Lisbon lemon

This was supposed to be a post which included a beautiful video of me planting my Lisbon lemon tree using my newly purchased GoPro camera.

But as much as I love my veggie garden I also love my daughter who, on my one day a week off, needed help moving house.

So the you beaut video is going to have to wait for another week or until Sunday if I can find a driver for the cab and give myself a day off.

I did manage to get two rows of onion seeds planted though. I planted the seeds thickly so as when they get to a good size I can transplant them into the remaining rows I've prepared.

What else? Oh, that's right, I cut the remaining old growth from the asparagus, covered them with some used coffee grounds and then put them to bed for winter with a thick straw mulch.

A little bit of general maintenance, a lot of watering, it's unseasonally warm for this time of the year, and that's about it for today.

Cheers till next time

Stewart.

Lettuce big vein disease.

 Flicking through the latest (June) ABC Gardening Australia magazine when I came across this article (see second photo) and thought, damn, that's what's happening to my lettuce. I assume they're still edible but don't know if it affects the taste or flavour. 

Oh well.

Anyone else noticed this in their garden?

Cheers

Stewart

Wow, what a day.

Wow, what a day. It's my daughter's 21st and it's been two months since my last operation and after today's effort in the garden I'm feeling ecstatic.

It's been years now since I've been able to do a full day's work and still feel OK at the end of the day.

The morning was made up of weeding, watering and liquid fertilising everything and I mean everything. Roses, perennials, annuals, veggies. You name it it got liquid ferilised. 

I've planted a lot of flowering annuals this year to keep me happy. Annuals like petunias, poppies, snappies, pansies, violas, and primulas in the shady parts of the garden as well. All of these were liquid fertilized as well as all the veggies like the peas, silverbeet, garlic, lettuce, cabbages, strawberries, chillies (still flowering and being warm here for this time of the year I might get another small crop) and broccoli.

The afternoon was all the boring stuff like putting all the prunings through the mulcher, working over the compost heap, mowing the lawn and clearing an overgrown site for planting the Lisbon lemon I bought.

My daughter, the one turning 21, works in a coffee shop/cafe so guess what this is.

Getting rad with my ish. There's 500 little radish seeds per packet so I won't be running out any time soon.

A handy sized seed, no pun intended, I'm just poking a few into small spaces or in between  rows of other veggies, they'll be long gone and out of the way by the time the other veggies grow up

My lemonade tree lemonading.

Seriously just juice and drink, delicious

Next cab off the rank. This is the Lisbon I bought and will be planting in the area I started preparing this after noon.

Two little rhubarb leaves.

When I was harvesting some leaves last week a chunk of main stem came off as well so I bunged it into a pot full of potting mix and now it's looking like I've two more Rhubarbs to plant come spring.

Alright already.

What's getting planted over the next week.

• Lettuce seedlings x 8, 1 punnet of. Done
• Peas by seed. Not yet.
• Broccoli seedlings x 6, punnet of. Done
• Radish by seed. I'm working on it.
• Leeks by seed. Soon alright.
• Kale by seed. Done.
• Cabbage by seed. Done
• Sweet Pea seedlings x 8, punnet of. Done.
• Poppy seedlings x 8, punnet of. Done.

What's getting planted in your garden?

Cheers

Stewart

Pass the Tequila please.

New baby for the veggie garden. Isn't she cute?

And you get lemons. 

Pass the Tequila please.

 

Cheers

Stewart

Chilli be Jammed

The results are in. Four, 300ml jars of chilli jam. Haven't had a taste yet but I did find out this little tit bit of info when I was way beyond turning back. We would avoid using long red Finger or Cayenne chillies as they are also quite hot (30,000-50,000 SHU).

In Nigella's recipe she used, Dutch red chillies. Dutch red chillies have a heat rating of between 2,500 and 8,000 Scoville heat units (SHU). The Scoville scale is used to measure the "hotness" different types of chilles.

Oh well, I'll just have to use it sparingly.

Cheers

Stewart

Jamming with ma chillies.

 I've a small glut of cayenne chillies so I'm going to try a chilli jam. The recipe below I pinched from nigella.com 

Wish me luck.

Ingredients

• 150 grams long fresh red chilli peppers (deseeded and cut into 4 pieces)
• 150 grams red peppers (cored, deseeded and cut into rough chunks)
• 1 kilogram jam sugar
• 600 ml cider vinegar

Method

You will need 6 x 250ml / 1 cup sealable jars, with vinegar-proof lids, such as Kilner jars or re-usable pickle jars.

1. Sterilize your jars and leave to cool.
2. Put the cut-up chillies into a food processor and pulse until they are finely chopped. Add the chunks of red pepper and pulse again until you have a vibrantly red-flecked processor bowl.
3. Dissolve the sugar in the vinegar in a wide, medium-sized pan over a low heat without stirring.
4. Scrape the chilli-pepper mixture out of the bowl and add to the pan. Bring the pan to the boil, then leave it at a rollicking boil for 10 minutes.
5. Take the pan off the heat and allow it cool. The liquid will become more syrupy, then from syrup to viscous and from viscous to jelly-like as it cools.
6. After about 40 minutes, or once the red flecks are more or less evenly dispersed in the jelly (as the liquid firms up, the hints of chilli and pepper start being suspended in it rather than floating on it), ladle into your jars. If you want to stir gently at this stage, it will do no harm. Then seal tightly.

Frustrated.

Hi, frustrated here or all work and no play is making Stewart a dull boy.
6 days a week, 11hrs a day for a below minimum wage without any benefits or super isn't helping matters much either. On top of that I'm only getting, at best, a half a day a week in the veggie garden.

But I'm not sitting here wallowing in self pity, I'm putting a plan of action together to see if I can dig myself out of the hole I'm in. Resumes are flying left right and center and with some luck I hope to get a job as a disability support worker with better pay and conditions and more respectable working hours leaving more time for myself. Driving a cab is enjoyable and rewarding work but the low pay and long hours are wearing pretty thin.

As for the veggie garden there is some progress with Broad Beans, Peas, Lettuce, Garlic and up until last nights possum attack I had some cabbages. Spinach has suffered under the hands and chewing of the possum as well.

The strawberries have had some TLC in the form of compost and some cheap composted cow manure I purchased from Masters.

3 from 4 of the bunching shallots have sprouted and the 4th is just sitting there and might get around to it anytime it likes.

I've also planted a punnet of Tomatoes in the warmest part of the garden as an experiment to see if I can get any tomatoes during winter. I'm thinking with the cold nights and short day length that it will be unlikely but you've got to be in it to win it.

Anyhow that's about it for now, I have to go out and put some cut up apple in the possum trap to see if I can save what's left of the veggie garden.

Cheers and don't let the possums bite.

Stewart.

P.S. I nearly forgot to mention the best bit. The veggie garden received 26ml of rain last Thursday and Friday. Doing the happy rain dance.