the best day as it is in a fertile time) and for our friends in the Northern hemisphere, it is time to harvest yours.

Garlic is a fantabulous herb. It is used both herbally and homeopathically to treat a variety of ailments. It helps to lower blood glucose, blood pressure and cholesterol levels, it boosts the immune system and is anti-microbial. It is fantastic for colds and flus.

In the garden, garlic can be planted in among roses to help keep down aphids, under apple trees to help reduce apple scab and around peach trees to assist in the prevention of curly leaf. Garlic also assists tomatoes and potatoes. But don't grow garlic near your peas, beans, cabbages or strawberries as it will inhibit their growth.

Many people get concerned about garlic breath. One way to reduce this is to add the garlic at the end of your cooking, rather than the beginning - just stir it into your meal a couple of minutes before you turn off the heat. Also, parsley can assist in neutralising the odour.

So go and get some garlic (I bought about a kilo of cloves today) and put it in the ground this weekend. Yes, you can use the garlic found in your greengrocer's store (or supermarket), but I always try to get Australian grown garlic. Apart from my views on imported food (that's another post!), the imported garlic may be irradiated and therefore not viable for food production.

Plant the individual garlic cloves about 5cm deep, 10cm or so apart, with the round part to the bottom of the hole or trench and the pointy bit to the top. Cover it over and let it go. You'll have lovely garlic for Christmas.

love and light
naturewitch

Tomato Sauce

I was still looking for things to do with tomatoes and I had several small Granny Smith apples from our tree, so I put them together and got tomato sauce.

Here's the recipe:

3.25kg ripe tomatoes
0.75kg apples
450ml apple cider vinegar
500g sugar
30ml veggie salt
15ml paprika
2.5ml teaspoons cayenne
20ml cornflour

Wash the tomatoes, chop them and place in a large pot. Wash, peel and dice the apples (retain peel and cores for apple jelly making, if the apples are not sprayed). Put apples in the pot with the tomatoes and place on low heat until everything is soft and pulpy. You shouldn't need to add water, as the tomatoes will be juicy enough.

When tomatoes and apples are cooked, leave to cool for a while. When cool enough to handle, press through a sieve. This will remove most of the seeds and the tomato skins. Make sure you push the apple through, as this adds a bit of bulk to the sauce.

Put the puree back into the pot (which you have rinsed) and add the vinegar, sugar, salt and spices. Bring to the boil, stirring frequently; cook until mixture has thickened a little. Combine cornflour with a small amount of water and stir into mixture. This will thicken it a little more. You may add more cornflour if you like particularly thick sauce.

When the sauce is cool enough to handle, pour into clean screw-top bottles, leaving a little room at the top of the bottles. Put lids on bottles and sterilise in the following manner:
Place filled bottles in a deep pan of hand-hot water (about 50C). Make sure the water does not cover any of the bottles. Put the lid on the pan and heat until simmering (about 88C). This should take about 30 minutes. Leave the bottles in the simmering water for another 30 minutes. When finished turn off the heat and let it cool down until you can safely take the bottles out. Make sure the lids are still well sealed. Label and store.

This a fairly basic recipe. You could experiment with adding different herbs and spices, like garlic, basil, chilli, etc.

You need to be very particular about sterilising the bottles of tomato sauce. This is because the main ingredient is tomatoes and they can result in botulism if not processed correctly. Having said that, this method is possibly a little bit of an overkill, but where my family's health is concerned, I'd rather be safe than sorry.

This amount of tomatoes makes about 3L of tomato sauce. That's probably more than a year's supply in our house . . .

love and light
naturewitch

Glut Cooking

You know the signs - they start groaning any time you produce yet another dish containing that magical vegetable or fruit you happen to have in excess. Sometimes, they actually leave it on their plates (as my beloved did last spring when he simply couldn't face anymore asparagus)! So the solution is what I call glut cooking.

My current glut is zucchini and tomato, so I have been cooking up things like zucchini, tomato, onion and herb chunky mixes to freeze for the winter months when I will use them in stews, casseroles and soups. But the freezer can only hold so much of that - it's got to have enough room for other glut cooking, like pumpkin soup.

So yesterday I made The Chutney. I love this recipe - you can use it as you normally would or just throw it in with spare ribs or any other cut of meat you like and bake for about 1.5 to 2 hours - superb and oh, so easy.

Zucchini and Tomato Chutney
1.5kg zucchini, diced
1.5kg tomatoes, roughly chopped (or just use the little ones whole)
750g onions, diced
500g apples, peeled and diced
250g raisins
15ml paprika
15ml cinnamon
5ml mixed spice
30ml salt
125ml water

Place all of the above in a large pot and cook over low heat for a couple of hours until everything is soft and pulpy. You'll need to stir it occasionally to stop it sticking to the bottom of the pot. Add 400ml vinegar (I used apple cider vinegar, but you could use malt vinegar) and 500g sugar. Simmer until thick like stew (it never gets as thick as shop-bought chutneys). Ladle into sterilised jars and cap while very warm. As it cools, you will hear the satisfying pops of the vacuum forming. This recipe is enough to fill four large and six medium jars.

Note: to sterilise your jars, wash thoroughly and place still wet jars and lids on a tray in a 120C oven for about 20 minutes. Use jars with metal lids if possible, as you can achieve a good vacuum seal with these if you put them on while warm. Fill straight from the oven, wrapping a damp teatowel around the jar. Place lid on top and screw down while placing your knuckle in the middle pop-up thing (you might need to use a teatowel so you don't get burned).

love and light
naturewitch