Where has February gone?

Well, it's been hot and muggy for a few weeks here, so I haven't been out in the garden as much as I would have liked to be.  The chickens are going insane at me, with the lack of attention and infrequent volumes of weeds and other vegetation in comparison to a few weeks ago...

 One of my fly traps has a gorgeously weird looking flower/seedpod coming out.  It's one of the funkiest looking flowers I've seen in our garden.

 

 We have a new addition to the menagerie at our place.  This is Major Tom, who formerly belonged to Sam's ex-girlfriend and his kids.  Tom really liked our yard, and loves to chase rats.  He's been walking back and forward between her house and ours for 18 months, and finally has decided to stick around.  He's found a new favourite spot, underneath the fathen and my rose.

 We mulched the front garden by the footpath with hay, and are putting spring bulbs in over the next few days.  It's starting to look a whole heap better.

 More and more butterflies are turning up in the garden, hatching out of their chrysalises and appearing in the weirdest spots.  There's nothing of our swan plants left, but the caterpillars (or "munchy-munchies", as I prefer to call them) are finding something to eat.

I'm banking on the pretty pink flowers popping up in the front yard being echinacea.  I know I bought some, and I figure these look close enough!  Although, there were some other flowers I planted that I totally can't remember ANYTHING about...





The pumpkin leaves are dying off, finally...  All our cute little pumpkin babies are poking their heads out at the sun and will be able to be harvested in a little while.

Our pineapple sage is back into flower.  The flowers will continue through winter and feed some of the beneficial insects over the colder months.






Our girls planted statice and strawflowers last year, which are flowering happily now.  There's also a glorious, soft, sweet scent of night scented stock each evening, plus miniature roses and some scabiosa, all outside their bedroom.  Hopefully by next year, we'll have a whole heap more pots out there.

My sunflowers are almost finished, and I'm trying to harvest the seeds before the birds do.  It's not easy when the flowers are a couple feet taller than me though!

 The corn is absolutely beautiful from the lasagna garden out the back.  Sam's outdone himself!

Cape gooseberry

The first taste of cape gooseberry wasn't the best...  But I'm starting to get used to it.  Perhaps next year I'll try making it into jam.

The kiwifruit are determined to make me wait forever, I swear!  But there's soooooo many!

The cherry guavas are flowering.  I remember eating these as a little girl and can't wait to have them in my very own garden







Another project in the shed...  I picked up two secondhand bikes from the local transfer station recycling centre.  With a lick of paint, some CRC and some TLC, the kids will all have bikes to race around on soon.

I spent an hour or so teaching two of the kids about the Nightshade or Solanaceae family of plants and found a bunch in our garden.  Top to bottom, left to right in the picture are the following:
Tomato, Shoo-fly plant (poisonous), black nightshade (poisonous), capsicum, eggplant, tomatillo, cape gooseberry and potato.

Sam did a day's harvest from the lasagna garden out the back...  Heirloom marrow, 2 gherkins (slightly overgrown), a cucumber, a couple of zucchini, 5 corn cobs and some beetroot.

I made a demonstration lasagna garden for the upcoming Kapiti Sustainable Home & Garden Show (26-27 March).  Hopefully it'll thrive before then, and won't be too upset by being in glass...  I wanted the see-through sides for the public to see the various layers, but the anaerobic quality of being in glass might not help the plants much...

There's probably a whole heap more I could put on here, but I'm lost at the moment!  Will post again shortly

Love to all,
Mama Fern

Bread recipes

Hi all,

A friend asked me for the recipes we use for our bread, so I thought I'd pop them up here for all to use.  They are variations on the recipe from our bread maker book and I've made them both with the bread maker, and without.  The white and wholemeal recipes can also be used for bread rolls

For those with a bread maker, simply place ingredients into the breadmaker tin in the order which your book prescribes, then use your white or basic setting for white bread and wholemeal setting for wholemeal.  Dough for rolls can be made on your dough setting


White Bread Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups warm water (not too warm)
1 tablespoon active yeast (I use Edmonds Surebake active or Mauripan yeast)

2 tablespoons sugar (Aust. tablespoon - 20ml)
2 teaspoons salt
4 1/3 cups white flour
2 tablespoons oil (Aust. tablespoon - 20ml)

Wholemeal Bread Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups warm water (not too warm)
1 tablespoon active yeast (I use Edmonds Surebake active or Mauripan yeast)
2 tablespoons sugar (Aust. tablespoon - 20ml)
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons white flour
4 cups wholemeal flour
2 tablespoons oil (Aust. tablespoon - 20ml)


Recipe

Put the warm water into a bowl and sprinkle yeast over the top.  Leave 10 minutes or so, until the yeast has bubbled up a little.

Combine all dry ingredients together in a bowl, then add oil and yeast/water mixture
Mix to a soft dough, then turn out onto a floured board and knead for 5-10 minutes

Leave to rise in a warm place for about a half hour, then knead for a further 5-10 minutes
Shape into loaf of bread or rolls and place on an oven tray.
Leave to rise on tray for about half an hour
For rolls, brush tops with egg and then sprinkle seeds (e.g. sesame or poppy seed).

Cook at 200 degrees Celcius for approx 20 minutes for rolls, 35 minutes for bread.  To test if bread is cooked, knock on the top, and if the loaf sounds hollow, it is ready

Variations:

After the first kneading and rise (or when your breadmaker beeps) try adding some of the following:

Handful of:

• Seeds (linseed, sesame seed, pumpkin seeds or sunflower seeds)
• Dried apricot pieces
• Sultanas or raisins

Take care all,
Mama Fern

Vege Vindaloo

I decided to branch out this week and try something different from our usual vegetarian dishes, and found a recipe on the internet.  I've changed it a little, and it came out really tasty...  Apparently, even the kids like it!

Ingredients:
2-3 zucchini, cut into bite sized pieces
1/2 head cauliflower, cut into florets
1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed (although, I used red kidney beans, as I was out of chickpeas)
250 grams fresh spinach
1 tablespoon oil

Vindaloo sauce:
1 onion, chopped
6 medium tomatoes (chopped into small pieces or pureed)
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon ginger paste or 1 tsp powered ginger
2 dried red chillies (or chilli powder to taste - about 1/2-1 tsp)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon cumin powder
freshly ground black pepper
splash vinegar

Directions:

Lightly saute the zucchini and cauliflower in the oil
 








When they begin to soften, add the vindaloo sauce ingredients and chickpeas/beans.  Mix well.  Season to taste with additional, salt, pepper garam masala or chillies.





Just before serving, add the spinach leaves and allow them to wilt.
Serve over basmati rice.

Baby bear turns 6!

Our youngest is turning 6 today, so yet another day of full-on cooking and baking!  I'm kinda glad the kids and I took an 8km walk yesterday, because his food requests for the day will have me trying to burn off excess calories for days yet to come!

Menu for the day:

Breakfast
Pancakes (with maple syrup and vanilla icecream)

Lunch
Butter chicken with basmati rice and naan

Dinner
Well, we haven't had it yet, but I'm thinking Papa Sam will make his spaghetti or something with sausages (might have to update the blog after)

And of course, the cake...  I'm limited to only natural food colourings, due to the behaviour effects we've noticed in our house with pretty much anything synthetic...  So the colours are a little less vibrant than the artificial ones, but...  I think he'll forgive me

Anyway, back to the kitchen I go - more work awaits!

Take care,
Mama Fern

Papa Sam turns 32!

So, Sam had his birthday on Saturday...  He's 32 now, and wanted a cake that said 2 to the power of 5...

I didn't want him to know exactly what the design was, so I modified the concept a little

 If you're wondering, the cake is a white chocolate passionfruit mudcake.  I found the recipe on a website last year, and it's been one of Sam's favourites ever since (link to recipe)

He wanted Lego, so he got two sets as well.  The 1932 Fire Brigade (one of the modular buildings designed by Jamie Berard) and the Kingdoms prison tower rescue...  Six or so hours later, he'd managed to assemble them both.

Happy Birthday, Sam, my love!

Love from Mama Fern :)

Catch up time

Hi All

Once again, I've been lax and forgotten to update the blog for a couple of weeks...  Of course, I've been busy with Sam's birthday and our youngest turning 6 next week...  But I promise, we've been doing other stuff too

Along with my fascination with the characteristics of different plant families (which I think Sam is secretly sick of hearing about), I've been running around identifying different species of moths and butterflies and trying to introduce more to the garden.  So I got all excited when we got a friendly Tasman visitor with a damaged wing in our garden and had to take a photo.  It's an Emperor Gum Moth...  So pretty!

 We collected a little extra Lego before, during and after Christmas, which has meant long discussions about exactly how we're going to collate and store our growing collection...  Enter the interwebs

Hmm, maybe a new house with more rooms...




Not wanting things to go to waste, I made a few detours along the path at a local park, and now have a plethora of cuttings and seeds to spread around the garden.  Must remember the secateurs next time

Our guinea pigs now have slightly modified accomodation, after Sam spent hours rebuilding the hutch and replacing the wire to stop the rats getting in

My first ever sunflower has started flowering, with 3 others not far off...  I'm not sure why I never planted any before in my life, but I'm glad I tried this time.






The bergamot is in flower around the section and the bees are loving it.  I think we have 3 or 4 different plants of it dotted around

Soon, I should be able to pick the tomatillo and the cape gooseberries.  Here's a pic of the tomatillo, nearly ready







Sam cleared the gravel off half our driveway, so that we can walk on the concrete without hurting our feet.  Once we have the whole drive cleared, I'll be planting out the edges of it and tidying it all up a little.  It's already looking a lot better though.  In this pic, you can see my  second patch of rhubarb, BEFORE the chickens got to it...  It looks like lace now...  Oh well



The shoo-fly plant by the front door is in bloom.  Although, admittedly, I don't see it having an effect on the flies

 Our youngest daughter's Christmas present rose is in bloom









We've had a number of monarch butterflies hatch out over the past few weeks, and I'm trying to get some of the native butterflies to hang out here too.  So far, there's a few yellow admirals, but that's all.  Our native butterflies all prefer stinging nettle, which has meant it's been interesting trying to work out where to safely plant them.




Anyway, I apologise for the haphazard post...  There's more to come, and I will hopefully be able to write it up a bit better...  These photos have been in my camera a while!

Take care
Mama Fern

Moving hutch and jam making season begins again

We've had a bit of a problem just recently, with rats getting into our chicken coop and guinea pig hutch area.  It all turned into a big panic last night, when the guinea pigs started crying out, and there was a rat actually in the hutch with them...  So, we've had to come up with a temporary (unfortunately extremely small) housing solution until we can get a replacement hutch sorted.


After a bit of modification, we have temporary hutch Mk I.  It's a bit snug (ok, it's waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too small for more than a day or two).  They're not thrilled, but they're safe for the moment

 It's that time of year again.  Sam's work have been providing the staff with a tonne of free fruit, and the stone fruit and bananas are untouched...  Frequently...

Bubbling plum jam

So, I've started making jam.  Today, it was 4 jars of plum jam, one jar of apple sauce, and 4 jars of plum, peach, nectarine, rhubarb, apricot and apple jam.  They're on the shelf now, with the remainder of the apple and kiwifruit sauce, and my mock apricot jam (will post the recipe up next time I make this one).

Slowly filling the shelf again

The blackberries across the road are nearly ready to pick and make into jam again, so we'll be filling the shelf up soon enough

Anyway, I'm off to enjoy the ratatouille that our second youngest just made for dinner...  Yum!

Take care,
Mama Fern