Garden

A month ago the kitchen garden was dishevelled and in serious need of a sprucing up. Although the warm and wet weather was a nutritious boost to the winter vegetables it was the weeds and wayward seedlings that were growing like crazy.  The paths looked almost as productive as the garden beds.

The temperate climate here means the garden never truly hibernates making gardening an all year round occupation. Whilst fellow vegetable gardeners in the northern hemisphere hunker down with their seed catalogues dreaming of untold food harvests in winter as they sit in front of the fire, down here we still primp and preen our gardens, battling natures wilder habits and kidding ourselves that we can maintain some sense of order and horticultural standards.

Unless the weather is too unbearable, I perambulate my usual route around our Kaitoke acres. First I keep count that there are still only five chickens roosting and our resident pukekos have not snuck in to enjoy the higher class accommodation. Walking through the orchard area we are vigilante to the young trees from breaking their anchors and being pushed around by the fierce winds.  The state of the kitchen garden only worries me when I see crops missing signalling bunny invaders are at work, otherwise I’ve learned to turn a blind eye to its buffeted state. We return to the house only after standing up all the plants in the nursery area that despite out best efforts to shelter them always seem to take a whipping.

It’s usually the only walk that the bassets will bound ahead of me with Fortnum barking in frustration at Mason who is running too fast for him to catch. Of course they are little help in the garden aside from their big basset paws having remarkably effective bed flattening capabilities. More often than not they spend much of their time snuggling up and begging for neck rubs.

For all it’s ramshackle state, the garden still provides us with plenty of vegetables and herbs to see us through the winter. Since advance planning for dinner is not always our strongest point you can often find me ferreting around sporting a head torch to dig up a few carrots or gather in some winter greens. Thankfully it won’t be long before I add seed tray tending to the daily chores which is the best reminder of all that the garden will soon shed it’s winter state and be blooming once again.

As if having a significant birthday this week wasn’t enough of a reminder of the passing of time, there is plenty of evidence in the kitchen garden to remind me that the summer growing season is over.  Spring is always a race against nature to lay out the crops and get them settled in their summery homes.  Autumn has a similar frenetic pace but this time bringing in the harvest and getting ahead for winter’s bounty.  Try as I may, I never seem to keep pace with the changing seasons.

Having gone from drought to monsoon conditions over the last few weeks it’s been a battle with the weeds and previously ungerminated seeds who have shown an albeit late but nevertheless indecent haste to kick into life.  Thankfully I saved the bean and sweet pea seeds from their pods for planting next Spring before the worst of the wet weather arrived. This is the second year of saving seeds so it feels less like a novelty and more of a milestone in my kitchen gardening history.  Next Spring I shall be growing a second generation crops.  That is if the mice don’t break into the seed tin and plunder my stores.

Once again the driest of summers has made it a tough year for getting winter crops underway.  Also, my cold frames were being refurbished so I’ve resorted to buying in seedlings for much of my winter greens.  Thankfully the carrots finally came good even if the celeriac, parsnips, beetroot and salsify have stubbornly refused to play ball.

It is a shame that the not one of the gardening books tells the true story about kitchen gardening.  If you believe all that you read you’d think that there is perfect formulation for growing your own food.  If there is, I’ve yet to crack the horticultural code.  But we’ve eaten well this summer so I can’t complain.  The last of the tomatoes are ripening before being roasted and pulped into a rich sauce that will see us through until the first of the fresh tomatoes next year.

My top crop award this year goes to the Aubergine (or Eggplant if you care to call them instead).  For the first time ever we have enough fruit to call it a crop which is wonderful but I wish I knew what it was that made all the difference this year.  Aside from the brassicas, my flop crops this year has been cucumbers (not one full grown) and raspberries (I think I may have cut back the wrong stems).  The gooseberries, worcesterberries and loganberries went on strike whereas the blueberries, currants and blackberries surpassed themselves. The figs and medlars are close to harvest in the orchard so I have that to look forward to. Although I confess I have no idea what to do with the kilos of medlars I shall be hauling up the hill.

Call me a romantic if you like but there is nothing better than sitting down to eat the food you have grown yourself.  Although there is little romantic about trudging down the garden in the teeming rain to pull up a few carrots, cut herbs or pull up some greens I wouldn’t have it any other way. There is something wonderfully empowering to speed through the vegetable section of the supermarket spurning colourful displays knowing that you have your own backyard pantry at home.

Having a kitchen garden forces you to be much more creative in the kitchen too. Forced by nature to rustle up something new and tasty to eat as a reward from your hard earning gardening efforts.  For nature follows the recipes in cookbooks as much as it follows the wisdom of gardening books.  And, that’s half the fun.

Refreshed from a week of rest and festive indulgence I am now looking down the barrel of several more weeks on domestic leave.  This is the time of year when there is no time for contemplation and reflective planning but a sprint with nature and an insanely long list of domestic chores.  You know all those jobs you’ve been promising you would do on a rainy day when you have plenty of time on your hands.  Anyway, making New Year’s resolutions is folly and can only lend to poor mental health later in the year.    Mark Twain described this beautifully in a letter in 1863.

That said, I have a set holiday homework for some of my coaching clients around resolutions and goals so I can’t return to work empty handed. Thankfully I have a few weeks up my sleeve before I have to start sharing my thoughts.  Inspired by the Christmas garden harvest, my intentions are to make 2014 a “bountiful” year.  A year of abundance and generosity.  After all, being born in 1964, it seems right to make this year especially auspicious.

Hope that 2014 brings you good health and happiness with a sprinkling of good luck.

In my experience planning home projects in New Zealand requires the patience of a saint and the foresight of a fashion designer.  You need to be looking ahead to the next season far in advance.  So whilst the sun was high in the sky I was plotting all those maintenance jobs that needed to be completed by winter.  I’m not talking major extensions, just a little bit of maintenance painting, some fencing adjustments to stop them blowing away in gale winds and the installation of additional heating after accepting that wrapping yourself with a basset hound to stay warm is really not a practical proposition for another winter.

Fast forward to the onset of winter and none of my pre-winter projects had started and I was turning into a slightly manic stalker of various trades who appear to be unwilling or unable to name a date to get said work done.  If I’ve learned one thing about working with skilled tradesmen in New Zealand is that they won’t be rushed and their idea of advance notice is a text saying they’ll be at our place in 20 minutes enquiring will I be home to let them in? No, that’s not quite true.  The usual practice is that they’ll turn up and ring me up and tell me they’ve been to our place but we’re not in.

Lucky for me I’ve developed almost psychic powers and two weeks ago I could tell that the planets were aligning so worth a few phone calls just in case.  And thankfully I was right and by the end of this week we should be done with our pre-winter projects.  It will be a relief not to have to worry if a painter is going to peer through the window at the crack of dawn when I’m just contemplating my second cup of tea of the day before I emerge to meet the world.

Now is the time to be settling in for winter.  An opportunity to hibernate and contemplate the projects for the next season.  Or it will be when I get the garlic in the ground and mulch the rose bed, and … and …. At least I can only blame myself for the scheduling of these jobs

One chore for winter will be to prune the fruit trees which this year started to produce a reasonable amount of fruit including our medlar trees which produce the strangest looking fruits although I’m curious to know what they taste like.  That’s if I can get them to ripen or blet is the technical term for ripening medlars.  Sounds gross so I’m tempering my expectations accordingly.  There again, that’s something I’m getting pretty good at doing these days.

As the seasons change so does the Domestic Executive routine.  Nightly chores include putting the chickens to bed, watering the vegetables and tucking up the tomatoes for the night in the greenhouse.  New habits take a while to stick but if I want to keep my greenhouse cargo safe from evening chills then diligence must become my middle name.

We are on the homeward stretch for the summer growing season and in their usual triumphant style the tomatoes are strutting their stuff.  We’re being rewarded after the early promise for the season with bucket loads of tomatoes coming off the vine each week.  The tomato sauce production line is up and running and I might try a spot of no sugar chutney and sauce making over the Easter weekend.

The southern hemisphere food blogosphere is humming with tomato harvests.  I’ve been particularly admiring of Sue over at Couscous and Consciousness who has been up to her eyes is in making tomato sauce and an intriguing yellow tomato and ginger conserve.  Also, a fellow Backyard Pantry Gardner Sue at Five Course Garden who has found her blogging inspiration again over a bowl of  tomatoes.

Looking back over my own blogging archive it seems I have something of a love hate relationships with tomatoes but it is one I would rather have than not. Even when the red harvest failed me I made the most of the green tomato glut. Nowadays the tomato sauce production is a simple and speedy operation after investing in a moulis for grinding roasted tomatoes.  I’m still as romantic as ever about tomatoes being the culinary equivalent of sunshine although this year we don’t have any shortage of the real thing. But without a greenhouse I’m sure I’d still be struggling along taking to daily prayer to bring in a crop.

In the past I have been diligent in my tomato sauce making but now I take the simplest route to home-made tomato sauce.  Pick, wash, halve, roast with lashings of olive oil, salt and pepper for about an hour, grind the roasted tomatoes in the moulis, freeze.  Couldn’t be simpler and quicker.

When the time comes to use the tomato sauce that’s when you can get all imaginative by adding butter, garlic, herbs, spices or a touch of chilli to warm it up. I’m researching nutmeg for my course at the moment so might throw caution to the wind and add a touch of the mystical spice to bring a little psychedelic aphrodisiac to the table. No kidding!

You’d have thought I was sprinting for an Olympic medal to see me dashing down the garden yesterday.  Ok, it was more of a fast shuffle with arms waving wildly to keep my balance as I navigated bumps and slopes in my garden clogs but speed was on my mind.  I simply had to reach the kitchen garden before any rabbits, pukekos or other wildlife did.  The gate was ajar making it open house in my backyard pantry. I could barely dare to look.  To see the damage.  The nibbles, the missing crops and tell-tale signs of wildlife in need of a juicy meal.

But no, it seemed the garden was safe and my worst fears for potential devastation unfounded.  No obvious signs of vermin plundering my stocks.  Just young cabbages and cauliflowers wiggling in the light breeze.  Beans dripping from their poles and bees buzzing on the flowers.  Sheer relief.

It’s not that I don’t like sharing my vegetable bounty.  My neighbours are regular garden raiders but to think that I was feeding the wild menagerie who know little about portion control or what’s ready for harvest or not just filled me with dread.  Thankfully we’ll still be picking over the harvest for many more weeks and with new seedlings just planted out we’ll hopefully have plenty going through the winter too.  Although root vegetables have been a nightmare to germinate in the dry weather so I might have to resort to buying parsnips and carrots this year which seems odd and very unsatisfactory.

The great tomato sauce making marathon starts this week.  Tray upon tray of tomatoes roasted in the oven, ground through the moulis and stashed into the freezer for the rest of the year.  In the past I’ve blanched and frozen beans and peas but this year we’ve been munching them as we go so I’m hoping for a final sowing to produce enough for the freezer.  The less said about the courgette mountain the better although surpassed this year by the cucumber glut.  This year I grew some rather stylish cucumbers which are fun and frivolous and very tasty.  So much so I’ll make a special blog post about them soon.

After the misery of last year’s gardening I’m much more philosophical this year.  I’ve come to learn that there is no such thing as a perfect kitchen garden and nature must take its course.  Seeds are unpredictable.  Weather is your friend and foe.  And horror of horrors, a little weedkiller on the paths will save you days of backbreaking effort and free you up for the fun stuff, especially the picking and eating.