The Genial Hearth
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Archive for Garden
December 22, 2007 at 9:03 pm · Filed under Advent, Baking, Domestic Life, Food, Garden, Season
We made Fruit Mince Tarts. It did take until bedtime, but we got it done:-) (I decided I really did need to attack the garden with a whipper snipper—not finished, but getting there.)
I gave up on making my own fruit mince (should be done early in November, so it has time to meld properly), and I used pre-rolled sheets of shortcrust pastry, so they’re not proper Fruit Mince Tarts… but I’m a step ahead of last year:-)
I’ve found my pudding recipe, so I’m all set for tomorrow:-)
December 17, 2007 at 9:31 pm · Filed under Domestic Life, Family, Garden, Puggle
We had a ‘lawnmower man’ or ‘whipper-snipper man’ (depending on Puggle’s interest) visit today. Puggle was terribly excited to watch! I let him sit on the steps in the doorway (because the Christmas tree blocks the view from the window over part of the garden), so he decided he needed to wear his goggles:-) (I think it was really because he was hoping to be allowed out.)
But the first thing he said when he saw the man? ‘He’s not wearing earmuffs!’
I guess all those conversations about safety equipment are making an impression:-)
November 27, 2007 at 11:54 pm · Filed under Food, Garden
Twice Bloomed Wisteria posted today about processing sugar cane. I thought there’d be at least one person reading here who’d be interested in the details (I don’t know that it’s necessarily explained sufficiently to allow you to go and do it, but it certainly gives you the gist…)
November 19, 2007 at 10:16 am · Filed under Domestic Life, Garden
I was ill on Saturday, so really paid no attention to anything. Sunday I went outside to do all those things i hadn’t done the day before, and noticed…
It’s been about two weeks since we planted them. All tomatoes at this stage. We’re very excited:-)
November 4, 2007 at 9:35 pm · Filed under Domestic Life, Garden, Puggle, Science
It was such a lovely day, (actually, a little hot if anything!) I’ve been meaning to get these seeds planted out into seedling trays for at least a month!
Here we have all our equipment assembled. Egg cartons for seedling trays—ideally no need to disturb the roots, seed raising mix, a couple of trowels, gloves, dowel to make holes, sprayer for watering, and seeds.
Puggle and I filled the trays with the seed raising mix.
Then we carefully planted out lots of seeds. Tomato (a number of varieties, a Five Colour Mix, as well as Mortgage Lifter), capsicum (a Seven Colour Mix), eggplant (Listada di Gandia) and Echinacea (because I’m planning on putting in sunflowers as well, and I thought this would look pretty with them:-) ).
Seeds nestled in their trays.
Covered over (tucked in their beds) and watered. (I tried to use the Waldorf storytelling idea to make sure that Puggle didn’t disturb the seeds when watering them… It seems to be working to some degree… but the spray bottle is awfully hard work:-( )
Now of course, I need to work on getting the ground ready for them to go in—as well as the ground for the direct sown seeds… I know where I’m intending for them to go, but at the moment it’s not looking particularly hospitable:-( Much work ahead of us…
October 22, 2007 at 12:22 am · Filed under Craft, Domestic Life, Family, Garden
Boronia are always brown (although, I guess it sometimes looks red). I do realise that there are other colours… but this is the local variety—and the one my Granny was named after. I’ll make a few alterations to the shape of my pattern.
I’ve also thought that some of the Gum flowers are a likely prospect… unless that is going to feel like a stupid amount of cutting:-)
Geraldton Wax strike me as an excellent proposition:-) And allow for the use of some pretty colours:-)
Actually, I think before I make any more Australian natives, I need to find a more appropriate green felt:-)
(And I’ve just realised that some of the red ‘caps’ we picuked up last year would be ideal for hats for some of the related crafts… where the other side of the world uses acorns! Excellent!)
October 2, 2007 at 1:13 am · Filed under Domestic Life, Family, Garden, Puggle
I highly recommend playing chasey with a three year old:-) We had a lovely time running around the patio, and then the front yard. I had to teach him though—I can’t believe we hadn’t before! He did keep getting confused as to who was ‘it’, he’d be chasing me one minute, then running away from me the next.
(How would you spell ‘balees’?)
May 18, 2007 at 2:50 pm · Filed under Garden
So, does anyone want rocks?
We have two piles in our backyard (actually, some of them are now out by the letterbox) of rocks. There are a couple of bricks/tiles, but most of them are real rocks of various sizes. Some are quite small, but the rest range from between softball size and too large for me to carry on my own. They’d probably do quite nicely for a rockgarden or something similar. You might be able to use them as part of a wall (maybe around a firepit?).
They’ve been here since before I moved in. They were out on the verge near the curb to stop people parking there, but the lawn-mowing folks removed them and I’ve done nothing with them since.
I now have plans for that patch of ground, and I don’t want the rocks there.
Is anyone interested?
March 16, 2007 at 12:00 am · Filed under Charlotte Mason, Domestic Life, Garden, Home Education, Nature Study, Puggle
I’ve long thought that I need to spend more time outside so that the boy would spend some time exploring the garden (he doesn’t spend much time out there if I’m doing anything else, I have to be right there with him). So, this morning, we took a rug and a small pile of books (our ’school’ books) out to sit in the yard. I also took some sewing, on the off-chance that he’d wander around.
Later, he went and collected some food, so that we could have a picnic outside. (I need to be a bit more organised about this, maybe if we can sort ourselves out to get outside with everything regularly, it’ll be easier to go somewhere to be outside… )
We had a lovely time! We read, and he and I narrated. We sang (although, he wasn’t so impressed with that for some reason). He didn’t go exploring, but he did lay in my lap and watch the sky. There weren’t many clouds, but he talked about the colour, and the birds he could see. It was delightful:-)
Sadly tomorrow has too much else happening to repeat it. Maybe Saturday:-)
January 24, 2007 at 10:41 pm · Filed under Domestic Life, Family, Garden, Nature Study
My parents are moving. After nearly 30 years, they’re moving to a smaller house (now that my brother and sister have finally left home). As a result, they’re throwing out stuff. The other day they had a garage sale. One of the things that my brother had put out to sell was a self-standing hammock I had given him years ago. It didn’t sell, so I claimed it.
Today I brought it home, and set it up.
Puggle and I sat out and had our afternoon drinks, and looked at the sky and trees. We had a fabulous time:-)
October 7, 2006 at 5:30 pm · Filed under Baking, Carnivals, Domestic Life, Food, Garden, Recipes
So today I finally realised that we’d kept the boy away from the mulberries for sufficient time that there was a decent crop.
To put this in proper perspective, our tree is quite young, it’s not a great deal taller than I am. I was quite pleased with the quantity (and there’s still more than that to ripen!)
There was definitely enough for a pie:-)
I doubt I could have fitted any more mulberries in!
I’m not sure if I used my ‘usual’ pastry recipe (in spite of my plans, I haven’t made many pies this winter), but I chose this Sweet Short Crust because it uses a whole egg. Unless I have plans for the leftover white/yolk, I go for whole egg versions of things:-)
200 grams plain flour
30 grams self raising flour
140 grams shortening (I use butter)
pinch of salt (I skipped this because I didn’t use unsalted butter)
60 grams caster sugar
1 egg
Rub the shortening through the flour and sugar. Add the egg and gradually mix into a firm dough. Turn onto a floured board and knead lightly.
I then shaped it into a flat disc, wrapped it in plastic and put it into the freezer for a bit.
Wash your mulberries. Ours are mostly picked from the tree rather than the ground, so it’s mostly making sure there aren’t any living things on them still.
Divide the pastry into two (not quite evenly) and return one piece to the freezer. Roll the other out to fit a 23cm pie dish. Fill with mulberries. Roll out the other piece to go on the top.
I did forget to glaze this which would probably have made it better.
Bake at 180˚C for about 20-30 minutes (depending on your oven).
We had it after it had cooled a bit, served with cream.
Yum:-)
September 5, 2006 at 7:15 pm · Filed under Domestic Life, Garden
It’s mulberry time again:-)
Not that I think we’ll get many… Puggle loves to pick and eat them, and he’s much less particular about how ripe they are… so he gets them before we do—unless we keep him clear of the tree for a day or two:-)
December 26, 2005 at 11:07 pm · Filed under Domestic Life, Garden
I’ve gone through and added some photos to the blog… basically of the garden. If you’re interested, they’re in October onwards.
November 25, 2005 at 10:45 pm · Filed under Domestic Life, Garden
Here is the first corn flower.
And the first continental tomato.
November 24, 2005 at 10:39 pm · Filed under Domestic Life, Garden
Several of the corn now have tassels (I think that’s the right flower? the male one?). They’re not in the least blue though:-) We also now have some continental tomatoes fruiting.
I finally started to stake them yesterday—I know it’s something you’re meant to do gradually as they grow, but I haven’t felt up to doing it during Puggle’s nap in the middle of the day, and it’s a bit too fiddly to do with him around. But I got to it yesterday evening so I can now see the gazillions of romas! And at least two of the continentals (plain round).
I’m thinking next year I’d like to try growing some heirloom varieties from seed—I’ve seen a collection that has five different coloured ones:-) And some purple carrots:-) That would be cool…
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by A. A. Milne
by Andrew Lang
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