Prepping for Summer

Hi again all,

Another Saturday afternoon spent in the front yard, preparing our raised beds for the summer harvest.  Sam spent hours hauling our wonderfully dark topsoil from one side of the front garden to the other, filling the tyres and planting out our seedlings.

The truck dumping our lovely tasty topsoil!

Papa Sam's Everest!

We filled one of our raised beds with 3 (+ a few) sisters (i.e. Corn, beans and pumpkin), as well as some zucchini and sunflowers.  Around the edges we've filled the tyres with onions and carrot seeds.

Our second raised bed has our first attempt at growing asparagus...  Shame we have to wait 4 years to see if we did it properly or not.  More onions and carrots are around the tyres in this bed too, and our eldest's dwarf apple tree will go on the south side of the bed once it's dormant again.

The bulbs under the front bedroom window are all starting to come up, and both those and the plants outside the front fence are starting to get positive comments from people walking past the house.

I've planted out two bougainvillea (Scarlet O-Hara) and a Dublin Bay climbing rose on the front porch which will hopefully give some much needed summer shade to our lounge and bedroom windows.  And yes, those are plastic rubbish bins I've planted them in...  Far cheaper than pots, and apparently UV treated (here's hoping).  In front of the right hand picture are pots of beetroot, orange jasmine, night-scented jessamine and capsicums.

Also on the front porch, the seedlings we're growing for the school fair in a few weeks time, my beautiful columnar apple trees (polka and waltz) that are starting to fruit, and Head Rodent Killer, our cat, Major Tom.

The first Polka apple

Seedlings for school fair

Major Tom, ready for duty

And some other pics from the front yard...  Everything is either starting to bloom or in full bloom.  The bees are starting to hang around the foxgloves, cornflowers, lavender and the sage.  I can't wait for summer!

Echeveria from under the letterbox

Small pomegranate tree

Fabulous foxgloves

More to come soon, including our anniversary present pics :)

Love to all,
Mama Fern

xoxox

My fave chocolate cake recipe

Hi All,

I keep getting asked for the recipe I use for my chocolate cakes, so I thought it was about time I put in up on the blog...

It's a really nice moist cake, covered with a thick chocolate ganache, and always goes down well.  It's also the easiest baking job and can be done either in a big bowl with a wooden spoon, or by throwing all the ingredients into a food processor and whizzing them.  It's also really versatile, as it's easy to cut and shape, so it can be a nice, unassuming plain cake or an alien bent on destroying all life other than it's own kind! (admittedly, it took a fair few skewers, and not one but four cake tins and a double mix of the recipe)

Ingredients:
1 2/3 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups cocoa
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
2 cups milk
100g melted butter
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 Tbsp golden syrup

Mix all ingredients in your choice of food processor or bowl and spoon
Pour into a greased and lined 20cm cake tin

Bake for 50 minutes at 180 degrees Celcius or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Icing ingredients:
150gm or more chocolate (king size block of milk chocolate is always good)
75gm butter

Melt together chocolate and butter in a double boiler (or in a bowl on top of a pot of boiling water - bowl not touching the water).  Pour icing over cooled cake.

Enjoy!
Mama Fern

Mama Fern's New Years Resolution follow-up

Yup, I actually kept track of my 2011 resolutions for the whole year so far....  So, how am I tracking?

• Sew 10 items of clothing

Well, I don't think I've made anything yet this year, but I plan to do some sewing of kids clothing for Christmas presents soon, so hopefully I'll hit the 10 really fast.

• Learn a craft and sell at least one item made using it

I learnt to make a few things weaving flax, but haven't tried to sell anything yet, although the school Christmas fair is only a few weeks off.  Also learned a little about scrapbooking.

• Paint 5 paintings

Managed two so far, though one of them didn't get finished as I wasn't happy with the colours

• Make sure that every one of our kids gets an hour of my time completely focused on just them at least once a month (this doesn't count the joint activities that we spend hours on every week, or school holidays, when it's easier to spread your time)

Well, I've done pretty well, as the kids found my list and tried to hold me to it :)

• Read (and blog a list of) at least 50 books

 The easiest one thus far...  Reading book 47 (Foundation - Isaac Asimov) and counting...

• Grow 5 plants from cuttings that I've never grown before

Parrot plant (variety of impatien) and rosemary cuttings planted a week or so ago.  Inadvertently grew a grape vine from cuttings earlier this year.  Attempted roses and failed miserably, but still getting constantly high strike rate with my lavender.  So, 3 of my 5 so far, and not too many days left in the year

• Make my own picalilli - I keep saying I will

And....  I'll keep saying I'll do this someday...  Soon...  Maybe

• Learn 3 new skills that help me live more sustainably

I learnt to make a solar oven, although it was over winter, so didn't manage to cook anything with it.  Also learnt to prune plants properly, which will hopefully mean a better harvest, therefore, more home grown food for the family.  I'm also in the process of learning how to plant out the first layer of our subtropical area, so that I can start creating microclimates for subtropical plants to grow, expanding the type of food we can provide on our section.

• Get all the family photos on to the walls or at least into photo albums

Photo of Grandad Ralph finally has a frame :)  One photo done, many many more to go! And I bought some scrapbooking supplies to try out with one of the girls, in order to deal with some of the other pictures

• End 2011 with leass than 4 months of debt repayment remaining (and then get NO FURTHER DEBT, unless it's a mortgage) 

This one is tracking really well.  At worst, it'll be the 21st of March 2012 that everything is cleared!

• Send Christmas cards and bake a Christmas cake

Attempted Christmas cake...  I now know I used the wrong type of recipe...  Second cake to be baked later this week!  Christmas cards scheduled on the calendar (I know, I'm a sad little puppy this year!)

So, I'm pretty happy that I'm tracking through my resolutions fine :)  Almost time for next year's - I've already put all the birthdays and important dates on the 2012 calendar, so it's almost time to plan them

Take care all,
Mama Fern