Watermelon Summer

We've never tried to grow watermelons........Tasmania's climate is just too cool to try growing things like that - we thought. A couple of months ago Bob came home from a trip to the nursery with a couple of melon seedlings....."to throw in the greenhouse and see what happens". No expectations. Well, it did happen! One day I was watering in there and a saw several large, green, globular objects.....MELONS! They had seemingly appeared overnight.

I had no idea about how to tell when they were ripe, so they just sat there looking green and smug, swelling slightly by the day. then someone told me to knock them, and when they sound hollow, they are ripe. So I did that, and with great trepidation harvested the first one last night.....and I must say it was astounding - so delicious!

Grandson Laurence about to take the first-ever bite!

And here are a couple of little projects I have completed in the last little while.

With some friends!

Did I ever mention that I love my job?

A Hint of Autumn

As a bountiful summer draws to a close, we have had the odd hint of what is in store, with a few cooler nights and a little rain. The garden is producing magnificently, with a lot of it preserved for use during the winter. The garden, in our mild climate, does keep producing food right through winter, but the saved summer vegetables make a welcome change from cabbage, parsnips, turnips and carrots!
Here's what we had last night........all of it from our garden and cooked within minutes, except the eggs in the zucchini slice (thinks: must do something about the chicken and egg situation before next summer!) Simple, but delicious.

Meanwhile, work in the studio carries on apace.......I sometimes feel a bit snowed under with orders etc, but I try to keep on top of it. Only one pair of hands though! I have decided this year, to enter some things in the Exeter Show, because it is the centenary show and it is a long time since I entered anything (probably about thirty five years, actually). I also think it is a good idea to try and support local happenings. Most of my work is sold overseas, so lots of the locals have no idea what I get up to. I thought having an Open Studio day a few times a year might be a good idea, too. Here's what I'm working on right now: 

..........choosing from the stash of old lace and fabrics for something suitable to wear!

OK - updating with a couple more pictures of the finished dress......

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Summer Produce

We are really reaping the benefit of all the effort put into improving our vegetable garden - produce coming out of our ears! It is a great feeling to be able to almost by-pass the fresh produce section of the supermarket and to be able to go out into the garden and pick fresh what will be needed for the evening meal.
Beautiful, pungent, glossy-fresh blackcurrants, destined to become blackcurrant jelly:

And aromatic, tangy, zesty tomatoes, so unlike the tasteless object known as a "tomato" that is available in stores. Store tomatoes only LOOK like tomatoes - in no way is the flavour the same as these home-grown beauties! These will be made into tomato relish. I have so many this summer that I should be able to bottle some and make sauce as well.

More Eating Fresh!

Here's what I harvested and cooked for myself last night, continuing my mini-challenge to only eat what is in the garden...........well, OK, I cheated a little with the dessert - I didn't grow the watermelon, but it was already in the 'frig, so it seemed wasteful to let it spoil and have to throw it out. BTW, the blackberries and raspberries with the watermelon drizzled with lemon juice and a sprinkling of sugar were divine!  The main course consisted of oven roasted potatoes (pink firs), beetroot and parsnips - they were roasted in fabulous olive oil from a local grower (Lentara Olives) along with carrots with parsley and creamed spinach with garlic. It was very tasty!

For those of you who live locally, I will be teaching a one-day "Making Zozie" workshop on March 26th at Calico Crossroads here in Exeter a couple of weeks before I leave for an overseas teaching trip. (More about that in a future post.) Contact Pauline for details - I think there is room for a couple more. This workshop is great fun and you will end up with a unique little doll to keep or give away as a gift to someone special.

Random Thoughts On Doing It Yourself

I've always been a firm adherent of a kind of do-it-yourself, make-it-yourself, grow-it-yourself kind of philosophy as far as is humanly possible. I think that is why I am really attracted to the idea of making my living totally from what I can create with my own hands.

I am fairly anti fast food and I try not to buy much food that comes from a long way away. Having said that, I am not obssessed to the idea of total prohibition - I just like to keep my consumption as local as possible and as home-grown as possible. In the past I have kept goats (for meat, milk and hair), sheep (for meat and wool), chickens and ducks (for eggs) and may do so again in future, but at the moment we are growing a good array of vegetables in our home garden. I love being able to pile a plate up with home-grown goodies, that I know have had no pesticides or other nasties applied to them and which have been grown using only organic fertilizers. I also bake......bread, biscuits (the cookie kind) cakes etc.

Together, we also like to make things for our house ourselves from soft furnishings to furniture and we generate much of our electricity from a roof-installed solar collection panels - we have six and we will, in future, add six more. We also heat our hot water with a solar system.
Next plan is to start collecting rainwater.

At the moment, after an unusually wet summer, I am eyeing off the mini-plague of plump little bunnies that are hopping around our yard as bold as brass - a few of those in the freezer might be nice! (To my sensitive overseas readers, you need to understand that rabbits are an introduced pest species in Australia and eradicating them is actually a good thing, even though they are mighty cute!) They are safe at the moment - I have no means of catching them ;-)

OK - long story short - I have three days at home by myself and I decided to try and buy almost nothing and only eat what was fresh in the garden as a little challenge. Here's what I cooked up for myself last night for dinner - all screaming fresh from the garden. It was heavenly, flavoured with fresh herbs and I didn't miss having a hunk of meat on the plate - I think I could almost live without it, actually (bunnies notwithstanding!)