Spring!

Every year I seem to write about Spring finally arriving. I think it is because it definitely has to be my favourite time of the year. I love the promise of all the wonderful things to come - home grown raspberries, apricots and pears, and this year hopefully some cherries, days at beach, BBQs with family and friends, and the promise of late nights where the light still shines. Plus, this year I won't be heavily pregnant throughout the whole thing so it will be wonderful.

I know some people don't like day-light savings but I am a huge fun. I'm always disappointed when it ends and feel sentimental when we have picked the last pieces of fruit off the trees, as it's a reminder of the cold weather to come. So, for now, I am going to focus on the lovely weather we are getting at the moment.

Nicholas and I spent a day outside recently putting sheep manure and straw under all of the fruit trees. Only a few months and the fruit will be ready to eat :).

Here is Nicholas working hard :).

 

The apricot tree

I need to make sure we cover the cherry tree before the birds get to them like last year.

                         

S is for Sweet Smelling Strawberries

I picked these straight from the garden today. Nicholas is going to be very happy when he sees this bowl tomorrow...he just loves strawberries :).

B is for Bees and Backyard

Over the last few weeks we have been spending a lovely amount of time in the backyard. I have been pulling weeds out of everything. Daniel has been espaliering trees and making beehives. I just love spring/summer time. All the fruit is out on the trees, the bees are buzzing around and Nicholas just loves playing in the water, so why not spend as much time outside as possible.

Daniel's beehive being built.

The Nashi tree being espaliered.

My raspberry and strawberry patch being covered up to protect it from all the blackbirds. A few weeks ago actually I counted 16 blackbirds in the backyard all hoping and jumping around. I had never seen so many in one place before.

 And Nicholas enjoying some water play.

Beans and Rhubarb!

I planted some broad beans in spring this year in order to put some nitrogen into the ground where I intend to plant strawberries next year. I was doubtful that they would even grow, to be honest, as I didn't tend to them much and only watered them when I had the chance... but they did. And unlike frozen broad beans which I hated as a kid and refused to eat, these are surprisingly tasty, even raw.

As I couldn't eat all of them in one go, I gave half of them to my mum. I will definitely be planting this super easy crop again this coming spring. 

Mum and I also had the opportunity to pick some fruit from a mini orchard in a friend's backyard today. It was wonderful, and while sitting on the picnic rug in the shade of the fruit trees I had an overwhelming desire to live somewhere with a little bit of land (ideally flat), that had an already established orchard, a veggie garden, room for the kids to run around in, and isn't in the heart of suburbia. I know I have discussed this before, and I know that at this time this isn't a realistic goal for us, but a girl can dream can't she?

I'm not sure this picture really captures the dark purple colour of these beautiful plums, but I tried.

Anyway, from this little excursion Mum and I picked a bunch a delicious plums, some massive lemons, a few nectarines, and a heap of rhubarb. I even saw a baby rabbit. At first I thought it was a snake, and so I pleasantly releaved when I saw it bouncing away.

2.5kg of rhubarb - tied up in 500gm bunches.

I'm thinking I might make some more Rhubarb and Strawberry cordial. Yum!

Here is Nicholas surprised by the size of the hardware store.

Dehydrator!

If you know me, you will know how much I love fruit. I love baking with it, turning it into jam and chutney, eating it fresh, dreaming about it (this has been happening the last few days), and now I love dehydrating it. That's right folks, I finally splurged and bought myself a dehydrator for my birthday, and I love it. My birthday isn't until the end of the month, but having had it on layby for a while I couldn't go another month without having it in my life, especially because if I did it would be too late to dehydrate some of the fruit.

So, I have been experimenting. I made mango, and greengage fruit leather. I hadn't had fruit leather since I was a kid and had forgotten how great it tasted.  I also had a go a drying apricots, greengages, grapes and pears. All of which turned out quite well. I am also keen to dehydrate some vegetables, and herbs and spices in the next few months. 

Mango fruit leather before it went into the dehydrator.

I was blessed actually this summer with kilos of greengages from a friends tree. I didn't think I was going to taste any fresh greengages this year after my cousin sold her house, but thankfully this has not been the case. So last night Daniel and I stayed up stupidly late cutting greengages in half, as well as boiling, peeling and blending them together in order to make fruit leather.

I also had the opportunity to make some Greengage and Orange Jam which I have been adding into my porridge on a daily basis. I tried this first time last year and loved it, so I thought I would make it again.

This is what I did:

Greengage and Orange Jam
-2kgs of greengages
-2kgs of sugar
-juice and rind of 2 oranges
-juice and rind of a lemon.

After washing the greengages, I halved and pipped them and placed them in a large pot with the juice and rind of the oranges and lemon. I then let it heat up and continue to do so until the fruit was very soft and the skin had started falling off the plum. This only took about 10-15mins. I then add the sugar and stirred until it dissolved. After this I let it simmer until it reached setting point, and then put it in steralised jars.

I'm not sure if this is the correct way of making jam, but this is how I have been making it for the last few years and it seems to work so I just stick with it. Do you do it differently?

Nicholas was being super grumpy again as I made jam, so I carried him around with me as I prepared the jam. He doesn't really look like he is enjoying it. Oh well!

Ripe Apricots!

Unlike last years bumper crop of apricots (many of which were discarded because of mould from the wet weather), this year we only ended up with a bowl full of apricots.

Last years tree. Looking at it now I realise that we were quite lucky it didn't break!

Even so, the bowlful we do have is full of fantastically sweet apricots. Much better than the ones at the shop. And the best thing is that even Nicholas is at the stage now where he can enjoy them.

 

How exciting! Four little nashi pears :). Can't wait till they are all ripe. 

Blackbird

Recently, a little blackbird has come to enjoy the strawberries in our garden. This has lead us to putting up a net and so far it is working. It was very confused this morning by all the netting over the strawberries. It was hoping around everywhere, trying to find a way under the net. This really was a test to see how firmly Daniel had weighted down the net, and so far so good.

Here is Daniel setting it up.

And here it is keeping the blackbird out. What a great job. Thanks heaps Daniel :).

Actually, whenever I think of blackbirds, I think of these two songs:

Caramelised Strawberry Shortcake...YUM

I found deciding what to do with my 2 kg of strawberries really difficult. There were just so many possibilities. After asking the question of what to do with the strawberries on FB and having a look at recipes online, I decided to make Caramelised Strawberry Shortcakes. I felt that they were a little out of my depth, seeing though I always seem to fail when it comes to cooking things in cupcake cases, but the picture made it look so delicious that I just couldn't resist. Plus, if a recipe states that kids can make them easily enough ("get the kids excited in the kitchen - with a little help on the stove and oven - they can assemble almost the entire recipe themselves"), then why couldn't I?

As I was making the shortcakes for bible study I needed a few more than 6, so I changed the recipe slightly.

Ingredients:

• Arnott's Granita biscuits (as many as you need).
• 700g strawberries, washed, hulled, halved
• 1 1/2 cup caster sugar
• 500g cream cheese
• 2 1/2 tbs plain flour
• 2 tsp vanilla essence
• 4 eggs

Method (copied from above website):

1. Preheat oven to 160°C. Line 6 large muffin pans with paper cases. Place biscuits, flat-side up, in the cases. Heat a non-stick frying pan over medium heat. Add the strawberries and 155g (3/4 cup) sugar and cook, stirring, for 2-3 minutes or until the sugar dissolves. Drain, reserving syrup. Set aside to cool.
2. Meanwhile, use an electric beater to beat the cream cheese and remaining sugar in a bowl until smooth. Beat in the flour and vanilla essence. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating until combined.
3. Spoon half the strawberries over the biscuits. Top with the cream cheese mixture. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until just set. Set aside to cool completely. Place in the fridge to chill. Transfer to a serving platter. Serve with the remaining strawberries and reserved syrup.

However, I think even if I had followed the recipe there would have been more than enough to go around. From the above version, I was able to make about 18, 12 of which I sent along to bible study with Daniel.

Even though the shortcakes didn't look exactly like the picture on the recipe sheet, I think mine turned out pretty great. The one thing I learnt though during the process making these was that I need be patient. If a recipe says to let it cool first and then set aside in the fridge BEFORE serving, than do just that, because allowing it to cool down means it is less likely to crumble when it comes out of the cupcake tin.

The finished product!

Here is a photo of Nicholas admiring its deliciousness :) No, he did not get to taste it.

Oh, and I put the rest of the strawberries in the freezer in little 100g and 200g lots for future use.

Here are some of the great suggestions I received on FB:

• "I'd freeze them... If you have those Tupperware ice block trays, I would purée them (may need a splash of lemon - not sure) & fill up the trays, whack the lid on & you always have a healthy smoothies option for winter - if it lasts that long :)" (This is a great idea, especially because my strawberries don't seem to keep well for very long.)
• "Strawberry Flan" (I really want to make this before summer is over.)
• "I made strawberry/watermelon sauce that was awesome and really easy. Just make strawberry jam with 1/3-1/2 watermelon instead of all strawberries, and add extra liquid so it's a sauce consistency. Puree it when it's cooled, then you can push it through a sieve if you want it really smooth. It's stored in bottles in the the fridge for over a year without going off, and the watermelon makes it taste like fresh strawberries. SO good on icecream." (This sounds so good. I think I am going to have to make this as well.)
• "I would probably just freeze 1kg in ziplock portioned bags for smoothies and other purposes. I often buy frozen fruit ( b/c I don't have plants!) just to make a crumble or have with cream. They are also nice for little people with sore gums and teeth :)" (I'm sure that when Nicholas has teeth he will love strawberries.)
• "strawberry and rose petal cordial....it is yummo!" (I just have to find someone with roses. I would love to try it.)

Strawberries Galore!

This post is written in reverse order. 

Today:
While Nicholas was sleeping, I headed out into the garden to pick some strawberries. Thinking it would only take a few minutes, I was surprised when I came back inside half-an-hour later with about 2kg of strawberries. Plus there are still more which will be ready in the next day or so. Here is a picture of the haul. Now I just have to decide what to do with them.

Sadly, among all the ripe strawberries were a lot of strawberries that had been eaten by slugs and snails. Here is the sad little pile of discarded strawberries. I'm sure the chickens will enjoy them though.

Because of this, make sure you ALWAYS wash your strawberries, because the amount of bugs (snails, slugs etc) crawling around on them before you eat them is enough to make you want to give them all to the chickens!


Friday 16th:
While Emily (my sister) and her kids were over last week, Ryan (nephew) and I did some strawberry picking. He was super eager, wanting to pick every strawberry, ripe or not. I was trying to tell him that we have to wait till they are red, but he didn't quite understand :). It was so lovely being out in the garden with him. I'm looking forward to when Nicholas and I can go out in the garden like this.

I love how green these photos are. Plus notice how good the lawn looks. Well done Daniel :).

Saturday 12th:
These are the first strawberries of the season.

 

Yum!

Here comes the sun!

What a beautiful weekend. The sun shone brightly. It was warm, and we got a heap of things done.
We  met up with friends, and then spent time in the garden. Daniel spent Saturday afternoon mowing the lawn and mulching all the trees. I spent the time I did have pulling out weeds from the front garden beds and preparing them for the new strawberry patch I am going to plant this year. The strawberry patch I do have is looking really healthy, but being its third season (they are good for four seasons) I want to have a new bed set up by the end of this season, so I don't go a year without strawberries.

Some photos from last year.

 

Anne, (my mother-in-law), who is a great gardener and has such a wealth of knowledge when it comes to gardening, came over also and planted a heap of veggies in our garden beds. It was very motivating. Hopefully, all this warm weather will entice the little plants to grow big and strong.

About a month ago now I booked Daniel into a Bee Keeping course. It is usually on Tuesday nights, but today he had the opportunity to spend a day at the teacher's property, learning about the more practical side of bee keeping. I think he is really enjoying it. He came home tonight with so much to tell me, which I take as a good sign. He is hoping to establish at least 2 or 3 beehives in the near future, which would be really exciting. It would be great having our own honey :).

Here is a photo of Daniel in his bee suit. So cute!

Daniel took a little video of a mature bee chewing her way out of her brood cell while out today. It is amazing, but sadly I am having a few difficulties uploading it. Give me time and I'll figure it out :). I have now figured it out. Here it is. Enjoy :)




Hope you all had a great weekend too :)