Harvest enjoyed.

I am now enjoying passionfruit! After all my travails with the browsing  Nellie Kelly, I can report success. Chelates iron and a good talking to is the key. It is clear that passionfruit is hungry and feeding is essential to get a good crop.

But there is nothing more satisfying than spooning out freshly picked passionfruit over vanilla ice-cream to remind you that it is all worthwhile.

Autumn Garden

Suddenly  Autumn happened in Hobart, snow down to the 900 metre mark and that inescapable chill in the air early in the morning and by 4.30 in the afternoon. The end to daylight saving brings it on as does an early Easter and 2013 is no exception.

As I wander around the garden all the signs are there. Close examination promises spring. It is as if Winter is bypassed.  Just as my weeping maple is turning colour, spring bulbs are appearing and roses are holding their own waiting for the hellebores or winter roses to bloom.

Browsing Animals go Gourmet

As much as I love our native animals, it is so frustrating to see vegetables denuded after a night’s foraging from possums and wallabies.

I must have a few gourmets amongst them because I have lost basil, parsley, coriander and even chives to go with the tomatoes which are now only stalks with fruit hanging.

It is time for a reality check. If I want vegetables, even in an urban environment, it is time for caging the vegetables in and the animals out. Netting saved the raspberries from blackbirds and I have now put a fire screen around the remaining tomatoes but it is a case of too little too late.

I do have the Satsuma plums still on the tree, uncovered and they haven’t been touched. I am living dangerously.

What a summer we have had and the heat keeps on coming. Around the country communities are devastated by bushfires as records are broken. Only last week Sydney and Canberra had record temperatures with Sydney at 45.8 degrees and wildfires burning. In Tasmania we had terrible fires following our hottest day of more than 41 degrees on Jan 4^th.

Love and practical support is what we need to send to people who have lost loved ones, homes and stock. I met up with a terrific farmer Gabby Bresnaham who had swung into action at Sorell in Tasmania helping farmers with coordinating fodder drops and fencing supplies to help mend fences destroyed by the fires. What a great community effort!

If you would like to help with the rebuilding efforts you can donate to the Red Cross Tasmanian bushfire appeal, and all monies donated go straight to those in need.

For people not in the path of bushfires, just looking after parks and gardens to keep them alive has been a full time job. Knowing how much love goes into gardens everywhere, my heart goes out to people who have seen their gardens shrivel and die in the extreme temperatures. We all need to take advice on planting more heat resistant varieties of plants and how to keep them alive when water is scarce or temperatures rise.

I was away from home during the first week of January when Hobart sweltered and the heat took its toll with my manferns shrivelling and my dogwood and other plants literally scorching.

I am now in rescue mode and hopefully with more moderate temperatures and watering, they can be saved.

Beautiful in the Bush

This time of year is so beautiful in the bush. native plants are in flower and it is wonderful to see the native plants we  treasure in our gardens as part of the natural landscape. I drove up to Plants Tasmania recently at Ridgeway and I cannot tell you how wonderful the bush looked.

In my garden I have quite a few native plants and it is always a thrill when they thrive and flower. Sometimes I delude myself into thinking I might get alpine plants to survive at sea level.

It is delusionary and so I have given up on pandanis, for example. But I have managed to get my trigger plants to flower, plus flag iris and leatherwood as you can see from these pictures.

 

 

 

Garden Giving Generously

After an incredibly busy year, I am getting so much pleasure from the garden. I have just picked my first raspberries and they taste great especially because they represent a victory against blackbirds. The victory is sweeter because I have lost all my cherries to these birds as well as all my apricots to brush possums. Too slow with the nets!

First pick of the season the blackbirds did not get. Victory!

The netting that saved the Rasberries from the birds

But the reality is that gardening is all about the challenges that come with growing food and creating beautiful spaces. There is nothing like harvesting what you have grown. My father loved it and used to spend hours hoeing and watering his vegetables, not just a garden plot but half an acre or so. We never had any hope of eating all that he had grown but he loved to give it away and visitors would leave with a boot full of veggies or a bottle of mum’s sauce or chutney.He instinctively knew about building community through growing food.

But it is also about beauty and awe. I was so excited when I got home last week and found a water lily in Chascade.

My first pink water lily

I already have a native one but I wanted an exotic and there it was, my first pink water lily. Now I am waiting for my Japanese water iris to flower. They are a brilliant blue/ purple and you cannot look at them without thinking how amazing nature is. All the effort and thinking that went into building “Chascade” has been worth it and when I actually see a frog, as opposed to hearing them,  I will be beside myself.

The other thing that is incredible at this time of year is how fast things grow.

Silverbeet still racing ahead despite a few hot blustery days

The rhubarb, not long till it will be ready for a good apple and rhubarb pie.

Climbing beans, pumpkins, cape gooseberries,oregano, spinach, basil and tomatoes are racing ahead with so much promise but nothing that a hot, windy summer couldn’t destroy…challenges continue but so too does the joy.

Being a good Tassievore

I had a great opportunity when I appeared on the ABC’s Kitchen Cabinet to showcase just how good Tasmanian grown food is. Sadly the show was filmed in July when my garden was in pretty poor shape, so really the only thing I could contribute as home-grown was one rather meagre Tahitian lime!

However The Aproneers came to the rescue, and I bought virtually all the locally-grown ingredients I needed for my caramelised onion, spinach and goats cheese tart from there. It was wonderful to look around in The Aproneers and see all the produce labelled not just as Tasmanian, but identifying which district it was grown and sometimes even the specific farm it came from.

It is so good to see more and more people keen not only to grown their own but buy locally grown food, in season, as well. No wonder I had a wonderful, relaxing lunch last Sunday at the launch of Sustainable Living Tasmania’s Tassievore challenge.  I’m really honoured to have been asked to be one of their Tassievore champions. For a start it has given me just the push I needed to get my own veggies planted.

A happy group of Tassievores picnicking in the sun at the Sustainable Living Festival

Good, fresh local food for thought

If Annabel Crabb and the lovely Kitchen Cabinet crew had come to my garden this week they would see things are on the up and up – literally! – as the tomatoes, beans, pumpkin, basil and other herbs, and brassica seedlings are all growing rapidly thanks to a wonderful Tasmanian Spring.

My strawberries a couple of weeks ago, ready for netting

I have also managed to get myself organised to net my strawberries and cherries, but I am devastated by the complete destruction of my apricot by the resident brush-tailed possums.

My poor apricot after the first possum attack. By the next time there wasn’t a fruit or leaf left

At least I have some solace from my beautiful flowering thyme

Coming into this amazing growing season which is already moist and warm, I’m looking forward to easting as much local fruit and vegetables as I possibly can, and being a good Tassievore for the next 6 months as part of the challenge.

Naturally I come and go a lot from Tasmania, but I’ll be making a special effort to eat local and seasonal food wherever I am. Luckily there are businesses supporting local growers springing up all across Australia as people’s hunger to know their farmer and where their food comes from bring new opportunities  – like this wonderful business in Orange that I visited back in April, which sells nothing that isn’t grown within 100km of the store.

Wherever you are, I hope you take up the spirit of the Tassievore challenge. Buy the best local and seasonal food you can get your hands on, support your local growers and tuck in!

PS – if you missed me and all that lovely Tasmanian food on Kitchen Cabinet last night, you can watch it here and get the recipe for my onion and goats cheese tart.