FEBRUARY 2011 – IF THAT WAS SUMMER, I GUESS WE’VE HAD IT.

Brrrr!
I’m writing this a day late. It’s the 1st March, it’s the beginning of autumn and, in South Western Victoria, the weather has suddenly turned to winter! The morning temperature was about twelve degrees, the heater was turned on and we shivered over breakfast. So I guess that was summer. Perhaps autumn will be a little more traditional, with cool mornings but warm, still days. Hmm, I can but hope!


Vegetables: Tomatoes and Silver Beet – very little variety but plenty of food.

There wasn’t a lot of gardening activity on my part and the garden seemed to survive very well without it. We started picking tomatoes at the beginning of the month and for the last two weeks of February, have been picking 5 or 6 almost every day. These are mostly from the one grafted plant, “Health Kick”, which I planted late November. I haven’t staked it and the plant has spread far and wide all over the garden. This doesn’t seem to matter to the fruit – I simply hook them up over the stems as they begin to ripen and pick them when they are quite deeply red all over. They look – and taste – like a Roma and I like to leave them on the plant as long as possible to develop their full flavour.




The couple of big ones on top are the first from a couple of Heritage Italian plants given to me by a friend.

I’ve given quite a lot away and have also cooked up a big saucepan to freeze for soups and casseroles.
I also remembered an old recipe I used to do regularly and had totally forgotten about. Just cut the small tomatoes in half, place on a baking tray with a sprinkle of olive oil, celery salt and basil, and cook in a slow oven for about 30-40 minutes till they are almost dried out. This concentrates the flavour beautifully. When they've cooled, add a few drops of balsamic vinegar - absolute heaven! Served alone or on toast squares or a biscuit, they go beautifully with a glass of chilled white wine! And don’t we deserve something delicious after all our hard work?

Perhaps they don't LOOK all that attractive but I can vouch for the flavour.

The Silver Beet went to seed pretty quickly in January, so I planted another punnet of the coloured variety, Swiss Chard, and it grew so well, I started picking the odd few leaves a couple of weeks later. It’s now producing quite enough for a couple of meals a week.

An Excuse
One of the reasons for not doing too much gardening was a planned family gathering set for 19th February. This meant more time and energy went into house-cleaning and other preparations than I usually spend! (I’m much happier working in the garden than working in the house!)
We totalled twelve adults and five children for lunch and dinner Saturday, and breakfast and lunch Sunday. Fortunately, everyone brought food and it was a communal cooking and eating fest. They are all enthusiastic cooks – all the daughters and sons, as well as in-laws – so all Geoff and I had to do was sit back and let it all happen. Some of the family were staying at the local caravan park, and four adults and a baby stayed with us.
The visit of the four small grandchildren was the reason for the planting of the Sunflower Circle. I had hoped we could put a piece of carpet inside and they could play in there with books, games, tea-set, etc. However, the weather was NOT particularly kind to us. We managed to cook and eat outside and on the veranda but intermittent rain meant that the ground was wet and it was also very windy. Admittedly, okay for kites, and we flew those with great success. We also managed a big and highly disorganised game of cricket; but it was a bit wet and chilly for a Sunflower House.



Too wet for sitting in but Jack enjoyed peering through the leaves.



They  just love the space to run, play, yell and swing.

Australian Garden This IS supposed to be a blog about a Native Australian garden, and vegetables and sunflowers don’t really belong at all; so a quick report on what’s been happening in this department.
For a start, the Bush Garden, which has plenty of pictures on the Picasa site here, has developed to just where I hoped it would be as the grandchildren grew old enough to enjoy it. The two 3-year-olds and the two 5 & 6 year-olds had great times hiding there, running around, exploring and 'getting lost'! We even had one scary moment when an uncle was hiding up a tree and growled mysteriously. Six-year-old Jack wasn't 'really scared' - but it was a pretty exciting moment.
All the shrubs and plants are growing and they seem to be getting ready for a quite early spring. Lots of buds on the “Burrundong Beauty” (Hakea Laurina-cross), the Cootamundra (Acacia baileyana), the Yellow Mallee Gum (E. preissiana), and the Banksias.

Yellow Mallee Gum (E. preissiana)



Burrundong Beauty



Prostrate Cootamundra (A. baileyana) with plenty of buds.



Banksia spinosa

The everlastings have been flowering all through January and February and hardly look like stopping yet. More and more spiders are appearing and, as I was writing this, I checked on the internet to identify them. I found an excellent site: http://museumvictoria.com.au/spiders/ and have now got all the correct information about our most common spidery visitors. (Fancy spiders having their own "website". Sorry!)
We have heaps and heaps of Leaf Curling Spiders, quite a number of Scorpion Tailed Spiders (which are not as dangerous as their name suggests. It’s just that they have a tail that they curl up over their back) and our colony of Spiny Spider babies from December (which I always used to call Spikey Spiders) has spread far and wide and they can now be found all over the garden.
According to the website, none of them are particularly dangerous. I don’t make a habit of handling them but even if they did manage to bite, they would only produce a localised swelling or itching.
One of the grandsons, 5-year-old Marley, is a very keen bug-man so he had a great time examining them all.

A Menace!
I also have to report that the Dichondra has become far too invasive for comfort. It did seem like a good idea at the time – great coverage and keeps the weeds down beautifully BUT – how do I handle it now? The overabundance of water this season has given it the personality of an agressive invader and it is starting to give me sleepless nights wondering how to control it. Watch this space for further developments!


The Scaveola is still flowering bravely but that Dichondra
will HAVE to be removed from around it.

Picasa Pics Even if there doesn’t seem to be much to report, there’s plenty to see in the garden and it’s best appreciated by the pictures I’ve put on Picasa. Click here to browse through what’s flowering, what’s budding and what’s developing.

EARLIER ENTRIES
For earlier months' Blog entries go to "Previous Posts".
For earlier months' photos, you can click HERE.