Adelaide Urban Food Mosaic

31/05/2024

This was the day before yesterday!! Harvesting pumpkins before the rain. Some impressive Queensland Blues and a decent crop of Butternuts. Time for some pumpkin soup … it’s certainly the weather for it.

31/05/2024

This was yesterday - a great day! 😁 Firstly RAIN … our first decent Autumn rain. Hooray!
Secondly, much excitement with the arrival of my new Greenhip overalls. I’ve been looking at these for about 2 years, but hesitant to purchase online without trying on. However, in the past 2 weeks, all three of my “old fav” gardening pants have decided to retire in the most inelegant manner 😂😂 Guess I’ve had my $’s worth as they were > 10-15 yo 🙃
These Greenhip overalls are so so comfortable! I’m in love with them ❤️. Very well designed & awesome quality, but now I don’t want to get them dirty 😂

31/05/2024

This is today 😁 … making things with quince. First up a “quick” quince and apple relish with some delicious spices. However, the cookbook should change the name to “not-so-quick” 😂. And I have a batch of quince paste cooking away in the Thermomix. Yay for rainy days.

23/05/2024

Finally managed to plant the last of my late variety garlics today 🙌.
Total of 286 cloves, 10 different varieties.
Majority planted on 11th April (early varieties) and 20th May (late varieties). The early plantings are looking good with great germination rates.
One of my favourite things to grow. ❤️

18/05/2024

Olive processing in stages. I’m using the Milkwood recommended water rinse and brining method.
It’s been a continuous process since early April as I’ve harvested in three stages - 2x Frantoio harvests and 1x Manzanillo.
My first 2 batches are now resting in their 10% brine for 2+ months. The Manzanillo’s are being water rinsed for 2-3 weeks (water changed every 2 days).
Total harvest about 4.5kg.
And then I couldn’t help myself … I bought a Jumbo Kalamata tree as well. Might take a few years before I can add these to the olive mix. 😂

21/04/2024

A little holiday project- creating name tags for my fruit trees & other perennials. Finally solving the frustrating problem of my sieve-like memory 🤪
Fifteen made & approx. 45-50 to go! So far there are no spelling errors or upside down / back to front letters. 😅
And before you wonder …. yes, I can tell the difference between apples, apricots, plums etc!! But as I have numerous varieties of each, I forget which varieties are which 🙄

20/04/2024

A relatively modest crop of Tahitian limes this year, but still enough to share with friends and dehydrate a batch for my G&T’s 💚

19/04/2024

My latest ever annual tomato sauce making day! Had a glut of delicious home grown tomatoes in early March, but no time to make sauce. So I washed, cut, weighed and bagged them into “sauce sized” batches & threw them in the freezer.
Finally today I turned them into sauce. Yay!!
Defrosted tomatoes lose their texture, but if they’re being cooked into sauce it doesn’t matter. And the flavour is still fine if they’re only frozen for a short time.
🍅 🍅 🍅

13/04/2024

My best season yet for quinces from this great little tree. I estimate more than 30 big fruit. They smell delicious - so floral. Half harvested & hopefully the other half will survive without rat attack for the next week or two.

15/02/2024

Better late than never …. Finally harvested my spuds. They were ready in December but life got in the way & I had to choose between harvesting garlic or spuds pre-Christmas. Luckily spuds are happy hanging out in the soil. But note to self …. It’s much easier to dig through early Summer soil rather than late Summer, baked earth 🙄 So I’m sure there are plenty of spuds left awaiting a second digging.
But 42 kg today is a pretty good effort from a 12m x 0.75m patch.
Check out the size of some of those Spuntas 🥔

12/02/2024

A quick whip around my little farm this morning before the heat set in. Quite a nice haul … and of course I had to include the obligatory, over-sized zucchini or three 🙄

02/01/2024

Did not expect to be making apricot jam on the 2nd of January!! 🙃
Based on their status in mid December (hard, green rocks), I guesstimated they’d be ripe more than a week later than average. However, they’re at least a week early. And it hasn’t even been hot here ….. it’s a mystery. 😁

17/12/2023

My first zucchini of the season …. from seedlings planted only 3 and a 1/2 weeks ago!! Madness 🙃
They really only had 1 or 2 true leaves at planting, but the warm, wet weather really got them pumping.

16/12/2023

Well our crazy season continues … usually by now my Early Abundance fig is past its’ first crop. This year, this is the sum total of the first crop - one huge hand sized fig, but luckily the tree is loaded with its’ main crop. 💜

28/11/2023

I always marvel at nature’s amazing creations - so many colours and patterns. Here are a few snaps from from my little farm recently.
I’m not sure whether these bugs are “goodies” or “baddies”, but as they weren’t excessive in number, I left them be. 🐞

24/11/2023

Yesterday was my D day for planting Summer (late) seedlings - come rain, hail or shine. Turns out it was rain 🤪 … the first we’ve seen in about 6 weeks.

But hooray - I planted tomatoes, capsicums, eggplants, cucumbers & zucchini’s - being very careful to have “no toes on the rows” to avoid soil compaction.

Photo of my jeans after about 5mm rain.
Photo of my jacket after about 12mm rain - soaked to the core, water streaming down my face & clothes into my squelchy shoes.
Note to self …. next time don’t keep phone in sodden pocket. It wasn’t great.

But the best bit is by this morning we’d received 23.5mm rain 🌧️🙌🙌

22/11/2023

Yay for second season tomatoes 🍅
I always overwinter my tomatoes. Some don’t survive, a few fruit all year round and others just hang on through the cold months and burst forth with new fruit as soon as the weather warms up.
I’ve just harvested 2kgs of delicious cherry tomatoes. A nice treat while I wait for current season toms to catch up.

21/11/2023

You know Summer is around the corner when the early ripening “Fireball” apricots are ready.
There’s nothing better than the taste of home grown apricots 🧡

18/11/2023

What do you do on the weekend if you’ve harvested 450gm of raspberries on Thursday & have been given some delicious homegrown blueberries?
…. make berry jam, of course!!
Then I popped back to my little farm in the afternoon and harvested another 300gm of raspberries 😁😁
Not bad from a 2m row …. very productive with quite a few more still to ripen.

17/11/2023

With a little bit of effort, I’ve managed to plant some late corn, melons & pumpkins. 🙌
Don’t tell anyone it’s actually my first (& late) planting for the season 🤪.
Forgot to take a “before” photo, but it pretty much looked like the rest of the background - overgrown self seeded & now bolting greens, old broad beans etc.
Anyway, it feels good to finally start taming the mini jungle!!
And my little garden helpers came right up to my shoes to eat the best bugs 😁

15/11/2023

I love the way a pomegranate tree looks like a self-decorated, early Christmas tree at this time of year. Not quite the right shape, but hey - it’s got red baubles! 🎄

09/11/2023

So this happened last night!
What a fabulous gathering of local foodies.

The SA Urban Food Network hosted Stories of Local Food at The Wheatsheaf.
So much effort invested by our main organiser, Kahlia, with assistance from the rest of our small team of volunteers, made this a night to remember.
The show was a sell out, over 80 people attending to listen to 10 awesome stories.
It’s so great to sit, relax, make connections and hear some of the great things going on in SA’s local food scene.

If you’re in South Australia and not a member (it’s free!) of SA Urban Food Network yet … check it out.

08/11/2023

Another berry delicious kinda day 😁
The last of the mulberries & early cherries, with the first of the Summer raspberries. It’s looking like a bumper crop of raspberries too. Yum!

07/11/2023

Yay for early cherries 🍒💗
… they surprise me each year! These were harvested 5th November. About a week earlier than last year.

Unfortunately a very small crop. I think we must’ve had a frost not long after fruit set as I could quite a few shrivelled teeny tiny fruit.

Lovely & sweet. Dual grafted Minnie Royal & Royal Lee with low chill hours. Purchased from Daley’s & I highly recommend for the Adelaide Plains!!

30/10/2023

Looking for something to do on Thursday 9th November? This is going to be an awesome evening of all things “local food”. Come & join us!!

Get tickets on Humanitix - Our Stories of Local Food. Wheatsheaf Hotel. Thursday 9th November 2023. Find event information.

29/09/2023

With impending school holidays, it was a mad rush to sort things that I’ve procrastinated about for ages 🤪 …. So this week I’ve:
- dehydrated the last of the winter limes and oranges
- made apple sauce with the last of the daggy old apples …
- dehydrated approx 40 garlic heads (to be turned into powder) …these were the ones where the cloves are too small to be “easy use” in every day cooking. Needless to say it was PAINFUL peeling all those small / tiny cloves 🤪

26/09/2023

The divine smell of orange blossom. 🧡
If only I could bottle it!!

22/09/2023

Citrus Gall Wasp ….

I have 9 citrus trees in my patch: Lime (Tahitian), Orange (Navel, Valencia, Arnold’s Blood), Mandarin (Japanese seedless, Clementine, Emperor) and Lemon (Lisbon, Eureka).
They’re all in varying states of requiring pruning, feeding, pest control &/or harvesting 😁
Yesterday I managed to go on a Citrus Gall Wasp hunt. Now’s the time whilst they’re still in the galls, before they hatch.
Luckily only my lime had a minor infestation - so I cut them off. They’re now solarising before being disposed in the red bin.

21/09/2023

A little bowl of Mulberry goodness.

This is the first year I’ve had a decent crop to harvest with more on the way. They’re not super sweet though.
Maybe they need more water? Maybe just tree age will help? Or maybe I should’ve researched varieties in greater depth?
Who is successfully growing mulberries in Adelaide?

10/09/2023

As well as admiring my orchard yesterday, I also checked to see how my unsupported broad-beans survived the windy, stormy weather of the prior days.
Luckily they’re planted close to the fence so they held up OK.
But I also noticed the pretty flowers I’d patiently ignored have become broad beans!! Yay!! Now to find 101 things to do with broad beans 😁