THE SUMMER BEGINS
I devoted the Spring months to writing posts concerning our Remembrance Field of red Flanders poppies which reached their peak for 11th November. During the past week poppy seed has been harvested, the dry poppy plants were slashed, the field was spread with feedlot manure as an organic fertilizer and then cultivated. Today we are enjoying rain to soak the soil of the field and later this month we will plant it with vegetable crops. I will show photos of these steps and further progress in a later post. Today I will put up a post about rosellas. This bushy plant can only be grown here during our warmer months and the fruit is much prized for jam making. I presently have about 20 rosella plants in our rear garden which I set out during November. I took a two week break during October and went to visit with a son and his family in Hong Kong, where the it was then the autumn season. This family live in a highrise apartment at Kowloon.
Kowloon apartment block
This was not the first time I had stayed here and looked down from high above onto a community vegetable garden. I had requested entry to the garden on a previous visit, but been turned away. It was a private garden for Kowloon residents I was told.
Kowloon community garden
When I returned this year, I chose to walk along the side where a fence separated these small garden plots from a busy street – on the side where the purple flowering vine sprawls over the fence.
Fence flowers
My attention was immediately caught by the sight of two different types of rosella bushes growing in several of the garden plots.
Dark rosella
Rosellas are a form of hibiscus and you will note a small flower near the top of this bush. After the flower drops off the fleshy calyx will continue to grow around the seed pod. It is the soft sepals of this calyx that are prized for jam making in Australia, for drying as a red tea in Arab countries or for creating a cordial in Asian countries. The plant above is a similar variety to the one I grow here on the Granite Belt.
Bright red rosellas
I had never previously seen the rosella variety with the bright red calyxs. I then found that rosellas had just arrived in the fruit stalls of the market streets near where I was staying.
Market stall
I had to wait to take this photo as people were thronging around the scales where quantities of rosellas were weighed out. I needed these shoppersto move out of the way to allow me to focus my camera on the fruit.
Rosellas for sale
These were the dark rosella with which I was familiar.
Rosella fruits
After watching others buying these fruits I held out 20 Hong Kong dollars, worth about 3 Australian dollars and received 2kg of rosellas. I took these back to my daughter-in-law and together we worked to pull the sepals off the seed pods, which gave us a measure of 3 cups. I placed these in a pot with about 3 cups of water and simmered until reduced again in volume to 3 cups. I added 3 cups of white sugar and boiled briskly until the mixture started to jell. As these fruits are high in pectin this only took a short while. The result – fresh rosella jam on the breakfast table.
Wildflowers, wilderness and wine
Recipes for jams, pickles and preserves made with produce from my own garden are included in my book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine which is available on http://www.australia_book.com.au or from http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/strictlyliterary
