wild yeast and lavender jelly

This October the Crop & Swap began its 2nd season, with over 80 swappers attending, spirits were high and produce was bountiful. Rhubarb champagne, home-baked triple choc cookies, raspberries, broad beans, oranges, lemons, home-made calico print bags, muesli, sourdough and heaps of seedlings were on show. In the lead up to the opening of season 2 we wanted to kick off the swap with a bang. As well as our regular garden produce we decided to try our hand at lavender jelly and sourdough. They were a hit!

our crop & swap produce, silver beet, broad beans,seedlings, potatoes, eggs, sourdough and lavender jelly

A few weeks ago, on an otherwise busy Thursday, I ignored the breakfast dishes with half eaten bowls of porridge, I strode over the unswept morning tea picnic left overs under the kitchen table and confidently donned my martha stewart-esqe apron, declaring to my 4 month old "mummy is making lavveeeennnndeerr jellyyyyy! That's right, you heard me, now don't interrupt, its all in the timing!"

Lavender Jelly Ingredients:

3 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup dried lavender flowers
1 50g box powdered pectin
4 cups granulated sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice

I successfully started the process using the lavender from our garden that I had dried out and stirred it into boiling water to get the oils and colour out of it. Then I left it to steep for some time, strained it and then added the lemon juice and pectin and continued to stir. Bringing the mixture to the boil and I then added sugar,  and when it reached a hard, 'rolling' boil, I left it for 3 mins, stirring occasionally.

The way to tell if your jam is going to set is to have a glass of iced water, place a metal spoon in it, then put it in your jam mixture and let it cool. If it is thick when cool, it is ready.

Pour your jelly mixture into prepared hot and sterilised jars.

our lavender jelly
 

I thoroughly enjoyed making lavender jelly but have to say I was disappointed with the lack of lavender colour. Other lavender jellies that I had seen were shades of lilac, deep purple and even a gorgeous pink. The initial mixture after steeping the flowers is quite greyish, it is after adding the lemon all of a sudden your greyish mix turns a brilliant .... orangey pink...not quite the purple hues I was planning.
After a little more research I have discovered that ppl sometimes put other ingredients in their lavender jelly to provide the colour, or they use a really rich long dried lavender that must retain its colour much better... either way I have a plan for making more and adding a mulberry or two next time, I figure that will do the trick, Martha and I and even bub (who did interrupt me a lot by the way, thank goodness I have mastered the art of stirring a pot, burping a baby, singing to a toddler, chatting on the phone, making vegemite sandwiches and monitoring glass jars in the oven, all at once ;)...go make some lavender jelly, you'll love it!


Chasing Wild Yeast

after our first season at the Crop & Swap, we came to know a couple who made the most amazing sour dough bread. the crust was crunchy, the inside was soft and the flavor kept us coming back for another slice. We realised that making our own sour dough was something worth doing, and so, we made our own sour dough starter.

date, caramel and coffee sour dough

Making your own Sour dough starter

Sour dough starter is used instead of regular bakers yeast to make the bread rise. It is simply  a mixture of flour, water and wild yeast. The process is very simple. mix together about 200g of flour with 300 ml of water and take it for a walk while whisking, for a couple of minutes. We took ours for a walk in the front garden to make it a truly home made sour dough starter. As you whisk the mix, wild yeast from the atmosphere settles on the mix and begins the fermentation process. As a result, every starter will be unique.

once you have finished whisking, cover the bowl with cling wrap and leave on the kitchen bench over night. By morning, you should notice some bubbles on the surface of the mix. If so, give yourself a pat on the shoulder, you've successfully started your own sour dough starter. for the following week, feed your starter with a cup of flour mixed with water each day. After a week, the yeast culture is strong enough to be used in bread making.

Each day or two, feed your starter with a cup of flour mixed with water to keep it healthy. store it at room temperature, or in the fridge if you are going on holidays... some psycho's take it with them. by the way, yes, you can pour some out when you have too much... you don't have to keep it all.



Making Sour Dough

You can make it as fancy or as simple as you like by adding other ingredients to spice up your bread.

Step 1
add 250g of flour, 350ml of water and one cup of your sourdough maker, mix, cover with cling wrap and leave overnight. Alternatively, you could make it in the morning and leave it until the afternoon.

Step 2
add 300g of flour and a teaspoon of salt. kneed the mixture for 15minutes, sprinkling flour on it as you go if its too sticky. there should be enough dough for 2 loaves. split the dough, shape it, slash the top with a very sharp knife, and leave to rest on a baking tray for an hour or more. we cover ours with a plastic bag. Somewhere warmish is best. If its freeing cold, heat some water in a pot and lay the tray on top of the pot. Just make sure its warm, rather than boiling hot.

Step 3
place in a hot oven (160 - 180 c) for about 45 minutes. to make the crust nice and crusty, place a bowl of water inside the oven also. once cooked, allow the loaves to air, so that they don't sweat.... or, just eat them hot out of the oven. deeeeelicious!

olive sour dough...mmm...mmm

So there you have it, our top secrets for lavender jelly and home-made sourdough. In our next blog we will get grubby with our composting and give the ladies (with feathers) a new chateau...

Cows and Kimono's

Staying With a Little Black Cow

Last year we received an exciting invitation to attend "The Little Black Cow" farmstay from one of our fellow bloggers, Kim. She had kindly invited our family to stay free of charge for a trial run of their new farm stay in the beautiful Hunter Valley. Arriving on Friday evening, as we drove our station wagon through the farm gates, packed to the hill with gumboots and our farmiest farm clothes, we were all very excited. There ahead, down the long, dusty drive, past the quaint tree- lined creek sat "The Little Black Cow" Farmstay, amidst paddocks that were peppered with beautiful Angus cattle. Unlike our 750 sq metered suburban frontyard farm, this was the real deal, a real, working farm.

After meeting our lovely hosts and unpacking the car we donned our farmer's hats and were put promptly to work, job no 1, a trip in the jeep to herd the cattle and shift the electric fence. We've all wizzed past a paddock of cows on the freeway but standing within arm's reach, with only a thin electric cable between you and 50 Angus cows and their two tonne and somewhat territorial bull, can  get the suburban heart pumping.

 But in true country style Kim's 11 year old son made light work of rounding them up on his dirt bike sending the herd thundering off into the next paddock... There is something beautiful about a cow, maybe it's the eye lashes, maybe it's the glossy coat or the lazy moo cow stare they seem to give (which is quite different to the way a bull stares at you) that makes them so endearing as they munched the grass a foot away from us.

As David and I shifted the electric fence, walking through knee high lucerne, I was tempted to ask him a question about bovine that had been on my mind for many years... can cows really explode? Instead, I decided to ask about the growing patterns of lucerne (so as not to reveal my grose urban stupidity). David is a wealth of knowledge, and we learned a lot from him on our trips about the farm on the jeep.

As the sun set on our first afternoon, we returned to the homestead for a traditional country meal and glass of wine with Kim and David, before retiring to our very comfortable beds. Next morning, Kim and the kids herded the sheep into their paddock, collected eggs from the chooks, and played with the Guinea pigs and rabbits. Kim showed us how to milk Honey the goat, and we each had our chance to show Kim a thing or two about how NOT to milk a goat.

We had a great time at The Little Black Cow Farm Stay, and it was wonderful meeting Kim and David, who are so passionate about sharing life on the farm and the experiences that come from it. One day soon, we would love to visit the Little Black Cow farmstay again, and maybe this time, Joe will muster the courage to ask David about exploding cows.


Summer Rain

Back on our own enormous 750 sqm metre farm, the relentless wet summer had brought good times and bad in the vegetable patch. The endless rain has brought us gluts to gloat over, and the odd minor gardening tragedy too. This season we have had an especially good crop of tomatoes. Planting a selection of heirloom tomatoes, we have enjoyed the most colourful mix of green zebras, tommy toe, black russian cherry, orange juan-flamme, beautiful yellow lemon drops, and brown berry and other varieties. For the backyard farmer, the smaller varieties are worth their weight in gold. Ripening faster, they provide an ongoing supply and are less prone to pest damage. They taste fantastic and provide a colourful array for any salad.

just out of reach!

Our cucumbers also had a bumper crop, yielding about 60 fruits from 3 vines. Unfortunately though, they fell prey to the dreaded giant extra spotty lady beetle, which devoured the vines in a matter of weeks. Unlike their smaller cousins, the larger variety of lady beetle are not so friendly, and should be squished on sight. They eat the leaves of cucumbers working in circles until their is nothing but a lacy skeleton of the leaf remaining.

unlady like lady beetles

Our crookneck zucchini's could not withstand the powdery mildew without the dry weather and consequently shrivelled up prematurely but still gave a good yield while they lasted. Whilst we are on the topic of tragedies, our store of broadbeans (several hundred) were discovered by a barbaric hoard of field mice and seemingly disappeared over night. Joe was devastated! The little buggers took every single last one.

But on the upside, we have new cucumber vines fruiting and a new crookneck fruiting as well. Just goes to show its worth doing a second round of seedlings in early summer.

New to the Patch

With our Crop  and Swap (food Swap) well under way, we have been discovering so many new varieties of foods that grow well in the mountains, and it has provided us with the unique opportunity  to grow some new plants in the patch. We now have loads of Comfrey (from Cath) that we use to feed the chookens, as well as for liquid fertilizer (amazing stuff). Our Jerusalem Artichoke is growing extremely well and looks to promise a good harvest, and we tasted our very first home grown cape gooseberry,  which we planted some months ago thanks to Jane and Peter (neighbours that attend the Crop & Swap). Our choko vine is running wild and making light work of covering our fenceline, and our pumpkin vines are doing laps of the frontyard, but perhaps our most  intriguing new edition to the garden is a plant called Yacon.

Young Yacon plant

Yacon is a root vegetable, which grows in a similar fashion to Jerusalem artichoke, although the tubers are high in a sugar known as inulin. It can be eaten fresh, is said to be crisp and sweet, like an apple.The tubers can be grated to extract the juice, which is then reduced to make a sweet syrup similar to molasis. Most interesting of all is that the sugars in yacon are not absorbed by the body, so its sweet to eat, but doesn't contribute any unsightly kilos. Our plant is growing well, and if all goes well, we will trial making some Yacon syrup and let you know how it goes.



Crop and Swap Continues to grow

Our local food swap, the Crop and Swap, is going from strength to strength. Every second Saturday of the month we have been meeting with around 60 other locals who grow or make their own food. Now with our 5th swap on the doorstep it has been so rewarding to see the variety, creativity and quality of homegrown or home-made produce. Although no money changes hands at the swaps, a unique bartering currency has developed. We are able to access items that money can't buy. You can't go to your local shops and buy Peter and Amber's artisan sourdough, nor Miriam and Russel's honeycomb fresh from their hive, or Melanie and Alexander's pink rhubarb champagne.


















Likewise, another benefit for us is knowing that our organically grown potatoes, heirloom tomatoes, eggs, cucumbers, zucchinis and  macadamia nuts aren't just enjoyed by our own family, they are being shared amoungst our local community.

Our homegrown produce at last months swap

The Crop and Swap has opened up an exchange not only of goods but ideas, local knowledge and resources. From these exchanges we've discovered local secrets...apple trees down quiet laneways, when to forage for local mushrooms and who to ask for advice on fruit trees. It's conversations like these that have got a whole neighbourhood talking again....it seems though that someone has been doing more than their fair share of talking, as news of the Crop and Swap has reached the shores of Japan...last week we were contacted by a Japanese ecological magazine called Konichiwa who want to write an article about the swap...consequently now that we are internationally acclaimed superstars, Joe refuses to be seen in the garden in anything less than a pure silk kimono...and gucci riding boots... Not to mention a large pair of Audfrey Hepburn sunglasses in case the paparazzi pop out from behind the choko's, or Google earth decide to update their satellite images.

take that grasshopper!

A shout out to Brad and Ange... we know youre reading.

Ask Your Neighbour for some Sugar!

The First ever Crop and Swap

Now that a few weeks have passed and the dust has settled on our very first local community food swap, we can take stock of its success in a more level headed and objective fashion, without getting all swept up in the giddy pandemonium of positive community spirit that might otherwise blurr our judgement.... Objectively speaking, the first ever Crop and Swap was bloody fantastic! Absolutely Amazing! Awe inspiring! and sooooo much fun!

As we arrived at the community hall to set up, the golden shafts of sunlight were just beginning to warm the  cool mountain air, and it looked set to be a beautiful day. Inside the hall we set up the Crop & Swap banner, a registration desk, a circle of hessian sacks on the floor (the swapping circle), tea and coffee, and a resource table (where locals could bring magazines, tools, or any other resources to share).

We had no idea how many people to expect and thought a modest 25 or so would attend. By 9:30 people started to arrive, and by 10:30am, we had over 80 people in the hall, bringing all manner of home grown and home made produce. Baskets full of garden greens, mulberries, macadamia nuts, mushrooms, seedlings and seeds, beetroots and bread, jams, eggs, honey and even cheese! we met so many fantastic people, and it was fascinating seeing what people brought to swap.

At the end of a hard days swapping

Swappers had come from all over the mountains and even as far as eastern Sydney. The atmosphere was honestly electric, and it was simply a pleasure watching others make swaps, get chatting, exchange numbers and begin building a vibrant community network before our very eyes.

ok, ok, pass me lettuce leaf to dry my eyes, while I mop up the oil spill of community mojo before someone slips over and blows all our public liability. I'll stop wobbling on and on about how wonderful it was, and get down to the nitty gritty; How did it work and what was swapped?

After everyone registered, they chose a mat in the swap circle to display their produce, and then grabbed a tea or coffee, had a chat, and spied on what others had brought to swap.  At 10:30 the swapping began, and people made swaps independently with one another.

Our own swap mat started with broad beans, macadamia nuts, silver-beet, nasturtiums, two dozen eggs, three bottles of worm wee and bunches of parsley. We brought home a super yummy medlar fruit sauce, baby garlics, snow peas, Thai mint and rosemary seedlings, kefir, heaps of mint, oranges, sage, rocket, dwarf beans and baby spinach. Swapping with neighbours beats shopping at Coles any day of the millennium!

What is most exciting about being involved in a local food swap is the way it reinvigorates the connections between neighbours, builds local knowledge, and makes a community more empowered by sharing skills, resources and of course, good food, which is a common bond for us all. Just about everyone walked away thinking, "Right! what can I bring next month that is knock your socks off amazing" or "wow, I'm going to have a crack at growing that in my garden", or atleast, "mmmm... that home baked apple tart smelled delicious"...(that's what I was thinking). We all felt motivated to be more resourceful. But most important of all,, was the fact that it gave us the opportunity to share what we had with others, and without getting all mushy, it seems to me, that in a society where we have more than we need, sharing is oddly something we seem to do less often than we should. Its true what they say, that the fun is in the giving. I think this is why the Crop and Swap will hopefully continue to be a success.

Sorry, pass me another lettuce leaf........

Gourd Almighty!

Our next Crop and Swap is only a week away, and we have been busy preparing our produce. Today Jo made jars of raspberry and Logan berry jam, and in the garden, our carrots and beets are ready or plucking, as well as potatoes, silverbeet and lettuce. But our prize swapping item for this month is our crookneck zucchini! They look totally out of this world! With yellow warty looking skin, they may at first seem less appetizing than the regular zuke. But they taste great, and are incredibly productive. Crookneck Zucchini are one of the most prolific zucchini's and grow as a bush instead of rambling along a clumsy vine like some uncivilised courgettes tend to do.

the crookneck's in the patch

Jo's raspberry and Logan jam

Our beets have been growing particularly well in the raised mounds.

The Garlic Wars

Garlic is glorious! It tastes fantastic, keeps you and your chookens super healthy (just add it to their porridge), and wards of vampires and fair weather friends. But Alas, there simply isn't enough of it grown here in Australia, and we are doomed to purchase foreign garlic from the other side of the world that has been fumed with fungicides, and is months, if not years past its used by date.

our hard neck garlic

I don't know if you have experienced the same, but the store bought imported garlic has recently taken a major nose dive. More often than not, upon cracking open a fist full of garlic, we have found it to be mouldy and rotten. Home grown garlic stores incredibly well for 6 or more months, so it makes one wonder how old our imported garlic is....



Well, we have a plan. Our aim next February is to plant as much garlic as our garden will hold, after the equinox, as is the tradition. I became very excited recently when one of our hard neck garlic bulbs went to seed last week. With dreams of replanting the seed and becoming a major global exporter of garlic from our very own front yard, I started to become deluded with garlicky grandeur,  only to find out after some research that they rarely grow true to type from seed, and even if they do, it takes 2 years before you can harvest them. bugger!

 Needless to say, we can still plant the bulbs, and in time, our plans of world garlic domination may one day still become a reality. Garlic is easy to grow. Prepare the soil before planting with compost or manure. plant the cloves about 10cm apart, pointy end up, about 5cm beneath the soil. There are many varieties, but are largely divided into soft neck and hard neck varieties.

We are looking for volunteers to enlist in our guerrilla garlic war. So if you too are sick of bad imported garlic, join the ranks and plant some garlic in your patch this Autumn. Who's with us?!!!

The Crop & Swap

The Big Swap

Our old neighbours in Umina, David and Nancy, are 86 and still gardening. Surprisingly their passion for veggie gardening was only really ignited three years ago when David first happened to hang over the fence and notice our two small raised garden beds. At the time we grew lettuce, spinach, shallots, carrots and garlic...that was it.  Unbeknown to us David was incredibly fit and competitive for an 83 year old. Within 2 weeks he had single handedly built 4 garden beds twice the size of ours, researched green manures,planted  ten times the amount of vegetables than we did, and to top it off would hang himself by the ankles in his garage to improve circulation...we're not kidding (it was a disconcerting sight to behold).

Anyway, in time it seemed perfectly normal, and after many gardening tips had been exchanged over the fence and summer was drawing to a close, David had accumulated more cucumbers than any retiree needed and so, handed us a big bag of them over the fence (we have never had luck with cucumbers). It only seemed natural to give him something in return. Later that evening we left a bag of our lettuce on their doorstep, without even realising it at the time, we had made our first neighbourly produce swap. From that point on we became good friends. Just as with any friendship, it's the act of sharing that brings people together.

Joe and I got talking later that night about how neighbourhoods can be lonely places. We didn't know anybody else in our street after having lived there for a over year and no doubt this is a common experience in many neighbourhoods. A small seed had germinated.

When my sister and her husband moved to the mountains a year ago we got talking. We wanted to unite our interests in gardening and the community. After many a Thursday night dinner, bottles of red wine and enthusiastic banter, the idea of the "Crop & Swap" was born.

This November we are beginning a community fruit and veg swap at our local hall. Just as we had done with David and Nancy, neighbours can swap home-grown fruit and veg and maybe even home-made breads, teas, seedlings, seeds and recipes. but more importantly, neighbours can meet each other, make friendships and share those all important gardening tips about varieties that grow in their local climate, or chat over a chamomile or peppermint tea, grown a stones throw away. We are excited to see how the idea develops and hopefully it will grow into something vibrant and positive!

The Big Sell
Between now and November we want to drum up as many followers as possible. This weekend we are doing our first covert crop & swap advertising operation. Just like David, we too will be spying over neighbours fences, sussing out who has a veggie patch  or a laden lemon tree then drop a flyer in their letter box. Flyer's will be going up in all the cool local cafes, and we are even thinking of putting an add in the local rag. We have already started a ''Crop & Swap" blog (http://www.cropandswap.blogspot.com/) where people can get more information about dates and details. The Blue Mountains already has a vibrant interest in growing fruit and veg with groups such as the slow food movement, the fruit and nut tree society, the permaculturalists and the seed savers. With this sort of enthusiasm, we're hoping the Crop & Swap will thrive.

With the Crop & Swap deadline looming we have been busy preparing the garden to have produce ready to swap by November. The front yard has undergone a major garden makeover...we will be back soon to tell you all about it.