our weekend

Firstly, thanks so much for the wonderful words left in the comments on my last post. It's a bit tricky coming back to blog after a long absence - kind of like walking back into a room full of people when you've been to the loo...... you feel a bit self conscious (well I do anyway).

The weather is definitely cool now although we are having beautiful sunny days with very little wind .... I'm so thankful for the lack of wind. This weekend was spent doing a bit of everything - gardening, cooking, socialising, playing about, even a touch of sewing rearranging of the fabric stash! 

On Saturday we celebrated another birthday - our Dj turned thirteen. Thirteen!!! We now have three teens in the house and only one little one and I'm not sure I'm ready for this lack of under 10's! Many years ago when I had only little ones, I can remember older women telling me to enjoy this time with them, even though it may seem hard and never ending. And now I would tell younger mums the same!!  The simplicity and innocence of young children is fleeting and while it can be tough physically, it's such a beautiful time of exploration, wonder and play. 

I love my teens and grown-up children but I do miss lego strewn around the house, little scraps of kid cut papers and imaginary play. 

 Sunday was garden day. Garlic was finally planted - later than I wanted but still between Equinox and Solstice, so it should do well. I've not been planting by the moon this year, in fact I've not planted much at all for the winter, just too busy with other things, but we hope to remedy that by using the tunnel for some winter greens.

We harvested the first 20kg of potatoes and a really good amount of self seeded pumpkins. I did have seedlings to go in last year, but just didn't do it. So these random ones were are bonus!

Tunnel clean out!! With the help of two daughters and three young pullets, we pulled out most of the spent tomato plants, aubergine bushes and shrivelled cucumber vines. I have mixed feelings about the tunnel - I love it but have some reservations. I'll put pen to paper and attempt to write out my thoughts for a report in a later post. 

I'm using the last of the the pickings this week and then our menu turns to potatoes, cabbage and carrots until the greens are ready in the tunnel (which aren't actually planted yet!) 

Over summer we have been eating most of the tomatoes raw but these last few were baked into a batch of delicious tomato sauce loosely following Hugh's recipe from his book, Veg Everyday. 

Tomatoes, onion, garlic, thyme, marjoram - all of which came from our garden!!!!! - olive oil, salt and pepper. Roasted in the oven for a long time and eventually, after a bit of exercise with the mouli, we have super tasty sauce that is now sitting, in the freezer, waiting to bring us a little taste of summer in the depths of winter! Excuse the dirty oven, please. 

And speaking of tastes of summer, we grew four watermelons in the tunnel!! The last one was eaten as a respite from the weekend work..... a bit floury but sweet enough. When we lived in NSW, we ate melons galore, all summer, but here in Tas it's not easy to grow them and when they do, they aren't ready until the weather is almost too cold to really enjoy them! 

I have lots of memories from my childhood of sitting around on our back verandah cutting fat slices of crisp watermelons and letting the juice run down our chins as we spat the seeds onto the lawn. We continued that tradition with our own children, and they too equate melons with hot summer days and swimming in the creek to wash juice from face and arms. 

Oh I miss those summers so!  

Another little delight that we grew years ago and I'd forgotten about until I saw a plant at the nursery, is the pepino.  An evergreen, shrubby plant, from the solanum family, it has delicious egg shaped fruit that taste a bit like a rock melon. There were three of them but we wolfed down two before I thought to take a pic!

When I googled, I found some photos of huge pepinos but our biggest one was an oval tennis ball size and this one was just like a very large egg. I'd recommend growing a few of these as they really are delicious and underrated. 

So that was our busy weekend. There is still a lot to do in the tunnel and garden as well as all the other day to day stuff. Today its freezing outside, I've made a batch of cottage cheese and am about to start some baking to help warm the house! 

I hope your weekend was a productive one too...... or if not productive, I hope you had a lot of fun having fun!!! 

Unser Wochenende 

Ich glaub endlich wer ich wieder öfter hier sein! Bloggen mag ich so gern und ich muss mir einfach zeit machen damit ich schreiben kann.

Übers Wochenende haben wir ein Geburtstag gefeiert - jetzt sind bei uns drei Teenager und nur noch ein kleines.... schade!!

 Wir waren auch viel im garten und haben alle alten pflanzen von Glashaus aus geräumt. Dabei haben wir eine selbst gewachsene Wassermelone gegessen und ein paar pepino auch. Knoblauch kam in Grund und die ersten 20 Kilo Kartoffel kamen raus. Auch 15 selbst gewachsene Kürbis haben wir geerntet.... sollten gute Suppe machen über die kalte zeit. Mit die letzten Tomaten hab ich gerostete Sauce gemacht und eingefroren für Winter. 

Heute ist kalt und trüb aber ich bin warm ihn meiner Küche - hab Quark gemacht heut früh und jetzt geht's los mit ein bisschen backen für meine Rasselbande!! 

Servus bis nächstes mal.