29 Nov 2015
by Debra Manskey
in Biography, Chickens, Creative Writing, Music, Produce, Rabbits, Teaching, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening, Writing
Tags: baby rabbits, beehives, chickens, corner of shame, gardening, garlic harvest, ladies who lay, NaBloPoMo 2015, rabbits, repurposing, Shiso, Tasmania, vegetable gardening
It was very overcast and quite humid in Hobart most of today. Although I was supposed to go to an event nearby, I decided to stay home and potter around the garden. The girls were very pleased because this meant lots of extra treats for them and they rewarded me with eggs as usual. Boudica Bunny is also eating enormous amounts at the moment and all the babies are out and starting to get the hang of this eating solid food caper.
I potted up more basil, chillies and Green Shiso (Perilla fruitescans var. crispa), a wonderful Japanese annual herb, which I primarily use in stir fries and salads. I’ve grown it in the past but never had such a fabulous strike rate as I did with this year’s seed supply. It’s looking wonderful and already has that unmistakable flavour and aroma. I find it likes a rich potting mix and lots of warmth for quick growth, similar to basil.
And then there was the completion of half the “corner of shame”. This is a classic before and after situation.
Before
After
Admittedly, we’re only half way there but that’s a lot further than we were a few weeks ago!
After removing the worst of the perennial weeds, I put some dolomite limestone over the area and covered it with several layers of cardboard. Then we laid some cotton mats, donated by family members, that were old and worn and heading for the rubbish tip. (I think half our garden is recycled!)
A thick layer of coarse sand went over that and it was topped with some well composted native bark mulch, which I’ve found considerably less acidic than pine bark mulch. We did the same thing behind the chicken house and I’ve planted two Australian Tea-Trees (Leptospermum sp.) there to provide some extra wind protection for the ladies who lay.
The weeds will grow back – but not as quickly or as vigorously as they have in the past. I want to plant a couple of English Lavender here in the next few days and I’m planning to put netting or shade cloth above the fence to give a little more height for growing climbers in tubs and privacy both for and from our neighbours. Next spring, this is the likely spot for my beehive, angled in towards the garden.
I also finished the garlic crop, which has been curing inside the last two weeks. It’s now cleaned up, the tails have been clipped and it’s in three plaits, hanging off the laundry/kitchen door. It’s quite a decent amount this season, considering I’ve used and given away at least half a dozen or so heads already – and there’s more in the ground that needs pulling!
Tomorrow is back to music work and teaching, the beginning of my birthday week, first day of my next university semester and the last day of NaBloPoMo – and I’m picking up my birthday present to myself tomorrow too 😀
27 Nov 2015
by Debra Manskey
in Baking, Biography, Produce, Urban Farming
Tags: NaBloPoMo 2015, preserving fruit, putting food by, raspberries, Raspberry & Yogurt Fruit Leather, Raspberry Upside Down Cake, Raspberry Vinegar Cordial, Tasmania
While I’m not feeling 100% today, I’ve been thinking about what to do with the soon-to-be glut of raspberries. There’s so much fruit on the bushes, I have a feeling we’re going to be inundated in the next few weeks. Growing up in South Australia, I never ate a fresh raspberry until I moved to Tasmania and they’re probably my favourite berry fruit.
Usually I make ice cream or cheesecake with excess berries, which uses eggs up as well. But with Boysenberries, Youngberries and Loganberries starting to colour up too, I think it’s time to consider my options! I’m planning to make a Raspberry Upside Down cake next week for my birthday and already have enough berries for that.
All I do with this is make up a simple sponge batter with 2 cups of self raising flour, 1 cup butter, 1 1/2 cups sugar (more if you like it sweeter), a teaspoon of baking powder and 4 eggs. Instead of splitting the mixture into two tins and filling it with jam and cream, I put the fresh fruit on the bottom of a deep baking pan and pour the batter over the top, baking for 20-30 minutes in a 180 C (350 F) oven. Once the cake’s turned out and still warm, it can be lovely to pour hot lemon syrup over for added zing or (for the adults only version) poke the still warm cake with a skewer and pour over a citrus flavoured liqueur.
None of us are fans of jam so I am going to try mashing some with yogurt and drying it as fruit leather. But for large amounts of berries, I can’t go past Raspberry Vinegar Cordial. I first had this over 30 years ago on a hot summer day in Hobart and it is delicious.
The principle here is to use the vinegar to not only preserve, but also to enhance the tangy sharpness of the fruit. It’s fabulous for very ripe fruit – and it’s ridiculously easy to make!
Raspberry Vinegar Cordial
Ingredients:
500g (1 pound) ripe raspberries 2kg (almost 4 1/2 pound) white sugar 2 litres (4 pints) white vinegar
Method:
Put the washed, drained fruit into a non-metallic bowl or pot and pour over the vinegar. Mash it to break the berries but don’t puree them. Cover the berry mash and leave it for a day or two. I have hear that some folk leave the mash for up to five days but I’ve never done more than two – patience is not my strong suit!
Strain the mash carefully through muslin or an old, clean tea towel into a cooking pot, squeezing out as much of the precious juice as possible. Heat the juice and when it’s starting to simmer, add the sugar and boil for approximately five minutes.
Decant into sterilised jars or bottles and seal immediately. If you want to keep this for winter consumption, I’d also recommend processing the bottles in a Fowlers bottling urn or water bath. Mine never lasts long enough for that!
What’s your favourite berry fruit? And how do you like to serve and preserve them?
24 Nov 2015
by Debra Manskey
in Baking, Biography, Cooking, Creative Writing, Inspiration, Produce, Rabbits, Urban Farming, Writing
Tags: baby rabbits, creative writing, Griffith University, home made feta cheese, NaBloPoMo 2015, Pork brawn, sourdough bread, Tasmania, writing poetry
I’ve had a great day – bustling and busy – but great nonetheless. This morning I fed and watered the hungry hoards and said hello to the baby bunnies, who are all growing at a phenomenal rate! Their eyes are open and they are getting quite inquisitive about the world.
I picked raspberries (a daily job now) and I’m hoping to have enough to make a spectacular birthday cake for myself next week 🙂 When I went to give Boudica her daily raspberry leaf treat, I discovered someone had come out to see mummy and see what she eats ❤
There were six eggs from six chickens this morning, so after watering the greenhouse, I pickled another dozen eggs using the recipe I shared here recently and started another loaf of sourdough bread. This weather Wee Beastie is very active and needs more attention (and feeding!)
My son came over and hung out, he’s in the process of moving out of his old place and in with a friend who lives just up the road from here. I think he was just sick of sorting out the junk from the stuff he wants to keep and needed some chill out time. So we kicked back, drank lots of tea and watched cooking shows on television. We’ve agreed to have a birthday dinner at home for me next week – Roast Pork with all the trimmings, maybe some new potatoes from the garden – which will be perfect!
I’m gradually getting my head around this final assignment, which is due Friday afternoon. I’ve opted to write three poems for plus a 500 word exegesis. Although I’m a professional songwriter (and prolific blogger) I don’t have much experience with poetry and it’s a form I find quite fascinating. Interestingly, I’ve found the easiest way to start is take and idea and just write. Stream of consciousness seems to be the key way into it for me. Then I edit and arrange the words on the page so they make sense to me – and hopefully my tutor! So my poems are largely about the strange weather we get in Tasmania, the changing seasons, growing things, musicians and music.
The sourdough went in the oven late this afternoon and, as a light dinner I took fresh sourdough slices, slabs of Pork Brawn I made on Sunday and crumbled over feta cheese I made a few weeks ago. We put the slices under a hot grill for about 10 minutes – until the feta started to melt – and it was so delicious! The sharp saltiness of the feta worked so well with the rich, meaty Brawn on the fresh sourdough.
I was also reminded by HeWhoMustNotBeListenedTo that everything on our plates was made by me. It was a very satisfying moment……
So, tomorrow will be even busier – sand and pine bark chips are arriving for a project in the back end of the garden. I’ll have pics to show you all tomorrow night 😀
23 Nov 2015
by Debra Manskey
in Chickens, Creative Writing, Produce, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening, Writing
Tags: free range eggs, home made feta cheese, NaBloPoMo 2015, organic produce, real milk, Tasmania
Today’s post will be very brief, I’m in the midst of writing an exegesis for a uni assignment.
I know it’s just a little thing but it gave me a tremendous amount of joy. Today I went to Oak to have lunch with my friends before doing a music session with them. I took a salad, as I often do, but today absolutely everything in was grown, made or raised by me – I knew where it all came from 🙂
Eggs from my feathered beauties, sprouts I grew in the kitchen, plus rocket, spinach, basil and kale from the garden. Even the cheese was a feta made a few weeks ago with real milk. And it was all delicious ❤
22 Nov 2015
by Debra Manskey
in Produce, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening
Tags: basil, Chillies, greenhouse, NaBloPoMo 2015, vegetable seedlings
Just a short post today, I’m tired tonight!
Because we have relatively mild summers here in Tasmania, I grow chillies and basil in pots in the greenhouse so I get the most out of them. When I first moved here six years ago, this was run down shed, full of weeds and cherry tree suckers and it took six months to get it into a workable state. All of the shelving is timber salvaged from the old shed.
I’ve been doing yet another clean out of the greenhouse the last couple of days, in an effort to make more room. It’s something I go through every spring as it tends to become a storage space in winter. But this year I’ve got more chilli plants already in pots – and a lot more on the way!
So this is what it looks like after today. This is the front half, with a wonderful view to the outside and the main raspberry bed. Inside, there’s Sweet Basil in pots that I’ve already started cropping and two more punnets of Basil seedlings ready to be potted up. The area out of shot holds my eight very productive strawberry plants a storage shelf for plastic trays, tags and toilet roll grow tubes and further left is a bench where I can sit and work.
In this photo there’s also vegetables sizing up for planting out in the next few weeks, including zucchinis, beans, various salad vegetables and about 50 Asparagus seedlings.
At the far end on the top shelf is a tray with approximately eight different varieties of chillies that need to potting up – so many plants!
Following around are mini cucumbers in a tub on the wood chip floor, Garlic Chives about to go out into the garden and my permanent chillies, a Rocoto (Capsicum pubescens), which has beautiful purple flowers and large, very hot fruit and a Scotch Bonnet (Capsicum chinense). On the lower shelf are three pots of watercress, one of my favourite salad plants.
The top shelf here is more chillies – did I mention my family love hot, spicy food? – Cayenne, Jalapeno, Habaneros and Thai and the last of the vegetables to be potted up. The lower shelf in this photo will eventually be filled with Mammoth, Lettuce Leaf and Thai Basil. Out of shot to the right is a shelf and small cupboard that might end up being more shelving for chillies!
So, that’s my greenhouse – probably my most productive space in the entire garden 🙂
What’s the most productive space in your garden? Do you have a greenhouse? Please leave a comment.
21 Nov 2015
by Debra Manskey
in Biography, Cooking, Produce, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening
Tags: basil, Chillies, family food rituals, NaBloPoMo 2015, raspberries, Tasmania, urban farming
I had a really lovely day today. It wasn’t too hot, there was a gentle breeze through the yard and there was lots of gardening to do. Who am I kidding – there’s always lots of gardening to do! Admittedly, I didn’t do a scrap of uni work today but I had such a busy week, I felt I deserved a day off.
It’s wonderful to watch everything grow and change this time of year. In the space of a few short weeks, we’ve gone from buds to flowers to fruit forming on the cherry, apricot, plum and nectarine trees. The strawberries have been delicious and reasonably plentiful despite having only a handful of plants. But this morning we picked and ate the first raspberries of the season.
It was quite a momentous occasion, I think it always is for people who grow their own fruit. When I was a child in South Australia (a far more Mediterranean climate than here in Tasmania), we would pick the first stone fruit – usually early apricots – and my mother would cut it into equal pieces for us all to share and she insisted we make a wish on the first of the harvest. It’s a ritual I’ve continued to this day with my family and whoever happens to be with us when it happens.
This afternoon I started cleaning out the other side of the greenhouse in preparation of the main Basil and Chilli crops. Because the climate here in Hobart is on the cool side, I always grow these in plastic pots in the warmest spot I can find. So far I have all the common Sweet Basil (Ocimiun basilicum) potted up, about 40 plants this year. But there’s Thai, Mammoth and Lettuce Leaf (my favourite for pesto) plus more varieties of chillies ready to go now and nowhere to put them at the moment!
I’ll get it finished tomorrow. Meanwhile, tonight we had the first of the free range pork that arrived yesterday with a salad from the garden, featuring home made feta cheese I made about a month ago. It was a winner all round 😉
What are your favourite family rituals? Leave a comment below.
19 Nov 2015
by Debra Manskey
in Biography, Produce, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening
Tags: berry fruit, Boysenberries, Corn Salad, edible flowers, NaBloPoMo 2015, organic gardening, Sage, Scarlet Runner Beans, Tasmania, urban farming, vegetable gardening, Wasabi Greens
Hi everyone,
I’ve got a really busy day/night ahead (it’s gig night with Cassie O’Keefe tonight) so I’m going to offer you all some photographs from my garden this week. All these gorgeous flowers are edible or the precursors to edible fruit. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do 😀
I particularly love salad greens and grow a large variety throughout the year. One of the most cold tolerant plants I’ve ever come across is Corn Salad (Valerianella locusta aka Lamb’s Lettuce or Mache) and it grows particularly well here in Tasmania as a winter green. In fact, I think (like Kale) it tastes better for a good frost! It’s one of those plants that’s been in cultivation for hundreds of years that is coming back in fashion again and it really is quite delicious and very mineral and vitamin rich.
As soon as spring comes, it produces lovely, tiny flowers followed by masses of seed! It self-seeds now throughout my garden but it doesn’t transplant well. Fortunately, the chickens love it and I weed out any unwanted plants for them.
Beautiful and delicious Wasabi Greens
During winter, I bought a random punnet of vegetables to fill a spot in the salad garden. It’s been a real winner in every respect. Wasabi Green (Brassica juncea aka Wasabi-na) is an Asian mustard, bred for its hot, wasabi-like flavour. It spiked up my winter salads and even the flowers were lovely addition to the bowl. An added bonus was they were flowering when the bees first came out at the very end of winter.
I also managed to save seed from it in early spring before the other Brassicas started to bolt, and I’ll certainly be planting more in the autumn.
Speaking of bees, one of my favourite edible flowers is also a favourite of the bees, Common Sage (Salvia officinalis). Although the flowers are starting to look a little shabby now, I pick stems to brighten up a vase in the kitchen – as well as brightening up salads and marinades.
Recently, we had a roast leg of lamb and I placed a long stem of Rosemary and Sage (both in flower) underneath the joint. Delicious and very pretty when pieces of the flowers appeared in the sauce we made from the pan juices!
Last year I planted Scarlet Runner Beans (Phaseolus coccineus) quite late but still managed to get a quite reasonable
crop of beans from them. A couple survived our unusually harsh winter and they are already in full flower. Unlike ordinary beans, Scarlet Runners are a perennial vine and are also called Seven Year Beans by some gardeners.
These gorgeous flowers are not only bee attracting but also bring native birds into my garden – absolute bonus! The beans are lovely to eat whole when they’re young but get very fibrous very quickly and are then only good for the beautiful multicoloured beans that I love to dry and use in soups and stews through winter.
And finally there’s the flowers that are the heralds of spring and summer fruit. My family are especially fond of Boysenberries and currently it’s a mass of quite large, white flowers, which the bees also adore!
Boysenberry
What are your favourite edible flowers? Please leave a comment!
18 Nov 2015
by Debra Manskey
in Biography, Music, Produce
Tags: Australian Songwriters Association, George Begbie, Moroccan Lemon Pickle, NaBloPoMo 2015, Sara Hewitt, Tasmania, Tasmanian original music, The Homestead Tasmania, Tim Franklin
Well, it’s been an interesting 24 hours. I had another couple of reminders from the universe about maintaining focus on the things that really matter in life.
Yesterday, I supported a dear friend through something of a personal crisis. She has decided to leave Hobart and move to Melbourne. Partly, (as she readily admits) this is running away from small town nonsense but sometimes it’s better to move on that to stick around for more pain. As much as I know I will miss her dearly, I fully support her decision. ❤
While she was here, we talked in the kitchen – the soul of any home – and I finished making Moroccan Preserved Lemons with the last of the fruit from my friend Sara.
This is one of those recipes that I’ve adapted from several different sources but it mostly resembles Hassan M’Souli’s recipe on the SBS site. I soaked them for a couple of days in lukewarm water to soften the skin. Then I split them lengthwise without cutting right through the end of the lemon. I find it best to do this over a bowl, to catch every drop of lemon juice. Some people recommend taking out all the seeds but I don’t bother unless they fall into the bowl.
Next, the lemons are packed with cooking salt and put in a sterilised pickle jar. I used about a cup of salt for six lemons and added a few cardamon pods, two dried chillies and two bay leaves.
The final pickle looks lovely in the jar but I’m going to have to wait until Christmas to open them up and use the luscious fruit in a chicken or lamb Tagine.
Last night was the monthly ASA gig at The Homestead, this month featuring keyboard player, singer/songwriter and generally lovely person, George Begbie. It was great seeing him really take command of the stage and put out a fabulous performance. I was reminded of the quite nervous young man who first turned up about 10 years ago to the ASA and it was truly heartening to see how far he’s come in that time. It was also wonderful to see a new performer do her first ASA and a regular who is really starting to come into his own 😀
And on a sad note, I found out that well-known Tasmanian media identity Tim Franklin died suddenly. When I first arrived in Tasmania back in the 80’s, Tim was one of the first people I met. At that time, he was working as a DJ at a nightclub in Hobart and a local commercial radio station. Later, he went on to set up his own company, Radar Promotions and redefined marketing in this state.
While we didn’t always share the same taste in music, Tim was incredibly generous to me when I was new in town and supportive of the band I was in, Wild Pumpkins at Midnight. I will always remember him fondly for that, and my heart goes out to his family and many friends.
Vale Tim
15 Nov 2015
by Debra Manskey
in Biography, Music, Performance, Produce, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening
Tags: growing basil, growing garlic, Kunyani, Mt Wellington, NaBloPoMo 2015, planting corn, sciatica, scoliosis, Tasmania, Tasmanian original music
So, where did the weekend go? I’m really tired tonight but I did get a lot done the last couple of days – I’ve finally planted the corn, zucchini and squash and about two thirds of the garlic crop is in after laying outside most of the day. Currently, it’s sitting on top of the washing machine, waiting to get plaited up for hanging, so I won’t be able to wash any clothes until it’s done – fabulous incentive to finish the job!
There’s still a lot of vegetables to plant out for summer and more basil to put in pots in the greenhouse but I’ll get there – slowly. My back is better, no sciatica now, but it’s always tricky. While it’s tremendously important to rest and allow the inflammation to reduce, exercise is essential to maintain core strength, so it’s a constant balancing act.
I also played a quick 20 minute set late this afternoon down at UNLOCKED at the Brunswick Hotel, which was fun. And, because it’s work and teaching tomorrow, a rough list of what songs I’ll play at Oak is sorted, and individual lesson plans are done for private students.
And I found time to do some much needed university reading for this week’s online lecture, and tomorrow I’ll answer the tutorial questions. Then it’ll be full steam ahead with the final assignment!
But now, it’s time to put work, gardening and uni out of my mind and relax. There’s a scoop of homemade Boysenberry ice cream with my name on it in the freezer.
I hope you all had a good weekend, wherever you are on this beautiful planet. I’ll leave you with tonight’s sunset view from my backdoor.
Stay safe friends ❤
Kunyani/Mt Wellington saying hello to the moon
14 Nov 2015
by Debra Manskey
in Biography, Creative Writing, Inspiration, Produce, Urban Farming, Vegetable Gardening, Writing
Tags: audio books, bluetooth speakers, garlic harvest, Harry Potter books, NaBloPoMo 2015, Paris, Stephen Fry, Tasmania, worm farms
I’ve spent the afternoon in the garden, listening to Stephen Fry reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, avoiding listening to the news. Reports of the attacks in Paris came through this morning here in Australia and I’ve found it incredibly distressing. I love that city dearly and have been thinking of friends who live in France (all safe fortunately) and what they must be going through.
I pricked out seedlings into grow tubes, said hello to my ever-growing flock of worms and fed them scraps, planted out vegetables and generally lost myself in Quidditch, Polyjuice Potion and Harry, Ron and Hermione’s escapades.
As an avid reader, I think audio books are brilliant, particularly for works I’ve already read. But as a writer, I’m convinced anything worth reading should be read out loud. I even read essay drafts for university aloud and it’s surprising what I can learn from the exercise. Perhaps it’s the musician coming out in me, but I hear flow and tempo problems far more easily than I see them on the page.
For my gardening time, I have a wonderful little bluetooth speaker I picked up cheaply that connects easily to my smartphone. I usually put them both on an upturned pot and chill out while I work.
My baby speaker with Kunyani/Mt Wellington in the background
Late in the day, I decided to have a look at the main garlic bed. We’ve had quite a bit of rain the last few days and I noticed a few of the giants had toppled. It’s one of those plants where harvesting is crucial for long term storage and rain at this stage can mean mouldy heads. I adore garlic and I’ve been building up our stocks over the last few years, to the point where I might have enough for more than six months this time!
The start of this years’ garlic crop!
Note the pencil – these babies are huge! And this isn’t elephant garlic, but a particularly pungent local variety I’ve been growing for the last five years or so. The laundry smells amazing tonight, by the way!
I’ll be pulling the rest tomorrow and once they’re cured for a few days, I’ll be trimming the roots off and plaiting them for hanging in the kitchen 😀
Do you grow garlic? If so, how do you store it? Please leave a comment below.
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Debra Manskey 