grown up heat wave

the nice thing about being a grown up in a heat wave is that you can have ice cream and pink sprinkles for dinner, wash it down with an icy cold alcoholic ginger beer followed by another (bowl of ice cream AND beer that is).

green hippy dilemma #1: Is the carbon footprint of a daily ice cream and cold beer allowance in an otherwise relatively frugal existence smaller or larger than the carbon footprint of getting a split system air conditioner installed for the 4 weeks of the year it is cranky hot given that really it would only get used on about 8 afternoons a year??????

Answer: the more beer you drink on a summer evening, the less likely you are to be organised enough to phone the aircon guy until the heat wave is over and the thought is gone for another 48 weeks - problem and dilemma solved. amen.

bring on the beer, oh, I mean cool change. *hick**

monday postscript

Question: Getting out of bed in the morning and stepping on chook poo with bare feet before you are even fully awake is an indication that:

a) you accidentally fell asleep in the chook house
b) your beloved left the back door open again yesterday while hanging out the washing and that bastard red chook Charlotte got lost on her way to the cat bowl
c) that bastard red chook Charlotte was just checking out the rest of the house on the way to or back from the cat bowl
c) Charlotte is a bastard red chook
d) my feathered friends are taking over my life and making a move on the house
e) Charlotte is a bastard
f) we are bad bad parents with no boundaries
g) its probably time to get the carpet cleaned again
g) all of the above

everywhere but here

I love blackberries

One nice thing about all this hot hot hot weather - the blackberries are coming along nicely. My picking rate has increased to 2kg / hour as more and more berries ripen.

The love affair with blackberry jam continues. Call them a weed. Love 'em or hate em. But I LOVE 'em. Today I made almost 2 liters of jam using a new recipe. Easy peasy not too sweet chunky cooked in a few minutes and processed in the vacola.

Blackberry Jam

Ingredients:

1600gm blackberries

24 grams citrus pectin**

800 gm sugar*

Method:

Wash and sort blackberries.

Place in large saucepan. Mush up a little with wooden spoon.

Add pectin

Bring quickly to boil.

Add sugar, bring to boil again and hard boil for 1 minute while stiring

Pour into clean jars

Seal and process in vacola. ( I process EVERYTHING in the vacola for one hour starting with cold water)

Yum.

But I am out of jam jars and there are still so many more blackberries out there.......

*basically half the weight of whatever fruit you have.

**Pectin quantities as per instructions on packet (in this case, 8gm for every 500 gm fruit)

currency of the neighbourhood

So, like, the biggest hippy gives me two huge bags of santa rosa plums. Sue next door turns these into bottled plums and plum and cinnamon jam while I am away. Sue gives me 6 bottles of plums and 3 bottles of cinnamon plum jam, and a bottle of apricot jam and two bottles of elderflower cordial - one for the biggest hippy to say thank you for the plums.

Sue and the duck herder spend last monday bottling my rhubarbd rhubarb and we split the bottles.

I give Ma and Pa Duck herder some of my plum jam and Sue's apricot jam.

Yesterday I picked blackberries and make blackberry jam, and blackberry/plum/necterine jam. This morning I picked more blackberries (my picking rate is 1 kg / hour....sigh) and there are 5 more bottles of jam boiling away in the vacola. One of these will go to Sue next door, one to Eilleen from the community garden in return for the marlalade, and one for the biggest hippy in return for the plums and another bottle of apricot jam. With luck there will be one left for the Cougarnaut next week, just because he is so appreciative and if I get it together tomorrow morning before the temperature hits 30 degrees, perhaps a few more spares for the pantry and a bottle for the Northern Pickle.

There are no beginings or ends to the threads of these transactions. It is a cycle of gifting and reciprocity for no other reason than the love of sharing fresh produce and wonderfull food. Who knows how many times some of these old jars have changes hands.

Fresh produce and preserves - the currency of my community. The threads that weft and weave my community together. Amen.

Avocado Shanty is BACK

I haven't quite let go off the possibility/desire/interest/obsession with growing avocados in ONC. Regular viewers may recall the previous aborted attempts a growing an avocado hedge in what is now the orchard. Neighbours lovingly described my elaborate polystyrene sheeting and shade cloth frost protection and shade arrangements as "looking like a shanty town" which is where the whole avocado shanty thing came from. Anyhoo, here we go again with a pared down version.

Avocados do not like wet feet. The ONC has an abundance of nice thick wet clay subsoil and while most of my efforts were focused on stopping my babies from drying out, it only took an unusually wet couple of days in winter to invite a nice rooty fungus and thus avocado disaster.

So, this next attempt involves growing my beloved avocado in a large half wine barrel. This my friends will hopefully achieve a number of benefits. Firstly, Miss Bacon's roots are well out of the clay, secondly, the extra height should give me perhaps another one or two degrees warmth in winter, thirdly, I can fill the wine barrel with loads of excellent soil, fourthly, by drilling lots of holes in the bottom of the barrel, there is no chance of water logging and once (if) she gets big, her roots can get down into the soil as well.

Other site design elements include a strategic location along site the water tanks which should further insulate my darling from the cold and make daily watering in summer a breeze. I haven't completely ruled out the possibility of using my chick brooder heat lamp overnight in winter.........

So far so good. These photos are from when she first went in and since then, she had put on loads of growth including lots of all important side shoots. You see, avocados are a bit special in that their trunks photosynthesis which makes them susceptible to direct sunlight and frost until they grow up a bit and bush out. This explains the hessian cover to protect her leaves and stem from the sun.

Fingers crossed. Will keep you posted.

For the most EXCELLENT Gardening Australia article on growing avocados including the avocados in a pot idea, see here.

For avocado trees, you might like to try sunraysia nursery - I have had great service from these friendly folks. They also have an excellent range of kiwi vines.

Bringing in the Harvest

Where has the duck herder been? Off to the south coast for a whole week of meditation and yoga and swimming in the ocean. Can you imagine? What bliss and what a lovely way to start the year.

Mr Duck Herder did a "highly commended" job looking after the garden while I was away. You know, I think he is getting better at being a tenderer of the fruits and vines and fields and feathered ones. Many thanks my darling.

My neighbour and I have been busy bottling plums (from the biggest hippy) and rhubarb and making jam. I have rows and rows of burgundy and green bottles lining the pantry.

We are eating nashis (hmmmmm crunch) and nectarines (aaaaah slurp). Look at THESE little beauties.

Have you ever seen such beautiful colours? I think this is a goldmine or something similar - yellow, fragrant cling stone.

And my pride and joy - All this fruit from my little two years in the ground seedling. This one is a white fleshed free stone. Some folks don't think nectarines make very pretty trees but I disagree. I love their long elegant leaves.

And here are the tomatoes. Lots of green. Not a lot of red yet! And a lovely view across to Mt Stromlo.

And here is another view of my plot at the community garden.

Started digging up the taties today.

Do you know what I love? I love my garden.