AN ABUNDANCE OF APPLES

All my readers who have down loaded the free E-book The Summer of the Morning Star will know that I turn my home Das Helwig Haus B&B into a ‘home away from home’ for Korean backpackers in the summer and autumn months. 2010 is the fifth year that I have done so. As these young people are all on Work/Travel visas and are allowed to work for two years in Australia some return to my home for a second year. Usually they are university graduates aged between 25 and 30 years who have had difficulty getting a job in South Korea. Not only do they earn and save money while in Australia they also study to improve their spoken English.  Some believe the added maturity, proven work ability and additional language skills will enable them to find a job when they return to South Korea.  Others plan to return to Australia for a third year on an educational visa with their saved money to undertake training within Australia to fill gaps amongst our skilled workers.

Korean Backpackers

The above photo shows a group of Koreans enjoying a barbecue meal in out gazebo in 2007. Read the rest of this entry »

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FOR CARMEN

Carmen was one of three Italian girls who came to WWOOF for me in August. Recently she wrote to ask:

Kookaburra by David Osburg.

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AN ABUNDANCE OF BEETROOT

I only grow one crop of beetroot each year in my garden at Das Helwig Haus B&B and usually one packet of seeds will germinate enough seedlings to meet my requirements. Some seed suppliers now provide seed on tape, perfectly spaced for planting and all that is required is that you lay out the tape in rows, cover with soil, press down and keep moist until the seedlings appear. As beetroot have rather a large, rough seed I don’t have any difficulty spacing mine in a shallow furrow. Australians enjoy eating beetroot as a pickled salad vegetable and it is said that Australia is the only country where McDonalds have been obliged to add a slice of pickled beetroot to their hamburgers.

Every spring I plant a crop in my garden at Glen Aplin, harvest that crop in the summer and then spend a couple of days preserving the crop as pickled beetroot.

Boiled Beetroot

The tops are removed from the beetroot, they are placed in a large pot, covered in water and boiled until tender. The time will depend on the size of the beetroot. My crop will provide beetroot of different sizes, so I grade them prior to boiling. When a skewer easily penetrates the beet, it is cooked. Drain and cool. Read the rest of this entry »

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AN ABUNDANCE OF CHERRIES

For me, cherries have always been associated with Christmas mornings. As a child I left a pillowslip at the end of my bed on Christmas Eve as I recited, “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” Waking in excitement at the first light of dawn I would peer into the depths of the pillowslip to find the small brown paper packet containing apricots, plums and cherries. Stone fruit were scarce and expensive, but always a Christmas treat.

I knew nothing of Morello cherries, the sour kirsche of Europe, until I married Eberhard. Almost thirty years ago he established one of the first coffee shop restaurants in Toowoomba, which became rightly famous due to his skill as a baker of Continental cakes. In those days it was nothing for him to bake and assemble two large Black Forest Torte every day. In those days he was able to buy 5kg tins of sour kirsche imported from Yugoslavia.

When we moved to the cool mountain climate of the Granite Belt in 1992 and established Das Helwig Haus B&B, one of the first trees I planted was a Morello Cherry tree to enable us to harvest and preserve our own cherries. Like many other Australian fruit eating birds, the Eastern Rosella parrots have flourished since fruit orchards were established on the Granite Belt and now every year farmers set up scare guns to startle the parrots away from their orchards and vineyards, or they shoot hundreds. These birds are not an endangered species and the alternative is costly – to net the crops.

Grape vines covered in bird netting

I did not want my cat,  Patches, hunting the parrots and bringing them to me like trophies. Read the rest of this entry »

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AN ABUNDANT SUMMER BEGINS.

Is it possible that our Queensland climate could be reverting to the type of summer weather this state hasn’t experienced for two decades? It is shaping up that way with excellent rain on the Granite Belt and a devastating storm hitting Brisbane a few days after my last Red November garden tour. Now my garden is growing like a jungle and the neigbour’s cattle are happily grazing our grass land. The Severn River is flowing and our dams are full.

I set out to take a walk with my camera on Saturday afternoon and met our flock of geese marching home to be penned for the night safe from foxes and other predators. They are always rewarded with a handful of cracked corn to encourage their return, although as a grazing bird their diet consists mainly of grasses and herbage.

Geese coming home.

I was heading down to photograph one of the dams when I began to see the occasional speckle of a white field mushrooms amongst the grass, so promptly returned for a basket and knife. Read the rest of this entry »

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ENTER THE VEGETABLE GARDEN

Once we cross the covered walkway that links our guest apartments to the northern wing of Das Helwig Haus B&B we enter the vegetable garden. On our right the rhubarb and acanthus grow gigantic leaves and the kiwi fruit vines entirely cover the lattice along the apartment veranda. This is the south western part of our garden and as such is exposed to the worst of our winter winds. All the permanently planted trees and shrubs in this region are deciduous and in the winter months the area becomes rather desolate.

Rhubarb

Winter is our busy season with guests who come to the Granite Belt to taste the wines, follow the food trail and cuddle up before a fire at night. Thus it suits me that the garden is dormant. I try to have the grape vines, quince, persimmon, cherry, mulberry, apricot and nectarine trees pruned by the end of August.

There are some years when spring is slow arriving on the Granite Belt with frosts continuing on into October. In fact, frosts have been recorded in every month of the year. Because of the cold winters the garden does not yield much produce in spring until the soil warms.

While we were holidaying in Germany during the spring of 1990 my sister-in-law, Minna Helwig, told me that we would be having a barbe kue on Samstag and I had thought she was telling me that she planned a barbecue on Saturday. Imagine my surprise therefore when she picked the first red stalks of rhubarb from her garden, discarded the poisonous leaves, and gave me the stems to wash and slice. Meanwhile Minna used fresh yeast to make the sweet bread base of a Kuchen. The rhubarb was spread across the base, sprinkled liberally with sugar, and after the dough had risen to double the original height, placed in the oven to bake. Served with generous amounts of pouring cream, this is the traditional way the first rhubarb of the season is presented to families in the village of Wolferborn and throughout other regions of Hesse.

Rhubarb clump

We continued our around the world trip to visit Margaret, a friend who lives near New Liskeard in northern Ontario, Canada. I was amazed by the size of her rhubarb clump. Obviously established years previously it seemed to require no special attention, would die back into the earth under a heavy cover of snow each year, but then burst forth in the spring to create a remarkably thick cluster of plants. I was to see many more such clumps on other farms in northern Ontario and the attitude seemed to be that rhubarb was little better than a weed. There weren’t enough ways to utilise all that rhubarb and it was frequently ignored.

My tour groups are equally astounded by the size of my rhubarb clump.

“What do you do with it all,” I’m asked.

“Each weekend I’ll ask our guests if they would like to take a bunch home with them, but very seldom will they take me up on my offer. They would rather buy my Rhubarb Relish, which is especially tasty on cold roast lamb.” During the next fifteen minutes as we wend our way through my productive back yard I’ll be advertising our jams, jellies, chutneys and pickles, which they’ll have the opportunity to buy before they board the bus. “The rhubarb must be picked until April.”

Fay's jams and jellies

Because our rhubarb is well watered and shaded from the afternoon sun by the structure of the self-contained apartments it doesn’t suffer any stress and tends to remain green in colour, not the ruby red I would prefer. As a result, if cooked alone, it is rather an unattractive khaki green colour. When I stew my rhubarb I add either strawberries or raspberries. These share their colour and flavour, thus creating a tasty and attractive compote.

“And this fern – what is it?”

“That’s the asparagus. If you look near the base,” I scoop away some soil with my bare hand, “You can see fresh spears. We only pick the stronger shoots during the first couple of months. Then we let it make fern. This is important as the fern allows the roots to receive nutrients during the summer months. Then when the winter frosts come, it dies down and we clear away dead foliage. It is an ongoing cycle. If properly looked after an asparagus bed will last a lifetime.”

“And what are these bushes?” My attention is drawn to bushy clumps on the left side of the path.”

“Red and white currants. We use them to make jellies.”

Harvesting white currants

During 1995 I planted the upper terrace at the rear of Das Helwig Haus with red and white currants. These now bear a prolific crop each spring and must be hand stripped from the bushes and converted to currant jelly. Little did I think when I began planting this huge garden to offset our home, what a rod I was creating for my own back? No matter how busy I am with other matters, by the end of October Eberhard will be drawing my attention to the asparagus needing to be picked, the rhubarb running to flower, the strawberries attracting birds and the currants hanging ripe and ready for plucking.

Fruiting strawberry plants edge the paths and draw gasps of awe from the visitors. Don Burke, of the Burkes Backyard TV program, was amazed at the healthy growth of our strawberry plants when he visited the garden in 1997. I explained to Don that each year I covered them in hay during August then set fire to the hay, allowing the fire to also burn away all the leaves of the strawberry plants. This destroyed the leaves and any disease. The ash added nutrient and the perennial plants were triggered to all shoot new leaves together, flower together and fruit together.

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THE SEASONAL RYTHM at DAS HELWIG HAUS

The four seasons.

2008 was the coldest August recorded on the Granite Belt for 17 years. The winter was also dry. We weren’t short of water for the garden as we experienced a huge flood in January 2008, which filled our waterhole on the Severn River. We have an irrigation license allowing us to draw water from the river source.

This view shows one of the dams we built on a gully watercourse below our house at Glen Aplin. We have never needed to use water from this dam for irrigation purposes. We constructed it to beautify a swampy area formerly covered in tussock grass and to provide a refuge for wild waterfowl. It is much enjoyed by ducks and geese.

Another benefit is the tranquility afforded to guests relaxing on the verandas of Das Helwig Haus http://www.webstation.com.au/accom/helwig. They take pleasure reclining in comfortable cane chairs overlooking the spectacular garden, with their view extending down under the skirts of the pine trees to this expanse of water.

The flooded dam below the house.

Big summer rains lead to an abundance of fruit and vegetables. The rosella bushes, which are a form of hibiscus, are so attractive that I scatter them through our garden, rather than confine them to the vegetable patch. Because they are a tropical plant we have to get fruit picked before the first frosts arrive. In 2008 I lost my rosella crop when an early frost on 30th March devastated all the field crops of the Granite Belt. In this cool mountain climate the rosella bushes require five months growth to become productive. I try to get my plants into the ground in October. The red flesh of the flower calyx is the portion used for jam or jelly and next autumn when we are hopefully harvesting a crop I will include recipes for the jam and jelly.

Following heavy summer rains an abundance of grass grows across our countryside. As we don’t have any livestock, like sheep or cattle, we are obliged to slash the grass to keep our property tidy. Each year I gather some of this cut grass for composting and mulching purposes. Usually the frosts begin in May, drying the grassland and turning it the colour of straw. Each August farmers on the Granite Belt are advised to conduct burn-offs of grassy areas as a preventative measure against bushfires later in the season. I am a great believer in the cleansing power of a controlled fire so each year take advantage of the weather conditions to spot burn our land in the manner of the original settlers – the Aboriginal people.

This fire burnt the land between the house and the dam.

This blackened appearance of our land did not last long as the heat of the fire drew up moisture from deep within the soil and triggered immediate green shoots of grass. As I had hoped we received some rain and the grass responded and the area is now greening rapidly. A winter fire like this is called a cold fire as there is usually insufficient heat to scorch the leaves on the eucalyptus trees or the trunks of deciduous trees.

The removal of an overburden of grass encourages the perennial coreopsis to burst forth with a luxuriant growth of green leaves. The yellow daisy-like flowers rapidly follow and by the end of October the countryside is turning gold.

Golden wildflowers beneath a blue spring sky.

The Granite Belt is noted for enjoying four different seasons. Here I have shown you a lush green summer view, a Wwoofer – Ursula from Germany, harvesting rosellas in the autumn, the dramatic difference of recently burnt grassland and the golden glory of the spring season as Mother Nature follows her yearly rhythm. The Granite Belt is becoming famous for its cool climate wines, but many of the sixty district wineries are boutique sized and Australians are only able to purchase the wine by visiting the district. For this reason many excellent accommodation businesses have been established during the sixteen years since we moved to the Granite Belt to establish Das Helwig Haus B&B http://www.webstation.com.au/accom/helwig .

The residents and tourist operators of the Granite Belt, all know that summer is a delightful season. From the moment the spring storms moisten the fallow land of the Granite Belt the perennial coreopsis flowers begin to bloom, reaching their peak with a golden carpet of daisies across the paddocks in November. The Snow in Summer melaleuca – commonly known as a paper bark tree, provide a mass of white, honey scented blossom along the river and creeks while the apple gums – Angophora floribunda flourish in the forests on the hills at Christmas time.

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