Excess Tomatoes, Potting Succulents, & RA

 Normally at this time of the year, in a sub tropical garden, it is closed down from Nov to March, due to the heat. The cooler weather we have had all though still hot, has certainly kept my garden going, on just a watering every few days. The tomatoes never seem to stop and with 4 Kilos in the fridge decided I had better do some preserving. 

Being on the Homemakers Forum is certainly an advantage as there I found out about Roasting Tomatoes for a sauce or in my case I let it thicken into a thick relish, to use as a thick sauce or a dip.

4 kilos of assorted Tomatoes

So I just topped the greenery off and cut them in half if cherries or slices for the big ones, which were excess from the Community Garden, and put them into 2 baking dishes with a dash of oil, blitzed garlic, and a sprinkle of thyme.

Once they started to turn black I pulled them out of the 180C oven. I found the slight burntness gives the tomatoes a rich flavour, compared to just cooking them in a pot. 

All of this I put into my little blender and blitzed it again, and adding some fresh basil from the garden.

I decided not to preserve in bottles but to freeze instead, because of the basil. 3 cups to a zip lock bag.

I didn't use all the juice when I blitzed them and this I put into a jug for John to use, which he did over spaghetti. There was enough left over for a dip that he enjoyed with the daily happy hour visit from the neighbour.

I might add that it is delicious, and so easy. 

Large yellow cherry tomatoes still producing.

We took a trip to Brisbane for our Rheumatoid appointments this past week. A very long day as we left at 6.45am and got home after 10pm. John had liver scans, at the hospital first, which were passed as ok and his RA has settled down on his tablets, with his liver not playing up and accepting them.

A  jungle mix of Zucchini, Cucumber, basil  and climbing beans.

 On the other hand my RA has flared up excessively and now on Prednisone a form of steroids, plus tablets plus injection. If we can't bring the inflammation down as it is very high, Roche will not allow me to have a new subscription for the injections. I am not sure why that is but we have a month to do it in, as luckily as of today I  have 4 weekly injections left. 

I didn't feel that bad, but you get used to the pain, and just put up with it. I did feel worse when taken off the tablets though, because of the wrong reading of my liver. 

Steroids thin the bones, so another bone density to do after the course, more blood tests for inflammation and fingers crossed for luck. 

On a happier note Miss P came over yesterday and I decided it was time to fix the succulents on the fence that I look at from the kitchen.

They were very overgrown and it has been 2 years since this was done. We emptied everything out and I had a tray of new little ones plus we cut back a few of the oldies with roots, and replanted them as well.

It surprisingly took nearly 4 hours, just to do a few pots.

 

 I also filled up 2 hanging baskets with succulents, which are now hanging in the front above the rails.

The will fill up quite quickly. The rest of the old succulents I will put onto the bank garden, which at the moment is covered in fine couch grass, in the pathway and I am going to have to spray it, as it has become a real nusiance.

 

There is so much to do in the garden it is very overgrown with weeds in the paths, and the back garden area, now has nothing in it but weeds, but it is also hot and I am not feeling like it. I have sorted the linen press and dumped all the bits of started wool projects and wool not accounted for on the spare bed, which I will sort today. 

Good news is the painting is finished, more next week.

Till Next Time.

Baking Pasties & Christmas Declutter.

We had another family, and this time an evening picnic, down by the creek reserve, and hardly anyone in sight compared to a week or so ago. I decided to make pasties to use up some mince, using a recipe which is very rare thing for me,  and ended up making 28 of them. I had forgotten how good they are. Froze 20 of them and will take some for lunch this coming week on our medical visit in Brisbane.

Used my nifty turnover maker, of which there are 3 in the box. This one cuts 4 circles in a sheet of shortcrust pastry, an ideal size, and the 2nd. largest. Had them for years.

The pasties turned out really nice, and not bad for 500grms mince and a few veg.

Sprinkled with Poppy seeds and hold 1/4 cup of mix.

I also have finally collected all the Christmas Decorations from around the house and dragged out the other boxes not used. Mostly stuff that hangs on trees.  There is actually 5 boxes in all.

Decorations I actually used this year.

I went through everything, and threw out what we no longer needed, plus a couple more as when I refilled the boxes, they had to all fit and ended up with 3. Some of the Santa's and snowmen are kept in there original boxes of stryafoam to protect them and would probably have only been 2 boxes, if not for that, so was a big declutter.

Ones for the Op shop.

Packed and ready to be put away

As this stuff lives in my very large linen press/storage, fitted neatly in to the corner, for another year.

The garden is now being attacked every morning till 10 by me, but John is helping and lasts till lunchtime, but the humidity I find too much so I have been changing over to the Sewing Area at the bottom of the stairs and  which is 5 or more degrees cooler.

It is on a trolley so a sideway photo.

My eldest daughter suggested getting rid of a tv unit as had a big bench top, but not a lot of easy storage, so when the eldest son was here got him and our DIL to take it up to the top level for pickup hopefully by Lifeline.

 I have stacked cube storage up the wall, which gives me way more space, although, I now have to find the time to finally get this area in working order.

 

Bonus is, I have decluttered a lot in this area last year.

Needs proper organizing I have just shoved cubes in to see the effect.

 

There is a two cube wood unit to put together for the left side, when I get time. 

 

After not being in any routine,  now that everyone is back at work, it is nice to settle down to one. I feel more grounded knowing what each day brings. 

There are a few projects for 2023, that I need to start, like the sewing room, and organizing the vegetable gardens, to begin with.

 

I hope your year has started well also.

 

 

Till Next Time.

Processing Carrots,Tomatoes & Bake Day

It has been a bit of a trying week pain wise, having been taken off half my medicine due to the liver, while I wait to see the specialist in 2 weeks, but it hasn't stopped me dealing with the vegetables in the garden. Just before Christmas I emptied an entire bed of carrots. There is still another bed we are eating off , so decided to freeze the picked ones. 8 kgs of them with the biggest being 750 grms.

So after a lot of peeling and cutting I blanched them in boiling water, and put them on a tray in layers between cling wrap to save room.

After they froze I then vacuumed packed them in small size bags to do two or three meals.

 At the same time I picked leeks and garlic. The Garlic hadn't formed and I blame all the wet weather. This is known as green garlic so I chopped both up together and froze them in blocks to use when doing a stir fry or similar.

So this past week it has been tomatoes. There is one sure thing about self sown cherry tomatoes is they never stop producing. Even named tomatoes that I have nurtured don't do as well. It eventually got to a point that there were too much in the fridge so I turned them into a tomato relish also using  more leeks from the garden, and some of the frozen garlic blocks.

7  jars of really delicious tomato relish was the result, which I then put them through a canning process to seal properly.

There was also a lot of eggs, from my Daughter in laws flock, to deal with so I turned 9 of them into a slice using left over bacon, some feta and cheese, leeks, bit of chopped basil, olive oil, and made one large baking dish that cut into 8 decent serves and froze 7 of them. Had to have one for my own dinner.

While I was on this baking frenzy decided to make a boiled fruit cake and some what the family call Nobbies started when my father was little. Basically a rock cake. These used up another 4 eggs.

Cut this into 3 long slices and froze two

Divided these into 3 lots and froze two also.

I have been trying to do a couple hours of weeding every day, but it has been quite hard. The front garden is looking better but the back is very overgrown. I am considering pulling the front down and moving it to the back after dismantling the brick ones there. Well at least seeing if I can find someone to do it. The wood ones seem to work better and are a little higher.

The following is Monty Dons Vegetable Garden, so along these lines but not quite so big. 

This being my garden in May this year. We will see how this is accomplished. I just wish my 3 boys would get together to help. If this is done then I will turn the front garden into false grass or may be real and pay our nature strip mower to cut it. I will still have the edge gardens for roses and flowers. Hopefully things would get a little easier, for me, getting old sucks. 

So that is it for this week

Till Next Time.

Taming the Jungle & Cooking Lessons

 It is beginning to feel a lot like Autumn. Certainly the humidity is easing off and I have managed to get out to the garden to do some weeding. At least the wheelie bin is full to the top of green waste this week.

Blueberry/ Strawberry and Rhubarb Jungle patch

By jungle I mean the weeds were really high and thick. Fairly easy to pull, although the nut grass is my worst enemy, but in the end 4 beds have been cleaned roughly and another one with leeks in it half way. It is a bit dicey as leeks can look like nut grass so have to go carefully in that one.

Miss P came over Sat. and the back bed above, was full of carrots, so got her to pull them all out plus the bed in the front garden as well. They had been in a long time, nearly 3 months I think, so time to start again. 

Left the capsicums in as still producing.

Such a mess in the back garden, but at least it is a start. I also planted some seeds in one of my plug trays. dwarf beans, broccoli, cabbage, beetroot and some flowers. This was done last Thursday and yesterday(Sat) they were up. One of the benefits of keeping seeds in the fridge as going from a cold environment to a warm one certainly hurries them up to grow.

The rain did arrive yesterday, after about an hour in the garden so I decided that Miss P could help me process the carrots and also a heap of cherry tomatoes. A lesson in blanching and freezing carrots and using the vacuum machine, was successful.

 

 This was followed by making some Mild Spicy tomato Salsa, which she took home, two jars, to put in a Salsa Chicken dish which is made the same way as you would Satay Chicken.

So while in cooking mode I bought a packet mix at Chrismas of a Yuletime Log Cake, so another lesson in Swiss Roll making, something I haven't done for many, many years. Luckily it turned out very successful.

Spread with Raspberry Couli, then Cream before re rolling.

Iced with Chocolate

Miss P took it all home bar one slice which I will have today. She is going to cook Salsa chicken and have the cake for dinner tonight. My DIL has been away taking our eldest grandaughter back to Uni and will be returning tonight. I am very proud of Miss P who will only be 13 this March.

The Easter Daisy is in full bloom, a little early maybe, they do last 3 - 4 months though.

 

Till Next Time.

Community Garden New Grant.

 It hasn't been the best of weeks for me, as after getting over my painful lower back from mulching the garden last week, I decided to weed the new rose garden along the back fence. It has been very hot so at 5pm last Wednesday, out I went it was lovely and cool, and sat on a milk crate to help my knees. Unfortunately my back didn't like it, although I did finish the weeding, and spent the next 3 days with hot water bottles and rubbing in a special cream to ease it. So now I am not game to try anything major. Consequently not much has been done this week. To top it off my heart Dr. rang as a result of the holter monitor,I had on last week, and now says I have Long QT syndrome which is an extended gap in the beats and not good, and Rheumatoid  Dr. wants yet another blood test the 6th in a row, as although the Neutrophils are creeping up, he feels it should be over and done with by now.

I agree with him on that score.!! It feels like I am always writing about it too, so I am sure you are all getting sick of it as I am. He has added B12 and iron tests to the mix this time.

 

 Good news is John has his bandages off and stitches out, so now just waiting on the bruising  to completely come through, but at least he is now driving. 

He also received notification that he won a $15,000 grant for the Community Garden to purchase the bucket for the tractor, a vacuuming system so clean up the cut grass etc, and a little trailer, and to build 3 more compost bins. This means the compost can be turned easily and carting soil or bricks or whatever can now be done without to much hassle. He now has to organize others though to drive the thing. It will be a surprise announcement at the meeting Tuesday.

One of the advantages of keeping a blog is I looked up this time last year and we were  out and about doing a lot of public singing for the choir, plus their Christmas Party,visiting mum of course, the fires in this area were easing off. It was also the beginning of my arthritis woes. Such a different year for 2020.

I did manage to make some Madagascar bean rissoles, I added grated beetroot,carrot,celery,fresh beans,silverbeet from the garden, to the cooked Madagascar ones. All done with my food processor, so not too hard. I froze half of them raw as above, to see how they go to cook up again. Such a cheap meal for me. The beetroot made them an interesting red colour this time. 

I have had an interesting collection of flowers this week that I picked for the Community Garden when I took John in, and didn't sell. One advantage of having to drive John in and out last Sunday. 

Till next time. 

 

New Verandah Railing & Bank Garden Continued

 Yesterday the 7 year old twins and Miss P came over to help me in the garden, to finish off the Bank. John bought the mulch before he had his hand done for carpal tunnel.

I picked them up at at 8am so we could beat the heat, and between us all and some more weeding managed to finish the job, before the twins had had enough. Bribing  them with chocolate biscuits for morning tea did the trick. Didn't do my back any good though, been stiff and sore since. Could hardly move in the afternoon, so lots of heat bags and panadol.

 

One of the problems I have  here, is the couch grass and nut grass that grows between the cracks. Will resort to painting it with roundup. Hate doing that, but it is the only way.

Pretty pleased with the result and just have a few succulents to plant and to broom over the path and rocks, kids aren't that neat. We picked some more sweet potatoes and cut back some of the vine, still plenty more in the ground when I need them.

Snail Vine looking a treat at the moment.

The verandah has reached a point of do I keep painting all the different rails, and floor boards or pay someone an enormous amount of money to do it every 5 years or so and we came to the conclusion to get rid of the spindles all together and replace with wire. As a starter project on it John did the corner nearest the Kitchen.

I feel it will work, now that I have got used to it and will certainly save a lot of mucking around painting everything. 

The next thing will be putting the floor boards down and John is looking at the plastic version. He will start down at the other end, doing a panel at a time with wire and the floorboards for that section only. 

  

John painted the poles white as it is the easiest to do, and matches the roof. 5 more of these to go down the backside.

 We had another cooking lesson for Miss P while the twins watched a movie and taught her to make lemon butter, 3 jars, and a boiled fruit cake. Lots of eggs to crack open so Little Miss V had a go as well. Just love watching them trying to do it. Lemon butter went to the Community Gardens for our Sunday Market one sold, so other two in fridge for next week.The fruit cake was delicious used up all my dried fruit plus a tiny pineapple that I picked. Cranberries, dates, sultanas,cherries,dried apricots, all went into it. 

My health is slowly improving, neurophils are creeping up still low though, another blood test this week, and had an Echocardiogram  and Holter monitor on for  21 hours. I feel things will be ok there as have improved quite a bit in the last month. 2021 is my goal to feel well though.

 Stay safe everyone. 

 

Till Next Time.

Petite a PetiteAu... Etsy Shop    Dolls and Christmas Cards

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