down to earth

I had some time in the garden yesterday. It was so nice out there; not too hot, the soil was moist from overnight rain and the plants were standing to attention as they often do after rain. I wanted to cut back the lavender, tie up the tomatoes and remove some of the leaves effected by tomato blight. I was delighted to see our first ripe Rapunzel tomatoes. Rapunzel is new to us. It's a hybrid in our garden which is full of open pollinated plants but I wanted to try them and see if they were as good as the label implied.

This is only half the size the trusses can grow.

I'm pretty happy with them so far. The one I tasted yesterday was slightly sour but the seeds were still slightly green so I think I need to give them longer on the vine. The fruit are egg-shaped and slightly larger than a Tommy Toe. True to its namesake, the trusses can hang down about a metre and hold up to 40 little tomatoes.

When you prune tomatoes, cut off all the damaged branches, like this bent one above.

This tomato has been tidied up and pruned, it just needs weeding now and then a thick layer of straw around the base to protect the leaves from the water splashes that cause blight.

Blight-affected tomato leaves.

When you grow tomatoes you have to watch them because they need some help to grow to their potential. Make sure you tie them to a strong support and if you're new to gardening, watch this youtube video for pruning and staking techniques. It looks like he's growing Rapunzels too but this is the way I grow my tomatoes and I know it works. Other youtube videos on this subject aren't particularly helpful. The main points to watch out for are to cut off the lower leaves so you have a clean steam from the soil up to at least 12 - 14 inches. If branches spread out and get out of control, cut them off if you have a tall vining tomato but not for the shorter bushy types. Pruning your tomatoes will help you get through the season without blight - a fungal disease that lives in the soil. As soon as you see a mottled brown and yellow leaf, or part of a leaf, cut it off and solarise it in a plastic bag. Pruning will give the plant better air circulation too and without it blight will thrive once it's established. When you've finished removing those lower leaves and branches, spread out some straw mulch around the base of the tomato to stop dirty water spraying up on the leaves when you water your plants. Usually the tomatoes are fine to eat, even if the plant is fairly badly affected.

If you don't cut off the leaves, blight will slowly rise up to the top of the plant, killing the leaves as it goes. That will weaken the plant and it will eventually die.

Blueberry flowers and forming fruit.

The elder tree is the best it has ever been.

A tray of lettuce seedlings. I'll keep this growing in the bush house all summer.

Mint is also in the bush house. It gets morning sun and sits in shade for the rest of the time. It dies back in winter and shoots again in Spring.

Raspberries starting to climb the trellis. We'll have raspberry pavlova on Christmas day.

I managed to get a few lettuces in too. I just grabbed some from my packed tray of lettuce in the bushhouse. I intend to leave them in there so we have lettuce even when the hot weather makes the lettuce in the ground bolt to seed.

It feels good working out there. The backyard is surrounded by rainforest and a fence so it's cut off from the neighbourhood and whatever is happening out there. The pecan tree is putting on new leaves, a warm breeze blows through, birds are visiting for a drink at the bird bath and life here is pretty good. I can't think of anything I'd rather be doing.

I didn't finish my gardening yesterday so I'll write about it tomorrow. Instead, this is a sad and sorry tale about my recent experience with Hanno's Black Forest birthday cake. Someone asked me to post the recipe and while I'm not going to give you a recipe for a disaster, here is the sad tale of the cake. :- )

I wanted this cake to be the best Black Forest cake I'd ever made and yes, it was memorable but not in the way I wanted it to be. My downfall began when I decided to use a different recipe. I'd always made a chocolate butter cake in the past but the new recipe, from a German site, advised making three layers of chocolate sponge. I only had two round cake tins the same size and one slightly bigger so I baked three cakes in those tins and when they were cold, I used the smaller cake tin to cut the larger one to size. I made three light, text book sponges. They were perfect but I was about to descend deep into a dark pit.

I made a chocolate ganache, whipped the cream, thickened the juice the cherries were packed in and started assembling the cake. I used one of the uncut cakes as the base, added a layer of ganache, topped that with cherries in thickened juice and added the cream. Then I used the cut layer. I repeated the process of adding the layers, and I descended deeper into the darkness. When the final cake layer had been added with its ganache, cherries and cream, slowly but surely, the middle layer collapsed and slid sideways, then ganache, cream and cherries started to waterfall off the sides of the cake plate. Hanno and Kerry stood and watched as it happened. I put the cake onto a larger plate and then into the fridge. As I cleaned up the spillage I wondered if I'd hit rock bottom yet. Clearly, the sponge was too light for the filling and with the walls of the middle layer removed, the forces of gravity took over and there was a landslide in the Black Forest.

Leaving the cake in the fridge for a couple of hours allowed it to firm up and stabilise. Hanno couldn't wait any longer so I cut two slices and with a cup of tea to brace me, we had our cake. It was delicious - a delicious disaster. As we worked our way through the cake over the following days, I discovered that by adding raspberries it looked okay, even good! So when we shared the cake with others, they got a helping of raspberries along with their cherries.

I have said many times before that mistakes are gifts that allow us to learn lessons we don't forget. So what did I learn from this?

Don't use a new, untested recipe for anything important.
One more spoonful of ganache will NOT make it better.
Never cut the edges off a cake that will be filled. The walls are there for a reason, Rhonda!
No matter what it looks like, raspberries will save even the worst disaster. :- )

A small group of very interesting women came along to my first blogging workshop on Saturday. I held it here at home and as the weather was warm and sunny, we all sat on the back verandah overlooking the garden. I had a wonderful time, I enjoyed sharing what I know about blogging and I think everyone went home happy. I wish all the ladies well with their blogs and when they're up and running, I'll give you the links so you can visit them.

When I was a young girl, we had a roast lunch every Sunday - and I do mean every Sunday - and what was left over was eaten as another meal on Monday night. For instance if we had a leg of lamb, we always had Shepherd's Pie for tea on Monday. My parents would have been astounded at the lunch we had yesterday. We had Shepherd's Pie. I roasted a leg of lamb and instead of having the big roast Sunday lunch, I cut up the leg of lamb, minced it and made a pie. My mother would have shaken her head at that. A leg of lamb was a good meal and you didn't go mucking around with it unless it was leftovers. But Hanno's been having problems with his teeth for the past six months and he still can't wear the partial denture he's supposed to wear. I've been cooking a lot of soups and soft food because he has a real problem eating salads and the food we'd normally be eating now.

I made the pie in a slightly unorthodox way. I cut up the meat then ground it with the mincer attachment on my mixer; I put the vegetables through the mincer as well. Doing it that way saves on peeling, dicing and cooking the vegetables separately and they're ground up fine enough to cook well in the time they're in the oven and also fine enough for Hanno to eat.

After making a good gravy from scratch, and mashing potatoes and turnips together, I topped the pie and it spent about 30 minutes in the oven. I served steamed pak choi fresh from the garden, dressed with a little honey soy. Just as the pie came out of the oven, in walked Sunny, Kerry and Jamie so I was delighted to have plenty to share with them. We all enjoyed it very much. The addition of the turnips to the mashed potato was to use up some of the leftover winter vegetables from the garden. It was delicious.

I forgot to take a photo of the cooked pie until after we'd had lunch.

Today I plan on spending some time in the garden to tend the tomatoes, tie up some rapidly growing raspberries, move the Welsh onions, mulch and fertilise. I have a few things to do in the bush house as well. Time is moving on and soon it will be too humid and hot to garden. If I can get these few things done today, I'll be happy knowing we've done most of what needs to be done and we'll only need to water and harvest in the coming months. I'll take a few photos when I'm out there and be back tomorrow with another post. :- )

What are your plans for this week?

This week we have photos from Keriann in New Zealand and Corinne in England. Again they show the diversity of the readers here and the interesting and often beautiful places we all call home. Thanks for taking part Keriann and Corinne.

I'm taking no more photos in this series. I'd like to finish the segment before Christmas.

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Our first photos today are from Kerinann who writes:

I was hard pressed to choose my favourite room in our home, would it be the kitchen, the garden or the sewing room? In the end I chose our bedroom as it makes me smile just about every time I enter it. My husband is a very tolerant man, not objecting when I filled this sunny room with flowers, from the rose printed wallpaper to the "all my favourite fabrics" quilt. In the afternoons the sun pours in making it hard to resist a small reading and cup of tea break. We have doors out onto the garden and on a mild winter day I leave them open to air the room as I potter around doing my housekeeping jobs. We have a sweet puppy called Charlie and he also likes this room, sitting and looking out over him kingdom, dreaming that one day he will get the better of those pesky cats. The first photo is the tidied room and the second photo is before the morning tidy and from a different angle.

I live in the Hawkes Bay region of New Zealand, a big fruit growing area which also includes many vineyards. Currently its winter on the cusp of spring. We still have cold nights, sometimes down to 1 degrees celsius but during the day it hovers around 15. I write a blog which you can visit if you like: www.sweetmarynz.blogspot.com

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Now Corinee writes:

My name is Corinne and I live in the South East of England. To be honest, I have 2 favourite places at home - my sewing/ spare room and my veg patch. But this is the first year for my veg patch and my sewing room has been taken over by our new kitten, so veg patch it is!

It took a while to persuade my husband to start the veg patch.... I do have a bit of previous with forgetting to water plants.... But once he saw our 2 small kids eagerly eating the peas straight from the plant and tasted the veggies himself, I think I have him convinced! And just getting to escape for even a few minutes each day into the veg patch to tend the plants has kept me sane this summer!

I don't have a blog, but I do post photos on Instagram under the name Salapes.

This year’s Adelaide Craft and Quilt Fair, November 5 - 8 at Adelaide Event and Exhibition Centre, will feature the latest trends including adult colouring-in, textile and wearable art, embroidery, knitting, paper craft, vintage fashion and a stunning array of quilts! I have two tickets for the Fair to give away. If you live in Adelaide and can go during November 5 - 8, make a comment below and I'll put all the names in a hat to choose. If you're one of the readers who can't comment, leave a post on the forum and I'll include your name in the draw. FINISHED

A few people asked for the fruit bread recipe shown in Monday's post. It's from my Sunbeam bread maker manual, with a few minor changes. I mix the dough in the bread maker, then bake in the oven.

INGREDIENTS

375 mls water - depending on the weather and the flour, you may use more or less water.
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons room temperature butter
pinch salt
3 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons milk powder
1 teaspoon bread improver - I put this in because it's a dense loaf and bread improver lightens it
4 cups bread flour
2 teaspoons yeast

1 cup dried fruit
½ cup chopped dried apricots - add the fruit 15 minutes before the end of the kneading process

Add ingredients in the order given in the above list. Turn your machine on to "dough", it will take about 90 minutes to mix and rise the first time. Look at the dough as it starts mixing and if it needs more water, add it tablespoon by tablespoon.

About 15 minutes before the end of the cycle, add the dried fruit to the dough. When the cycle finishes, take the dough out, knead it a couple of times, then shape it and sit it in a warm place until it almost doubles in size. When the dough has risen, brush the top with beaten egg, slash the top a few times with a very sharp knife and put it in a pre heated oven at 200C. Ten minutes into the bake, turn the oven down to 180C. This is a sweet loaf and it can burn easily. Check 20 minutes into the bake and if it looks too brown on the top, cover it with foil until it's finished baking. Depending on your oven, it will take 30 - 40 minutes to bake.

I serve it warm, with butter. The loaf will keep for two or three days in a plastic bag in the fridge.

I hope you enjoy it.

Yesterday Meg wrote a lovely and much appreciated comment:

This post kind of sums it all up for me, this idea of simple living. Making what you can, finding better ways of doing things, giving back to community and recognising the beauty in the simplicity. Reading your book earlier this year set in motion a whole string of changes for me. I was raised to frugality and resourcefulness so was nodding in agreement with most of it, but your writing reminds me to take pride in what I do and to enjoy it. And I made my first batch of soap, which I have been wanting to do for years but have been too daunted by the caustic soda aspect. It was so easy and so much fun, thanks to your instructions. So really, this is my thankyou letter to you. Thank You!

When comments such as these arrive, I am delighted my work has helped someone and that they take the time to reach out and tell me that. I like to be appreciated, it gives me reasons to carry on. Meg's comment encouraged me to write today about how simple life is a multi-faceted diamond. It's making what you can, finding better ways of doing things, giving back to community and recognising the beauty in the simplicity. When lived well, this life isn't just about the physical work we do, although that is an important part of it, it's also about feeling valued and enjoying your productivity.

I think we should all be proud of the continuing stream of work we do in our homes. I'm not talking about the boastful pride you sometimes see. This is more a calm contentment that for you, for today, this work made a difference and it was enough. There is loneliness attached to our work sometimes, because often our days are spent alone or with small children, or out in the workforce, and there isn't anyone to say we're doing okay. Many of us also deal with families who don't express their appreciation. And some of us get so busy with the daily chores, or the combination of chores and paid work, we don't stop to think about our role in the family home. But there is a reason we are working as we do and while some of our motives are connected to thrift, health, sustainability, productivity, ethics and values, there is also generosity, acceptance, kindness, appreciation and pride in work well done. These things give our lives meaning.

Life isn't about working till you drop, we all have to find purpose in what we do. When we find that, it's the eureka moment - much like Meg's, when you feel the need to change and then continue that change every day in many ordinary and extraordinary ways. If you can see passed the work and always be mindful of the reason for it, you'll find it easier to continue. And I hope you feel proud of your achievements and enjoy what you do because how you see your work can make or break you.

Finally the book has been sent to the printer and I'm back to concentrating on living this good life. Spring is here, the elder tree and wisteria are full of flowers and many of the migrating birds have arrived and stopped off for a rest. There is a feeling of calm here, housework awaits.

We're in the fortunate position of being able to care for one of our grandchildren and over the weekend, Jamie was here. I love looking after him and seeing him grow. We help him learn and show him the significance of family. Knowing that our help allows Kerry and Sunny to work and establish their life together is the icing on the cake. They're renting at the moment but I have no doubt they look forward to the day they move into their own home. We all know home ownership doesn't come easily.

Homemade fruit loaf.

Over the weekend I did a some baking and made jelly/jello and coleslaw, cut out my Maggie rabbit pattern and started writing notes for the workshops. I also wandered around watering the garden, did some knitting and cleaning. It was a loose, slow weekend with a nice balance of work and play.

I've just started mentoring a local woman, something I'm thoroughly enjoying, and this week she brought me this beautiful bouquet from her permaculture garden. It's silver beet, kale, garlic chives, calendulas, lemon myrtle and various herbs. The bouquet was very much at home in this old preserving jar until it was picked apart and used in various meals.

Last week I was interviewed on ABC Canberra radio for a program about frugal cleaning and it reminded me to write about soaking and brush cleaning again. It's great when we make our own cleaners but there are effective ways of cleaning without using any chemicals. I think we sometimes forget about them because we've been programmed into thinking cleaning always requires a product.

This gentler form of cleaning can be done on clothes just by soaking them before washing. Soaking loosens dirt which is then washed away in the normal wash cycle. It's best done in a top loader but if you have a front loader like I do, select the dirtiest clothes or a garment you've spilt something on to soak in a tub overnight before washing. It does wonders without adding to a chemical overload on your fabrics. The same principle applies to dishwashing. By soaking the dishes for 10 minutes in the sink before washing you'll use less detergent. The other non-product cleaning involves brushes. Using a soft or a stiff brush, depending on the surface to be cleaned, will allow you to get into crevices and remove spills much better than wiping it with a soft cloth. With the cloth, you usually need some form of soap or cleanser. Of course you can add your normal cleanser to your brush for a thorough clean but often it doesn't need the cleanser.

I'm looking forward to the week ahead because I have nothing and everything to do. I'm sure all the homemakers here will know that feeling. There will be a mix of the routine work such as baking, cooking and cleaning but there'll also be sewing, gardening, writing and sitting in the garden under the umbrella. All is good in my world. It doesn't take much. ♥︎

This week's favourite place photos come from Clarissa in beautiful Port Macquarie NSW, Australia and Bridget in Brisbane, Australia. These places are only a few hundred kilometres apart but the photos are very different. One is a place of quiet reflection, the other is a children's play area. I hope you enjoy them. Thanks for sharing your photos with us, Clarissa and Bridget.

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Clarissa writes:

We have lived in our home for 5½ years now and it has only been in this last 6 months (after starting my journey towards a simpler and 'real' life) that I have come to appreciate and be grateful for where we live and what we have. We live directly across the road from the beach in Port Macquarie NSW. We constantly battle the strong southerly winds and sea spray. I love to garden and we have attempted several different types of natural windbreaks with no success. Finally we planted tiger grass and it is growing nicely and withstanding the conditions. Hopefully soon we will have enough protection to start our vege garden out the front.

Our back yard is tiny and doesn't get much sun (but that didn't stop us from trying for the last 5 years without much success), leaving the large front yard our only real option. Hubby has dug up around the perimeter of the fence in preparation for a hardwood edge and some lovely new garden dirt and compost ready for the upcoming growing season. I love to sit out the front in the sun watching my little ones play and imagining all the wonderful times we will spend in the garden, teaching and learning, getting all grubby. Being able to provide for my family and appreciate the simple things in life has found a new meaning with me and now I know that I can find all these things in my own home no matter where it is. I have recently started blogging at simplybythebeach.blogspot.com.au

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Bridget has sent her husband's favourite place, she writes:

Attached are 2 photos of my husband Michael's favourite place, because he'll never send it in so I must do the deed LOL. We live in the north-side of Brisbane Queensland (near you-well not quite-but an hour south of you).

I've always had a craft room but he has never had his own room because my craft took over the house LOL. Anyway when we moved here a year ago I said he could have the 4th bedroom as his library which he has always wanted. This is how he has it set up, that photo on the easel is one he commissioned in Hawaii to be painted. It took 16 years before I saw it, as it was boxed up through all our moves over 16 years and we didn't have the space to display it. I often take a nap on the chair that unfolds flat and is quite comfortable if you stay in one position in sleep. We both love books but after moving through 5 states and lugging hundreds of books I told him no more lugging books, only keep what you want and the rest of the books we will buy on kindle. So this is the results of the culling.

If anyone wants to see my special place, you can see it on my blog under the WOYWW tab. http://bridgetlarsen.blogspot.com.au/