Cape Gooseberries

An erratic cropper, these plants self seed in different parts of the garden each year and I always hold my breath that the fruit will ripen before the cold weather stops the process!  This year the crop has been a beauty!

They die right off in winter and come up anywhere next spring!

I originally planted several seedlings bought from a church fair, and they have never re grown in the same place.  On the presumption that God knows where they best thrive, I just allow them to flop all over the tomatoes, pumpkins, beans or wherever they appear each year!

This year I've experimented with freezing the golden fruit - isn't it amazing?! - and they certainly have coped with a couple of weeks in the freezer.  I think the resulting golden globes will be fine defrosted naturally in the breakfast muesli in the winter!

They look like little Chinese lanterns hanging from the bushes and are sweet with just a little tang, if you know what I mean!

Feijoa time!

I only notice it's feijoa season when I see them on the lawn - as the feijoas ripen, they just fall off!
This year I'm going to try freezing the pulp, just scooped out with a spoon and sealed in a container, as they'll be great in muffins and other cookery later in the year.  I'll also see if the defrosted pulp is suitable to pop into muesli for breakfast!
They're delicious, with their own unique flavour!

I've got two trees, apparently necessary for pollination, but strangely only one produces fruit.  As they are fairly prolific, that's not a worry!

They produce lovely spiky red blossom, and are grown commercially in New Zealand.  For more detail check out this feijoa website.

Plums!

About 3-4 years ago I planted a Japanese plum tree, and it has slowly been growing and producing a few plums each year.  I have to net it to keep the birds away from the fruit, and there is the added risk of winds blowing the blossom off right at the crucial time, so that the crop is very light.

It's necessary to net it in such a way that the birds can't reach the fruit through the netting, or by pushing the netting towards the plums and reaching with their beaks.  Very clever are our birds!  Using a technique handed to me by grape growers, I use bird netting clipped together by the plastic bread bag clips.  Works really well!

It's a lovely shaped tree and I love having it in the garden, fruit or not.

This year it produced abundantly for its size, and although the birds did get a share, and although the netting was swirled out of place by gale force winds, I have just picked these plums which I am delighted with!

Thank you, plum tree!

Summer time and the berries are ripening

Blueberries!  First pick was on New Year's Day, (but only a spoonful if I am to be honest!)

Now I'm picking every second day - about five bushes, some older and some young keen fruiters - and this was today's  harvest:

Rhubarb and Sultana Chutney

During the week at work, it was decided to vary the morning tea biscuits with some cheese on toast, it being winter and all. I volunteered to bring the chutney and fronted up with a jar of my Rhubarb and Sultana, which I later discovered was the last of that recipe in my pantry.  It was time it was used, having a date of some six years ago, but this is one of those preserves that improves with the keeping.

It received so many accolades that I was inspired to go out to the rhubarb patch to check supplies, and  finding it was growing well (not that it ever does anything but!) 20 stalks met with my knife.  (Just in case anyone is going to race into horrified comment, the knife only meets the stalk at the leaf end of course!  The other end is pulled from the plant to preserve the integrity of said plant.)

So today I made a new batch, not to be used for about three months if I can control myself!  This is the recipe:

RHUBARB AND SULTANA CHUTNEY 

1 kg rhubarb stalks​

250g onions​

250g sultanas

3 tsp mustard seeds​

1 tsp ground ginger​

½ tsp cinnamon

3 tsp black pepper​

750 ml white vinegar (or cider vinegar)

1 tsp salt​

750g white sugar.

Slice rhubarb and onions finely.  Add all ingredients except the sugar into a big heavy bottomed pot.  Bring to the boil.  Add sugar and stir until dissolved.  Simmer 45 mins or until thick.  Put into hot sterilised jars and seal.  Keep for a few weeks if possible to mature before eating.  Makes about 7-8 jars of varying sizes.

Washing windows

I'm not a fanatical window-washer, but every now and then I can't live with my dirty windows any longer, so it's out with the hose and long-handled brush and with any luck the streaks won't be worse than the dirt had been.

I've experimented with various recipes, and am delighted with this weekend's mixture -
¾ bucket warm water
½ cup Janola
1 teaspoon dishwash liquid
Juice of half a lemon

Brush on, hose off.

Sparkling windows!

Chicken stock

Roast chicken from the supermarket for a family lunch last weekend, and that always means chicken stock!  The used-up carcass goes into the freezer when the meal is being cleared way, and later on is reborn in a pot of water, boiled for an hour or two with salt, pepper, rosemary and sage and garlic from the garden, (or in the case of the garlic, from where it's been hanging from the rafters of the shed).

Later on I'll make pumpkin soup out of this lot, but for now I'm enjoying the aromas coming from the stock  pot!

Chicken stock - smells so much better than it looks!