I grew up on a cattle property in the foothills of the Bunya Mountains north of Dalby in Queensland, where it was my father’s custom to burn off the old dry grass every spring prior to expected rain. Thus as children my sisters and I learned to light fires and, if necessary, to fight fires to keep them under control. We saw fire as a useful tool, but today many people fear fires due to the devastating bush-fires of recent years.

Ever since moving to the Granite Belt in 1992 we have made it a practice to burn off our grass land towards the end of winter to prevent a possible spring bushfire. At this time of year the air is cold and the ground damp so fires are more easily controlled than later when warm weather arrives. An account of the worst bushfire I have seen in our district is given in my book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine. That year the fire occurred in October when a strong Westerly wind brought down a wooden power pole on private land and grass was ignited. With a strong wind behind it the fire roared through the dry grass, crowned into the leaves of the eucalyptus trees, jumped the highway and sped through the ravines and across the hills to the east of us, destroying homes and taking the life of one woman. That night the same fire came upriver towards us barely kept under control by the volunteer Bush Fire Brigade, commonly known as ‘Bushies’. It was these men who decided the next day that because we had kept the land near our home clear that they should burn back from there to meet the fire. They were using fire as a tool to fight fire.

Also recounted in Wildflowers, wilderness and wine is the history of our friendship with Nick and Mary Jane Hese who first came to Das Helwig Haus B&B as guests in 1994. They became firm friends who offered us their assistance and knowing that Nick’s occupation was as a professional firefighter I enlisted his help the following August to burn our firebreaks. That day he arrived on his motor bike with his leather jacket sprinkled with snow. As not enough snow fell to wet the ground we were able to burn the land the next afternoon.

You will also find in Wildflowers, wilderness and wine an account of how Nick and Mary Jane later purchased their own land here on the Granite Belt where they often spend weekends. Once more Nick came this weekend to assist me with our burn-back.

Nick has lit the first fire

In the photo above Nick is seen walking ahead of the slow moving fire towards two large trees in the distance carrying water to douse their trunks.

Mature eucalyptus trees

Every year I protect these trees as the dry wood of their half dead trunks would easily catch fire. Then they would act as chimneys with the fire spreading up inside their hollow trunks until finally, burnt out from the inside, they would crash to the ground. Such aged trees as these provide many smaller hollow branches as nesting sites for parrots, homes for possums and hives for bees. They are also my example for younger generations of how this country appeared in 1876 when my Grandfather Hugh Mulcahy was born in Stanthorpe. The Granite Belt was then open forest country with the eucalyptus trees spaced this distance apart. I explain in Wildflowers, wilderness and wine how the introduced European bee went feral and established colonies in such mature trees. They then pollinated the eucalyptus blossom creating masses of fertile seed and with the cessation of Aboriginal burning the young seedlings flourished. Now the hills of the Granite Belt are covered in thick eucalyptus saplings which pose a tremendous fire threat.

Trixie in ashes

When there is sufficient body of grass, as there is throughout the district this year, a fire will burn cleanly leaving no untidy patches of dry grass. The Granite Belt and much of Queensland will face an extreme fire risk this spring and summer until the rains arrive, as there was no opportunity to burn off the grass in 2010. The last winter/spring/summer season gave us the wettest July to January months we have ever experienced in this district and the country was too wet to burn at the end of winter. Add to this another year of grass growth and we are sitting ducks for a major bush-fire unless we take preventative measures now.

Fire dragon

Using farm roads and mown firebreaks Nick moved along these using a fire dragon to ignite the dry grass. The fire dragon is a bottle of gas to which a hose is attached. Once lit, the gas feeds fire flaming from the end of the hose, but at the turn of a switch the gas fuel may be turned off.  Two years ago I was able to get assistance from the Bush Fire Brigade who sent a team to burn our land, but this year they have been overwhelmed with cries for assistance. As they are all volunteers this also means that they must give up their weekends to do such work. There are just not enough weekends in the season for them to manage all the necessary fires. Thus when the fire warden wrote out my fire permit, licensing me to burn our grass, he remarked how essential it was for as many farmers as possible to accept the responsibility of burning their land this year.

Mown fire-break

After lighting and containing the first fire behind our dwellings we moved around the southern side past our poultry pens and on towards the river. When this was well alight Nick carried the fire dragon down to the gully, near the eastern boundary fence between us and our Cannavo neighbours. Here he lit another fire to burn back towards the fire you see established in the photo above.

Burning back

This was a technique we repeatedly used throughout the afternoon. Nick would start a fire where there was a secure firebreak then move ahead of it to ignite another fire which would burn back to meet the oncoming fire.

Fire on dam wall

Our next move was to burn the grass land surrounding our farm dams, where the water provided another excellent fire-break.

Trixie

Meanwhile Trixie was having great fun chasing rabbits startled by the fire. Every so often she would wade into this dam to cool off and lap the water. She would emerge and once more run through the ashes covering her legs in black soot.

Beyond the dam

Once the dam wall had been burnt, Nick ignited another circle of fire along the water course and Mt. Stirling Road.

Fire seen through decidous willow trees

I then moved up to near the house to protect the row of Radiata pine trees. Fire will not harm deciduous trees such as the willows nor Eucalyptus trees but will quickly scorch the leaves and branches of pine trees. Once these pine needles are burnt they do not regrow like leaves and if a tree loses a large quantity of its needles it will quickly die. In previous years I had ‘lifted the skirt’ of these trees by trimming lower branches, but beneath them lay a ground cover of dry needles and grass.

Radiata pine trees

At the end of the day I was happy with our efforts and can relax now knowing that our land provides an extensive fire break around our home for the season ahead.

Wildflowers, wilderness and wine

Australians may purchase Wildflowers, wilderness and wine on my site www.australia-book.com.au. I arranged for 2,000 books to be printed and available for distribution here in Australia when I found the postage from the USA to Australia to be too expensive. My book was published in the USA by StrictlyLiterary. Anyone can purchase Wildflowers, wilderness and wine as a print on demand book or a PDF copy online at http://stores.lulu.com/strictlyliterary What my publisher likes about this service is that books are only printed when sold. The other advantage is that for only $5.00 anyone can download a PDF copy to read.

One of the reviews my book received said that it read like an adventure story because of the way I could recount such happenings as bush-fires and how the community rallied to assist those whose homes were threatened.

Vivian and Giles have now left me to continue their Australian travels in the sunny north of Queensland, but before leaving here Giles experienced our coldest morning since 2007 when we measured -8°C here at Glen Aplin on Tuesday 12th July. The Granite Belt of southern Queensland is the coldest district in the State which ensures that we truly experience all four seasons of the year. It is also the busiest tourism season of the year when weekend visitors from Brisbane arrive – not to feel the cold, but to experience the ambience of wood fires and hot Christmas in July dinners.

Wood smoke

We burn wood cut from trees on our farm – wood that needs to be cut and dried for at least a year before we are able to use it in our fires to warm our home. This year friends from the Danthonia Bruderhof situated near Inverell in NSW came to our assistance after the January floods had brought down eucalptus trees on our land.

Fallen tree

A group of workers from Danthonia spent a day here in May to clear flood debris from our fences and to cut up trees like this one brought down by the flood waters. They chain-sawed the tree into manageable portions and brought these up to the wood heap near our house. Then WWOOFer, Brad Ariss, arrived from Canada. Canadians, like Germans, know how to stack wood for drying. Brad split extra wood and stacked it to dry alongside our car shed.

Wood stacked to dry

If I were to ask most of my WWOOFers to stack wood I would firstly need to teach them the technique otherwise the stack would collapse when a stick was removed. It is one of those things that needs to be done correctly with all pieces sloping backwards.

Teaching WWOOFers skills is one of the things a WWOOF host expects to do. Thus during this past week I taught Giles and Vivian how to trim the Rosemary hedge edging the Remembrance Field. I set up a series of pegs with a tight string attached to show them the height I wanted them to achieve.

Trimming Rosemary

Afterwards all the trimmings were added to our compost bin.

Trimmed Rosemary

Note the bare trees near the house. These are our Pecan trees from which Brad harvested the nuts during May. Last Week Vivian helped me shell these nuts and that night I made Pecan Pies. This recipe makes sufficient filling for three pre-cooked tart shells.

• Pecan Pie Filling
• 6 eggs
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup Maple syrup
• 120g melted butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 3 cups Pecan nuts, roughly chopped.
• Cream the eggs and sugar together until light and frothy.
• Add Maple syrup, butter and vanilla. Beat well.
• Lightly fold in the Pecan nuts.
• Pour into cooked pie shells and bake in a moderate oven for 40 minutes.
• The filling should be brown and quite firm to touch.
• Optional: Half Pecan nut pieces may be added on the surface prior to baking for decoration.

A rich sweet like this is much appreciated by everyone for a winter dinner.

One of the lovely things about our winter is the remarkably blue skies we experience. These are often accompanied by chilly Westerly winds which blow all the moisture from the air, thus ensuring we will have a heavy frost the next morning.

Blue skies

This is the northern aspect of our house, most of which I planted with low foliage plants to create our own ecoclimate. As our winter sun travels from east to west across our northern sky the sunshine always falls on this veranda to warm our house. That tall foliage plant is one of the Banksias native to this region. Originally it was a tree that grew too tall, so I cut it down, only to have it sucker up in this bush shape. Now I must once more reduce its upper growth to prevent it shading the veranda.

Frosty Morning

This deciduous fig tree provides cooling shade during the summer, delicious fruit during the autumn and then after the first frost drops its leaves to allow the winter sun to warm our bedroom walls. I do not possess an orchard, rather I have incorporated our fruit and nut trees into the overall design of my garden.

I took this photo at sunrise yesterday morning 12th July 2011 when the ground temperature was -8°C and the frost was crunchy on the Mondo grass.

Actually, I was out before sunrise as I wanted to capture some views of this intensely cold morning.

Frost on the Remembrance Field

In this view you can see the frost thickly covering the soil of the Remembrance Field, frost over the Rosemary hedge and even frost on the hail-netting roof of the car parking shelter, where the grape vines were neatly pruned by Vivian and Giles.

Winter for me continues almost as busy as the other months of the year, but it is a time for maintenance and preparation for the seasons ahead. Have you purchased a print copy or downloaded a PDF of Wildflowers, wilderness and wine? I commence that story of a year in our lives here on the Granite Belt at the beginning of August as I plan the year ahead.

Wildflowers, wilderness and wine

Australians may purchase Wildflowers, wilderness and wine on my site www.australia-book.com.au. I arranged for 2,000 books to be printed and available for distribution here in Australia when I found the postage from the USA to Australia to be too expensive. Anyone can purchase Wildflowers, wilderness and wine as a print on demand book or a PDF copy online at http://stores.lulu.com/strictlyliterary What my publisher likes about this service is that books are only printed when sold. The other advantage is that for only $5.00 anyone can download a PDF copy to read. Perhaps they will enjoy it so much that they will then buy a printed copy to give as a gift.

A number of times friends have said to me, “I don’t know how you do it all!”

My response had frequently been, “With difficulty.”

In April I realized that I had to take some time off for respite and flew to Hong Kong where I spent the next four weeks enjoying this view.

Refreshed, I returned, with added zest and am now preparing to spend three days at FARMFEST near Toowoomba. See www.farmfest.com.au

Sunrise over Kowloon Harbour

Initially I booked a stall site at Farmfest to promote my book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine because a couple of years ago I had observed Jame McClean promoting his book When Bloods Enough at Farmfest.   Jame writes blood, guts and sex thrillers and he promotes himself as a Queensland outback author under the slogan ‘The Bush Fights Back’. Although the Granite Belt is hardly in the outback, we are in the bush and I believe my style of writing will also appeal to a country readership.

Jame McLean - The bush fights back

I then decided to take my SAP products along to test the market for them within this rural community. While I have had great sales selling packets of SAP crystals at market stands for use by home gardeners, there is the possibility of a much larger market for these water solubable crystals in agricultural use.

Boxed crystals

They are now widely used in agriculture in China. Farmers are incorporating the dry crystals into their soil before planting crops, like these tobacco crops I photographed in China. The couple of workers in the distance were watering individual plants, giving each one a cup of water. The gel absorbed this water and helped the plants get off to a thriving start. Then, the seasonal rains came and soaked the field. Any dry crystals absorbed the water ensuring continued moisture for the tobacco plants.

Tobacco crops in China

One of the questions I have frequently been asked at the local markets is, “What happens when the ground is waterlogged by too much rain?” I answer, “The gel absorbs water and expands, floating in the soil and preventing compaction of the soil, thus allowing the roots of plants  to breathe.”

This year I decided that I would create my own example of using the SAP in an agricultural situation, by incorporating it into the soil of The Remembrance Field. Prior to leaving for Hong Kong in April I had sprayed the immerging weeds on this field, but due to our wonderful, regular autumn rain and cool nights, the Flanders poppies germinated by the thousands. Too early! I saw this greening of the field as an opportunity. With the arrival of a Wwoofer – Willing Workers on Organic Farms -  I decided that he would plough in this crop of early poppies as a green manure crop. His name is Brad Ariss and he comes from Parry Sound in Canada. Firstly, Brad broadcast dolomite and water soluable gel across the swath of green poppy plants.

Brad broadcasting dolomite and SAP

Brad cultivating The Remembrance Field

Next he used our little Honda tiller to turn over the soil. When he had turned over the soil from east to west, he worked the field from south to north, thus incorporating the broadcast dolomite and SAP. Next time it rains the SAP will absorb moisture and retain moisture in our friable decomposed granite soil. Dolomite is not a fertilizer – it is a soil conditioner, which will ensure the rapid breakdown of the green manure crop.

When I advised my son, who had supplied me with a tonne of SAP from China of my intention to display and sell this product at Farmfest, he spoke to the salesman at the Chinese company from which he had sourced the product. He sent me this email today.

Hi Mum,

The factory is pretty excited you are going to Farmfest!

He attached this  correspondence

Subject: Re: Water Absorbing Crystal Polymer
Hi,

Thanks a lot for your email and info, message well noted, we wish you a fruitful show at Farmfest, and we await for your further instruction.   Let’s keep in touch. We will work closely and support you fully.We look forward to a successful partnership.

Should you have any further questions, pls. feel free to contact me.
Have a nice day
Kind Regards
Colin Yung
Manager

Now what did I say at the beginning of this post?  Yes, I had had to leave home for a month of respite.  No, at 71 years of age I don’t want to become an entrepreneurial saleswoman. So what is the solution. While selling SAP at Farmfest I am going to ask for distributors who will share my dream. With assistance from my son based in China I will continue to purchase SAP in its various forms by the tonne and then offer this in smaller quatities to distributors. I’ve had flyers printed to hand out at Farmfest saying:-

WATER BEADS OR WATER CRYSTALS
These beads and crystals are created from water-absorbing polyacrylamide.
They have a proven lifespan of 2 years in direct sunlight or 4-5 years when mixed with soil.
They have the capacity to absorb up to 400 times their weight in water.
Polyacrylamide is 100% non-toxic and biodegradable.
HOUSE AND GARDEN
Mix crystals into garden soil, water the soil and then plant out seedlings.
Mix crystals into potting mix before filling pots.
Use to start and grow indoor Wheatgrass or Herb Gardens.
These crystals can reduce watering frequency by up to 75%.
They promote faster seed germination by keeping the root zone moist.
DECORATIVE
Water beads work great with candles and fresh flower arrangements.
Freeze water beads for chilling wines or champagne.
Water beads can be used without soil in pots holding water-loving plants like Bamboo, Arrowhead, Chinese Evergreen, Dracaena, Peace Lily, Red Prayer Plant, Philodendron, Dieffenbachia, Spider Plant and Ivy cuttings.
FARM
Crystals may be lightly spread on cultivated soil. When mixed into the soil they hold nitrates, phosphates, potassium, iron, zinc, boron and other elements next to the roots of plants, thus reducing the leaching of these elements into ground water. Research has shown that the beads attract the bacteria and microorganisms essential to plant growth.
Crystals in dry weather extend the time that moisture is stored in the soil.
Crystals in wet weather absorb additional water and float within the soil, thus preventing compaction.
RETAIL DISTRIBUTORS WANTED
e.mail: helwig@halenet.com.au Mobile: 0439 390 863

So if you are amongst the thousands who will visit Farmfest this year- Tuesday 7th, Wednesday 8th and Thursday 9th June – do drop in to chat with me in the Lifestyle Shopping Arcade.

I will close this post by including a gallery of photographs of how I have used the water soluable crystals and decorative beads in my home.

Selected glass containers.

Flowers stand upright in SAP gel

With no smelly water to change, flowers last longer.

Homemade candles sitting in red beads, green beads and clear crystals.

Wildflowers, wilderness and wine

I will be there at Farmfest next week to autograph copies of Wildflowers, wilderness and wine for my readers. For a quick preview of what this book reveals see http://www.australia-book.com.au

Yes, from July 2010 until about three weeks ago we had an abundance of rain. Until the January floods the weather was almost perfect for gardening.  For six months I didn’t need to irrigate my garden, because every week we would get enough rain – nice steady soaking rain, not storms with damaging winds and heavy rain. I’ll probably never enjoy such a period again, but it was great while it lasted.

After the floods the sun has shone brightly, which was wonderful for the farmers of the Granite Belt. They had plenty of stored water for irrigation, but what their crops needed was hot, sunny days to ripen and sweeten their fruit. Even when Tropical Cyclone Yasi roared in across north Queensland the sun continued to pour its heat down upon our district. The grass had grown madly after all the rain and now it has gone to seed and is rapidly browning off.

Glen Aplin valley view

This photo shows a view  from our farm to the ridge on the other side of the Glen Aplin valley, but only two weeks previously the grass country beside the river had been under flood water.In my first post this year While the season was so kind to me I had a brilliant idea. I would take a gamble, like farmers frequently do, and plant a vegetable crop in a disused chicken run. I broke up the poultry manured soil of the pen with a rotary tiller. I planted climbing beans on two sides, sweet corn in the middle and Golden Ripple cherry tomatoes on the remaining fence. Planting this garden was a gamble as I had no way of irrigating it should the regular rain cease to fall.

In my first post for this year I showed a photo of a Korean wwoofer assisting me to raise the height of the wire around the fence on the two sides where the climbing beans had been planted. This lad was a great worker with a wonderful attitude. When paid work became available on Granite Belt farms he asked could he continue to live here in our backpacker accommodation, while undertaking such work.  Of course I agreed, but I lost a competent wwoofer.

Picking the climbing beans

By January the beans were ready for picking. I would pick them twice a week. Early in the week I would prepare the excess, scald them and freeze them for winter use. Prior to the weekend the second picking would be taken to the markets where they sold quickly. For a short time I had here another Korean wwoofer who was far from useful. The first day I showed him how to pick the beans and we gathered two bowls. When he was sent to pick the beans by himself two days later he returned with only about 500g. As a host I understood that he thought he was picking enough beans for our meal. I had to explain that it wasn’t like going shopping – the beans wouldn’t wait for us. We had to always pick all the beans that were ready for use or they would soon become too mature. I sent him back.

The tomatoes took a little longer than the beans to become productive but this period of hot dry weather has encouraged them to ripen quickly. Twice a week now I am picking these little tomatoes and and making up batches of Lemon & Tomato Marmalade. At the moment I have no wwoofers to assist me with this work, but as usual Eberhard helps me prepare the fruit for jam making. Remember, knowledge is knowing that tomatoes are a fruit, wisdom is not adding them to a fruit salad.

Cherry tomatoes growing over a fence

Planting both the beans and the tomatoes inside a fenced pen allowed me to keep the garden safe from predators like rabbits and now has the advantage of allowing me to pick my produce from both sides of the fence.

I have also this week pulled all the sweet corn. What we didn’t immediately use I boiled until tender, sliced the corn off the cob and packed the kernels into freezer boxes – again for winter use.

Golden Ripple Cherry Tomatoes

After I pick the cherry tomatoes Eberhard removes all the green ends. I toss the tomatoes into a pot of boiling water to scald them. I drain off the water and when they are cool enough to handle Eberhard squeezes the pulp from the skin, which is discarded. The recipe for the Lemon & Tomato Marmalade was also included in my first post for this year.

During October and November I was selling individual potted tomato seedlings at my market stalls for 50 cents each. From now on I’ll be taking jars of Lemon & Tomato Marmalade to my stalls. Most people will be unfamiliar with tomato jams or tomato marmalade so I will go prepared to offer tastings.

When one writes a non-controversial blog like I do there is seldom much feed back, so it is hard to gauge my readership but in the past week I have been contacted by readers from the USA and Chile. I am happy to enter into correspondence via my email address of helwig@halenet.com.au but it would be better for other readers if you ask your questions in the comments section so that other readers get the benefit of my answers.

Wildflowers, wilderness and wine

I sent out a newsletter this week to all those who had subscribed to this site. If you are one of my subscribers who did not receive this newsletter it may be because you have changed your email address. I received several notifications that my newsletter could not be delivered. You can re-subscribe. Wildflowers, wilderness and wine is available in Australia on www.australia-book.com.au Overseas readers will find it on http://stores.lulu.com/strictlyliterary

I am quickly nearing the conclusion of The Forgotten Ones – the book I have been writing in which I have shared Eberhard’s memories of his youth in Germany told to me as we holidayed in Germany in 1990. If you have missed the start of this story just click on older entries until it takes you back to Chapter One. http://fayhelwigauthor.com

The Australian states of Queensland, Northern Territory and New South Wales have recorded their wettest spring in 111 years of records with an average 163mm of rain. A moderate to strong La Nina weather pattern through the Pacific Ocean has delivered this wet spring. Due to the cloud cover Queensland has also experienced the coldest spring since 1932.

Dealing with such a rare weather phenomena as a truly wet year, in a 25-30year weather cycle, means problems for some people, but it is an ill wind that doesn’t blow some good. Cattlemen are watching their cattle grow sleek and fat standing in grass up to their bellies, but the hopes of many wheat farmers were dashed. After growing the best crops of the past decade wet fields have prevented them harvesting their grain.

Wheat and poppies

My wheat was planted late, the third week of July. It grew entirely on the natural rainfall. Now it is ripening off and after Christmas I will have to harvest the poppy seed and the wheat.

Harvesting poppy seed isn’t difficult. We just walk through the field snipping off the dry poppy seed capsules and turn them upside down into a large paper sugar bag. This allows the capsules to dry completely and spill their seed into the base of the bag. I then pull out and throw away the dry material and pour the seed into a smaller container.

Eberhard has promised to sharpen the sickle. I will then have to walk through the field, slicing through the tall straw, which hopefully I will then have WWOOFers to bind into sheaves and stook to dry in the old-fashioned manner of our pioneering farmers. What then? How will I store all these wheat sheaves to keep them dry and away from vermin, like mice and rats? Stay tuned. As I discover answers to these difficulties I will keep my readers informed. I don’t intend to grind the wheat for organic flour, but rather I will feed it to our poultry and sell some sheaves at my market stalls for dried flower arrangements.

For three weeks recently I had here two young French WWOOFers – Thomas and Esther. One of the jobs they did for me was prune back my fijoa bushes and shape them into trees. When I constructed the poultry run to include these trees they were intended to provide shade for the hens. But, due to the excellent season and the fertility provided by the poultry they had grown too large and were preventing the sun from drying out the ground.

Thomas and Trixie

In this view you can see the hedge of fijoa bushes in the pen behind the garden bed where Thomas was turning over the soil.

Esther with fijoa prunings

After I cut back the fijoa bushes, Esther snipped them into smaller pieces so the leaves could be incorporated in the compost bins and the stems put aside to be shredded for mulch.

Following the construction of this pen a couple of years ago,  I abandoned the previous poultry pen and allowed the outdoor area, which had served as a day time free range enclosure for my hens, to fallow.

In September I took my Honda tiller and broke up the fertile soil and in early November planted the enclosed area with vegetables. This pen was fenced with netting to keep out the rabbits, but when my climbing beans reached the top wire, I knew it was time to add another width of netting to provide them with support. Thomas and Esther had left, so it was Ikmo Kim, a Korean WWOOFer, who provided the necessary agility and muscle.

Mo attaches wire netting

Again the vegetables in this garden have flourished without the addition of any fertilizer and on natural rainfall.

There are climbing beans along two sides of the square and rambling yellow cherry tomatoes along one side.

Climbing beans, water melons and sweet corn

In the midst of the square I have planted sweet corn, water melon and gherkin cucumber seed.

Golden ripple cherry tomatoes, gherkin cucumbers and sweet corn.

I prefer to grow climbing beans, rather than dwarf bush beans as they yield over a longer period. When I have an excess of beans I prepare them for use, scald in boiling water, drain, package and freeze for winter meals.

Golden ripple cherry tomatoes

The Golden Ripple cherry tomatoes form a huge rambling bush and are difficult to pick unless provided with a structure over which to grow. Eberhard chooses not to eat red tomatoes, which I also grow, so I first grew these little yellow tomatoes for inclusion in salads.

I then discovered another use. They can be used to make a delicious marmalade.

TOMATO MARMALADE

• First take a large quantity of tomatoes and scald them in boiling water. Cool to allow handling and then pop the flesh from the skins. Discard the skins. Weight for weight  of  tomato flesh add the same weight of white sugar. Add the juice of one lemon per every 500g of tomatoes.
• (For Americans following this recipe consider that 500g or 1/2 a kg is roughly the equivalent of 1lb.)
• Prior to juicing your lemons thinly peel some lemon rind. Cover this rind with water simmer over a low heat until tender. Cool and slice into short, thin strips.
• Add sugar lemon juice and prepared rind to the tomatoes  and bring to a rapid boil.  Now the pot must be watched to avoid boiling over and stirred regularly to prevent sticking.  The faster the jam can be cooked the clearer and lighter the colour.  When mixture stops frothing and makes strong bubbles that begin to spit, it is close to jellying.  Place small volume on a lid in the refrigerator to quickly chill to test for jelly.
• If placing in commercial bottle with a good seal, fill jar, screw on lid tightly and turn upside down for 2 minutes.  This will sterilise the remaining air in the jar and keep the jam air-tight to prevent spoilage.

Wildflowers, wilderness and wine

At this time of the year our thoughts turn to Christmas gifts. I am offering you the opportunity to give an inexpensive gift this year. I wrote THE SUMMER OF THE MORNING STAR as a gift for a 10 year old granddaughter and gave it to her as an e-book on a disk. When I made that e-book available as a free download on this site, I found the subtle humour gave many adult readers a real chuckle. Although this e-book is copyrighted against anyone else using it for commercial gain, you are welcome to download it and give it to a grandchild or a friend as a Christmas Gift.

Once you have read this first chapter of THE SUMMER OF THE MORNING STAR You may also go onto http://fayhelwigauthor.com to download the second chapter. The second book in this series is called AUTUMN DAYS and is available for you to download on http://www.australia-book.com.au

My garden is different to most Queensland gardens due to the altitude of the Granite Belt. Most Queensland gardens are located in tropical or subtropical climates, but the Granite Belt of Queensland is the only region of this State with a temperate climate. The majority of the gardens in Queensland only know two seasons, the ‘WET’ and the ‘DRY’ whereas here on the Granite Belt we have four distinct seasons as in the Northern Hemisphere.

Usually our winters are dry so we seldom get snow and for the same reason we frequently experience more winter frosts than Victoria. Brisbane and Melbourne are the capital cities of Queensland and Victoria. Coastal Brisbane has a subtropical climate but the altitude of Das Helwig Haus (about 850metres above sea level) and our position on the western side of the Great Dividing Range create our much cooler climate.

State capital cities

As my readers know I have a fascination with trees and one of the significant registers of our climatic conditions here are the eucalyptus trees commonly known as a Peppermint Gums. These trees grow along the mountains of the Great Dividing Range from Melbourne to the Granite Belt.

Peppermint eucalyptus

Significantly they have tightly formed bark, which they don’t shed in strips like the other forms of eucalyptus trees growing on our land. It is almost as though they use their bark to keep warm.

Cool mountain climate

The darkly shaded area I have marked in black on this map shows the coldest portion of Australia which experiences four distinct seasons each  year.

If you look again at the map of the State capital cities you will note that Perth in Western Australia is at a similar latitude to Brisbane,  Queensland. There are no cold mountain districts in WA.

When planting seed of frost tender plants I note that most packets have a map on the back showing with differing colours the recommended growing seasons for flowers and vegetables. That is not to say though, that our soil here in Queensland will be as cold as in some of the southern states. It is always the early or late frosts which concern me. While it might be possible for me to germinate cucumber seed in September, it is probable that the seedlings will be frosted. Therefore I seldom plant my summer vegetable seeds before mid-October. Generally we expect autumn frosts by the third week of April, but in 2009 we had a cutting frost on 30th March.

I mention these dates as reason why I am now harvesting the last of my summer vegetables and bedding down my garden in preparation for winter.

Colouring grape leaves

The grape leaves have begun to colour but our garden is not without flowers. Presently the mauve deciduous hibiscus, which is the National flower of South Korea, is in full bloom.

Deciduous hibiscus

Note that I have already thickly mulched the ground around these shrubs to prevent weed growth. The Rose garden is scented with the fragrance of the repeat blooming rose varieties.

March is the month to harvest vegetables, savour the taste of the last fruits of the season like figs and persimmons, enjoy the roses and lay down mulch as a ground cover.

Mr. Lincoln

Pink Iceberg

Double Delight

Book cover

Das Helwig Haus B&B owned by Eberhard and Fay Helwig is situated at Glen Aplin, near Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt of southern Queensland, Australia.

This is a region noted for Australian wildflowers, four wilderness National Parks and sixty wineries. In 1997 Eberhard and Fay established the Remembrance Field of red Flanders poppies, a European wildflower.

To obtain Fay’s book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine send an email to helwig@halenet.com.au The price is $33.00 posted to destinations within AustraIia.

Internationally it is available on

http://stores.lulu.com/strictlyliterary

http://books.google.co.uk/

Golden ripple cherry tomatoesTo see a former post called Mulching Matters go to the Organic Gardening category in the November archives. I use several methods of mulching but they are all intended to serve these purposes.

• To stifle weed growth
• To prevent evaporation of moisture
• To keep the ground cool
• To prevent erosion

In that post I showed how I had used clippings from a fallen wisteria vine to mulch an area around self-sown Golden Ripple cherry tomato seedlings. I bought the first packet of seed from the Diggers Garden Club about 1994 and ever since then these tomatoes have volunteered to grow each year in my garden. All the fruit eating birds feast on them and then spread the seed throughout my entire garden. Mostly, I weed them out, but I always leave some plants to bear fruit each summer.

Wisteria mulch

Eight weeks after this green wisteria mulch was laid around the tomato seedlings we could begin harvesting these little cherry tomatoes for salads or for my favourite Lemon & Tomato Marmalade.

Today I once again turned my attention to mulching. It was time to harvest the pumpkins and I had a Korean girl wwoofer, Kerry, to assist me.

Kerry gathering pumpkins

I explained to Kerry that she must cut the pumpkins free from the vines, because if she pulled them she might break the stem away from the flesh, thus creating a wound where rot could enter. I then showed her how to stack the pumpkins on their sides, to allow air to circulate around them. In this way pumpkins may be stored for months and will usually keep throughout the winter. Pumpkins are a staple vegetable in Australian diets, peeled, boiled and mashed or baked in the same manner as potatoes.

Stacked pumpkins

As you will see from the above photograph I have grown several types of pumpkins, but the striped ones would be crossbred seedlings which volunteered in my garden compost. Probably they are a cross between striped Jap Pumpkins and the orange coloured heirloom Butter Pumpkin.

I told Kerry there would be no need to remove the dried pumpkin vines. We would cover them with sheets of newspaper and then add a thick layer of loose mulch.

Firstly, we had to remove Patches from her comfortable bed in a box of saved newspapers.

Patches

I had been busily cutting back wisteria vines and lemon balm which became the first layer of mulch to be laid over the newspapers.

Then I cut away a lot of the lower, loose foliage hanging from the Isabella grape vines.

Grape foliage

As I trimmed the vines, I cut them into short lengths for easy management. Kerry loaded them into the barrow and pushed them to the former pumpkin patch.

Kerry

We spread the mulch thickly over the newspaper. As I trim back various woody shrubs and vines around the garden they will be used this year to form such mulch, but lush growth, grass with seeds and weed plants will still be composted.

Compost bin

Mulch over newspaper

When mulching in this manner the newspaper blacks out the light and prevents the germination of any unwanted plants. Rain will penetrate the loose leaves and soak the papers, which by the spring will be well rotted. The woody stems prevent the leaves packing down to form an impervious sheath against rain. They also hold the leaves in place as they dry, preventing them from blowing all over the garden. Thus it is better to gather some such deciduous leaves while still green, rather than rake them up after they have fallen and are blowing in the wind. But, I never prune back my vines and shrubs severely. That is a winter job after the fruiting buds have set for the next season. A hard pruning at the end of summer would trigger fresh growth in the autumn, not the spring.

Book cover

Das Helwig Haus B&B owned by Eberhard and Fay Helwig is situated at Glen Aplin, near Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt of southern Queensland, Australia.

This is a region noted for Australian wildflowers, four wilderness National Parks and sixty wineries. In 1997 Eberhard and Fay established the Remembrance Field of red Flanders poppies, a European wildflower.

To obtain Fay’s book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine send an email to helwig@halenet.com.au The price is $33.00 posted to destinations within AustraIia.

Internationally it is available on

http://stores.lulu.com/strictlyliterary

http://books.google.co.uk/

Recently, when reading Peter Andrew’s book Back From the Brink, it made me take a good look at my upright willow trees and ask myself if I was utilizing them to full advantage. I planted these trees in 1998 at the end of a drainage system to serve three purposes.

• To soak up excess water
• To create a green view  behind our vegetable garden
• To provide a wind break

I quickly became disenchanted with these trees, as they spread their roots out into the area where I had previously planted pumpkins. It was a space where the pumpkins could spread. But, with the willow trees stealing all the moisture from the ground, my pumpkin crops began to fail. We ripped the ground and pulled up the roots, but within 6 months the roots had again colonized the area. The past couple of years this ground has remained bare. The trees were serving their intended purpose, but they had restricted my use of this portion of my garden.

Pruning willow

The willow trees had grown too tall. In August 2008 while they were deciduous, I hired men to reduce the height of the trees by cutting them back with a chainsaw. I used the solid wood for the fires and the twiggy branches for support structures for climbing beans and sweet-peas. When they grew again they had a bushier shape. I have seen trees like these repeatedly cut back to fence height to create a dense hedge.

Willows are fast growing trees and within 15 months these three had bushed out and once more towered over the garden.

Green willows

I asked myself, “How can I best utilize this shade and this space?”

We have experienced a particularly hot November this year with heatwave conditions normally associated with the months of January and February. By noon each day I’ve had to place shade cloth loosely over the top of the lettuce in my raised garden beds to stop them scorching off.

Shaded letttuce

To germinate fresh lettuce seed I planted a row of mignonette lettuce seed at the edge of this bed and laid a length of shade cloth over it.

Germinating lettuce

In less than a week the seed had germinated and I then raised the shade cloth to stand on the western side to provide shade from the hot afternoon sun. Once they have hardened off, I will remove the shade cloth. Again when I transplant them I will shade them for a few days. As a child at my Grandmothers side, she taught me how to transplant seedling, water them down and then shade them with sprigs cut from green shrubs. By the time the sprigs had wilted and dropped their leaves the seedlings had recovered from any transplanting shock.

To utilize the shade of the willow trees I decided to create more compost bins which by next summer will become raised garden beds. I believe in recycling. As on most farms one acquires over a period of time piles of used materials too good to throw away. I had just enough sheets of rusty roofing iron and sufficient steel posts to create three new compost bins. Plus, I had the willing labour of my Japanese WWOOF members, Daiji Kuwano and Madoka Uchiyama. I taught Daiji how to line up the steel pegs by closing one eye and sighting down the line. He got it right down the line, but due to different positioning against the iron, could not do so across the bins. I also taught him how to use a pair of fencing pliers to twist wire.

New compost bins

This will have to be an ongoing job for my Willing Workers on Organic Farms. Firstly I will introduce composting tiger worms into each bin to assist with the breaking down of the organic matter. My Wwoofers will harvest all composting material into the first of three bins. When the first bin is filled, my Wwoofers will have to turn it over into the second bin and again begin filling the first bin. They will do this until all three bins are full. When Autumn comes the willow trees will drop many of their golden leaves over the filled bins. At the end of winter 2010 my Wwoofers will once more have to turn over the contents of each bin, cutting off any willow tree roots which have grown up into the compost. I will then have three raised garden beds into which I may plant my vegetables. I will place afternoon shade loving lettuce at  the rear, climbing beans may be encouraged to grow up wires strung across and around the bins through the steel posts, and pumpkins will be allowed to drop over the iron to run across the vacant space. At the end of the 2011 harvest the bins will have more composting material added, and once more the following spring my Wwoofers will find themselves turning the soil, the depth of the bins to remove willow roots, so that I may continue each summer to use these as shaded, raised garden beds. Only by completely turning the contents of these bins every year will we be able to eradicate the willow roots to use this ground.

Every year as I take visitors through my garden they wave their arms to encompass the view and ask, “How do you find the time to do all this?”

My answer is always the same, “Wwoofers!” I then tell them that they can read about the construction of my garden and the role wwoofers have played in my book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine.

Book cover

Das Helwig Haus B&B owned by Eberhard and Fay Helwig is situated at Glen Aplin, near Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt of southern Queensland, Australia.

This is a region noted for Australian wildflowers, four wilderness National Parks and sixty wineries. In 1997 Eberhard and Fay established the Remembrance Field of red Flanders poppies, a European wildflower.

To obtain my book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine email me at helwig@halenet.com.au The price is $33.00 posted to destinations within AustraIia. You may phone me on 07-4683 4227 if you wish to pay by credit card.

Internationally it is available on

http://stores.lulu.com/strictlyliterary

http://books.google.co.uk/

As a child I was only allowed to drink milk or water until the age of twelve, with a soft drink as a special treat during an occasional visit to town. My parents drank Bushell’s tea with their meals.

Nowadays there are multiple drink choices available for adults and children alike. One has only to walk into a supermarket to see rows of bottles and cans stacked high containing cordials, fruit juices and carbonated drinks. At the dairy counter there will be different sized containers of milk, in plastic or cardboard, offering a variety of flavours.

Move to the racks of tea and coffee and you will have a choice of roast coffee beans from all over the world. You can buy beans or ground coffee, some of it decaf. Usually in the same aisle it is possible to select dried teas in surgical dressings, as one of my friends once described the sachets commonly called tea bags. You will be confronted with brands and varieties from many countries.

It was on a trip to the USA in 1981 that I first encountered the powdered concoctions mixed with water which the local people called iced tea. Later, when I visited my German in-laws in 1990 I was offered a choice of herbal teas with the evening meal. These were always served as a hot tea.

In 1992 we moved to the Granite Belt to establish Das Helwig Haus B&B. Amongst our first visitors were Meg and Peter Stevenson with their children Darren and Belinda. During an excursion they discovered a herb farm and returned with several pots for my garden. One of these little plants grew into a Lemon Verbena bush.

Lemon verbena

The botanical name for this shrub is Alysia triphylla syn. Lippia citriodora from the family Verbenaceae. It has multiple uses, adding a delicious flavour to fresh fruit salads, summer drinks or punches. I’ve laid leaves to form an decorative base in an aspic jelly mold.  Commercially, its essential oil is used in eau de colognes. Leaves may be dried for drinking as tea in the winter or included in pot-pourri mixtures as a scented room freshener or placed in sachets amongst stored clothes.

Lemon Verbena tea

A few sprigs of fresh leaves may be steeped in hot water for a calming hot tea. For a jug of refreshing cold tea, place leaves in a large container and pour over boiling water. Drain off the resultant tea into a jug, tasting and diluting with added water if the tea is stronger than preferred. My husband ‘gilds the lily’ by placing a couple of slices of fresh lemon in his glass, adds ice blocks and pours the lemon verbena tea over his ice and lemon.

Cold lemon verbena tea

Lemon Verbena is a deciduous shrub, so I always try to dry some leaves for teas throughout the winter months.  The plant is propagated from cuttings, not seed.

Another lemon flavoured tea that I grow is Lemon Balm Melissa Officinalis. You may take cuttings or a rooted piece from an established clump. It has very fine seed and I find that plants appear voluntarily in my garden each spring. Again the leaves of this plant may be dried for pot-pourri.  I’ve also used them in salad dressings and chicken stuffing. A tea made from the leaves of Lemon Balm is supposedly good for cases of depression and anxiety.

Lemon balm

The Lemon Balm plant forms a tight clump about knee high and can make a most attractive edging to a vegetable garden.

Most people wouldn’t be without a mint plant or two in their gardens. I grow the Peppermint favoured in Germany for tea. Like all mints it grows from underground runners and spreads rapidly. I cut portions of my mint back to the ground regularly to keep the plant producing fresh shoots.

Peppermint

Peppermint tea aids digestion. I have read that after a rich meal like a Christmas Dinner one should combine equal quantities of peppermint, lemon balm and lemon verbena teas to settle the tummy.  As we celebrate Christmas in mid-summer when my herbs are fresh, this remedy for over-eating is at hand.

One tea in my garden that self-seeds profusely is the annual German Chamomile. It likes a friable sandy loam, seeds profusely each year and comes up like a weed towards the end of winter.

Chamomile daisies

Chamomile seedlings transplant easily and I often use them as edging for paths throughout my vegetable garden. The flowers are best plucked from the plant and dried. A small amount of this dried matter may be steeped in hot water to make a soothing bedtime drink as it is a mild sedative.  Because it has a slightly bitter taste I add a teaspoon of honey. The other thing I do is strain the tea through a fine cloth, as some of the seed material tends to irritate my throat

Das Helwig Haus B&B owned by Eberhard and Fay Helwig is situated at Glen Aplin, near Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt of southern Queensland, Australia.

This is a region noted for Australian wildflowers, four wilderness National Parks and sixty wineries. In 1997 Eberhard and Fay established the Remembrance Field of red Flanders poppies, a European wildflower.

Book cover

To obtain my book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine email me at helwig@halenet.com.au The price is $33.00 posted to destinations within AustraIia. You may phone me on 07-4683 4227 if you wish to pay by credit card.

Internationally it is available on

http://stores.lulu.com/strictlyliterary

http://books.google.co.uk/

During the past weekend when we opened our garden at Das Helwig Haus B&B for the Australian Open Garden Scheme, I was frequently asked about my mulching methods. I use several methods of mulching but they are all intended to serve these purposes.

• To stifle weed growth
• To prevent evaporation of moisture
• To keep the ground cool
• To prevent erosion

Most green ground covers serve the same purpose, provided they have sufficient water to encourage their continual growth.

Ivy as a ground cover

I planted this ivy in 1993 to grow over an old tree stump situated in the garden at the rear of the house. This is the western side and after soil and rocks had been moved to build the guest wing of our house this spot looked like a dessert with white dusty soil and raw boulders. I hired Frank and his bobcat to create a rocky upper terrace above this portion of the garden. My priority was then to green my summer view by planting deciduous fruit trees and to cover a couple of old tree stumps with vines.

Beside the second stump I planted a wisteria vine. As it grew I twirled it around the stump and over the years pruned back the top to form a bushy tree. One of my friends described it as looking like an ancient wisteria treated as a Bonsai specimen. Every spring this wisteria blossomed, bring perfume to my garden and joy to my heart.

Wisteria - spring 2008

Then a week ago, during a heavy storm, the top heavy vine blew over breaking off the old, rotted wooden stump at the ground. Half down, it remained supported on one of the raised garden beds I had created this year from recycled sheets of a rusty iron water tank.

Fallen wisteria

This morning, with the aid of a Korean WWOOF girl, I set to with secateurs and saw to reduce the vine to mulch. After I have removed the rotten stump, I will find another support for the vine.

On the opposite side of this path, I had already established tomato and Italian parsley seedlings. To protect them from being buried by fresh wisteria leaves, which will create considerable heat as they rot down, I placed empty pots around the seedlings. I had firstly removed the base from each pot to form a protective tube.

Tomato seedling

The next step was to snip all the twiggy, leafy portions from the vine and toss them loosely around the pots. This is rule number one with mulch. Mulch must be kept loose. My ground was already well soaked from the rain, but future rain must be able to penetrate the wisteria leaves as they decompose. They can’t be allowed to stick together like sheets of paper. Allowing some wood to remain with the leaves will create a support structure through which the water may trickle down.

The worst mistake gardeners make with mulch is dumping grass clippings so thickly that they form a carpet and like thatch allow no penetration of water through to the soil below.

Dry grass mulch

Such grass clippings are best mixed with rough leaves and placed in a compost bin. When available, I use Lucerne (alfalfa) hay throughout my garden, because it is a legume and enriches the soil as it breaks down, which it does rapidly. Thus, it is an expensive mulch as it needs to be replaced yearly. I also find it difficult to persuade my WWOOF workers to break it up roughly and place it thickly around my plants. The easiest way to prevent them damaging my seedlings and to indicate how deep the mulch should be, I use hollow pots like these I have placed around cosmos plants.

Cosmos seedlings

Very shortly the fern like foliage of the tall growing cosmos will shade the mulch to keep it cool and damp.

Deep wisteria mulch

The black pots protecting the seedlings can barely be seen amongst the fresh wisteria leaves, but by tomorrow the leaves will have wilted and the top of the pots will be clearly visible. The black hose on this path carries away the gray water from our bio-cycle system, to be recycled on to plants further down the garden.

Although future rain will penetrate this loose cover of wisteria leaves and soak the whole garden bed, it will not be necessary for me to water all this soil during dry periods, only the portion reached by the roots of the tomatoes and parsley plants.

Cow pats

If you can obtain cow pats, they make a superb garden mulch. I do not break dry patties up, but place them loosely to cover the ground around seedlings. Here they are enriching the ground for healthy tomato specimens planted early in the spring. These hard pats shed water off their surface in the same manner as rocks. After the water has soaked into the ground they shade the soil and prevent evaporation. Earthworms and other soil dwellers break down the pats from underneath, adding their fertility to the soil. The only problem with this form of mulch is that seed of weeds and grasses eaten by the cattle will be included in their manure. Thus, beside my tomatoes and lemon balm in this plot have appeared kikuyu grass and a wild turnip weed.

Roma tomatoes

Again with this form of mulching, if hand watering, only water the roots of the plant.

This morning, I was discussing using rocks as a ground cover, with a visiting gardener. He told me of a friend in a fire prone district, who had been advised to remove any flammable mulch and replace it with stones. Good advice. I have used rocks throughout my garden and in two places planted mondo grass between them. In my lawn area the slabs of granite keep the earth cool and provide additional run-off water to the grass. In the same manner grass growing beside a sealed road is often green in times of drought, attracting kangaroos to feed on road verges.

Mondo grass and granite

All mulches protect the soil from erosion, by breaking the energy of a downpour. I built a dry creek bed to take the overflow from my rain-water tanks. Once the tanks are filled during storm rains, the water falls with force down the overflow pipe and gushes forth in a quick flowing stream. My downpipes are placed so that the energy of the water is broken by hitting rocks forcing it to spread widely, before flowing away amongst other rocks and mondo grass.

Overflow

If you have any questions concerning mulches, please ask.

Book Cover

Das Helwig Haus B&B owned by Eberhard and Fay Helwig is situated at Glen Aplin, near Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt of southern Queensland, Australia.

This is a region noted for Australian wildflowers, four wilderness National Parks and sixty wineries. In 1997 Eberhard and Fay established the Remembrance Field of red Flanders poppies, a European wildflower.

To obtain Fay’s book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine email Fay on helwig@halenet.com.au

Internationally it is available on the Amazon.com website.  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002ACXQ0M/sr=8-1/qid=1244294755/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&qid=1244294755&sr=8-1&seller=

http://stores.lulu.com/strictlyliterary

http://books.google.co.uk/