A photo on a tray

How can it be? I am endlessly attracted to the glorious colours of winter salads, picked chilled by rain while the clouds sit on the hills around my home, the little creek tinkles its way through my garden and my jumper and hair are speckled with fine mist as I forage.

Deep crimson chicory is dotted about in my self-sown vegetable garden, next to fine, lime-green, frilly mustard. Gathered haphazardly into my picking basket, along with chervil, French sorrel, marigold petals, spring onions, new red Russian kale leaves, miners’ lettuce, mizuna, young bok choy and some leaves of the Japanese turnip, joy erupts on my face! The collecting continues for a while longer and I don’t want to go back inside until, eventually, the rain gets too heavy for my woollen jumper to repel.

Earlier in the day I made some fresh pesto, but not using basil. Rather, I picked an armful of parsley and chervil and blended them with parmesan, Johnston almonds, pepitas, lime juice and garlic.

Serve all this with a piece of my home made quince paste and a neighbour’s goats’ cheese and dinner is a photo on a tray. Everything from my garden or the community garden or a neighbour, except the parmesan cheese, crackers, pepitas and almonds, but at least these are Australian.

How can anything be more beautiful?

Portable Vegetable Garden Structures at Golden Valley Farm

Alex is our local market gardener…. with a difference! He used to be a chef at Parliament House in Canberra, has studied all kinds of interesting things at uni. and has gone into this market garden idea with his eyes wide open and with a plan to make the business work, for his young family.

For a start he and his wife bought the perfect piece of land just a 30 minute walk from the main street of Cygnet, in Golden Valley; gently sloping, north-facing, with good soil, 2 spring fed dams and quite a distance from any native bush (so very few animal problems).

They built a pretty, little house and turned a tiny little shed into a 1/2 glass, 1/2 solid, seedling house. Then Alex baled up the hay cut from his land in summer and put the bales side by side and end to end to make a rectangle of covered grass, using up all the bales. In spring he removed the bales, hoed the soil and began to sow the seeds of his new life.

He and I have a similar philosophy about organic food production; which includes NOT using massive amounts of plastic for poly tunnels. But rather, using what you have in the way of climate to produce seasonal, organic food.

Sometimes, at this time of year, young seedlings need a bit of extra warmth to get going because the soil is already very cold. So, Alex has made some movable cloches, sized to fit his beds. On his blog Golden Valley Farm you can find all the instructions to make your own.

As he mentions in his post, the plastic can be removed in summer and the frame fitted with netting to keep off the cabbage moths, or shade cloth to protect young seedlings from the heat.

 

So, when you see a beaming Alex at his stall at the Cygnet Market, remember he is the most genuinely organic farmer around and that he was up before dawn, picking vegetables for you to buy.

Never, ever think that his prices are more than his produce is worth!!

Our marine parks…. sadly at risk through politics

Some politicians have their heads in the sand. Those same politicians could be our next government. When I vote, I put The Earth before anything else. Economics is a man-made structure and I vote to keep man-made structures out of what is left of our planet.

Raw milk in South Australia

I received this email and hope you can help to get South Australians you know to add their impetus to allowing cow share-holders access to raw milk from the cow. If any state can do this, it will be SA. Please do what you can.

 

Dear KATE

As an update to the situation in South Australia, I have been informed by Senator Mark Parnell that he is intending to introduce legislation into the South Australian parliament that would effectively ensure that share-herd operations are a legal means for people to access unprocessed milk.

This I suspect will be the first time an Australian parliament will have seen legislation that tries to ensure a legal avenue for people to have direct access to unprocessed milk.
It is important that those who support this cause make their voice heard now.

If you live in South Australia then write to your local representatives. If you don't, write to anyone who has anything to do with the place - like your batty old aunt who barracks for the Adelaide Crows, or your friend whose parents had their honeymoon in the Flinders Ranges!

Regards
Gordon Rouse

An autumn snapshot of food, friends and ingenuity

The weather has been glorious; crisp, Autumn mornings followed by calm, sunny days. I rarely go out for the day but I was invited to a pizza making lunch so I headed off to see what I might see.

Bob built the pizza oven entirely from second hand bits and pieces from local tip-shops, garage sales and salvage yards…. there’s nothing like a man with a ute, in rural southern Tasmania, to smell a bargain!

 

 

Out in the countryside here it is impossible to grow vegetables, and many ornamental plants, without protection from wildlife such as wallabies and possums. They don’t just nibble at ground level, as rabbits do, they eat everything, even the bark of many fruit trees, and possums break the branches as they clamber up your new orchard plantings. So, Bob also built a wonderful, netted vegetable garden and glass house from his bargain hunting rounds. And that is where Janet grew all the toppings for our pizzas.

The pizza oven is housed in what I call a hut, but without walls, nestled prettily in the garden. Tasmanian weather can change suddenly and this well thought out hut gives shelter without closing you in from the peaceful garden setting.

It all looks like a million dollars, but land is cheap here and Bob built everything, even the house, and together Janet and Bob have established  the gardens with thought and hard work, without outlaying much money.

First, Janet made the dough and let it rest for an hour…..	Then came the home-grown toppings and into the oven it went…
Janet and Bob checked everything was right in the oven…..	A few minutes later it was ready to eat!
It didn’t take long to disappear….	I think my favourite was the olives and roasted capsicum….

The 20 minute drive back to Cygnet takes my breath away, every time. Wherever you go, there is water….river or sea….

There are boats in every nook and cranny…..
One minute it is calm and sunny…	but the weather can change so quickly….

How I found such paradise and how I met such wonderful people, is still a mystery to me.

March, wherever you are, today!

 

Tasmania in winter….

View from Waterfall’s Cafe, Mt. Field National Park, Tasmania…. so, why wouldn’t you come to Tasmania in winter?

And the hills are alive….. with peace, and green and cosy fires….

(from Discover Tasmania)

And Tuesday Soup Nights at the Red Velvet Lounge in Cygnet…. free and warm and welcoming…. Thanks Steve!