Smuggler's Cave on the coast!

Alright, so it's been a while since I posted anything, so why not a photo from my most recent adventures? The point of this photo is more around putting it together, which required (the way I did it anyway) 6 photos, Luminance HDR and Hugin. Turned out okay, given the harsh lighting conditions. This was taken on the South Coast of NSW, in the morning, with very strong lighting behind from a very bright early morning sun, and very dark shadows. The cave was a complete surprise, and looked ideal for smuggling goods in days of old. A narrow cut in the rocks at beach level (behind) would have allowed a small rowboat to come in....

Lovely plants! Oh and a very nice new camera....

So my lovely family bought me an awesome new camera, so it's time to test it out and learn how to use it. The first photo is of a lovely chilli plant that a friend gave me the seeds for 2 years ago. The plant has been through a lot, and this is the result of a lot of care and nursing.

And here's how the lovely cumquat is saying hello. Very fragrant!

Gardening with fire, update!

After burning to the ground, the kangaroo paw is on the mend:

Gardening with fire!

So a couple of weeks ago, I had a mini kangaroo paw start to have its leaves turn black. Did a bit of searching and discovered that there is a disease that affects kangaroo paw called "ink disease" or "inkspot disease". It mainly turns up if you water your plants in the evening, and the water settles on the leaves. Unfortuantely though this disease doesn't have many choices for treatment in severe cases. The plant in question was rather badly affected, so it looked like unless it was treated, it would die. Turns out the only effective treatment is to burn the plant to the ground so it can grow again. Who knew? These guys: The Australian Native Plants Society. They have a page all about how to look after your kangaroo paw, and treat many of the issues. I didn't take any photos of mine because they already had rather good photos on their page, and mine seems to be following the same track. After the burning, three weeks later there are already a good number of new shoots.

Another gardening update

So just to keep track of what I'm planting and seeing how it goes, here's the seeds I planted today:
8 climbing beans (3 bean mix from diggers) in a row
11 beans from Elena (she's my godmother)
5 small gourds (phoenix)
5 watermelon - sugar baby (diggers)
5 zucchini blanco (diggers)
4 silverbeet (diggers)
5 pumpkin (diggers)

I've turned the soil with a little compost, and did some weeding before that. The chilli in there is doing okay, and some of the garlics so far are doing alright. Out of the 5 original cloves, 3 are doing well - and one out of the 2 I planted later.

Cabbages seem to do okay leaf-wise, but I need to try again to cook them. Carrots also seem to have done rather well. I look forward to seeing how they go. Maybe I should try collecting seeds from them too?

The seeds from the daikon radishes seem to develop randomly. The ones I've collected have been all different shades from green to brown. On the bright side, they are the same size as the original ones I planted so hopefully they do well. I want to see if they improve in terms of adapting to the local soil.

The broadbean harvest was 400g in the first batch, + some spare for planting next year, and 800g in the second batch with some more also for drying. There are still plenty to go. The first batch we just ate in a simple recipe as the bulk of the meal - boiled, then cooked with some fried onion. This batch I'm planning on turning in to tamiya/temeya.

Minor gardening update

In the interests of recording how things are going, it looks like:

3 daikon radishes came up and bolted
1 onion has come up
1 silverbeet has come up
any rocket coming up in the last month or two simply bolted
the first batch of broadbeans are going gangbusters. Took a first haul off them today. I will be keeping some and drying them out for next year! I need to build them a zimmer frame next time as they have very soft stems and keep falling over. It's quite difficult to keep them dry in there, so I'm worried about rot. Also, some leaves have started to grow some kind of rustiness on them.
Any of the bolted mustard lettuce seems to attract aphids. I do want to collect the seeds though. Similarly, I want the seeds from the old daikons from the first batch. They seem to take ages to mature, although I have no idea when they are ready to collect.

Gin sours are very tasty!

So I was out with some lovely friends last night, and at the Union Hotel in Newtown, we hit the cocktails. Started with Martinis, moved on to Manhattans, but then I wanted something else gin-based that wasn't pink and fluffy.
After a bit of a conversation with the lovely bar staff, we agreed on attempting a gin sour. I'm writing this here because it was absolutely awesome. To balance out the Tanqueray, there was some Cointreau added as well. Add lemon, eggwhite (whisked of course), and sugar syrup and you get 11 different kinds of delicious. I need to recreate that. When I do, I'll put up the recipe here.