Raspberry Picking

Summer has come and its now berry and cherry season here in Adelaide. Adelaide hill will be having many visitors from the city this month as there are lots of sign outside cherry and strawberry farm with 'pick your own' now. We were so happy and excited that Berry Gnome and Veggie Gnome invited us to Gnomesville to pick berries. This is the first time for us to pick raspberries and we enjoyed it very much. This is my favourite spot to sit and just enjoy picking fresh raspberries straight to the mouth within seconds. So much fun.

First time we got to know silvanberries.

After an afternoon snack of nasi lemak and the divine chocolate velvet torte that Veggie Gnome baked, we went to an organic cherry farm to pick cherries. Rayyan and Ilhan is always full pack with energy but they slept in the car on the way back home means they enjoyed the day very much. Cherry season is earlier this year, so it is best to go there as soon as possible. Last year was really late around Christmas and cherry farm had to open for pick your own even on Christmas day.

Some of the berries that we brought home.

Frozen some to make desert when I have time.

Any ideas where to visit this weekend here in South Australia this time of the year?

Planning for some outdoor activities this weekend.

But we don't know where and what to do yet.

Carnation Chabaud Life-Cycle

I have been wandering whether our carnation flowers produce seeds. It should have seeds since in our local seed company catalog there are seeds available. The chabaud carnation that we grow were not originally sowed by us. I bought a punnet from our local nursery when we were really wet behind the ear in the world of gardening. When we started gardening, carnation was one of the first flower that grace our garden. Lucky for us, it thrives in neglect. It dislike the hot summer here though. Commonly, bloom in spring but we have some bloom in autumn or winter due to strange weather. Carnation were growing well side by side with chives in one of our containers previously.

Fresh carnation seeds collected last spring.

Newly sprouted carnation seeds.

Carnation seedlings.

It was much easier to collect seeds from single layer petal carnation than the multiple-layers one. But it will be interesting to see if those seeds follows the features of its parents or diverse.

Looks like a flower bud but it is actually carnation seed pod.

We did not planned to collect carnation at first since we don't know where the seeds are hiding. But my cousin Lenay while she was dead-heading spent blooms stumbled on the carnation seeds hide-out.

Eureka! Eureka!

Carnation can also be propagated by stem cuttings.

This plants has been in good mood and give us some flowers to cut for indoors.

Hope you have a Wonderful day this Wednesday.

Spicy Sardine and Spaghetti Bake

We harvested our first Lebanese zucchini for this summer. This is our first time growing 'Lebanese zucchini', so I was not sure what size is perfect to harvest this variety. Did not want it to get too mature or it will stop other fruits to develop. A few leeks and another one kohlrabi harvested this week. 

Our Lebanese brinjal plant that has now experience 3 summers did not disappoint us. We just enter summer and that old brinjal plant has given us roughly 10 eggplants for us. We had endless supply of yellow currant cherry tomatoes last week.

What did we do with the cherry tomatoes?

The second recipe that I enjoyed from this recipe book.

 Spicy Sardine and Spaghetti Bake (The Australian Women's Weekly~Gratins & Bake recipe book)

Ingredients:
250g spaghetti
1 cup (70g) stale breadcrumbs
1/3 finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley (used curly ones)
1/3 cup (80ml) olive oil
318g canned sardines in oil, drained
250g cherry tomatoes, chopped coarsely (did not chopped)
4 cloves garlic, crushed
2 teaspoon dried chilli flakes

(1) Cook pasta in large saucepan of boiling water until tender; drain and reserved 1/3 cup (80ml) cooking liquid.
(2) Preheat oven to 220 degree Celsius.
(3) Combine breadcrumbs, parsley and 1 tablespoon of the oil in medium bowl.
(4) Heat remaining oil in same pan; cook sardines, tomato, garlic and chilli, stirring, until tomato begins to soften. Stir in pasta; season to taste.
(5) Spoon mixture into 1litre (8cup) ovenproof dish; pour reserved cooking liquid. Sprinkle with breadcrumb mixture. Bake, uncovered, about 10 minutes or until browned lightly.

Sardines and this yellow cherry tomatoes goes well together.

Rayyan enjoying the pasta.

One funny-looking purple savoy cabbage was harvested.

Two of our 3.5 months grown Royal Blue potato plant were all dried up due to the hot weather. It was a trial to plant potato on our most sunny patch at the end of winter. It grows really fast but the soil is too hot now. Touching the soil on that area is very hot during mid-day. I won't be able to walk on it barefoot. So I have to reluctantly dig the spud out early cause it was supposed to be medium-late variety. There still supposingly  in their baby stage. The trial is half-successful since there were at least 12 medium~large size spuds from each plants. Not bad considering it just been 3.5 months since I planted the seed potatoes. I probably grow this potato variety again because the yield is good even on shorter growing time.

Harvest Monday at Daphne's Dandelions.

Want More Polystyrene Containers?

If you are living in Adelaide, you can obtain polystyrene containers easily at Torrens Island Market site. The Torrens Island Market is every Sunday and ends around noon. You can come collect polystyrene containers at the garbage late in the afternoon. Not many people around during that time so no need to be embarrass. Only a few people that come fishing is around. If you are lucky you can even watch a pink sunset or dolphins.

A budding fisherman practising his skill.

Rayyan even surprised us on trying to assemble the hook line on the fishing rod by himself while others were fishing which is still too dangerous for his age. Because he wanted one all by himself. He insist on holding the fishing rod by himself.

It always shock me on how many vegetables thrown in the garbage. Some of the vegetables and fruits that were thrown were just a little black or bruise because it does not look fresh and pretty anymore. But those vegetables are still edible. If I have a pet like bunny or chooks, I would have taken some back for them. Because I remembered when my brother had bunnies for his pet, my parents usually bought old vegetables from supermarkets like Giant in Malaysia that has been reduced it price sometime RM1 perbag for his dear pet. So much food waste and people dying of hunger in other part of this world. Polystyrene containers in the photo were full of beans!

Heaps of polystyrene containers on our collection day.

No more space to grow on your veggie patch?

Grow some veggies in polystyrene containers.

Economical and good insulators against those summer heat.

Nero Black Kale (Chervil seeds give-away Winners)

We have many variety of vegetables that we grow for the first time last cool season and some were introduced by our local seed-savers group. One of the vegetables that we tried growing for the first time during last cool season was Nero Black Kale. Although it was a new plant in the garden, I totally neglected it and was growing on one of the shades part of the garden in winter. It did not get any special treatment and exposed to pest. This is one plant you can experiment to try growing in partial shade~shade if you want to fully utilised your gardening space.

Nero Black Kale seedlings.

In winter growing so slowly in shade.

It will be lucky if it received 1 hour direct sunlight during sunny days at this corner.  Nero Black kale growing along with cineraria.

Spring came with more light and those kale pick up growth very quickly.

Totally growing in shade.

Did not want to waste the extra seedlings we had.

They do grow albeit rather slowly like my thesis writing.

At least they do provide some harvest for our kitchen harvest.

We don't have fresh harvest much this week.

Probably will be relying on frozen veggie stock now.

Nero Black kale came to rescue with fresh harvest.

The first time we harvest those leaves.

Yellow currant cherry tomatoes still plenty to harvest.

Mark ask me several time about this yellow currant cherry tomato.

I found that the skin thickness of this yellow currant cherry tomatoes varies in cool and warm season. During the warm season, this variety of cherry tomatoes is more acidic and skin are much thicker. However, in cool season this tomato skin is very thin and less acidic or more sweeter. We enjoyed the flavour of this tomato more during cooler months/weeks. It starting to be over 30 degree Celsius during the day now. I have noticed that suddenly this tomato skin become much thicker the same as last summer experience. So as a student of science, my hypothesis is that temperature can be one of the main factor that influence the thickness of this tomato skin. Adaptation to different temperatures in different season makes this tomato very draught and cold hardy compared to other varieties of cherry tomatoes that we grow. If I remember correctly, tomatoes were originally yellow in colour. So it is one of the tomatoes you might want to keep over winter as the flavour is best in cooler weather. I think last winter, that plant has gone through at least 2 degree Celsius. It does reallyX3 well in partial shade. So don't have to sacrifice your sunny spot for this tomato plant.

How did we enjoyed our first Nero Black Kale?

I was introduced to enjoy it with polenta by Mark.

In case you are wondering, did not have problem with lumps.

My cousin made it and follow the recipe accordingly.

Now, Rayyan been eating polenta occasionally.

We will be sending chervil seeds to author of these wonderful blogs:

MyJourney (Rainfield61)

Half A Pound Of Treacle (Sean L)

Mark's Veg Plot (Mark)

Hope to receive your postbox mail address (diana.demiyah@gmail.com)

Have a great weekend!