EARLY EVENING IN THE WINTER GARDEN

Sometimes the garden has a magical look in the late afternoon and evening, especially in winter when the sun's rays send a soft glow through the trees. Our winters are relatively mild compared to blogs I read in cold parts of Europe and America, where there is snow as well as unseasonable frosts that damage seedlings and cause a lot of heart-ache amongst vegetable gardeners in those areas. Today, for example, was probably about 16C and a typical day for June, with lines of light showers floating across the plains like white washing blowing on a clothes line. We can see them from our house and marvel at how defined they are - sometimes a narrow strip of rain, sometimes a cylinder, either side of which sunbeams sprinkle shiny streams of light onto the earth below.

I started out wanting to write about the vegetables in my garden but now I want to write about the feelings in my garden and how they can be so like a turbulent relationship; one minute everything is so fantastic and I pick baskets full of colourful jewels like last summers crops of capsicums and eggplants and greens etc and then the next day, it seems, the aphids have moved in and decimated all my gorgeous little Russian kale seedlings, making me very disappointed and despondent and on the verge of giving it all away and becoming a consumer again! Up and down, up and down, like a child on a swing.

When you first start out trying to get along with nature and the garden and the whole earth thing, you tend to want to dominate it all and you want everything to happen fast and nothing to go wrong and when it inevitably does, you don't know why or what to do. Eventually, after about a million failures, you begin to stand back a while and see what happens. So, when the aphids came to my place, I waited for the ladybirds to arrive and deal with them.....I waited and waited.....and, I don't know why, but they never came! Maybe it was the unseasonably warm and dry conditions - that is what I think. Now it is cold enough that all the aphids have gone and the garden and I can relax.

This afternoon I felt very at peace with the vegetable garden, for the first time probably since last winter. The seeds sown recently are all coming up and look so fresh and clean and alive. There were the raindrops glistening on the leaves; then there is the way I like to pick a spinach leaf and pour the droplets from the grooves onto my tongue and feel and taste the lovely rain that, only seconds before, was high above me, in a cloud, having evaporated from some far off place and travelled all the way here, to my garden, before coming back to earth again. The perfect recycling system, that is what rain is. Some people then go inside and wash their vegetables. Why would you wash off that purest of all water? I don't understand most things about humans, I am afraid.

The large, lime-green leaves of my favourite chicory are bursting with life and its tiny, new leaves curl around in a cute spiral inside, before gradually unrolling as if it was yawning and stretching and waking up.

Then I just stood there in my favourite spot and looked at the sea, off between the trees, as the sun's rays behind the thin veil of cloud turned the whole scene ever so softly and silently pink. I am so lucky; so, so lucky.

 

It is a surprisingly touching thing for me to be able to stand in my vegetable garden and see the sea, especially when it is displayed so beautifully and is there, just for the looking, connecting me with the two parts of the earth that I love the most.

Peace. Harmony....

MORE BLOGS TO EXPLORE

I have found another lovely blog. From Here to Eternity is the musings a woman wanting to become as self-sufficient as possible, in France.

She says: I’m starting out again in life, sadly without my three wonderful children (two boys aged 24 and 22 and a girl aged 16), who remain in the UK to finish their education. I moved to Southwest France with the aim of becoming reasonably self-sufficient. As there is only one of me I felt becoming fully self-sufficient would be too great a challenge....

From her blog you can connect to other blogs of people in France as well as elsewhere.

Of all those in the list mentioned above this one deserves to be explored further : Smelly Smallholding

MORE MARVELOUS MARKET MOMENTS

As I sit at home here eating a croissant and sipping my espresso coffee I do marvel at the variety we have at the Central Market. I can buy anything edible there. You would hard-pressed to mention some ingredient that is not available, at some time of the year, from any cuisine in the world.

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But this is not in the slightest what I want to talk about this time, so why I wrote it I have no idea.

You can see the labels that Wilsons put on their produce - who grew it, where, if it is certified organic, what it is and the price. But you often see comments such as these on the labels too which always makes shopping there a bit different. The second one refers to the fact that Tony works so hard at growing his vegetables that he literally often can be seen out gardening in the moonlight! And that's fair dinkum. Unfortunately the broccoletti bunches were all gone - actually Tony was busy unloading more from his ute.

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With this whole visit to vegetables gardens of the world trip in mind today, I went to the market a bit later to try and catch up with Tony Scarfo - our delightful local, organic market-gardener who happens to come from an Italian background. Seriously lacking in this trip is some connection to Italy. I am determined, therefore, to leave no stone unturned in the search for someone to visit in Italy, somewhere. Sadly Tony couldn't help me directly but had some great ideas and while we were standing there by his ute talking about them along came one of his other customers - a lovely Italian bloke called Carlo. He is there in the photo on the right of Tony.

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It transpired that he was from the city (I forget now which one) and has no links to rural Italy either but also had some ideas which we three discussed in the animated Italian way. The best bit though came when I asked Carlo if by chance he grows any vegetables now. Now this was obviously something that sparked his interest because he smiled a beautiful smile and proceeded to tell me that yes, he grows mountains of stuff and yes I would be welcome to come and look at it all anytime. Moreover, he lives near Maggie - not far from my place.You know how some people just have good vibes? Well Carlo is one such person and I really look forward to seeing his garden soon.
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Now that is not all to this market saga. My whole 50th birthday party plan is revolving around Wilson's, as luck would have it. You see, James, who serves there is also a photographer as well as running 'Pedal Powered Products' both of which will be very handy for enhancing some of my plans! What's also interesting is that Victoria, who also works at Wilson's, has a boyfriend who I met last week, has a catering business making organic finger-food - some of which I sampled this morning at Wilson's. So that's most of the business end of the deal sorted at the One Stop Wilson's Party Shop !!

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Life is good...and getting better by the magical minute!

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(Blogger has gone completely mad and won't let me leave any spaces between my paragraphs, hence all the little dots! Also it won't let you click on the first photo to enlarge it. I forgot to use Windows Live Writer again but you should try it if you have as much trouble as I do with Blogger and have a son who works for Google but won't help me get it fixed! Hey Alex!! Either that or switch to Wordpress - grrrr)

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FOOD OF THE POOR by Maggie

The latest food fashion is the "food of the poor" or peasant food, or local food or homegrown food.
Well, the real poor of the world have no food so its a pretty silly thing to say really.
What chefs and food writers are talking about is homegrown produce, picked daily after being grown seasonally. Prepared in the kitchen and eaten to provide sustenance.
Thinking globally this would include quick stir fried greens in Asian countries, green bean curry and rice in India, polenta and green vegetable casserole in Italy, Colcannon in Ireland, Sauteed greens and herbs in Mediterranean countries, Southern fried beans and greens from the USA, Greens and barley from Tibet, Green veggie pie from Cyprus, veggie soups from Japan, cabbage and potatoes from Russia, wild greens and herb salad from France.
The common thread in this collage of words is green.
Green veggies from many veggie families have sustained people for millions of years.
"Eat up your greens"!
"I don't eat greens"! spoken by adults and children in affluent countries.
Greens keep us healthy, they provide enzymes to digest food, cooking will destroy some vitamins and enzymes so it is important to eat raw greens with cooked foods.
The Italians always serve a green salad , served with a balsamic, olive oil dressing, to which is added fresh garlic and herbs (fresh enzymes and vitamins plus calcium and heaps more).
When you think of going green, go really green.
Check out a variety of greens to grow and learn how to prepare them.

LIFE - WHO'D BE WITHOUT IT!

Today, as usual, I took my mother's dog for a walk on the beach. It was the first time this year that I needed to wear my beanie and that my toes went numb from walking in the sea. This is when I am happiest! I had a nice cosy, comfortable feeling because life is good, winter is here, the aphids are finally dying off and leaving my brassicas alone and the wind blew all the cobwebs out of my head!

I thought these shadows of me were pretty cool!

After lunch with my mother we went outside and checked on her pea. And guess what! My mother's pea seed is up through the soil and showing a nice strong green tip!

We just never know what is going to happen from one week to the next, do we.....Life is good, take it as it comes and be thankful for it.

PURIS AND PICNICS

	These crisp little flat breads are delicious and so easy to make. They have cumin seeds in them and consequently have a lovely aroma. I wish I had taken photos of making them but I didn't think of it. The whole meal only takes a few minutes to cook, once you have the dough ready, so you really need 2 people - 1 to grill the puris and 1 to cook the rest, otherwise you will end up burning the puris as they puff up and brown very quickly.
I will put the recipes on Gardeners' Gastronomy.	Of course you can serve them with anything but for some reason I always forget about them unless I am cooking this seafood recipe I adapted from Rick Stein's Seafood Odyssey.
	Here are Hugh and Amelia having that picnic I mentioned before. You can see the lovely salad they made from the things from my garden and the trout Hugh smoked and bread etc we bought together at the market. They took the photos especially for the blog - Amelia loves reading it! That is amazing, I think. This hill where they are picnicking is just a short walk from our home. The view of the whole of Adelaide and the coast from north to south, from this ridge is almost 360 degrees.

GROWING FOOD FROM FRIENDS

As I was doing this and that in my vegetable garden today I realised that so many of the things I am currently growing are from seed or plants that someone has given me, through our seedsavers group mostly.

Here is the list:
Broccoli, originally from Kath but also some from Sally (garden group)
Green wave mustard,purple peas, water cress, miners' lettuce, parsnips and carrots from Deb
Corn mache, rhubarb and artichokes from Veggie Gnome
Silverbeet from Rosemary (friend)
Coloured silver beets (or rainbow chard) and some lettuce from Andrew
Cos and oakleaf lettuce from Joy
Celery from Kathy (garden group)
Cabbages from Ken (blog exchange)
Parsley and chervil from Glenys (garden group)
Tatsoi, Egyptian broad beans and tarragon from Robert (friend)
Galangal and horseradish from Maggie and Bob
Garlic and some fennel from Tony Scarfo
Beetroot (someone from seedsavers, but who?)
Probably I have forgotten someone and something - I am sorry!

Now that is a pretty lovely way to get your food. Every time I pick any of those I think of the person who gave it to me and somewhere there are people growing stuff from seeds or plants they got from me. If only people who shop in supermarkets could instead feel the joy of eating this way the world's problems would reduce and people may even stop fighting with each other and start swapping seeds and recipes instead!

I am sure it must be good for our collective mental and physical well-being to not only grow food from bought seed but to go one step further and connect with our neighbours, friends and garden groups to swap seeds, plants and stories. If only we could opt for my 2020 vision instead of our Prime Minister's, then we would be well on the way to changing lives and rebalancing the communal psyche.

....I just thought I would put on this photo of my Japanese bunching onions - almost too beautiful to eat. I picked them and a basket of Asian greens for dinner. I am cooking a recipe from Rick Stein's 'Seafood Odyssey' that I call Indian coconut seafood and it has these lovely puris that you make and serve with it - a kind of quick, crisp, flat bread. I add lots of Asian greens but they are not in the original recipe....actually neither are the spring onions.