garden ramble: planned and planted

So, we’re underway. The past few weeks of preparation have given way to a solid Saturday of digging, sowing, planting, watering, labelling and mulching.

I began by creating some wobbly raised planks within the garden beds, so I could get to the produce without compacting the soil too much. This meant I had to divide my planned rows in two, so I re-drew their position once again by laying dowels out on the bare beds.

 

Then I got down to the real work, prepping the rows (except the carrots) with a handful of blood and bone and something else dad gave me; labelling the rows (after scrubbing away the pencilled names from last season); and then, sowing.

I remembered my vow last year not to cram in too many seeds in the one row — to have faith that they would germinate and grow, and that I didn’t need to double up ‘just in case’. It was very hard to be so restrained.

 

Snow peas, snap peas and lazy housewife beans went in last year’s tomato bed (shown above with the big patch of purple violas I can't bear to pull out), which also has a row of garlic on one border and the new mixed lettuce on another.

Golden beetroot, normal purple beetroot and round paris carrots, and another sneaky row of lazy housewifes went in the other bed. This is my largest bed, and it already has a border of spring onions (yet to surface), the resident rhubarb and about-to-flower pyrethrum, and a herb border of lemon thymes, oregano and purple sage, and now also ... the tomatoes.

Hello!

So, only five this year, about half of last year’s crop. Hopefully more realistic for my needs (although there is nothing wrong with a glut of tomatoes). Dad grew our favourite heirloom varieties from seed, and I got two black krims (if I only ever ate one tomato variety for the rest of my life, I would happily eat black krims), a mamma mia, periforme abruzzese, and big beryl. What names! And what fruit, to come.

I had a minor mishap: one of the black krims did not transplant very well and looked very, very poorly. Very. I planted it the way dad instructed me to, and even though it was a warm day, by the cool of evening, all were standing proud and ready, except this one. And it was a black krim! I was beside myself; after a long, physical day in the garden (and probably too ginny a gin and tonic), I sat down and bawled my eyes out. I get so upset when my plants die. I tried to put it in perspective — it’s only a plant, for goodness sake! — and mum jollied me out of my funk when I told her about it later. Oh, she agreed, it’s only a plant! It hasn’t got a heart and a soul! I laughed and said, nor a face or parents!

Luckily, mum and dad decided to come up the next day, so dad brought a replacement (another black krim!). Dad got down on his hands and knees to inspect the failing specimen while I bleated excuses — I did everything you told me to! All the others are standing up! I didn’t hurt it, honestly! — and without sentiment, dad flicked it out of the soil and said look, the base is rotted off, nothing you did; just one of those things. I felt rather deflated by that, for some reason. And rather amazed by dad’s lack of emotion. Yup, I guess it is only a tomato plant.

Fancy lettuce

 

Amongst the plants already in residence, the silverbeet is doing well, some of the sprouting broccolis are just about finished while others are just kicking into action (they overhead me say I was going to pull them out and give them to mum’s chooks!), and my purple podded peas have grown peas! All the fruit trees have got little green fruit on them, and the new lemon tree has many flower buds. The passionfruit are surviving all the frost and heat that mother nature throws at them, and putting out hopeful new tendrils. And there are still blank rows, ready for later plantings of more peas and beans and carrots and beetroot, and space for two zucchini plants from dad (black and yellow).

So we’re off for the new season. It’s exciting to start, once again.

Looks like the country, doesn't it?

 

My lemony banksia rose is the best it's ever been, tumbling down to form a beautiful backdrop to the garden

 

berry cream cheese butter cake

Here is a recipe to get back in the groove after you just haven’t felt like baking or eating cake for quite a while (not really since the great RSPCA Cupcake Day icing sugar overdose). It’s a beautifully pale batter, whipped into a silky smooth cloud. It’s especially delightful before you add the flour — and this is what I love about baking, the process and alchemy that happens when ingredients come together; how solids like butter blend with grainy sugar and rich eggs to form such a seamless, soufflé-like confection; how the soft dry flour transforms the texture all over again.

But wait, there’s another ingredient in here that makes this batter so dream-like. Cream cheese. Yes, there’s a block of cream cheese in there plus a block of butter. Just feel the fear and do it anyway. It sounds like a lot and it is a lot — but you do end up with two amazing cakes (one for now, one for the freezer), so it’s all spread out …

This time I used tangy-sweet raspberries that mum delivered from her freezer; a juicy hit from last summer. The smell of the baking raspberries in the house on a warm evening was so lovely! I’ve also made this with big rich loganberries, and the recipe specified blueberries; while I’m big fan of tweaking recipes, I can’t imagine any fruit in this cake besides the flavour-bombs of berries.

I love batter shots

Berry cream cheese butter cake

I’ve had a printout of this recipe for years, unattributed; a search of the internet reveals many blogs and sites with it, so I’m still uncertain where I got it from. What annoys me is that every recipe lists the ingredients not in the order they’re used — isn’t it basic recipe writing 101 to follow that convention?

• Preheat your oven to 180 and prep a 20 cm brownie tin and a loaf tin (I used a large one but should have used my ‘normal’ one. I’ve also used a brownie tin plus a cupcake tray).
• In a large mixing bowl (a freestanding mixer is best, because this is a big mixture requiring some muscle), cream together 250 gms soft butter with a scant 1 ½ cups sugar and 1 tspn vanilla paste.

• Add 250 gms soft cream cheese, in chunks; followed by 3 large eggs and 1/3 cup milk.

• At this stage, do dip your finger in and taste the creamy wonderfulness. It’s almost a shame to add the flour to this silky cloud, but do: 1/3 cup SR flour, sifted then folded in with a spoon (lick those beaters, they’ve done their job).

• Now fold through 200 gms of fresh or frozen berries of your choice. The chilly bliss-bombs will make the delightful batter seize up, but don’t worry.

• Divide between your chosen baking tins, then bake for 50 minutes (less if you’re doing cupcakes) or until done. You may need to cover with foil for the last 10 minutes or so.

• Enjoy while warm; you may wish to freeze one of the cakes for another time.

garden ramble: on soil and working in the garden

 

I’m so enjoying the time I spend in my garden right now — so I thought you might too. Here’s another ramble around my garden, with some photos taken after a lovely couple of days of good rain. Everything looks so fresh.

 

Last weekend, I was in the garden all day, both days. Saturday was vegie/backyard day, and Sunday was front garden day. Splitting the work and weekend this way helps me focus and achieve the tasks for each garden most effectively, and enjoyably. Lately, my life is all about lists, so why should the garden be any different? I had one for each day, each garden, and it was immensely satisfying to keep them near my thermos of tea, to consult and cross off with each reviving cuppa.

 

To be thoroughly engaged and absorbed in garden work is very calming. At first, I’m ruminating over work and the week gone by, or the TV show mum and I are addicted to, or a book or magazine I’ve been reading. My brain is still a bit hyper from the stimulation and go-go-go of the work week, so I’m churning things around in my brain; around, and around and around.

 

 

But soon I need to get practical and I focus solely on the machinations of the task in front of me. How many rows of peas can I really fit into this bed? I know, I’ll get some tomato stakes and dowel to lay on the ground to work it out. What do I have in the garage to beef up this poor dry soil? Half — no, a whole! — bag of mushroom compost, a bag and a half of vegie mix; anything else? Should I buy more sheep poo? Is that now good enough to plant in?

 

I stand up and stretch out my back after this digging and planting of new phlox seedlings, and I think: I like doing this. I like thinking about this, and I like doing this.

 

Except of course, it’s not always easy. I had to ask my (male) neighbour to start my mower, because I couldn’t get it going without wrenching my shoulder. Last summer’s tomato bed was so compacted I could barely get the tines of my garden fork in — no matter how much I stood my whole weight on the fork and bounced up and down. Sometimes it’s the garden that is hard; sometimes it’s my own physical limitations that frustrate me.

 

 

I’m obsessing about the quality of my soil right now. I think I have the vegie garden sorted, but I need to take action in my front garden. I read how a gardener dumps a thick layer of organic matter over his garden every autumn and spring, and how that has gradually improved the soil quality. So, with my meagre resources, I’m top dressing and enriching my dry, poorly front garden; it will be an ongoing goal (obsession).

 

Mum and I are huge fans of British magazines (I’m a fan of magazines, fullstop). I spied this one on the newsagent shelves recently, and was seduced by the images of conservatories, rambling roses and high summer colour. A beautiful escape as we desperately claw towards the warmer weather down here. Oh, you lucky English gardeners!

 

 

garden ramble: sprinter

Sorry for the absence! Work is super crazy at this time of the year and I come home mentally wrung out. I’m writing and editing like a demon all day, so the last thing my frazzled little brain cells want to do after hours is even more — especially thoughtful, creative stuff. All I want to do is sink on the couch with a juicy gin and tonic and a magazine full of pictures, absolutely no words at all please.

My garden is a calming retreat (especially with that G&T in hand), and finally the days are getting brighter and better. It’s ‘sprinter’ here in Hobart — have you ever heard that word before? It’s perfect for this hopeful but maddening time of year, when there’s a day or two of glorious weather followed by too many of frost-forecasts and gloom. It’s when everyone starts grumbling that winter really has gone on for too long now, please (and my goodness, it’s been a doozy of a winter this one).

The daffies and jonquils and freesias and blossoms are providing much needed colour after the grey of winter. But we all know realistically that we could still have a treacherous frost or snow dumping in late October. That’s sprinter.

But I’m out in my garden. Last weekend I dug in the green manure crops I had going in my hibernating vegie beds. ‘Crops’ may be too lofty a word: it was a motley patchwork of soft wheat, chickweed, sweet peas, a lot of nettles and other assorted weeds that I let do their thing.

The garden bed before digging over. I grow good weeds, especially nettles and chickweed!

 

First I hacked the lush, soft green growth into pieces with old shears from mum ...

 

Then I chucked about some sheep poo and mushroom compost, before finally digging the beds over to cover and incorporate everything. The bed that held the tomatoes was particularly hard work, as it had been walked over all summer when tending and harvesting the toms. So after a few hours of that, a scalding hot shower, the couch and that gin was very much in order. Anyway, I’ll let it sit for another couple of weeks — early to mid October is when I’ll start sowing my planned crops.

 

After. I couldn't bear to dig the dark purple violas in, so they are safe for now

Some of the vegies that have been slowly, valiantly persisting over winter: Broccoli, purple peas, silverbeet

 

 

The resident blackbirds loved my work, of course. They are so very tame: they know that whenever I go near the beds,  chances are I’ll uncover some worms for them, so they fly right down next to me, waiting for me to unearth their dinner. I think we have a bit of a deal brokered; they can have some juicy worms, but they aren’t to eat all of them. Anyway, I do like their company (and their lovely melodic song) and a few worms is a small price to pay for knowing they feel safe and welcome in my suburban backyard.

Oh, and my PSB

What else? Two new passionfruit vines (from mum and dad) are in...

... and swaddled and coddled like babies. Literally — the day after we planted them we got frost and snow warnings, so I constructed a frame, and for a few nights I wrapped and pegged an old sheet around them for protection. The vines are beautifully soft and tender, so I was not going to risk them being damaged by cruel frosts (that’s what killed my first passionfruit, a year or so ago). It’s perhaps rather apt that the result makes me think of crime scene tents.

Framed ... and tented

A victim of the process. Sorry, pansy

In other major news, dad, mum and I spent the good part of one Sunday finally getting a frame up on the front wall of my house for the climbing roses (a soft pink Pierre du Ronsard and a hot pink Zepherine) to clamber over. It looks a bit pathetic at the moment but I am patient, I know in time they’ll cover the blank wall beautifully, fragrantly.

I also took the opportunity to get mum’s advice on the pelargoniums that were in front of the roses; once so pretty but now, frankly, taking over the joint. The result is that most of them were hacked out to make way for a greater variety of plantings.

It looks bare and ugly right now, and there is much to do here and elsewhere in the front garden. I have a specific list of new plants I want — a green boronia, a purple perennial wallflower, one or two bird-attracting grevilleas, and some pretty annuals such as zinnias and petunias.

I am learning that gardening is a long journey over many seasons, requiring great wells of patience as well as creativity, team work and hard work.

Some more colour from around my garden

 

 

on meal planning

A new al desko favourite: barlotto

 

Earlier this year, I tried to do the weekly meal planning thing. I thought it was The Grown Up Thing To Do. Everyone on the Kitchn it seems achieves zen by using military precision and many apps to plan each meal, each morsel, each ingredient, each day. I wanted a bit of that too.

For years I’ve had my weekday working lunches down pat by making a big ‘something’ on the weekend. Right now it’s the barley and roast veg thing, risottos, barlottos, oven bakes and other casserole-y stick-to-your-rib one-pot wonders.

Potato and pumpkin curry, ready for work lunches

But after-work evening meals are a bit more haphazard; usually a last-minute decision guided by opening the fridge or pantry and making up something fairly pedestrian.

So, the weekly planning thing. I sat down before I went grocery shopping, armed with recipe books and torn-out pages, and thought about what was in season, what was doable after work (you know: when you really can’t be bothered), and what was something new I hadn’t tried before. I made lists and lists and lists!

Tomato soup made in the summer. Crackers and a magazine, what more could I want?

 

I decided to cover four nights, I’d cook two recipes, two serves each; the fifth night could be lazy single girl’s eggs on toast or soup from the freezer or even a bowl of muesli. Or even cake — because I can.

 

Anyway, a modest system, I thought. But life would get in the way and somehow the wheels fell off. A recipe made three or four portions, not two; or I’d get invited out; or somehow the more delicate ingredients (usually dairy) would not make it til their allocated night … and I was achieving no zen whatsoever.

Barlotto made with roasted summer zucchinis, from the freezer

 

Then winter hit with a dark and icy bang, and the last thing I wanted to do after work was stand in a frosty kitchen, even if it was for only half an hour for a speedy pasta dinner. It was bone-chilling and bonkers. I wanted to get out of my overcoat and into the warm part of my house!

 

So I had a re-think. I already used the weekend to cook my big Monday-to-Friday lunch ‘something’, so why not also for my Monday-to-Friday dinners? (weekends remain a lazy and haphazard affair, and I’m very happy with that. It’s the weekend after all. Vegemite on toast is entirely acceptable).

These white-bean croquettes were a bit of a let-down; they were mushy and bland

 

So here was my meal planning: one lunch, one dinner. Some may crinkle their noses at the lack of variety, but the sheer practicality means it’s a winner for me. I know there is something good waiting for me when I come home. Something delicious and healthy and — done!

 

Saturday morning is spent cooking and cooking; usually a good three hours in the kitchen. And then washing and washing: when you cook multiple meals at once (I’m also baking a pudding or cake), it seems that you use every utensil and bowl and chopping board and tea towel at once!

 

Broccoli, kale and toasted walnuts are a good combo!

 

But all that effort is worth it, because it frees my evenings up enormously, so I can spend more time on the important things in life. Right now that’s housework and reading on the couch. But come summer: gardening and being outside!

I’ve mostly been choosing one dish to be ‘fancy’ or new or more time-consuming, and the other to be more straightforward (I revert to the barley and roast veg often). Sometimes the ‘easy option’ is excavating a home-made pasta sauce or tomato soup from my chest freezer and enjoying that (I’m aware I need to eat my tomato sauces before next season).

This week's barlotto in the pot: pumpkin and roasted tomatoes and yellow capsicum

 

The good thing about weekend cooking, as I’m sure many of you know, is that you have the time and energy to try those new fancy recipes. Unrushed hours to get things right; and more if things go wrong and you have to dash to the supermarket and start again (it doesn’t happen often, thankfully). I need to psych myself up for new dishes, especially savoury ones; I’m currently working up the courage to try a from-scratch curry using eggplant and coconut milk, two ingredients that are never in my kitchen, using a tried-and-tested family-favourite recipe from my friend F.

So do you have a system? Are you an efficient meal planner? Are you a big-batch cooker, or a daily one? What works for you?