Summer crops near their end

This afternoon we were thrilled to still be harvesting some lovely heads of corn. Our staggered planting has worked well this year, giving us fresh corn for nearly two months. We ate these with guests tonight after cooking them in foil on the braii with some butter, salt and pepper. Delish!

Maybe Mercy Joy is thinking "Hmmm . . . should I start solid food?"

"What do you think?"

One of the challenges of autumn is deciding when to pull things out to make way for new crops. Today the patty pan below got pulled out, as it looked like it was coming to the end of its life. I am learning to be more ruthless.

It is always a challenge to find space for winter crops because summer plantings like squash, pumpkins, and tomatoes last well into autumn. The broccoli and beets pictured below were planted as seeds in January to replace spring crops of peas and broad beans. They will provide food in late autumn and winter.

Today we bought seedlings of parsley, coriander, celery and spinach, which we will need to find space for. I like to grow from seed, but it has been challenging this year due to lack of space in the garden and the many threats to seed pots from toddlers and chickens :)! There have been many successes (broccoli, kale, turnips, silverbeet) but some notable failures, particularly cauliflower! We are still getting heaps of tomatoes, and the vines pictured below will probably be taking up space in our garden for another month. Nate is enjoying a tomato in this picture. He is still learning to choose the red ones, a good lesson in colours!

Here is our bowl of food after wandering through the garden some more . . . chives for potato salad, our last patty pan for the braai, capsicum and radish for a green salad (and lettuce still to be picked). There are lots of tomatoes hidden away below there too - this week has been busy again working out how to use those! We have frozen some plain (peeled, diced and cooked), and others made into a sauce.

That is our garden in pictures for this week. How is your garden going? Are you nearing the end of summer/autumn crops like us or starting a fresh spring? I am so grateful to God that we can look forward to the seasons each year and the different crops they bring.

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Saturday's Backyard Bounty: A glimpse of autumn

A bowl of squash and tomatoes is a glimpse of what autumn looks like for us. I had just been using the twine to tie up some of our wild tomato vines that were draped on the ground. It is hard work to keep up with those bushes, especially with a newborn, and we have not succeeded very well. Thankfully they are still producing, and whatever happens we will get more than if we had not bothered to plant at all! We have more tomato plants than ever before. This week we have used them in zucchini slice topped with thick tomato slices, roast tomato and vegetable sauce, toasted sandwiches, pasta with basil pesto and tomatoes, and just straight off the vine!

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Saturday's Backyard Bounty: Slow Cooker Zucchini Soup

Zucchini Soup is a great way to use up those extra zucchinis. This soup is surprisingly tasty and quick, perfect for days like today when I had lots of preserving to do! We had a relaxing dinner on the deck after a busy day. To make this soup you will need:

6 Tbs butter ( approximately 120g or 4 3/8 oz)
1 large yellow onion, chopped
1/2 teaspoon curry powder
1 1/2 pounds zucchini, ends trimmed, and cut into chunks (I always end up using closer to 2 pounds of zucchini)
2 heaped tablespoons white rice
1 Tbs chopped fresh basil
3 cups chicken or vegetable broth
salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 cup half-and-half (I use cream or, if we don't have any, sour cream)

Instructions:
1. Put butter, onion, curry powder and zucchini in the slow cooker, cover, and cook on HIGH to sweat the vegetables
2. Add the rice, basil, and broth, cover, and cook on LOW for 5 to 6 hours.
3. Puree with a handheld immersion blender. Season with salt and pepper. Stir in the cream. Cook on low until heated through, about 20 minutes.

Here are the results of our day of preserving my parents' fruit - 21 jars of plums to eat this winter!

This week I've been thinking about children and gardens. Remember my bean towers? Well, now that space has been transformed into a bed for some tiny cauliflower seedlings.

I loved the bean teepees, and put a lot of effort into them, but the beans came and went and had to be replaced. This reminds me of how quickly children grow. Like a garden, we've just mastered one area when everything changes and we have to plant something new! It can be frustrating. Sometimes I'd like them to be like a craft project that could be completed . . . but God has made them like a garden that constantly changes. Also, think of the fruit we preserved today. We had a short time to pick the plums or they would be gone. So it is with the little children in our lives. They will grow so quickly and NOW is our chance to invest our time in raising them. This time will not come again.

More snippets of our week in the garden . . .

We planted cauliflowers, peas, silverbeet, and cuttings of oregano and rosemary.

We ate chicken and vegetable pot pie including our patty pans, and pasta with a fresh tomato and basil sauce created by Dave, among other things!

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Saturday's Backyard Bounty: Fresh Corn on the Cob

Fresh corn on the cob has been the highlight of our garden bounty in the past week. There is nothing like fresh corn! It is not easy to grow corn successfully. In the midst of trying to give it enough fertiliser and water to be productive we sometimes wonder if we should give it a miss next year. Then we get our first cobs and we know that we have to try again! Our most common way of preparing corn is to steam it and eat it with a little butter. Tonight, though, Dave baked it in his Weber (a coal fired BBQ). He put butter, salt and pepper onto the cobs and wrapped them in foil. Wow! This is the most delicious way we have found to prepare corn on the cob. All our other vegetables for dinner were also from the garden excepting the onions: potatoes, carrot, patty pan squash, and garlic. This week we have also loved having an abundance of fresh tomatoes to eat in toasted sandwiches, fry for breakfast, and add to salads and sauces.

This week we planted cauliflower seedlings.

As I've walked through the garden this week I have been thinking about a couple of Scriptures. Firstly, God says that when the gospel (the good news of Jesus' death and resurrection to take the punishment for our sins and give us eternal life) is planted, He must make it grow. So it is with our plants - God makes them grow, we can only plant and water but God is in control. My failed cauliflower seeds make me think of this truth that applies both spiritually and physically. Secondly, there is a time for everything . . .a time to plant, and a time to reap. Now is our season of "planting" our family, a busy season where we have to concentrate on the essentials and cannot do all that we would like.

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Saturday's Backyard Bounty: Giant Russian Sunflowers

We are loving our sunflowers! Of the two varieties we chose to grow this year, Giant Russians are the favourite.

Giant Russian Sunflower seeds can be purchased from The Lost Seed company. Our packet has lasted us a couple of years already, and there are still seeds left. They are also easy to save as you can just dry a sunflower head, put the head in a plastic bag, tie the bag, shake it hard, and store the seeds that fall out of the head.

You can see our corn cobs in this picture. We are hoping to eat our first cob this week!

Today I learnt that slugs seem to be attracted to corn cob tassels. We went out after rain and we found slugs and snails all over them!

While we love our garden, it is also hard work to keep up with it when we have tiny children. Most days it is hard to get the laundry and washing up finished, let alone planting and harvesting. Still, we love getting out in the garden. This week we harvested lots of beans for blanching. We also love to eat them steamed with butter, salt and pepper. Sometimes we chuck a home grown carrot in the pot as well. Simple, quick and delicious!

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Pasta with Basil Pesto and Tomatoes

This week we were happy to enjoy one of our summer meals, basil pesto and tomatoes with spiral pasta. Our basil is thriving now the slugs have stopped attacking it, and we finally had enough ipe baby tomatoes for this dish. To make pesto you will need:

1 1/2 cups of fresh basil leaves
2 cloves garlic (I got to pick a bulb off our garlic plait for this!)
1/4 cup or 100g pine nuts (we used cashews as that is what we had in the cupboard, and I have heard you can also use sunflower seeds)
5 Tbs oil
3/4 cup parmesan
salt and pepper

Combine 3 Tbs of the olive oil and all the other ingredients except the cheese in a blender or food processor. After processing to a fine pastse, stir through the cheese and remaining oil.

Stir the pesto through cooked spiral pasta. I am always unsue of how much pasta we'll need for two people, so I won't recommend an amount! I think I used 3 cups of dried pasta this time. We have whole baby tomatoes with it (at least 10 - 15). You can also put it on a bed of lettuce.

One of our favourite features of the garden this year is the set of been teepees at the entrance. We have grown our favourite beans, Purple Kings, on both sides. We enjoy these beans because they are generally tender, easy to see on the plants, hardy and pretty.

If I only had a metre of space had to choose between growing butter bush beans and purple king climbing beans, I would definitely choose the later! They are easier to pick and to control, plus they are moe attractive.

Spy the sunflower at the back. We have been amazed at how high it has grown over the corn.

This week we learnt that one of our chooks, Daffodil, has been finding her way under nets. She not only got into the garden (which is netted right around) but also under one of the smaller nets we use to deter birds. Naughty chicken! You have to be perseverant to be a gardener, with birds, slugs, grubs and chooks to contend with. We are thankful that we don't have possum and wallaby problems here in the suburbs.

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Silverbeet with poached eggs

This morning we had a delicious breakfast. I copied some ideas from breakfast with friends a couple of weeks ago. I would not have thought of having silverbeet for breakfast but it was so delicious we decided it had to be replicated! This morning I steamed our few silverbeet leaves from our one plant (sliced finely), added some cream, salt, pepper and parmesan, and served it with poached eggs and toast. Surprisingly delicious, and Nate kept asking for more! In future years I hope to grow more silverbeet even in summer.

We poached eggs using a method a friend told me, where you break each egg into a separate dish before dropping them to the boiling water. This prevents the dripping egg from fixing to the pan like it does if you crack them against its side when it is hot. We may have poached eggs more often now since this makes washing up much easier!

The above picture is from last week when we had a yummy pie using garden vegetables (beans, carrots, potatoes) in a cheese sauce. The last two weeks have been busy with planting and welcoming guests, so I haven't had much time for Saturday's Backyard Bounty posts! Still, I hope you've enjoyed this short glimpse into just a couple of the things we've been able to do with our produce. In the past two weeks I have sowed seed for turnips, radish, carrots, cauliflower, lettuce, kale, silverbeet and spring onion.

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Saturday's Backyard Bounty: Radish Eating Babies and more!

We harvested radishes, lettuce, our first butter beans, parsley, chives, basil, oregano, rosemary, carrots, patty pan squash, zucchini and spring onions.

One of my most precious memories from the week is from yesterday afternoon, when I brought Nate into the garden with me to play nearby while I planted. First he had lots of fun feeding me lettuce! Next I showed him how to pull up some radishes and he immediately wanted to eat one, eating a lot of dirt in the process. I took it inside to wash and he ate narly the whole radish for afternoon tea! After finishing all but a segment he asked for the carrot that was on the bench, and proceeded to eat a lot of it. You can see the progress in these pictures. I was surprised and how much he ate of these raw vegetables.

We also had an impromptu lesson about how roots draw water from the soil, with the radish as our teaching tool!

More ways we used our backyard bounty . . .

Grated beetroot with mayonaisse. We still have beets in the fridge from last week's harvest.

Salad to take to dinner at a friends, with 100% our own vegetables

Baked potatoes harvested last week with topping of 500ml sour cream, grated beetroot, grated carrot, some lemon juice, and lots of chopped parsley. We have enjoyed this sour cream topping with other vegetables included in it, but this was the first time with beet. We like it!

Pizza with zucchini, carrot, parsley, spring onion and basil as some of the toppings (weird, I know . . . but we liked it!)

Eggs for breakfast a few mornings, boiled, fried and scrambled. This is the main way we eat the eggs from our chickens.

Potato salad and squash on the braai, like last week.

Bean salad with butter beans, fetta cheese, olives, olive oil, parsley and chives. This is a favourite from last year, and it was lovely to enjoy our first beans in this way tonight.

It was also fun to see the bean tendrils from our two teepees at the front of the garden finally meet in the middle of the string Dave put up between them over the entrance of the garden. You can see the chairs we sat on for an outdoor Bible and prayer time this evening . . . making precious memories! You can see the net which goes all the way around the garden and seves to keep out chickens.

This picture was too cute not to include! Dave put up the swing a few weeks ago.

We learnt that our snail bait may also have killed a worm. I found a dead worm on the soil near some bait. We are still using the bait though, as slugs have destroyed so many of our seedlings.

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Saturday's Backyard Bounty

Each week I am going to aim to post about what we have harvested from our garden, and how we have used our harvest. I will also aim to write about a couple of things we have learnt.

Our harvest . . .

Today Dave dug up two buckets of potatoes. Elnathan enjoyed transferring them from one bucket to another!

We also harvested beetroot, carrots, lettuce, radishes, zucchini, spring onions, parsley, chives, our first tomato for the season, and basil.

Food from the garden . . .

Salads with fresh lettuce, radish, spring onion, cooked (boiled) beet, grated raw beet, carrots, and our first tomato! We are enjoying salads much more since I devoted a couple of meters exclusively to salad crops and began growing a variety of lettuces.

Risotto with beetroot and zucchini. Beet risotto is one of our favourites, and adding some zucchini was an experiment. We liked it!

Pizza with zucchini and basil as two of the toppings.

Potato salad this evening with our new potatoes, fresh eggs plus chives and parsley - yum, yum!

We also harvested some patty pan squash and enjoyed them on the braai tonight.

We planted . . . 

Seeds for carrots, turnips, spring onions and broccolini.

What we learnt . . .

Dave discovered that sunflowers are highly productive but susceptible to drought. They use water continually as they do not shut down their stomata. We must keep them well watered if we want them to be productive and produce seeds for our chickens. Our first sunflowers opened this week. They are behind the corn in a long row, so we hope it will look amazing soon.

I learnt to plait garlic and hung it on a hook near the back door.

Slugs have probably been responsible for the destruction of many of our seedlings. We laid snail bait and snared many. We thought grubs were cutting our seedlings off at the base but now think slugs may be responsible.

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