Preserves

Like most things its either a feast of famine in the garden. With it being holidays and some of our kids away at the moment we have to much for our needs at the moment coming from the garden. 

This got me thinking what I would do with the excess?

I spent some time reading up on how to preserve foods. Alot said you need fancy jar kits worth $100's!! I then kept reading and spoke to a few of the older folk who said to just reuse old jars just be sure they are well cleaned and sterile. 

I had a few jars of my own I'd kept but needed more, thanks to a nice local on facebook who answered my call on the local free,swap,sell I soon had 30 jars!

So I looked at recipe's suitable for what I was after....I have LOTS of zucchini and although we love quiche we can only eat and freeze so much with only 2 adults and 1 child at home at the moment. 

I came up with this recipe.....

http://www.abc.net.au/tasmania/stories/s1313383.htm

all chopped and ready to go

You need:
Zucchinis, onions, capsicum, salt, sugar, vinegar, water and a handful of spices.

• 1 kg zucchini
• 2 large onions
• 1 small capsicum (red looks attractive)
• ¼ cup salt
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 cups white vinegar
• 2 teaspoons mustard powder
• 2 teaspoons turmeric

Method:
Chop the zucchini, onion and capsicum finely. Add the salt and leave to stand for two hours or more. Drain.

Combine the sugar, vinegar, mustard powder and turmeric. Place the vegetable mixture into this, bring to the boil, then cook for 20 minutes.

If you think it necessary at this stage, the pickle can be thickened with one dessertspoon of cornflour mixed to a paste with a little white vinegar.

The finished product.

 I don't eat it but am told its REALLY nice!

This is a chunky version as thats how its liked but others might like to grate the ingredients rather than chopping if they rather that consistency. 

I also had 3 cucumbers sitting around we weren't going to get eaten in a hurry and more in the garden ready in the next few days so I decided to make something with them too. 

I came up with this recipe .....

http://www.bestrecipes.com.au/recipe/Bread-and-Butter-Cucumbers-L763.html

 Ingredients

4 Large cucumbers

1/4 cup of cooking salt

1 1/2 cups of white vinegar

1 cup of water

3/4 cup of sugar

2 tea spoons of mustard seeds

1/2 small red capsicum

Method

1/ Wash cucumbers and thinly slice

2/Place cucumbers in a dish in layers, sprinkle salt between each layer. Leave overnight.

3/Rinse under cold water and drain.

4/Combine vinegar, water, sugar, mustard seeds and 1 teaspoon of salt to a pan.

5/Stir until sugar is dissolved and bring to the boil.

6/Reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 5mins

7/Add cucumber, bring to boil and remove from heat. 

8/Pack into sterilised jars, adding a few thin strips of red capsicum.

9/Fill with vinegar to within 1cm of top and seal.

The finished product.

I took the skins off these because the skins weren't the best, am sure they will be eaten just the same. Its just not as pretty without the green colour.

I've enjoyed making these preserves and am sure they are the first of many. I look forward to learning how to preserve the tomatoes once they ripen, making pasta sauce, salsa and semi sun dried tomatoes. All going well we will have beetroot, corn and much more.... I've already started looking at other ideas on what I can make next. I can see how this becomes an obsession, given I don't eat any of what I've already made yet I'm keen to keep going! Its nice to know months from now we will still be enjoying the rewards of our summer garden.

aus.keeys

Busy few days... and Boys V's Girls

 

 This time or year is so busy, time just gets away, this last week has just flown by and I'm left wondering what I did? On face value it seems like I've done nothing but if I think about it ALOT has been done this past week!

I've picked LOTS of zucchini's and I mean LOTS I now have several lots of quiche in the freezer and gave some quiche away. I still have the large one I picked a few days ago waiting to be stuffed. I have 7 others still waiting to be used I picked today, I'm wondering what other people do with all their zucchini's?
Who cares to share their recipe?

We picked our first cucumber yesterday and it quickly found itself on sandwiches for lunch. Today we picked our first capsicum and although small was very tasty in tonights stirfry, can't wait for more.
The Bok Choi was also great in the stir fry tonight, although I found a white moth enjoying some earlier too! We get a handful of beans every few days, I didn't plant nearly enough it seems, (live and learn). Think I might plant some more tomorrow.LOTS of green tomato's I'm wondering if its ever going to be warm enough for them to turn red?
We seem to be spending more days like this....

Although the rain is nice we need some warm weather to move things along and ripen up those tomato's.

So who knows the difference between "boys" and "girls" ? Silly question really, well not really alot of people don't know their veggie flowers come in boy and girl varieties! So I thought I'd show you with these photos I took in the garden, as Mason who is 5 says "you can tell the girl one shes the one with the Baby and the boys do nothing" I had no choice but to agree hehe

Cucumber girl flower

Cucumber boy flower

Zucchini boy flower

 

Zucchini girl flower

Pumpkin girl flower

Pumpkin boy flower

  Once its pointed out its very obvious which are boys and girls. If they boys don't pollinate the girls with the bees help (or some human help) then the girl flowers just drop off without growing. The bees here seem to be doing a great job if the amount of  zucchini's are anything to go by!

aus.keeys

Zucchini MAD!!

Since our first zucchini the other day we have picked 8 others including one VERY large one I must have missed under the leaves when I've been out there before.

I usually try to pick them before they get to large as the flavour changes and I don't think they are as nice. That being said I might see about stuffing this one. I've not done it before and can't say I'm keen on the idea given I don't really like them other than in quiche but I'll give it a go. I'll update with a photo when I do....might be tomorrow nights dinner I think.

aus.keeys

What a difference a few days make!

Just a few days ago it was so wet, I hadn't had to water my garden for a few weeks, now I'm back to watering and thinking I need to put more straw on, as some of the beds are getting a little thin and drying out very quickly.

We picked our first zucchini:)
We will have quiche this week YUM!!

The bees are out doing their thing too now the rains stopped!

I've never liked bees, (they scare me more than spiders) I don't have a good reaction when stung, but must admit I did enjoy watching them yesterday going from flower to flower doing their thing.

Our beans are covered in these amazing flowers, they are so pretty and delicate.

 

I've had a lot of people ask for more photos of this little guy/gal, I'm not sure if its a he or she and not sure what breed as the eggs were given to us. So I tried to get better photos, boy was it hard work!! 

Aprox 3 weeks old now

Hiding behind Mum as I tried to take photos

 You can see its not a happy camper with me snapping away hehe Fingers crossed they give a better idea of what he/she is??

At a guess we are thinking buff orpington girl? 

But I have no really clue...it's like asking a weather man if its going to rain tomorrow.   :)

aus.keeys

After the rain...

Its always amazing you can water and water but nothing is ever as good as the rain. We haven't seen a lot of rain here this year so the last month has been great with a few days each week wet and its meant to continue in that pattern for some time....according to the weather man anyway.

Living in a small country town everyone has an opinion, one I like listening to is the older people in towns opinions of the weather pattern. See, we are all of the told the weather patterns have changed blah blah but when you talk to the oldies 70+ they will tell you there have been times like this before and locals here are predicting more rain with floods in February. I guess time will tell, it will be interesting to see.

The rain brings with it issues of its own, we have so many of these little guys no sooner do we think we have collected them all when more fly in to take their place!

It seems we may have a fungi issue too?

Then there is all the grass and weeds that grow!! Look how high that grass is and the weeds in the garden beds isn't much better :(  I started weeding it yesterday afternoon and did a little more today, the rabbits LOVE eating whatever I pull out....looks like they will be eating well for a while :)
 

Those HUGE tomato plants in the first garden we plant are finally doing something other than growing taller...look at these babies!! Can't wait till we start getting some tomato's nothing better than home grown, the store ones are so flavor less :(                    I LOVE tomato's can just eat them like apples YUM!!

 

The corn you could hardly

see last week have grown 

about three times as big after

the rain!

We will have the first Zucchini any day now.....might make a nice quiche with it and our fresh eggs YUM!! Can't wait. There are lots of little ones growing and lots more flowers just starting. Quiche is great for lunch or dinner, hot or cold with salad. Is so cheap too when your eggs are laid fresh daily and you grow your own zucchini, we just add whatever else we have on hand. Its always a hit!!

aus.keeys

From the begining - Vegetable Garden Setup

I've wanted a vegetable garden for the past few years, the problem was we LOVE our hens having free run of the yard and vegetables and chickens don't mix as you can imagine! This spring I decided it was time to find a solution, so after hours at looking at other peoples websites and blogs to see what they had come up with I decided on just sectioning off some of the yard. We had some timber laying around so bought the chicken wire and started on our way. Work started mid October.

The posts going in

Wire up and door on.

The bales are to use as mulch, for the animals and the compost bins, we got a good discount buying in bulk, just $3 a bale. This our first garden bed. It was made months go using wood from old pallets, we filled it with everything from the chickens last time we did a BIG clean up of their pen. It had been sitting about 6mths just waiting for the big day. So the day finally came and we planted 3 tomato plants, 8 capsicum and 6 lettuce. We were so excited!! 

Hayden grew some pumpkin plants from the seeds he'd kept back a few months earlier and proudly planted them in the corner of the yard.

This was the next project, to turn this old pallet into a vegetable garden.

We also put in some strawberries.












Over the next few weeks we saw some AMAZING changes in the garden and were able to start being rewarded for our efforts. We have had a few handfuls of beans, lots of lettuce and bok choi and a couple of strawberries. This is in just 8 weeks!!

The pumpkins went from this too...

this in just a few weeks!! The pumpkin is starting to flower although no sign of fruit as yet.

 We filled it and prepared it for zucchini and cucumbers we had grown from seed we bought off ebay. In just 5 weeks it went from the first picture to the second picture.

We now have a few zucchini's growing and in the next week or 2 we should be enjoying a steady supply. The cucumber is just starting to flower.

The original garden which I now know I over planted took off!! Look at those tomato plants!! The lettuce was so nice we had 8 weeks from them before I pulled them out to give everything else in the garden more room.  We have our first fruit just starting on the tomato plants and the capsicum is just starting to flower.

 We dug up some more ground and put in 8 cherry tomato plants. The soil must be ok because within just 3 weeks we went from this too .....

This!! It was like they grew overnight. They are now covered in flowers and it won't be long before we are enjoying them.

The strawberries are growing really well and from what I've read we won't get much in the way of fruit off them this year as they are busy growing but next season all the waiting should pay off....I hope!

The beans are growing well as is the bok choi and we've already enjoyed some of the rewards from both of these crops. We have just put in more beans as some of the first seeds didn't grow so filled in the gaps with new plants and they are growing nicely.

Its corn grown from seed we bought off ebay. There is sweet corn, pop corn and baby corn, I was so excited when it grew and can't wait to watch this grow. I plan on planting more beans in this bed and using the corn as trellis for it to climb up. I can't believe I'm excited over corn...I don't even eat the stuff hehe!

Last but not least - these are the two latest garden beds. I've only started these in the past week. We had to buy this soil after running out, $100 for the trailer load. It will be interesting to see how the plants go in it.

I've panted capsicum and egg plant as seedlings and lettuce, shallots, silver beet, beetroot and baby spinach seeds. In a few weeks we will hopefully see a totally different garden.


We have some new pallets in so over the next few weeks we should get some more new garden beds up and running. I've planted a heap of seeds that just arrived from ebay into our mini green house seed raisers so as soon as the new beds are ready I'll have seedlings to pop straight in.

We have got alot done in just 8 short weeks, it seems the garden is changing every day. Its raining again this after noon and the plants are loving it, it seems they almost double in size after the rain.

aus.keeys