"Balmoral Park" farm garden

It is hard to believe but after all of the Christmas rain I am back to watering the garden. The weather for the past ten days has been quiet hot and dry here, unlike Queensland where it is now flooding. The hot winds quickly dry things out. I noticed some of the beans were looking a bit wilted and discovered the soil was very dry and very hot, despite quite a lot of mulch. Our garden is on sandy soil which i like in many ways, but it is a long way from having the amount of organic matter in it that is really needs. One of the great things about all the present lush growth is that it is creating lots of bulky organic matter for composting.I even have lawn clippings this summer. In the meantime it is back to a watering regime. This year there is plenty of water in the dam and the tanks so i don't have to just let things die.  

You might recall that we hatched several lots of turkeys over the past few months. the first lot hatched in the incubator and emerged on 25th September. They are now getting quite big, there are eleven of them. Next a brood of six hatched by one of the black hens that we set, they are about a month behind the other lot.Then two separate lot,s one of five and one of two that hatched from the turkeys I set under the broody black hens  when Peter was in hospital, they are about ten days apart. What has happened is that the incubator ones lived on their own in one of the small sheds for two months, while the others ended up all together in the big shed. They formed one big flock with three mothers and thirteen chicks of various ages and stages. Not the way to go but it has sort of worked. Our plan is for the little shed to get divided into three broody cages and the big shed also get divided into three so broody hens can sit and raise their chicks in isolation and then we can put the h...

I decided it was cool enough yesterday to make some apricot Jam. Our Apricots are not as beautiful this year as they have been in the past.The humid weather led to many of them being covered with brownish/black freckles. A lot of them outgrew these though so there are still plenty of delicious apricots. I have bottled some and we have given quite a few away. We have actually run out of apricot Jam so I had better get busy and make a few batches. It is always popular and makes a good gift. I don't have a sweet tooth and generally prefer to eat pickles or chutneys on my toast but apricot Jam made in the following way is not too sweet and has a delicious depth of flavour. Very good on sourdough toast. Apricot Jam You need equal amounts of apricots and sugar. I used 3 1/2 kilos for this batch. I like a mix of very ripe, just ripe and underripe. Very ripe for deep colour, ripe for holding their shape and underripe for pectin which will help the jam set. Halve the apricots and rem...

I have been experimenting with my bread baking lately, leaving the sourdough starter out on the bench and feeding it  more often. Consequently when I went to make a pizza base the other night I thought I would use it to make the dough. I don't know why i haven't done this before but in anycase this is what I did. Using my Kitchenaid mixer with the dough hook on, added 1/2 cup of active starter, 1 cup of tepid water, 1 cup of spelt flour and two cups of bread flour, a bit of salt, I kneaded this until just combined then left it to sit for twenty minutes before kneading, in the Kitchenaid for about four minutes.This is quite a wet dough.  I left it to prove on the bench for about an hour and then as it was a very hot day, popped it in the fridge until an hour before I wanted to use it. On a well floured bench I formed it into a nice ball and then pulled tennis ball size pieces off and stretched them into shape. Placed toppings on and baked in the oven as hot as it will go for a...

There was a time when in my mind cheese and biscuits was synonymous with cubes of Coon cheese and Jatz crackers. The height of culinary sophistication. Usually accompanied by bright green pickled onions.  Around here people still serve it as well. However we progressed to rubbery Camembert and water crackers quite some time ago. Our exploration of new cheeses continued as we travelled and I read about food and as Sally and Zoe worked in the restaurant industry and taught us a thing or two. Rubbery Camembert has long been a thing of the past. However we continued with mass produced crackers until much more recent times. When Sally was working at Bistro Mont in Bowral we discovered Lavosh and that became our cracker of choice. Very nice, very expensive! About two years ago Ii was shopping in Orange and went to buy some. $5 for a little packet, I thought to myself "I'll bet I could make that" and came home to find there was a recipe in my Margaret Fulton cookbook. Super easy...

New Years day a day for reflection and planning, too hot to do much else really. 2010 was a pretty good year for me, started off well with a lovely family holiday with our girls, their partners and our little grand daughter Jemima. I enjoyed staying with Zoe on my Sydney work trips and we visited quite a lot of restaurants on our food safari. Food safari continued in Paris with Sally when I went to visit the girls in England in August.  After working too hard in September I decided to give up most of my Sydney work and spend more time at home and in the garden. A timely decision as Peter than became ill. He has made a good recovery and is enjoying his new career managing a goat farm down the road from us. 2011 will be quite a different year for us with both having made significant work changes. Hopefully that will mean we get more done here and finally get some animals on the farm. My hopes for the year are to really get the is garden in order and be about 80% self sufficient in f...

Yesterday when I was picking the fruit I found three plums that had been stung. Very annoying but there were only three and none in the peaches or apricots. I have refreshed all the traps and hung up  a few more as well as putting out some ecobait. In past years once they started they really took hold but I am hoping we can hold them at bay this year. There is still loads of stone fruit to come as well as the tomatoes. I might put some exclusion bags on some of the bigger tomatoes just in case. I spent a pleasant hour this morning potting up herbs for Zoe to take home with her. It is so nice to have them in quantities that are easily divided. Most herbs are very easy to propagate from cuttings, divisions or seeds but often ridiculously expensive to buy. I am glad Zoe is now living in a place where she can have a little garden. The old blue native hibiscus is in full bloom. It was one of the few ornamental shrubs in the garden when we came here but it has never really flowered....