twenty second - saving seeds

Our part of this little story began last autumn, in April or maybe May, just before we left for our Europe trip. It began with a crazy seed planting frenzy that went from delicate rows of carrots, beetroots and kale all the way through to paddocks of green manure. We were optimistic that while we were away seeing the world, our little farm would be hard at work growing food for us and our soil.

Some of the seed took and grew well, some didn't move at all in the wintery months we were gone.

The patch of kale we planted germinated, grew big leafy leaves and then went to seed a few months ago. The bees in particular loved that patch of yellow kale while it flowered. You could hear them buzzing from the other side of the poly tunnel long before you could actually see them.

And after the flowers died down, we waited a few months more for the seeds to form and dry out.

A few days ago, many months after we'd eaten the last kale leaf, we finally cut that golden dry row off at the base of their stems.

Then we threshed it by banging the stalks against the side of a bin to release the seed from their pods.

The came the wind winnowing.

According to wikipedia - Wind winnowing is an agricultural method developed by ancient cultures for separating grain from chaff. It is also used to remove weevils or other pests from stored grain. 

The heavy seeds fell straight down into the pot whereas the lighter pods blew further away onto the ground.

Our method was less than perfect and I'm sure we lost a lot of seed in the process but we did collect more than enough and we had a lot of fun at the same time.

 Ta-daaaaaa!!!!! A jar-ful of never fail kale.

But don't think this story is over just yet, in early February we'll sprinkle these very seeds down a row or two of soil, we'll cover them up, water them in, feed them, irrigate them and weed them and wait to eat them.

And then collect their seeds.

What a wonderful thing.

Happy weekend friends, I hope yours is sunshiny and delicious.

Love Kate 

xoxo

snippety snippets

So the holidays are over and we've hit the ground running. It's springtime in our part of the world and although it's not quite tee-shirt weather yet, I feel like things are changing and I'm going to have to move fast and spend my time carefully to keep up.

I feel like we've had a great rest. I feel like I've had the time to really work out my priorities and I feel ready to work hard for and at the things I love and the things that inspire me and make me happy.

I feel like I've got loads to share with you here too, but before any of that let's do a quick catch up. Here are some of the early October snippets of my life.

ADMIRING the peony roses. We are generally a bit useless when it comes to growing anything that's not edible, but the peonies seem to take care of themselves. Each year they flower for Jazzy's birthday and each year I am astounded by their beauty and make a mental note to plant more. More roses and more flowers in general. We can't eat them but they certainly feed us in other ways. They make me happy, they make this place beautiful and they make me stop for a bit and be in the moment admiring them. Love!



Technically I'm not CROCHETING anything but I have plans. I'm searching Ravelry for a hat pattern for my cold headed, awesome friend Andi who shaved her gorgeous raven locks to raise money for the Leukaemia Foundation. Pretty great hey!!

And I'm also queuing patterns for my Softie For Mirabel softie. I'm thinking I might make a kitty this year. Or a bird. Are you making one too?


I'm READING this book. Oh my goodness how I want to be a shepherdess. And a spinner. And a natural dyer. And I want to sell a Daylesford Organics yarn to people all around the world. And I want to work out if there is a way we can do it all from here in a certified organic/biodynamic way.

I'm a little bit obsessed but I feel like our probable plans to travel next year are putting the brakes on this new direction. Or maybe it's making me change the direction of our travels into woolly research. We'll see.



I'm SMELLING all of the blossom. I'm fighting for space to get my nose in deep with the bees. And I'm dreaming of quinces and plums and almonds and apples and nashis and berries. Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.....



Unfortunately we're still LIGHTING the fire for warmth. I had hoped that our days of collecting, splitting, hauling, stacking, lighting and cleaning would be over for another season by now, but I should have known better. Hopefully soon we'll be down to overnight burns only. And by then it'll probably be fire season.



I'm still KNITTING my love heart socks. Knitting time at home is so much scarcer than on holidays.



And I'm MISSING little holiday bare legs and arms photobombing my pics.



We're EATING kale on everything, in everything and around everything. We planted a ridiculous amount this year and now I want the space back.



I'm incredibly GRATEFUL for this beautiful 100% natural Polwarth wool that Tom from Tarndie Heritage Sheep Farm sent me.

Tom's great-great grandfather developed the Polwarth sheep on their farm in the 1800's to better suit the southern climate and now 100 years later they are still farming the sheep and now they are selling the wool on their big cartel site. Imagine what Tom's great-great grandfather would think of that?! Amazing!!

I haven't had a chance to knit with the Polwarth yet but I can tell you that it is soft and squishy and the colours are gorgeous, all the most important ingredients in a good yarn I think.

And finally, I'm EXAMINING our wisteria vines as they naturally weave themselves into the roof of our carport. I think I need to make some time for some basket making, and wreath making and weaving soon before they wake up and sprout leaves and flower. I think the clock is ticking on my big basket dreaming, maybe this weekend the sun will shine and I'll get out my secateurs and get to work.

And that's me, all caught up and ready to press go.

How about you?
What are you admiring, crocheting, reading, smelling, lighting, knitting, missing eating, examining and grateful for?
Let me know in the comments, or perhaps you'd like to make a blog post of your own?

Until then, I hope some fun stuff is happening in your world.

Big love

xx

On a wintry Tuesday

 


It's Tuesday and I haven't left our farm since last Friday. It's been too cold and really, there's nothing out there in the big wide world that I need.

I guess winter is the season we have been preparing for during all the others: we have a freezer stacked to the top with containers, our pantry is groaning under the weight of filled Fowlers jars and there are piles of kindling and firewood ready to burn to heat our house, dry our clothes and cook our food.

It's Tuesday and for the first time in days it's not rainy or windy or both. Today feels like one of those days where winter stops for a second and catches it's breath. It is still freezing cold but it is calm and it's still. We'll rug up to go out to feed the animals and collect the eggs, but then instead of rushing back inside to shelter, we might venture further.

We might check on the crops growing in the market garden, make plans to mulch the garlic, weed the beetroot, spray the orchard, whipper snipper between the trees, bring in another load of wood, move the chickens, pick the rhubarb and start pruning the apples.

The winter jobs might be fewer but the days are shorter and mostly nastier, so we'll study the weather forecast and work when we can.

It's Tuesday and although it's only the second day of the school holidays, I think I might get the girls all rugged up in their winter woollies and make them come outside with me too. They've been crafting up  a storm all morning but I know that a few big gulps of fresh winter air will do them so much good.

We'll run down the hill, watch the water streaming past us, listen to our boots squeak in the wet grass and chat to all the animals. It'll be so cold that our eyes and noses will sting but we'll feel alive in the iciness and it will make us run faster and scream out and sing.





It's Tuesday, the first day of July and the second month of winter.

I am not a winter person. Not at all. But I am a person who loves coming back inside after being out. I love getting the fire cranking, putting the kettle on the hot-plate, stripping off my wet weather gear, making a soup and settling in with some knitting. That I can do. That part I am good at.

Happy Tuesday lovely friends out there, what have you got planned for the day?

xxxx

snapshot of now

I feel like I have a thousand things to tell you. There's so much going on my mind, in my heart and in my life. This morning after I took the girls to school, tidied the house and took part in a lovely girl's photography project, I sat down and started this blog three times.

I have three incomplete blog drafts sitting in my post list and now this is my fourth.

But I think this one will work because just before I sat down to write it, I spent a few minutes walking around snapping photos of things that tell the story of me now. Twelve photos that represent a bit of a snap shot of my life at the moment (minus the girls of course because they are at school). So I think instead of being overwhelmed with details I'm going to write a sentence or two to go with each photo and that'll be that.

Simple, right?!

OK, let's do this.

HARVESTING - rhubarb. There is just so much rhubarb right now. I cut and tied this bunch to give to a friend this morning but forgot. I think I'll make a cake for the girls for afternoon tea now instead.

I'm a little bit obsessed with tying things up with string at the moment. Somehow the winding and the tying make every package just that little bit prettier, don't you think?

READING - These two books. Finished one and a hundred pages left of the other. Possibly two of the best books I have ever read. I'm trying my hardest to slow down and make the last pages last longer but it's impossible. I only hope the next book I pick up is as good.

MISSING - salt. About a month ago my grandfather was told he had to cut salt right out of his diet. My grandfather and I have always shared a deep love of the salty. We were the type of people who added salt to a dish before even tasting it. If you were looking for the salt shaker at a meal time you could always be certain it was next to one of us. When he was told to cut salt out for health reasons I was devastated for him. It actually made me cry. And then I decided to cut salt from my diet too.

I haven't added salt to a dish for a month. I miss salt like crazy.

WAITING - for rocket. And for all the veggies that are sitting still in the icy cold ground waiting for the winter equinox and the days to get longer so they can put on some growth and feed my hunger for salads.

CROCHETING - well I'm not actually crocheting anything right now, but I do need to darn in the ends of my May motifs, photograph them and write up a blog post about #MotifDayMay before it turns into July.

KNITTING - woolly slippers. I love that Miss Pepper chose odd colours for hers. I love that she sleeps with them on the shelf next to her bed and I love that she took them to school today to wear them in class. Miss Jazzy's are next.

LOVING - my farmer boy's new house rule that every member of this family must pick and eat at least one carrot a day, everyday. Yay!

CARRYING - chunky wool and fat knitting needles in a cute basket wherever I go.

SEWING - right now I really should be outside helping farmer Bren prune the apple orchard but instead I'm alternating between writing this blog and sewing leaves. But firstly it really is just too cold outside. And secondly, I've got this space in my new craft area that I just painted white that I think needs to be surrounded by a leaf wreath. Hopefully the reality looks as pretty as it does in my mind. Hopefully also, it warms up a couple of degrees in the next little while and I can get a couple of hours of pruning in before pick up.

WEARING - great quality, wool socks for the first time in my life and marvelling at the difference they make in terms of comfort and warmth. Until now I have always been too mean to spend much money on socks, but all that has changed from now on. Wow!!

I would really like to learn how to knit socks this winter. If you have an in-the-round, snugly fitting, simple sock pattern, I'd love the link.



COOKING - spinach and kale and all things green and leafy in every meal. It makes me feel like a better Mum when I know my girls are eating such garden goodness.

MARVELLING -  at the fact that you can cook haloumi in your sandwich press. I know!! I had no idea you could do it either. Indi saw it on a blog somewhere, told me, we tried it and it works. I can't believe I spent so many years frying it in oil, splattering my kitchen with oil, and burning myself with flying bits of splattering oil. This past week we've enjoying the squishy, melty cheese without the hassle of the big cleanup. So great!

OPENING - the pages of Zoe Phillip's new book The Time of Our Lives. It is such a gorgeous book and I think the photo she took of farmer Bren and Bingo Maremma might just be one of the most beautiful photos I have ever seen.

OK, that's me all caught up now.
How about you? What are you harvesting, reading, missing, waiting, crocheting, knitting, loving, carrying, sewing, wearing, cooking, marvelling and opening?
Care to share?

Big love

xx

the very last of the tomatoes

It's funny in life that so often you don't know that something was the last until it is over. The last time your child wears something before they grow out of it, the last time you take a photo of your baby with all her baby teeth, the last time you hug someone you love before they leave, the last time you hang your washing on the line outside before the days become too cold…



Mostly food gardening is a bit like that for me. We spend much of summer and autumn enjoying bountiful basil. Plucking those leaves and eating them on and in almost every dish we create. And then one morning the frost hits it and it's over. Burnt. And that's it for another year. It's the same with so many crops, from plentiful to finished over night.

One season passes, another begins.


This week we pulled the very last of the tomato vines out of the garden and let the chickens into the poly tunnels to clean up the scraps. We collected every last red tomato and brought them inside, we picked crates of green fruit for the chooks, we made piles of green leaves and vines for the compost and we stashed the stakes for the next year.

Then we forked each bed to aerate them, we sprinkled rock minerals, we filled them up with compost and then we planted garlic and kale and other wintry, new season's veg.

For some reason this week I got to choose for the tomato season to be over. It had slowed right down but I could have probably gotten another bowl or two from the poly tunnels over the next week or so. But it feels like the time is right. The chicks needed the space to explore, the vines are getting all mushy and disgusting from rotting fruit, we need the space for the new season and the days are getting shorter and I'm running out of time to pick.

So this season, perhaps for the first time ever, I do know that I have just picked my last crate of tomatoes. I think I'll oven dry a couple of trays, eat as many as we can in sandwiches and salads and do one more batch in Fowlers jars. It's a strange feeling and I almost feel like I'm cheating mother nature, but I can tell you that late season's tomatoes never tasted so good. I am enjoying every single one like it's my last - because it is almost my last.

Happy season of green, southern peeps, and for those of you up north, enjoy your bounty.

Big love x