Enough is enough

I have been watching for a while and I am not happy about it. White cabbage moths have been circling the vegie patch now for a several weeks.  It's ok I haven't got anything in the brassica family growing. So I thought they can't harm much, right?

Watercress seems the blighties like watercress.  I stopped counting at 44. Now I have watercress stumps which don't do so well in a salad. Sigh, I suppose the possums will find it next. Hope your watercress is surviving better.

Summer Days

Happy new year everyone. I trust you had a fun and relaxing holiday season. I think one of the nice things about having summer during the holiday period is you get time to just relax and lay about.  After rushing about getting all my clients garden looking good for their friends and family to enjoy it is quite nice to have a week away from any garden.

My parents are on holiday in the UK visiting family, so we had a few days down the south coast at their place near Milton. They are blessed with a great number of fantastic beaches and inlets in the area have a look.

Would love to hear what you got up to. I am feeling refreshed and ready to hit my garden now.

Raspberry joy

In a past life I worked as a nanny in Hampshire, UK. One of the families I worked for had a sizeable estate which had a beautiful shade house which the gardener (Lumberjack) grew amazing raspberries. I do remember having a chat with him about how there weren't really that many berries. His response was that no-one watered them....  Hmm wish I had been more into horticulture at that time and paid closer attention to his words of wisdom.

I am now doing my best to grow raspberries in the temperate climes of Sydney and I think to myself I really must water my raspberries more. They are in for the first year since I divided them after being the neglect last year.

Here are 3 of my raspberry pots wrapped up and hiding from the birds

I have to say the crop while very tasty has been small. I get a small handful every few days which are lovely as you can see:

But I want more after all I have this recipe I have pinned on pinterest and I really want to make it. I just don't think it will be this year, perhaps next year?

Sweetsugarbeans 'raspberry and dark chocolate ganache tart'

Wishing you all a very berry Christmas. Hope your gardens are producing well.

zucchini tuesday

Louise at gardenglut has been encouraging us all to learn to have a new found joy for zucchini. Now I do love a good zucchini and so I thought I would take on her challenge of growing them and cooking them.  I have posted a couple of times on the great use of the zucch which has been fun and yes I have a new one this week but first look I think I see flowers!!!

It is not enormous yet but it is not doing so bad

I am not sure if they are male or female flowers but they sure afre pretty

Here they are I can almost taste the zucchini.  We are no doubt going to be great friends and make a great many dishes together.

Anyway this week while at the markets I saw more zucchini flowers and I just couldn't walk past, not while they are still in season.  But I couldn't decide what to do with them....  So I stuffed them and crumbed them to pan fry (we don't have a deep fryer). I also thought I would make use of a small glut of tomatoes I had. I had a quick look at a couple of recipes and put this together.

Jen's stuffed zucchini flowers with quinoa and veg

* Mix some feta (I used Yarra Valley) with lemon rind, a touch of parmesan and seasoning.
* Remove the stamen inside the zucchin flower and stuff with the cheese mix.
* Crumb and leave in the fridge for a bit.
* Cook quinoa according to packet
* Pan fry a whole pile of veg.  I used Mushroom, Zucchini, Carrot, Broccoli, Spinach, Snow Peas and oven roasted tomatoes.

Lovely home grown toms

* Add the cooked Quinoa and a touch of soy and beetroot balsamic. You can add any flavours you like.
* Chop herbs for the top, I used coriander
* Have your lovely assistant pan fry the zucchini flowers and add to the top

* Eat

Quinoa and veg with crumbed zucchini flowers

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day- December

Here we are so close to the end of the year again.  Here in Sydney we have started summer and boy there have been some stinkers.  Humidity is pretty high and the temps have started to reach the 30 C (mid to late 80's in Fahrenheit) but then a cool change usually comes through which brings some relieve.

If you are keen to have a look at other gardens around the world check out maydreamsgardens. But first to my flowering garden this month.  I looked out at the garden and thought there didn't seem much in flower but I was greatly surprised. And this month I have quite a bit of blue:

November Lilly (flowering in December, I think it is confused) Lilium longiflorum

This is a statice I think Limonium 'Misty Blue' it is really pretty but I think it needs to be moved so that it is seen better

Agapanthus sp.

This carrot plant has gone to seed. I think it is quite beautiful. Daucus carota

Love NSW Christmas bush, Cerapetalum gummiferum. What do you think?



Solanum melongena one of the first eggplant flowers

Sticking to the solanunm family the capiscum 'mini mama' is doing well.  I look forward to seeing the fruit red up.

This blue salvia dispite being a little weedy looks very pretty



Nepeta racemosa, catmint

Kalanchoe is nearly finished but been quite fantastic
 

the vegie patch

Like all good intents I meant to write about the slow changes in my vegetable patch and I even took photos last week. But time got away and now the plants are much bigger. Reguardless I am going to post them now.

As you know Mr R has built some very sexy vegie beds back in October and I have been working them so that I would soon be eating stuff I have grown....  Well my first problem was I used blood and bone to improve the soil and whilest at work Diba the ratbag dog decided to lick the bed clean and no doubt ate all the seeds in the process, sigh.

So after several planting of seeds I now finally have a few things growing

Does anyone else have holes all through their eggplants?

Finally the corn has started

Over on the pool fence

Maybe the ants help propagate the cucumbers. It is the first time I've grown them :0)

I got the Diggers bean variety of green, purple and yellow in

And all my berries are now covered so the birds don't get them.

The raspberry ghost stand

Zucchini Tuesday on Wednesday

Yes I am late again. And the worst thing is I even made this recipe on Monday so I would be on time, opps.

This week I got a recipe out of Belinda Jefferies 'Mix & Bake'.  It is her Zucchini and Kumara Bread recipe. Again I have changed it a little because of what I had in my cupboard.

* Heat oven to 180 C. And butter 2 loaf tins.
* Whisk 260g plain flour, 200g wholemeal flour, 2 & 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon, 1 tsp nutmeg, 2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt and a good handful of chia seeds (because they aregood for you) in a big bowl.
* Stir through 250g toasted walnuts and 300g dried cranberries
* Add 1 cup grated zucchini and a cup of grated sweet potato.  I think you could get away with just the zucchini only if you wanted
* In another bowl whisk 3 eggs, 110g castor sugar and 110g brown sugar
* Then add 125ml of rice bran oil, 125ml buttermilk and 2 tsp vanilla

* Mix the wet mix into the dry until just combined then divide into the 2 loaf tins
* Bake for about 50mins.  Check with a skewer that it comes out clean after stabbing the cake.

Two lovely loaves. We popped one in the frezzer for later

You can just make out the flecks of zucchini

The cake was nice. Quite moist. It tastes mostly of the cranberries, walnuts and spices and no so much of zucchini but it doesn't have to be the star everytime.... I think Belinda is right as she suggests it tastes better the next day, and the next.

Pop over to Garden Glut for more amazing zucchini recipes.