"Balmoral Park" farm garden

I think I have remembered where I planted all my herbs and spices and this is the final list. I am going to continue to try and source and grow the more exotic and unusual herbs and spices. I have a packet of cumin seeds that I haven't planted yet and am wondering about growing cinnamon, vanilla and nutmeg? I have some Saffron crocus on  order from the  Diggers Club . As well as the improved flavour from fresh herbs and spices growing my own saves a considerable amount of money. Basil, I managed to keep my basil plants going for about ten months last year so hope to do the same this year. It has so many uses and great flavour. a pot by the door supposedly helps keep the flies away. Catmint, planted to keep the cat from sitting on other plants and things. I have never seen him near it, he much prefers to sit on my hat if i leave it on the bench at the backdoor. Coriander Delfino, This variety of coriander is new to me, it appears to be doing much better than the usual coria...

What I have learnt from doing this inventory so far is that I have lots more herbs and spices growing than I realised. I am up to twenty three so far and there are quite a lot more to come. My little Bay tree that almost didn't survive the drought, it is going really well now. Fresh Bay leaves are so different to dried ones. Curly Leaf Parsley that is just emerging. I usually just use the flat lead variety but used this when we were in Paris and thought that it looked pretty on the plate and tasted good when it was fresh so I decided to grow some.  Ginger, one the ABC gardening show they did a spot on growing ginger from the bits you buy in the supermarket. It has been quite slow but I have two bits that have sprouted in this pot and some more that will grow in the garden. hopefully this will work and we will have beautiful fresh ginger.  Lovely variegated Lemon thyme. A little bit of this adds excellent flavour to many dishes.  Lemongrass from my sister Robyn'...

One of the many things I am enjoying about blogging is that of recording what is going on in the garden and as I do that remembering the stories and history attached to all of our plants. As we have been gardening most of our adult lives and have a very large garden there are thousands of stories in the garden. So to continue on my herb and spice inventory This little Borage plant has just come up. Three years ago I bought one plant of about this size at the Orange Farmers Market. It grew into a giant plant with lovely blue flowers. Now they come up all over the garden. I use the flowers in salads and feed the leaves to the turkeys.   Applemint planted on the step to outgrow the weeds and gives a pleasant scent when you step on it or brush against it. I planted this about twelve months ago.  Garlic chives from our old home and originally from Margaret, Peter's mother. We have probably had these for over twenty years. They are very useful when you don't have any garlic...

It is my aim to be able to do all my food "shopping" in my backyard. As we like to eat a wide variety of food from different cultures and I love to cook this means we need to grow many herbs and spices. The other day I was trying to think what i still needed so decided to make an inventory to see where I was up to. I'll post this, with photos over the next few days. Its an interesting journey and reminds me of the stories attached to all the plants. Chives transplanted from our old home   Curry Plant, decorative and fragrant Horseradish, a bit the worse for wear after being attacked by green caterpillars but growing strongly again Kaffir Lime, survived its first winter out of its pot Mint, lush and luxuriant growing in lots of places Flat leaf parsley, started off from a couple of little plants, loves it here and pops up all over the garden in all seasons. This lot from Jemima's garden. Beautiful Sage, comes up every year from a few little plan...

The year we moved here we were greeted with a yard full of rotting fruit. Oranges, mandarins, plums, peaches and apricots. You could tell they had been beautiful fruit but they  had all been left to rot on the trees and were full of fruit fly. We decided then if we wanted to keep these trees we would have to be very vigilant about fruit fly. In the subsequent years we have had limited success and I think it depends a great deal on the weather. Last year there were hardly any but I think it was just too dry! As we try to garden organically we have a multi layered approach to fruit fly. Firstly and most important I think is good garden hygiene and healthy plants. We have a silkie cage that goes around the fruit tress and the silkies hopefully eat up any leftover fruit fly larvae and fallen fruit. I also use fruit fly exclusion bags so if the worst comes to the worst at least we get some of the fruit and I guess if we cut down the opportunities for the flies to lay their...

When we first moved here I went to the farmers market in Cowra. Sadly they didn't have much for sale but I bought the most beautiful, deep red pomegranates. It was at the time when the health benefits of this beautiful fruit were starting to be publicised. I don't think I had ever seen a pomegranate until quite recently and have no recollection of seeing pomegranate trees growing. Around the same time I read a book about a Pomegranate Orchard in Crete. As the fruit were so lovely to look at I kept them in a bowl in the kitchen for ages and then I thought I would have a go at growing some from seeds as I had never seen them in the plant nurseries for sale. I cant remember how many seeds I planted but eventually two little trees emerged. I nurtured these and kept them in pots for about a year when they were about six inches high. When our old cat Mitzi died I decided to plant one of them out and buried her underneath it. The other tree I planted up with the nut trees. both trees ...

I have experimented with making yogurt quite a few times but have usually been disappointed with the result. We do use a lot of yogurt though so I have been on the lookout for a good recipe. I came across this one on the blog figjamandlimecordial. It sounded too good to be true. They used a yogurt making system called easiyo and this is quite inexpensive to buy. So I decdided to buy one and give it a go. You don't really need the system if you already have a widemouthed thermos flask. What you do is use long life milk, then you don't need to go through the process of heating and cooling the milk. One litre of long life milk, four dessertspoons of full cream powdered milk, one dessertspoon of Greek yogurt ( for subsequent batches use your old yogurt). Pour half the milk into the container, stir in the powdered milk, then the yogurt, fill up with the rest of the milk, stir again, screw on lid, fill the thermos up to the insert top with boiling water, place container in the therm...