Blood Plums

The Pantry is starting to fill up again. Cooked 3 kilo of Blood Plums which has resulted in 16 jars of plum jam. My favourite recipe: Apple and Plum Crumble for desert last night, a really delicious treat..... even a little bit healthy with rolled oats, wholemeal flour and pepitas. Sorry only a photo of the leftovers.

Our Vegetable Garden

Trying to grow vegetables at Leighton Farm was a battle against the birds and pests. After much thought a covered garden seemed the best solution

Inside the covered garden we have two raised garden beds, and the only pest we have is some aphids. No birds, no bugs, no white moths and lots of vegetables

At the moment we are picking beans, silver beet, strawberries, chillies, celery, Thai basil, eggplant, capsicum and tomatoes. The green zebra tomato is a favourite, full of flavour and a good size. We have found that we can take cuttings and put them into the soil and away they go, growing quickly and producing lots of fruit. We hope to have tomatoes all year round

The strawberries are growing in special hanging gardens

Yesterday an outside garden bed was built, not sure what is going into this bed yet.... things that need bees to fertilize flowers.

It is so satisfying to go to the garden and pick produce for dinner each evening.

The apple cucumbers and zucchini are growing amongst my flowers. The apple cucumbers have turned golden.... kissed by the sun. Walking back from the garden this evening the lake looked so beautiful

Summer Garden Produce

What to do with summer produce?

It's that time of the year when vegetable and fruit produce is in abundance.
My dilemma is always what to do with it.

Yesterday it was cucumbers and zucchini.
A family favourite is pickles and I always use a recipe from my sister-in-law Jenny.

 

So I now have 12 bottles of pickles sitting in the pantry.

 

 

Today it was plums, not sure of the variety but they are not blood plums which are my favourite.

I decided to make a plum chutney.

 

It is a delicious combination of plums, ginger, mustard seeds and chilli along with the normal chutney ingredients.

 

After lots of chopping and simmering I have made this:

 

 

8 jars of plum chutney.

The down side of all this productivity in the kitchen is:

 

 

 

A sink full of dirty dishes.

 

The day has been cool and cloudy, a lovely day to spend in the kitchen.

 

 

Lots more plums to come from the orchard....mmmm -  what recipe to do next.