Saturday 28 May 2011

Brilliantly Coloured Autumn Fruits and Leaves on the Adelaide Plains

Colours of Autumn-2

It is Autumn in Adelaide South Australia, nearly winter.

Here are some of the gorgeous coloured fruits we are enjoying at the moment.

Soft juicy beautiful flavoured persimmons we bought at the last Rare Fruit Society meeting.

Beautiful mauve and purple lilly pillys we forage from local trees. They are large and juicy and we love eating them straight from the trees.

The last of our excel figs  not as sweet as they were a month ago but still yummy.

Beautiful jewel red pomegranate seeds just from our tree. Once again we just love these seeds.

Peoples citrus trees are covered with mandarins, oranges, grapefruit and lemons almost ready to eat and make delicious marmalades from.

As we take Niki and our grandson for walks it is wonderful to see brilliant trees covered with vibrant yellow, orange and golden leaves, red and purple coloured vines, rainbow coloured flowers and bushes, bright yellow and pale pink roses and bright green grass after the wonderful rain we have had.

Autumn leaves are being raked and thrown under bushes for mulch or added to compost heaps.

There are loads of birds around I guess they come down from the Adelaide Hills which are 5 minutes drive away but heaps cooler than here on the plains.

Our winter green garden is starting to produce Asian greens, rapa and all the wonderful herbs we add to our meals.

We still have capsicums and chillies ripening, lovely bunches of parsley and rocket.

No longer am I sad that tomatoes have disappeared because Autumn and winter has replaced them with exquisite flavours, new recipes to try and enjoy.

Monday 9 May 2011

Kookaburra in our Liquid Amber Tree

Yesterday there was a choir of kookaburras in a nearby tree laughing their heads off.

By the time we got our camera out they were silent and flew off except for one lone kookaburra who sat silent in our aged liquid amber tree, just pondering and enjoying the moment, on a quiet sunny autumn afternoon in Adelaide.

 

Kookaburra in the Liquid Amber Tree

Sunday 8 May 2011

Sunningdale Farm Open Day Today - Australia’s Open Garden Scheme

 

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Sunningdale Farm is open today as part of South Australia's Open Garden Scheme.  Mosquito Hill Rd, Mount Compass
10am-4.30pm.  $6.00

It is a lovely drive to Mt Compass and a lovely organic farm to visit.

Kate visited Sunningdale Farm open day in 2007, here is what she wrote -


SUNNINGDALE FARM
Anne Duguid is a gardener after my own heart. Plants are allowed to come up and grow where they like and vegs and flowers co-exist happily together, making a carpet of intricate detail and fascination at every turn. The house is on a rise and is surrounded by a ring of garden so that every door of the house opens onto vegetables, herbs and flowers. They include such companion plants as parsley, yarrow, tansy, coreopsis, fever few, cosmos, leeks and buddleias which attract ladybirds, lacewings, hoverflies, beetles, wasps, bees etc.
Beyond the house are 190 rolling acres of organic / biodynamic vealer calves. Beyond this you can see the Murray and the lakes. Picturesque is inadequate to describe the property. The drive in is through scrub in which they have identified 45 varieties of birds. There is a trail mown through the bush for walking and, after the recent rains, everything is lush and green . Anne is a lovely person and very welcoming. Together with her husband Phil they run the property. If they have another open day I would suggest you go and soak it up.
The drive to Mt Compass via Hahndorf is beautiful after the rain and there are great venison hamburgers to be had at a cafe in Mt Compass ! A lovely mothers' day.


Chaiselongue from the blog Olives & Artichokes has a good post  'Why do we garden?'. Check it out.

Happy Autumn Gardening and Happy Mothers Day.

Maggie

Labels: Biodynamics, Food for health, Garden, Visits