Talking, baking and planting

I've spent a few Saturday mornings on Skype recently chatting away to people I know through this blog. It's been a lot of fun and many of the women I chatted to said they enjoyed it too. We were all in our own homes, many of us had a cup of tea or coffee and it was like meeting up at the coffee shop with the girls. So I've been thinking I might make it something I do just to socialise. I wonder if there are six people who want to chat on Skype for an hour on a Saturday morning (Brisbane time). You can ask about bread, or cooking, or mending, or whatever, or we can just socialise and get to know each other. Isn't that a great idea! I'll start it in April because I still have a writers chat and a bloggers chat coming up. When they're finished, I'll pick a date and if you comment here or follow me on Instagram, you can email me and let me know you're interested. I think we'll have a great time.

ADDED LATER: Please not, I'm not taking names now. In April, I'll let you know when to contact me via the contact form on the right.

I made a new bread recipe yesterday. Well, I suppose I can't call it a new recipe, I just added oats to my normal bread.  I ground it up in a small food processor and substituted one cup of ground oats for one cup of flour.  I wonder why I waited so long to do that, it was fabulous.  Here is the link to one of my bread posts with the bread recipe.

I put the ingredients in a bread maker to mix and knead, then bake the bread in my normal oven. 

It will save you money to make your own bread. Currently, if you buy a sliced grain loaf at Woolworths if will cost about four dollars.  If you buy bakery bread, it will cost about about the same for a white loaf and about six dollars for a sourdough. Us home bakers can do better than that.  Five kilos of white baker's flour costs $10 at Woolworths, good wholesome flour at a bulk bin shop is about five dollars a kilo.  I usually use half and half when I bake white and wholemeal or grain bread and one third rye and two thirds white when I bake rye bread.  A white loaf made at home will cost about $2.75 to bake at home, a more nutritious loaf will cost nearly as much as you'll pay for it at the bakery, but your loaf will be better. When you bake at home you can add as much or little salt and sugar as you like, you can use whey, watered down yoghurt or milk instead of plain water.  There will be zero packaging on your home made loaf and you'll know with certainty who has touched the bread, what is in it, and exactly when it was baked.

To store the bread, wait till it's completely cold then slice it. I use either an electric knife or a meat slicer. Then it's packed in a plastic bag and stored in the fridge or freezer. It lasts well for about four or five days but after day two, I toast it.

Outside I'm still planting seeds and Hanno is clearing old crops and enriching the soil for the new ones. We have beetroot and turnip seeds to go in soon, the sweet potato slips and cucumbers are ready to plant and the Welsh onions, butter lettuce and long white icicle radishes are all ready to eat. I'm going to plant up a grow bag of potatoes on the weekend. I put in a few new parsley plants a few days ago and they're doing well and the hot chilli I have in the old sand pit must have about 30 chillies on it at the moment. I'll have to make a few jars of chilli jam soon.

So far we have these growing, or the seeds to start them growing: tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, ruby chard, green silverbeet, dill, golden nugget pumpkin, red and green curly kale, Tuscan kale, Welsh onions, radishes, pirella leaf, potatoes, sweet potatoes, turnips, beetroot, basil, parsley, oregano, bay, thyme, sage, garlic and red pak choi.  All these will be small amounts and some will have follow up crops.

Of course, it's not all seeds and plants. A couple of days ago I did some garden housekeeping outside. I cleaned all my plant labels with methylated spirits so they're ready for the season.  Today I plan on organising the empty pots and garden tools in the bush house.  And if I think of it this afternoon, when the shade is over the garden, I'll prune and fertilise a couple of roses.

Grown from seeds, I have five F1 Cherry Falls tomatoes to plant in pots.

If you're planting a garden this year, I recommend a new cherry tomato I grew for the first time last year.  Cherry Falls is a delicious, large cherry tomato that was bred to grow in hanging baskets and pots. It's not cheap - $4.95 for 10 seeds, but they're worth it and they produce masses of tomatoes that taste like tomatoes should taste.  It's not a heirloom variety, so you won't be able to save seed at the end of the season, but I don't mind buying fresh seed every year for something this good.

Happy gardening and baking everyone! 💕