Wandering around our Home
We had a lovely walk on Wednesday, although to start with it was knee high weeds and I got them stuck all over me.
The Black Cockatoo have been visiting our Banksia trees with a flurry of of scwarks and branch snapping……
and we had a WOW rainbow to the east of us
Cherry Guava and Rosella
The left over purple carrot dye pot still had colour so I rustled up another scarf (one that had been previously dyed) I put it in the dye pot and warmed it up for a bit then bundled up with these goodies Cherry Guava , Rosella and its leaves.
Tied up and put back in the pot for more of a simmer, the Cherry Guava is very potent and let out lots more pink.The bundle change a lot over the last 10 days…..
Purple Carrot
Our kids were at our neighbours the other morning and Jasper came home with a Purple Carrot from Nik and Cal, they thought I might like to try it out as a dye ….. only one carrot did not seem like much and we all had a bite to make sure it was a carrot ! I grated the carrot and found some silk scraps, paj and tissue silk and through in a piece of wool roving as well.
Am so glad I did…. the pictures are testament to the Purple Carrot
After being boiled up
( I think it is a F1 hybrid so you won’t find the Seeds at Eden Seeds but we did find some seedlings at one of those big stores )
Plum on Silk
Have squished some Davidson plums onto a couple of silk scarves and wrapped them up for a week or so…. I always have trouble not to open the bundles I make…..The plum is a great pink purple and travels into a blue as well. I was gifted the last batch from a friend (my trees have finished bearing) who then sent me on a wild food forage for more and Bingo we found them.
Bundled up and a 20 minute steam
Both of these scarves has been coloured previous and thus the different results….
I have one last one wrapped up which is mine, I have included some gum leaves and wrapped it round an old iron bolt will show you the results latter… and will stop myself from unwrapping it too soon! The rest of the spoils will be made into jam.
Making Quince Paste / Jam
I have photographed steps to make Quince jam/ paste ( for a clear jelly it would need to be strained through muslin)
Fruit Fly damage
Quince roughly chopped and into water
Boiled till it becomes mush
Strained through a large colander
The liquid left is measured and I put in 75% sugar (( I use this method for all my jam making)
The sugar and liquid is then boiled till setting point longer for a firmer result
mmmm …… ready for that blue cheese
Quince Count
The count is in and there was 7kg of Quinces came off the broken branch! I made a pot of Davidson Plum Jam ( had about 750 grams of plums ). The Bananas are ripening and delicious great colour, different to shop bought .
We welcomed 4 new girls( Araucana) to our chook house they are settling in. We are hopping they will start to lay before Winter and the exciting thing is that they lay blue eggs ! I’m guessing that we will have one with blue eggs and three with maybe green ? My theory is their leg colour will determine the egg colour ..
Davidson Plum
I was so excited to see these little purple/blue plums on the ground … our trees have fruited for the first time .
This Australian native plum makes the best jam in the world , other than quince of course. We have four trees growing three have fruit now and the other is in flower.
I have made one batch of Quince jelly with the first of the fallen fruit, I have not beaten the fruit flies but am able to cut around the pests and use most of the fruit.
One branch is so heavy with fruit that it has broken! I will have to weigh up the spoils when I pick them all.
I am keen to squash some of the over ripe plums on to a silk scarf and bundle it up for a while, we have a rainy day here today so that will be a good indoor project ……
New Plantings
Ula and I have been getting the vege patch back up and running. We started with seeds in loo roll cardboard and I am hooked easy to thin out the excess and plant the whole thing in the ground.
We planted these seeds Beans, Kale, Lettuce and Tomato on the 4th of February, and planted the Beans into the garden on the 13th February cardboard and all so easy…… yesterday I put in Spinach and Silverbeet and am going to give Carrots a go as well.
Beans up
So far so good….
I have picked pea shoots for omelette’s and stir fry’s and Ula has added some
little friends to our garden .
The tomato and bean seeds all came up ….
tomato ” St Pierre ” a bush type and the bean variety ” Strike “
“Bulls Blood” beetroot is another that went in
more for their great leaf , of course all from Eden Seeds .
over grown vege patch
Summer is over and the vege patch went feral, I can’t compete with the weeds and my frozen shoulder has meant the digging is way to strong for me cope with . Pete has pulled off the bird net and pulled the bigger stuff out and I think we will sheet mulch heavily , till I can get back into the digging ….. In the mean time Ula and I have started a micro greens garden on the deck.
I have added to these trays with some other pots with beans , tomato and some shallots . The snow pea shoots are already big enough to harvest , I have in my usual style over planted but we plan to snip and eat so I hope it will work OK.
