Making yogurt

I make my own yogurt every week. There are lost of reasons why- it cuts the cost to less than $2 for 2 litres, one less thing I have to get from the supermarket and it tastes amazing. Because its so cheap I don't feel as bad using it in cooking and baking.

I use powdered milk, it's always in my cupboard so I can make it whenever. My method is pretty simple. I use my thermomix now but use to do it in a saucepan.

1. Whisk your powdered milk at a ration of 1 c milk powder to 3c water(check the instructions on the packet. I make up 2 litters.
2. Stir in 1/4 c of your favourite Greek yogurt.
3. Heat slowly to 37 degrees stirring off and on, hold at 37 degrees for 20 minutes.
4. In the mean time clean the jar or container you are going to use.
5. Pour the milk yogurt mixture into your jar, wrap with a tea towel and put in a warm spot for at least 8hrs. Check and taste your yogurt- if its good pop into the fridge. Remember to save enough yogurt for your next batch.

Garden Gobble

A lovely dinner of homemade cavatelli with local made salami, zucchini, garlic and tomatoes from my garden.

Starting seeds for Autumn and Winter

I'm a bit of a seed collector and if I were to hazard a guess I would say there would be close to 200 seed packets in my collection. You might say I have a problem - well maybe I do. I just love seeds! 

The variety of vegetables that come from seed are incredible. If I did't have the seeds to prove it I wouldn't believe nature could produce such works of art like Big Rainbow Tomato, Rosa Bianca Eggplant, Yugoslavian Red lettuce - I could go on forever. These are varieties you will never see in the supermarket(or maybe you will but they will be limp and sad) and I like the idea of growing things my  Grandpa or Grandma might have grown when they were younger (Grandpa always had the most amazing Garden). So without further ado here are a few of the varieties I have sown for Autumn and Winter.

I love Franchi seeds (I think the are my favorite), from the lovely packets to the amount of seed you receive and the germination rates are amazing. I get mine from "The Italian Gardener". Above is Di Jesi Cauliflower (it has a similar spiral pattern to Romanesco broccoli but more subtle), Verde Di Macerata Cauliflower, San Michelle Cabage, Nero di Toscana precoce Kale and D'inverno Nero Tondo a round black winter radish. Not pictured is another Franchi variety of cabbage I'm growing - Cour Di Bue Gross which is a conical cabbage.

Here is one of my San Michelle starts protected from Cabbage whites and puppy dogs.

Im growing the above chard variety Verde a Costa Bianca 2 which is noted as being a "2 in 1" crop as the stems of this variety are used in gratins and the leaves are of a softer texture than most other chard. Merlo Nero or blackbird is a spinach I'm growing anlong with another variety D'inverno Gigante and a flatted Beetroot Egitto Migliorata.

I also love "The Lost Seed", they have a huge variety of seed and great customer service. The Varieties are Perpetual Spinach, Long Island Improved Brussel Sprouts, Green Sprouting Broccoli, Early Jersey Wakefield Cabbage, Gold Ball Turnip, American Wonder pea bush and Waltham 29 Broccoli.

I pretty new to "Southern harvest seeds" but so far I really like them. Above is Purple podded Pea, Alderman Pea and Tasmania Butter Swede. I just put in another order for Celeriac, Superschmelz Kohl Rabi and Domenica Sweet Onion. 

I'm staring some seeds in root trainers, I have also just potted on my celery Dorati Di Asti.

These are the Cour Di Bue Grosso Cabbage I started them in old toilet rolls and some Rossa Lunga Di Frienze onion seedlings in the back ground.

So what seeds are you starting for your garden? I would love to hear what varieties every one has had success with as well.

P.s to any one in the Northern Hemisphere reading -who will be starting summer crops I would love to recommend a Tomato called Big Rainbow. This is a picture of mine at the moment, so productive and very tasty.

Harvest Monday - 11 February 2013

I have been too busy to weigh things these last few weeks, but here's a few photos of what my late summer garden is producing.

Cherry Tomatoes Galore, Australian Butter beans and plenty of Cucumbers to make bread and butter pickes with.

Beit Alpha Cucumbers, Little finger Eggplants, Eva Purple Ball Tomatoes, Blondkopfchen tomatoes and a Red Kuri pumpkin. The top right is my favorite spot in the garden it has colorful Zinnias, Beetroot and Chilli's. Bottom right is a Rosa Bianca Eggplant.

Here are my new Chooks, whoops looks like the front one has no head! No eggs so far, I can't wait for the eggs to start rolling in.

Harvest Monday, 28 January 2013

My garden is still providing us with lots of fresh summer food and I have been busy making pickles, relishes and sauces (as well as the odd jam). Heres whats good in the garden a the moment.

Big Black Russian Toms, yummy I think I will make some turkish bread today and have a BLT.

This is my late planted Big Rainbow, it is absolutely covered in Tomatoes, and heaps of flowers. The seeds are from the Diggers Club who say that one plant can produce 17kg !! I hope so.

These are the pumpkins I have picked. Some people say you should just wait for the vines to die down but these all seemed to be holding the vines back from producing more female flowers, so off they came.

Here is a shot of part of the pumpkin patch, there is now another 2 Australian Butters growing and another 5 or 6 Red Kuri's. We will have plenty of pumpkin for winter use.

Isis Candy is one of my favourite cherry tomatoes, they are sweet and juicy as well as prolific.

The Blue Ballet squash are doing well and the 2 extra plants I added at the end of December have both set their first fruit.

Very excitingly the chook shed was finished, so we are off today to buy some point of lay girls.

Here are my totals for the week.

Zucchini                                 3.160 kl

Tomatoes                                8.560kl

Cucumbers                             1.380 Kl

Sweet Corn                            1.250Kl

According to my spread sheet, from the start of January my garden has produced $695.41 worth of veggies! Crazy.
There was also Basil and parsley that I used to make dips and pesto with but I don't weight those (even though the are about $4.00 per bunch and I probably grabbed a couple of bunches)

Harvest Monday - 21 January 2013

Summer so far has been pretty good to my garden, we did have a 39 degree day(nothing compared to South Australia, they had 48!!!) that burnt a lot of my Tomatoes and Capsicums as well as toasting my Rattlesnake bean plants. Thats small fries when there are out of control bush fires in other parts of Victoria and all over Australia at the moment. There is some more hot weather coming up so I hope everyone is staying safe and cool.

So heres whats good in the garden at the moment.

My Pumpkins(this one is an Australian Butter type) are growing and setting fruit like mad, I decided to pull this guy off after he passed the fingernail test. It seemed like the vine was putting all its energy into this pumpkin and not into producing more female flowers so I picked him. Low and behold the vine produced 3 new female flowers shortly after and they are getting fatter every day.

Blondkopfchen, or Blondie as I call it is such a sweet tomato. It is heart shaped with a little nipple and gooseberry like veins. Its a multiflora type that produces masses of little flowers followed by a ridiculous number of these little guys.

This is one of many hundreds of sprays that the Blondkopfchen is putting out!

I currently have a massive stash of these lovely Beit Alphas in the fridge waiting on my new Ball Mason jars to arrive. Yum, bread and butter pickles galore.

The Black Cherries are abundant and so yummy.

and the Purple Beauty Capsicum are getting nice and big. Aren't they such a pretty colour?

These little Red Kuri are the perfect size for 2 people.

Its not all been good though, in late december i started noticing holes in a lot of my Tomatoes. Caterpillars - not only Caterpillars but mice too, Dang it all. So far I have managed to get rid of the Caterpillars with Dipel but the mice are not so simple. I have been picking the fruit as soon as they get colour, if  i leave it any longer all thats left the next day is a tomato skin.

But everything is looking lush and green an we haven't had to buy any Veggies since before Christmas. Whats growing in your garden at the moment?

Here are the totals

Beit Alpha Cucumber              1.52 Kilos

Costata Romano Zucchini        1.15 Kilos  

Tomatoes                                  3.59 Kilos

Green Beans                    260g

Capsicum                           240g

Corn                                990g

In case your wondering, i'm not going to add in my Pumpkins until they are all done. That will most likely be mid April.

Thanks for stopping by!

Tomatoes

With summer in full swing my Tomatoes have started to produce some delicious specimans.

 Tigerella's

 Jaune Flammee's

Japanese Black Trifles

All super fresh and yummy. Talk about low food miles, straight out of my back yard.