Not your usual way of cooking – more like dealing with a glut
Watermelon Jam I recently pulled the plug on my melon garden. The melons were ready, and the plants were exhausted from their efforts. It didn’t help that this was one of the most windswept garden beds with sightlines to the ocean through the front gate. I have a stable door style gate with windbreak on the top half, although it isn’t often closed and the … Continue reading Watermelon Jam
Best Valentine’s Day ever! I’m honestly not sure how we are going to top this, and it all revolved around the garden. I have been on a mission to showcase the vegetables I grow in the meals I make. I’m a gardener well ahead of being a cook in terms of priorities, passion and ability. I revel in bringing forth life from bare soil and … Continue reading Best Valentine’s Day ever!
Making a Shrubbery In the garden shrubs are generally considered the understated backdrop of the landscape – mini trees that provide the green and occasionally have flowers or fragrance but for the most part aren’t even noticed. In the kitchen shrubs are something else. They are so amazing that once you make one you wonder why you’ve never done it before. I am about to … Continue reading Making a Shrubbery
Once the weather returned to some kind of normal summer-esk conditions, I took the opportunity to process the harvest I was able to salvage. While not everything did well this summer – namely my tomatoes, some things have done exceptionally well and the beetroot can be counted as a success. The good thing about beetroot is I can pretty much grow it all year round … Continue reading COOKING: Is water essential?
This weekend I did something I’d been putting off for absolutely ages. During the summer I grew French Red shallots. Every year I hold back my biggest and replant them in the hopes that I end up with something a little bigger than the year before. You see, no matter how hard I try I always end up with the smallest shallots. But that doesn’t … Continue reading Getting Salty
Day one of giving kitchen gardening a higher priority was slow to eventuate. Life has this great habit of getting in the way. I either over did it in the garden and landed in a crumpled heap on the sofa, willing myself to get back up again some time before dark. It is the week leading up to being officially safe to plant the garden … Continue reading Fennel and Celeriac are great friends
Not in the garden – that still fills me with joy and keeps me busy – although just last week I had barely been out there as the temperatures dropped, the wind picked up and the rain came in sideways! It probably wasn’t as cold as in the middle of winter when I just accepted it would be cold and just wrapped up warm and … Continue reading Stuck in a Rut
Every year I sow melon seeds with great anticipation. I like a bit of variety with my melons and I have the room, so I start off with Sugar Baby Watermelon. It is always reliable and even in a poor summer the chances are you will get something. This season I got 4 somethings. Most were around the 5 kg mark which is pretty big … Continue reading Melon Jam
We are still in summer, repeat after me ‘we are still in summer’. It is becoming a little bit hard to believe right now. After the rain eventually came there has been a perceivable shift in the way things feel. That dry crispness that you feel underfoot when you walk across the lawn is gone. Most mornings there is now a bit of a dew … Continue reading Capturing Summer
October is such a gauntlet to run for us. With birthday’s, school holidays and then the obligatory back to school haircuts, stationary kit refresh and new shoes, the garden can become a little neglected. Not intentionally, but life can get in the way which can be quite challenging as we are in the heart of spring and things need to be done. Fortunately, I’ve been … Continue reading Queen of Hearts
