Welcome to fayhelwig.com
Fay Helwig is the owner of Das Helwig Haus B&B near Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt established in 1993. Since 1996 Fay’s garden and The Remembrance Field of Red Flanders Poppies, dedicated to the fallen of all wars, is open to the public every year during October and November.
08   Feb
Filed Under (Organic Gardening) by fhelwig on 08-02-2010

MORE ABOUT MULCHING.

Golden ripple cherry tomatoes

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

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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16   Feb
Filed Under (Organic Gardening) by fhelwig on 16-02-2009

FOR CARMEN

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

Hi Fay,
I am writing a text about my experience by you. I remember a strange story about the name of a bird, which you tell us but I don’t remember the whole story. could you help me, please?  could you also tell me something about the methods you use to improve your garden. I wrote something about the use of jelly, molasses, compost, fence against birds, and the practice of burning grass. Could you explain me something more about it?
Thank you very much. Best regards to Eberhard and you!
I wondered, had I told them about the Kookaburra, the laughing Jackass? The Kookaburra belongs to the Kingfisher family and as such are carnivores. They sit on a branch looking for any movement in the grass below. They will snap up a snake and beat it against a branch of a tree, or drop it from a height to stun it.  Two kookaburras may even join forces, one on each end of the snake to pull it apart. They will eat the snake. In the winter time when snakes are hibernating and other prey may be scarce they will perch along my garden fence, looking for little frogs or lizards. They often frequent picnic grounds for a free handout. They will come regularly for feeding if people begin throwing them meat scraps.
Kookaburra by David Osburg.

Kookaburra by David Osburg.

We have several family groups of Kookaburras on our farm. They cluster together every evening on a tree branch and laugh. Our overseas Wwoofers often think this noisy “Hoo-hoo, ha-ha, hoo-ha” type call is the chattering of monkeys in the trees, but Australia has no monkeys. Due to this chorus of laughter these birds are sometimes called the Laughing Jackass.
The Kookaburras cluster and laugh shortly after dusk and again laugh in the morning at first light before dispersing for the day.
In the spring season there is much laughing throughout the day as the male Kookaburras compete to claim territory.

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18   Jan
Filed Under (Travel Tales) by fhelwig on 18-01-2009

SUCCESS BREEDS SUCCESS

It can be said that nothing succeeds like success. Once a successful outcome has been achieved more successes will automatically follow. Das Helwig Haus B&B on the Granite Belt near Stanthorpe in southern Queensland was named by the journalists of The Courier-Mail newspaper in 1998 as the Best B&B in the Sunshine State. As our fame spread every journalist who visited the Granite Belt chose to write about our Bed and Breakfast home or my garden.

Back in the 1980s when I had lived at Dalby, I had begun a course called Writing for the Media from the TAFE College in Adelaide. The knowledge I gained was to assist me enormously. I could write advertisements and by 1998 had I designed our website layout for http://www.webstation.com.au/accom/helwig

When contacted by SBS TV The Food Lovers Guide to Australia asking for details of our  German style Christmas in July dinners I wrote a TV script of how we spent our days. The presenter arrived carrying my script in her hand and proceeded to follow it during their two day stay.

Eberhard is filmed preparing a goose.

Eberhard is filmed preparing a goose.

Eberhard joked with the crew, “What is the difference between a cook and a chef? A cook does his own washing up. I do my washing up!” Read the rest of this entry »

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27   Dec
Filed Under (Self-sufficiency) by fhelwig on 27-12-2008

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

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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28   Oct
Filed Under (Remembrance) by fhelwig on 28-10-2008

STROLL THE PATHS OF THE FRONT GARDEN

When I first sighted the cypress pine cottage that was to become our future home I was delighted by the honey stained timber which blended naturally amongst several tall eucalyptus trees. While constructing the garden I maintained the natural ambiance by creating rock edged sand paths.

As I lead my tour group towards the southern portion of our front garden I offer them a choice or direction where the path divides around a large bed containing an ivy covered stump, a popular spot for my cat, Patches, to supervise garden activities.

Patches on Ivy

Patches on Ivy

The area fronting our house contained five large eucalyptus trees, the variety known as Peppermint gums, which grow in the cool mountain districts along the Great Dividing Range from Melbourne to the Granite Belt of southern Queensland. Most farmers curse eucalyptus trees because they survive the droughts of Australia due to their capacity to spread roots to match the height of their growth. They are capable of taking every last bit of moisture from the ground. They drop eucalyptus leaves as a mulch  containing a chemical which acts as a growth retardant for grass and other plants within their drip zone.

When he sighted those five trees my father warned, “They’ll rob your garden of all its goodness.”

Other people worried, “What about storms? Aren’t you worried they’ll fall and damage your house?”

Reluctant to remove the trees until I had other plants established I allowed them to remain. Sure, I was forever raking leaves, adding rich composts and pouring on the water, but those trees provided cooling shade in the summer and a degree of frost protection in the winter.

Then disaster struck! Read the rest of this entry »

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24   Oct
Filed Under (Remembrance) by fhelwig on 24-10-2008

WE ENTER THE HERB GARDEN

“Why do you call this your herb garden?

I am always asked this question as we walk down the slope between borders of marigolds and camomile daisies. It is true that this lower terrace at the rear of the house has never been designed as a formal potager. The style of such a traditional garden is usually symmetrical and surrounded by neatly trimmed box hedges. They often contain a fountain, bird bath or sundial in the centre.

The reason that this area at the rear of Das Helwig Haus B&B became our herb garden is its proximity to our kitchen. Rather than keeping a bunch of herbs in a glass on my kitchen table, I prefer to go into the garden to gather fresh sprigs as needed.


Garden path between marigolds and camomile.

Garden path between marigolds and camomile.

I grow the German camomile (matricaria recutita) as an annual plant like the marigolds as it self-seeds and germinates thickly each year in August. The flowers are plucked when fully open, dried and stored. Later they can be steeped in hot water to provide a soothing bed-time tea to encourage a restful sleep.

We pass beside the feijoa trees under which I have planted seed of jam melons as they will need space to run out their vines.  Borage always self-seeds in this area too. It was the ancient Romans who first floated borage flowers in cups of wine. I pick a few dainty blue flowers and hand them to my garden visitors, remarking that I freeze the flowers in ice blocks to later float in a jug of water. The leaves of this herb are cucumber flavoured.

Read the rest of this entry »

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24   Sep
Filed Under (Self-sufficiency) by fhelwig on 24-09-2008

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.

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.Patches lies beside the harvested Pecan nuts.

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.

French wwoof girl cuddles Patches.

Preparing figs for drying.

Preparing figs for drying.

Dried figs on racks.

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.

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