Our vegetable garden is getting there. It's been slow this year. Hanno had several health set backs and is still consulting specialists - he has an appointment today. But through it all he's kept the garden going. Some days he'd do some weeding, some days he'd just water what was growing but in the past few weeks his strength and drive have returned and the vegetable garden has moved ahead.

The main crop, the one we're both sweating on, is the garlic. I used garlic in today's main meal and we're down to one and a half heads left of last year's harvest. If it lasts another two weeks, the new crop will come in just in time. We're picking strawberries at the moment. Big, red, juicy organic strawberries.  It's one of the fruits that tastes so much better having been grown in the back yard, rather than in a field with thousands of others. If you have no room to grow fruit trees at your place, strawberries may be within your reach. They grow well in the garden but also love to be grown in containers, hanging baskets and plumber's pipe with holes cut in the side. If you're never grown fruit before, find two or three virus-free strawberry plants, plant them into rich soil, give them full sun and stand back. Hopefully, you'll be rewarded for your efforts.

I doubt we'll grow potatoes in this year, but that's okay, they'll be there for us again next year. I asked Hanno the other day how long he wants to keep the vegetable garden going and said he's happy to work on it for another few years. But we're making changes to make the work easier when we can. Recently we bought a compost tumbler; it's supposed to make a batch of compost in about six weeks. We move the tumbler with a handle so there is no shovelling to turn the heap over. It seems like a step in the right direction.

At the moment we're growing, bok choi, daikon, wombok, green beans, beetroot, rainbow chard, silverbeet, tomatoes, garlic, strawberries, chillies, corn, kale, cucumbers, lettuce, parsley - curly and flat leaf, Welsh onions, leeks and last year's solo eggplant is flowering again. We have two capsicum/pepper plants from last season that look healthy but have no leaves. I'll cut them back and see what happens. Hoepfully, they'll spring back to life again for us. I've planted sweet peas and a Buddleia in pots at the front of the garden and hopefully, they'll bring in the bees, butterflies and other pollinators.

Right now is a good time to grow vegetables in our region. There are few bugs around, the air is warm enough to encourage growth, but not humid, which brings powdery mildew and its cousins. So we'll be content with this smaller garden for now and shop at the local market when we need to. I hope you've discovered the joys of vegetable gardening. It is one of life's true gifts to get your hands into soil and connect with nature.

What fresh feasts will be on your table this season?

The August decluttering challenge continues with three items going today. I am finally giving away my red dress. I kept it for years, even after I stopped wearing it, because I thought I might like it again. Then I decided that wouldn't happen but because the side of the dress has a lot of buttons right down the side as a design feature, I decided to keep it so I could remove the buttons, then it would go. Well, it's been waiting to have those buttons removed for about five years. The buttons are still there, so is the dress. It goes today. Also going are two pairs of shoes. The challenge is still going strong over at the forum. If you want to join in for the last two weeks, you can write your own blog post about it and leave the link to your blog in the comments here, or you can join in the forum thread here.

We had a slow and relaxed weekend. The weather is changing from the cool of late winter to warmer days and nights. It's been a short winter this year and not as cold as it usually is here. I have the feeling it will be a long hot summer.

One of the joys of living where we do is that the weather is often perfect for six months of the year. Spring and Autumn are ideal, summer is too humid and winter, although nothing by European and North American standards, is cold. Spring is almost here. Hanno worked out in the garden most of the weekend. He dug a huge hole to plant the new lemon tree and unfortunately hit a lot of clay. He added gypsum to break it up a bit, filled the hole with compost, chicken manure, garden soil a good sprinkling of organic fertiliser and then built a fence around it so the chickens can't scratch at the root ball. It's in a sunny part of the chick run so when it's fully grown there'll have more shade in there. It's growing alongside a native fig, a pecan tree and another Eureka lemon. Now we have to keep the water up to it over summer and make sure it gets away to a good start. You can never have too many lemons.

Those chooks are so entertaining. I went out very early to let them out and, as usual, Fiona was first out of the coop into the run, followed by all the others, with Lucy last. It's always in that order. Hanno had dropped one of his gardening gloves in the run and it was laying there, just one glove - natural coloured linen and canvas, nothing too drastic. Yet those chickens carried on like they had a 15 foot python in the backyard. They cackled and squawked and ran in and out wanting a better look at the glove. None of them touched it. Only Lucy, the mother hen, stood back and watched the carryings on with me. They only settled down when I picked the glove up and removed it. They know every inch of their territory and just one thing out of place sends them into a flap - literally.

In the front garden, Hanno pruned back a lot of the ornamental plants and trees. I'm growing old roses now, I have two bushes in, and have just picked the first flower for my desk. It's a very pale pinky-white - a shrub rose called Summer Memories. The other one is a David Austin rose called Claire Rose. They're growing beautifully at the moment but we'll have to help it through summer with extra water this year and hopefully they'll grow well after that. We also have a rose climber called Cecile Brunner which is a tiny pink rose. My mother grew it in her garden and it really loves the weather here. It's on the arbour out the front twinning itself through the wisteria. I'm also trying to cultivate hydrangeas this year. I bought them about 12 years ago, have not been successful in my plantings, but have kept them going as cuttings in the bush house. Now they're in a space just off the front verandah that gets morning sun and remains in shade the rest of the day. I hope it works. I have a feeling they like it there.

Hanno and I both see the garden - front and back - as an important part of our home. The trees provide shade and habitat for wildlife and birds, and although the garden is not grand, it suits our house well. And of course, the back yard provides us with fruit, vegetables and eggs, as well as ample space for grandsons to run around like crazy clowns or build roads in the sand pit.

I go out into the garden early now the weather is warmer. Just after sunrise, when the birds are calling out for the first time that day, I wander around, looking and thinking, watering this and that, clipping, moving and imaging what will come next. I understand now why gardening is such a popular pastime for retired folk. Not only is there a lot of gentle and robust work to be done, there is life and the potential for growth and change and as you grow older, it's wonderful being a part of that.

Making do with what you've got - withchinthekitchen

How to make sauerkraut - cityhippyfarmgirl

The true story of a seven year marriage

Is there really organic honey?

From the comments here this week:

moleymakes

red dirt momma

dylan's dress

At one of my library talks recently I was asked "do you make bread every day?" It was half way between an accusation and a cry for help, as in, please, say no! Well, I have to come clean, I don't make bread every single day, but I make bread most days - probably six days a week. I don't see having bread left over as a problem, it's just the opportunity to create something else with it. Apart from toast, croutons and feeding it with warm milk (powdered) to the chooks during winter, there are so many uses for stale bread.  

I know there are many of you who are trying your hand at bread for the first time, so I thought it would be a good idea to share some of these links for uses for stale bread. When you use stale bread to make something else it doesn't have to be the best piece of bread or, if you're making breadcrumbs, even the same type of bread. But if you're using plain bread and sweet bread, make sure you keep them to their own recipes. If you're new to bread making and you don't like the taste of your bread, if it's not too far off the mark you may be able to save it by turning it into something like bread and butter pudding. Making a pudding out of it will add extra flavour and if your bread's downfall has been that it looks okay but it hasn't got much taste, then go for the pudding option and add more flavour when you make your next loaf.

• Bread and butter pudding or Banana bread and butter pudding
• Italian bread salad
• Bread cases
• Bread sauce
• How to make and freeze breadcrumbs
• Scroll down the page to find Orangette's Nanny's cinnamon toast snacks. I can vouch for these. Delicious!
• Nigel Slater's French toast
• 15 unexpected hacks from chicken soup to broken glass

And now it's over to you. What do you do with your stale bread that's not already on the list?

We had lunch with Kerry, Sunny and Jamie yesterday. It's such a gentle pleasure to sit around a table and share food with loved ones. The sun was shining outside on a warm end of winter day and we had clinking ice cubes in our lemon cordial glasses. A sign of things to come when summer really hits.

I cooked roast pork with baked potatoes, pumpkin, baby parsnips, red cabbage and peas, and followed that with fresh fruit salad and ice cream. Food is always more than food. It's a way of bringing the family together, a reconnection that shows us all that everything is going well, or an early warning that it isn't. You can often get the words that say that over the phone but it's usually the face-to-face meetings that show it unreservedly, and they are made better over a meal, or at least a cup of tea. Yesterday, the conversation was easy, we all enjoyed the shared food and while the warm breeze drifted through the kitchen, Jamie was learning that this is how his family is.

The kitchen table is a powerful symbol of family life. Over the years in my family, we've sat at tables just like mine and talked about dying grandmas, visiting aunties and uncles and the thousand other things that made up our lives then.  I remember my grandma's table, shiny and waxed, holding gem scones, pikelets, corned beef sandwiches and tea. I remember my mother's table - yellow laminex surface with chrome edging, laden with cold drinks, beers and strange cocktail mixes, with chips and fruit cake at Christmas time, when the neighbours visited. We sat together at our kitchen table with a meal at the end of every day, and then, at various times during the year, it would become the centre of joyous hospitality or quiet with tea when sadder times came calling. 

I discovered a lot about my family, and life in general, sitting and listening at the kitchen table. Way back then I don't recall feeling frightened or alarmed at any of the adults talking quietly in the kitchen, nor during the happy and more boisterous occasions. It showed me that adults were vulnerable too and how comfort was sought and given during those times. It showed me the beginnings of hospitality. So in addition to being a focal point in our day-to-day lives where we shared our meals, this humble piece of furniture also became a sewing centre, ironing board, homework desk, games table, it held baby baths, folded washing and a hundred other things. And then during those special times, everyone knew the kitchen table was the place to be during a celebration or when we had to say a sad goodbye.

What happens at your kitchen table?

There will be readers who will gag at these old-fashioned recipes, as well as those who, even though the ingredients are quite cheap, still can't afford to buy them, but there will also be many who are struggling to feed the family each week and if that is you, then I hope these recipes help in some way. I've gone off eating sausages as much as we used to but I do eat them occasionally, mainly because they're tasty and cheap and if I don't think about what I'm eating, I'm fine. I'm sharing this recipe because I remember many times in the past when I was trying to stick to my budget with Hanno and two teenaged boys to feed and another quiche or salad just wasn't going to do it on that particular day. Some men just need to eat meat and I'm not going to go into the whys and wherefores of that, I just know it to be a fact.

This will do a small family of two or three for two meals, just increase the number of sausages if there are more of you. We started with ten sausages. Mine were skinny beef sausages, but they could also be fat ones, pork or chicken sausages. The rest of the ingredients are really dependent on what you have on hand - either in your fridge, pantry, stockpile or garden.

Cook all the sausages in a frying pan on the first night - this will save on the time and electricity/gas to cook them on the second night. Look in your pantry, fridge, stockpile and garden and see what vegetables and herbs you have to use. I think the success of this meal will depend on how many vegies you have because they tend to fill up the plate and provide variety and colour. If you have no fresh vegetables but have tins of beans and tomatoes in the cupboard, you could use those instead. another option would be if you have potatoes and fresh eggs - you could serve the sausages with eggs and potato wedges.

On the first night we had sausages with onion gravy, mashed potatoes with finely chopped onion and parsley, brussel sprouts, cauliflower and carrots. It's winter here so we enjoyed the hot food but if it were summer, a salad, potato salad, coleslaw, homemade pickled beetroot or tomato relish would all be delicious served alongside the sausages.

ONION GRAVY
Pour off some of the dripping in the pan if there is too much there. Add one sliced onion and fry until soft. Add a tablespoon of plain flour, salt and pepper, then stir this until it's brown. If you have paprika, adding a level teaspoon will add a rich colour to the gravy. When the flour mix is coloured, add about a litre/quart of water and stir until the gravy thickens. Allow to simmer on the stove while you serve the sausages and vegetables, then top with hot gravy.

Put the leftover sausages and gravy in a bowl, in the fridge for tomorrow night's dinner.

CURRIED SAUSAGES
The following night, chop the sausages into bite sizes pieces and leave to one side. Add a small amount of oil to the pan and cook one onion until it's slightly browned, then add the vegetables you have on hand, add a tablespoon of curry powder and another of plain flour and stir in. Then add about a litre/quart of water and allow the sauce to thicken. Add the sausage pieces and simmer for 30 minutes to allow the curry flavours to develop. I added ½ cup washed rice to the meal so I didn't have much washing up to do but you could also boil or steam some rice separately to serve with it.

Please note: if you have small children who won't like curry, leave the curry powder out and add paprika instead. You'll still get a good flavour.

I love having a treat after a meal like this - a meal when I feel I've saved money and stayed within my budget. Right now it's strawberry season here so fresh strawberries and cream is the logical (to me) ending to a meal such as this. Just because we're on a budget, it doesn't mean we can't eat the best fruit we can find or create a favourite dessert. Don't be afraid to treat yourself. You deserve it. : - )

Thanks to everyone who suggested radio stations for me to try. I've already listened to Jack Monroe on BBC4. I'll set up NPR and Radio National when I have a chance later in the week.

This is what is being moved out. It wasn't too bad although there are a couple of things there I don't recognise.

Yesterday, after lunch, I decided to clean out one of the gadget drawers in the kitchen. This is the drawer that sits under my kitchen linens drawer, under the oven. It holds things I use, but not often. So it's the mandolin, tomato press, grater, canning tools, rings, lids and those sorts of things. It didn't take long to remove everything, wipe the drawer out, replace the useful items and separate what I didn't need any more. I'm sure there is a reason I kept one of the steel racks from my old oven but I can't think of it now. Whatever the reason, now it will be used to dry soap or as a rack in the bush house to keep wet pots off the wooden benches.

It feels good to have the drawer clean and tidy, ready for service again.

Yesterday I thought I was going to write most of the day but I ended up in my bush house, repotting ferns and plants in hanging baskets. I take the baskets out of the bushouse in spring and hang them on the front verandah. They give the house a cooler feeling when the temperatures start to climb again. So I repotted some king ferns and a few olds and ends and hung them out the front. We rarely sit out there in winter, favouring the back verandah with the sun streaming in during the colder weather.  I love sitting outside to have morning or afternoon tea. We can sit there together in the fresh air, talking about our plans and hopes, while we enjoy a break.

Also after lunch, I juiced two buckets full of lemons. I harvested two litres/quarts of juice last week, now these two buckets have given two more large bottles for the freezer, as well as a litre/quart to use during the week. That lemon tree of ours has served us well over the almost 16 years we've lived here. It was one of the first things we planted here, it's in the chook run so we never have to fertilise it, and although it gives a huge crop of lemons in winter, it generally has a few lemons on it all through the year. I'm guessing we'll get another two or three good years from the tree before it will start producing less and less lemons. If it keeps on producing prolific crops, I'll happily accept it and have more than enough lemons and cordial to share.

LEMON CORDIAL

The two plastic bottles will go in the freezer, the glass bottle in the fridge for use during the week. Kerry, Sunny and Jamie are coming over for a family lunch tomorrow so I'll probably make a batch of cordial then. The forecast tomorrow is for 28C/82F and it's still winter! 

Hanno went to the market yesterday and bought another Eureka lemon tree.  It will be planted up in the corner of our property, near the bananas. I can't imagine not having a lemon tree now. They're good for so many things. But soon it will be summer, and that's always lemon cordial time here. I'm looking forward to it with an abundance of juice ready to go.

Just a little request here at the end. Now that I've discovered that I can use my smartphone as an internet radio, I've been trying to find a couple of stations to listen to in the kitchen when I'm working there. I don't want music stations, I like talk, but not talk-back. Something similar to the wonderful Radio National in Australia would be ideal. They have all sorts of interesting broadcasts about lifestyle, books, philosophy, parenting, history, food etc. Do you have anything to recommend?

Vivian is back from her family holiday and she's having a mini sale at EcoYarns this weekend. Most of the yarns with wool content will be on sale. I noticed there are new buttons in now too and, if you're a spinner, several new tools, such as a yarn meter, and winders.

I am knitting Johnathan a summer cardigan in Vivian's softest pale blue organic cotton at the moment. I love using it.  And Tricia is knitting herself a beautiful darm brown cardigan with the Trekeiske Organic Merino. It's so soft and warm.

The master's apprentice. This is where Jamie leaves his spade.

I'll be busy with my writing most of the weekend. I'm hoping to have Sunday afternoon off to relax and prepare for next week. I hope you have the chance to relax too, even if you're busy, especially then. You need it. Whatever you do ever the weekend, I hope you enjoy yourself and spend time with the people you love. I'll see you next week. 

- - - ♥ - - -

Homemade garlic and herb bread.

Bread is part of our daily lives here. I make it most days and sometimes we buy a good rye loaf from our German baker. I'm happy to say though that I make good rye bread, so the loaf we buy from them at six dollars is only purchased when, for one reason or another, it can't be made at home. Very early on in my simple life I wanted to bake bread instead of buy it. It is possible to buy good bread but it's expensive and supermarket bread contains so many additives, I don't think it's worth eating. The following is a typical ingredient list for Australian packaged white or wholemeal supermarket bread:

• Wheat Flour, Water, Baker's Yeast, Vinegar, Iodised Salt, Canola Oil, Wheat Gluten, Soy Flour, Emulsifiers (481, 472e, 471), Vitamins (Thiamin, Folate). 

So one of the first things I taught myself how to do was to bake our bread. It took about three months to get a loaf that I was happy with every day. I tried many recipes, reworked, adjusted and finally had a recipe that gave consistent good results.  I've kept tweaking it over the years and I'm happy to share that recipe with you. I know many are learning how to bake for the first time and others struggle, as I did, to get a decent loaf. Bread and soap making are the two subjects I'm asked about most at my library talks. Try this recipe and if it doesn't work, try it again the following day. If it works the second time, it just means you missed something the first time. The amounts must be accurate and you need a warm temperature in the kitchen to proof the dough.

This loaf can be made in a bread machine or completely by hand. I use the machine to knead the dough when I'm busy. One thing a machine is good at is kneading, and the machine keeps a steady warm temperature so that the dough rises well. When all that is done, I take the dough out of the machine and bake the loaf in the oven. The how to guide to making bread by hand is in this early post from 2007. Little has changed, except the recipe. I've developed this new simpler recipe that makes a good loaf, even for beginners. 

This bread contains gluten. I never make gluten-free bread. Gluten is one of the proteins in wheat flour. To make this bread successfully, you need to develop the gluten. That just means it must be kneaded for a long time. The machine will take over an hour to knead and proof the dough. If you do it by hand, you must knead vigorously for at least ten minutes. 

You need fresh ingredients for bread to rise. Use fresh flour and fresh yeast, not those that have been sitting at the back of the cupboard for six months.

BREAD RECIPE

If you've had problems in the past getting bread to rise, use a heaped teaspoon of bread improver to the above recipe and see if that makes a difference. 

* I never use any other type of yeast so please don't ask me about fresh yeast. I don't know.

Last week's bread.

Uncut and cut.

Shaping the dough. You roll it into a spiral.

Last week's garlic bread.

This is the shaped loaf in the bread tin, sitting in the bread machine to rise.

Turn the loaf out onto a cake rack to cool.

I think a lot of people let the idea of perfection get in the way of living. When you expect perfection you raise the bar so high, most of the time you don't live up to it and you're left disappointed. I don't think anything is perfect in day to day living, and it's not meant to be. I'm far from perfect. I'm as flawed as the next person and happily accepted that many years ago. If I was living with the expectation of being perfect or carrying out my tasks perfectly, I'd probably be too scared to try most of the things I have tried.

I do try to do my best though. I try for that in every thing I do. When I write this blog, I try my best. Not so it's the best blog or to outshine any other bloggers. I do it because I want it to be the best I'm capable of. Some days I get it right, some days I don't, but I'm okay with both.

My guess is that this topic wouldn't mean much except that it stops some people from trying new things. They're scared of failure. They don't want to make mistakes. I think mistakes are one of the greatest learning tools. They show you you've done something wrong and if you stop and think about it, often they show you how to fix the mistake as well. Whenever I make a mistake I know that what I did wrong, and what I did to fix it, will be cemented into my brain forever. And although I don't like making mistakes, when I do, I gratefully accept the lessons they have to teach me.

When I first started this blog, in the first few months, I occasionally used material I'd written for a book proposal. I sent it off to three publishers and they all said no to me. But I believed in what I had written, turned that book proposal into this blog and a few months later, Penguin came knocking and offered me a book contract. If I had my choice of book publishers, I would have chosen Penguin, but I didn't send my proposal to them because I didn't think I was that good. Now I have one published Penguin book and am in the process of writing another. It's a good lesson in trying your best in everything you do. When all the ducks are lined up, your best if often exactly what others want.


So instead of concentrating on perfection, concentrate on giving, on love, on generosity, self-reliance, family tradition, home skills and understanding. You never know, the end result might just be close to perfect.

Decluttering update:
Buried deep in the back of the bathroom cupboard, hair dye! (circa 1998), some disgusting looking orange bath bombs (ugh), two old hair brushes and a hair clip.  They're all going to the rubbish bin, except for the hair clip.

I hope you're continuing along with me. Do your updates in the comments here if you're linking to your blog, or at the forum if you don't have a blog or want to join in the discussions about decluttering.