AN ABUNDANCE OF PERSIMMONS

This photo of persimmons hanging ripe on our tree at Das Helwig Haus B&B was taken in the autumn of 2006 when Maude, a French girl, was here for six weeks as a Wwoofer. She is shown cuddling Patches, the black and white feral female cat who arrived at our home in 2005 and adopted us.

Maude, Patches and persimmons

Since then Patches has featured in many of my photographs. Since then the tree has grown and the Satin Bower Birds have multiplied, so that it is no longer possible to allow the persimmons to remain hanging on the tree until the end of May. Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: Abundance, apples, Australia, cherry tomatoes, Christmas in July, Das Helwig Haus B&B, figs, fruit leather, persimmon, persimmons, Wildflowers wilderness and wine, wwoofers, zucchini

AN ABUNDANCE OF TOMATOES 2

I wrote an earlier post about what I did with an abundance of red tomatoes, one of the summer crops grown by the farmers of the Granite Belt, who generously give me boxes of ripe fruit. I also commented that I usually only grow cherry tomatoes in my organic garden. About fifteen years ago I purchased a packet of golden ripple cherry tomato seed from the Diggers Seed Club and since then I’ve never needed to purchase more seed, nor do I save the seed. Every autumn at Das Helwig Haus B&B, about a month before the frosts arrive, a flock of Satin Bower birds return from the rain forests to overwinter in our garden. They are a fruit eating bird and quickly turn their attention to the fruits of my garden, clearing any remaining figs, picking at the half ripe persimmons and enjoying the cherry tomatoes. The fertile seed of the tomatoes pass through the bird and is deposited throughout the garden. Thus it is that these tomatoes have now become one of my most prevalent weeds. They are easily recognized and transplanted or pulled if found in inappropriate positions. This particular tomato has a tendency to climb or ramble, and would be useful grown in hanging baskets on patios. The photo below shows how one tomato bush has rambled over the tops of roses and up the trellis of the gazebo railing.

Cherry tomato bush in the rose garden.

Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: Abundance, apples, cherry tomatoes, Christmas in July, citrus, Das Helwig Haus B&B, figs, garden, gazebo, Glen Aplin, gooseberry, granite belt, jam, lemon, marmalade, organic garden, persimmon, stanthorpe, Wildflowers wilderness and wine

AN ABUNDANCE OF FIGS

Two years ago when Barbara Buchannan offered to become my companion for five months and assist me like a member of the WWOOF organization, it was her tales of sun-ripened figs that made her European friends envious. She told them of her pleasure in standing under the tree shown below, choosing sun warmed fruit that almost melted in her mouth.

Sun ripened figs

When I established our garden at Das Helwig Haus B&B I planted four fig trees of different varieties. Ian Robertson, CEO of the Australian Open Garden Scheme, congratulated me in 1997 for choosing to use a fig tree as a specimen tree to add texture and color within our floral garden. During our cold winter months on the Granite Belt the bare branches give a surrealistic view on a foggy morning and emphasis the Japanese influence in the design of this portion of my garden.

Fig tree amongst flowers

Every year this particular tree yields buckets of small, dark skinned, red fleshed, sweet figs. Every year we eat fresh figs, I make fig jam, I dry figs and I preserve figs in syrup as a dessert. This small fig variety is not readily available from plant nurseries. I was given a sucker to grow by one of the Italian born farmers on the Granite Belt. The sucker flourished and grew into a decorative and productive tree. Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: Abundance, Das Helwig Haus B&B, Europe, fig trees, figs, garden, granite belt, Italian, Japanese, Wine, WWOOF

AN ABUNDANCE OF TOMATOES

Although I grow organic tomatoes in my garden they are mostly for salad use. I find that the cherry tomatoes have less insect problems than the commercial varieties. My garden at Das Helwig Haus B&B on the Granite Belt of southern Queensland is surrounded by commercial fruit orchards and vegetable farms. The down side of this is that all the insect pests manage to find breeding spots every year, hence the need for farmers to use insecticides and those pests are happy to move on to my unprotected crops. The plus side is that the farmers will kindly give me their excess produce.

Cherry tomatoes and hot red chilies.

Last year I was allowed to pick tomatoes from fields that had been abandoned. It is commercial practice to only pick tomatoes while they are green. When the price drops, or the farmer thinks the plants are past their prime, the crop will be abandoned as uneconomical. When time permits the farmer will clear his land for a different crop in his rotation plan. Thus, each year I witness the waste of many vegetables as they rot in the field.

Sun ripened Roma tomatoes

The good thing is that as the crop was still green when the farmer abandoned it, these tomatoes had several weeks to ripen naturally in the sun, free of insecticides. . Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: Abundance, Australia, Boysenberries, Das Helwig Haus B&B, figs, grapes, Korean, Queensland, sauce, tomatoes, vegetable, WWOOF

MUESLI

A CRUNCHY BREAKFAST TREAT.

I serve this muesli as part of our breakfast buffet at Das Helwig Haus B&B and all our guests rave about it. The basic recipe was given to me about 1973 by a Mrs. Newton who was then my neighbour in the town of Dalby.

I’ve taken the recipe a step further by growing the nuts and fruits that make it so special. I’ve gone through my photo file to extract views that will best illustrate the process of creating this particular muesli.

Fresh sun ripened figs.

However, you can of course buy nuts and dried fruits to add to your mixture.Apart from the sultanas, the three ingredients I like to add are fruit leather made from persimmons, dried figs and pecan nuts, all of which we produce in our own garden.

Here you see a French Wwoofer girl cuddling our cat Patches while ripening persimmons hang like Christmas decorations on a small Nightingale persimmon tree. Patches is never far from the action and we always say she is supervising the workers.

Preparing figs for drying.

Dried figs on racks.

The figs must be split prior to drying in a dehydrator for approximately twelve hours.The persimmon fruit is placed in a blender with a little sugar and reduced to a pulp. Greaseproof paper is laid over the mesh screens of the dehydrator and the fruit pulp spread across it. Again after approximately twelve hours the paper can be peeled off the fruit leather, which is then cut into narrow strips with kitchen scissors. Like the nuts and figs, the dry pieces of fruit leather can be stored in airtight jars until required. The nuts are broken into half the fruit leather cut into squares and the figs quartered

MUESLI

1kg oats

4 cups shredded coconut

2 cups sesame seeds

1 cup sunflower seeds

4 cups wheatgerm

1 cup oil

1 spoon salt

500g brown sugar

Combine all ingredients. Place on trays and brown in the oven stirring occasionally.

Cool and add 2 cups sultanas plus other dried fruit and nuts.

* In the USA and Canada sultanas are usually called raisins, which I discovered when my friend Margaret in Ontario baked a Raisin Pie.

Technorati Tags: figs, fruit leather, muesli, Patches, pecan, pecan nuts, persimmon, recipe