Food supply

Time for a little seed saving.
Recently I have ventured back into the garden after a summer of mostly neglect. I'm hearing that alot of people have had that kind of season. It's been our season to nurture ourselves as a family, with trips to the beach, bike rides and making efforts to spend time with extended family . Natural disasters around the world however are making me mindful that we should never take things for granted, especially our food supply.

So with that thought in mind I'm back to the soil with renewed enthusiasm. I have some seedlings started and am busy clearing swathes of weeds which are going to seed in order to make way for the winter food crops. We'll have leeks, broccoli, celery, spinach, lettuce and cabbage fresh from the garden this winter if the season is favorable. I'm sure it's not too late to get all these seedlings into the garden. As well I'm planting peas, they survive quite well overwinter if they are a couple of inches high and it gives them a good little head start in spring. There are broad beans too, not my favorite vegetable, but they have planted themselves dropping out of their dried pods where I left the plants standing since the spring. There are millions of parsnips self seeded too, if only I could grow carrots as well as I grow parsnip. Coriander,radishes, nettle and chickweed are popping up everywhere so I guess it's not so bad to neglect the garden for a season. If I keep my eyes open and clear up carefully we'll have a good selection of nourishing food for the cold months.

My Skatey boy is initiating his own learning in the area of survival by finding role models to take him pig hunting and hopefully duck shooting soon. He experienced his first real pig hunt and kill last week so if push comes to shove we'll be right for meat too.

Just quietly though , I hope he goes for deer as well because I'm not very partial to wild pork.

Back in the garden again

The Autumn colours in the vege garden are beautiful. My warm evening weeding inspired me to get the camera out, though my hand wasn't quite steady enough for the low light, the colours came out well.

I've had this goal to be self sufficient in fruit and veges. It is easy to achieve it during summer but for the winter garden my timing is still off. These beautiful coloured cauliflowers I planted in late January while we were all still on holiday. I staggered the plantings by two weeks and composted them well. Until recently the parasitic wasps kept the white cabbage caterpillars in check but then the population exploded so I used an application of derris dust to get them under control. The problem is that they are all coming ready at once despite the staggered planting. It's also a little earlier than I had hoped, with a few summer veges still to be found in the garden and glasshouse. The challenge for me is to be self sufficient in July and August as stores run low and frost stops the growth of everything. The gap in gardening last month isn't going to help the situation.

Another bit of bad timing is the peas which are just starting to flower, it's going to frost here within the next month so I doubt very much that I"ll get to harvest many of them. The plan had been to have them just sit through winter and then flower in very early spring like they did last year.
I'm not completely behind, this is just the first few pumpkins. "Austrian oil seed" and "jack be little" for stuffing and seed for baking. Their vines had died off in the frost before Easter.

I'm working on clearing up areas where corn and pumpkins have been in preparation for cover crops, composting and garlic beds, which I prepare with lime then a rest for a few weeks add blood and bone, then pot ash throughout winter until I plant. I try to leave it three years before I plant garlic in the same spot but as I grow such a large area of garlic I can't always manage it.

Leeks, celery, radishes, silver beet, parsnip and lettuces are all growing well at the moment, I even have two fairly promising looking beds of carrots in. There's only 3/4 of a row of potatoes left while the yams aren't looking very prolific this year. The kumara were doing well but the frost killed their vines. I dug one plant up and only got four fairly average looking kumara from it but they do look better than the spindly looking ones I got a few years ago. I think I composted this lot better and I'm determined to keep trying with these.

Nasturtiums and pumpkins still going strong in a warmer patch of the garden, I like the way they smother everything in their path.

Autumn 09

This has been a beautiful Autumn here. I've missed a whole month in the garden, but it carries on finding its own balance in the warm but wetter weather, with lots of seedlings coming up and brassicas plumping up nicely. I harvested masses of black boy peaches which I sold at the gate and dehydrated for the kids lunches over the next few months. Only I turned round one day and saw that skatey boy had found them, and in just three days had munched his way through 3/4 of an Agee jar of them, probably equivalent to about 25 peaches! I have hidden the other 2 jars so we have some winter snacks.

Our beautiful green grape is ready now, people always ask for cuttings of this one, I don't know what it's called but it's sweet and almost seedless and grows perfectly organically. It doesn't get any food or water but I give it a good prune in winter. It's a real asset in the garden because people are happy to barter for it. See below I've had tons of tomatoes from Dad and walnuts from my Aunt, while not pictured my neighbour has also been supplying me with hazelnuts.

A friend put the word around that I hadn't been well, so I've been spoiled this week with home cooked meals and baking. It is so healing to know that people care. All of them with busy lives themselves. Without the chore of cooking dinner I've made soup, sauce and paste from the tomatoes. While in the still room I've been brewing up some cider (a first for me) and drying lemon verbina, and tansy which are also romping away in the garden.

Tomato Paste is easy, here it is:

10 lbs (5kg) ripe tomatoes

1 Tablespoon salt,

white pepper to taste,

olive oil

Chop tomatoes and cook in a large pan for about half an hour or till very soft. Stir as necessary.

Remove from heat and mouli or puree in food processor. Return to pan, bring to boil then reduce heat and simmer until reduced by half.

Preheat oven to a very slow 120 degrees Celsius. Transfer puree to a greased baking dish and bake 4-5 hours till very thick and concentrated. Add salt and pepper and spoon into sterilised jars, cover with a thin layer of olive oil and seal.

Keeps for about a year.

If you don't want to bottle it, freeze it in kids ice block moulds, they are a good size to whip out and add to a meal.