Friday Flowers

We had a quick visit to the Botanical Gardens today. Rob needed to pick up some seed for a prac class next week. While I waited I wandered into the Conservatory. It was full of orchids. I used to visit the Orchid flower show, and buy a few plants each year. But I treat them terribly, and they haven't flowered in years. I'm scared of repotting them.
Anyway I enjoyed the ones today.
Happy weekend to you.

Veggie patch

With the absence of flowers in our garden at the moment, I think I'll make Friday a regular day for posting about progress in our garden.
Despite the often inclement weather over Easter, Rob persevered and put together most of the garden beds in his veggie patch. Our poor neglected grape vines that have been plonked in the ground for the time being need to be moved out to the slope in front of the orchard, so that the last 3 beds can be put in place.


On Tuesday we had a delivery of top soil and another of pine bark mulch. You'd think by now we'd be able to calculate the volume of soil/gravel etc we'd need but we realised that we'll need another truckload of soil to finish off the beds. Although our soil is pretty good already, it is clay based, so this nice sandy topsoil will improve the drainage in the raised beds. We put down weed mat between the beds and covered it with the pine bark for the paths.


Rob also finished the last two quadrant beds in my flower garden, and levelled off the soil. I spent a happy afternoon weeding around the box hedge plants. I got about half way through, so will finish that off on the weekend.


Finally we planted three new trees. A pepper tree (Schinus molle), a tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera) and a liquidambar (Liquidambar styraciflua).

We hope to finish off the beds this weekend, and plant out some seedlings for (fingers crossed) a winter crop.

Happy weekend.

A hut weekend

Sorry I realised half of my weeks menu is on the computer at work. So I'll delay Monday's menu until tomorrow.
We made the most of our weekend. This long weekend holds fond memories for us: four years ago we camped at our block. It was our first night spent there. We pitched a tent on where the hut is now, made a fire and cooked sausages and fell asleep. Nigella slept in the car cause I was worried she'd chase the wallabies and not come back!
We packed a lot into this weekend. We went shopping in Friday night. Looking at my winter wardrobe I realised it was a little sad. So despite not expecting much, I thought we should give Myer a go. To my surprise I found a pair of black boots, a pair of work pants and three knit tops, all were on sale. I also came home to a skirt in the mail I'd bought online. The boots were so comfortable and looked good, I checked online and found there was a tan colour in the same style. I thought about being sensible, but then rang the Sandler shop in Hobart and got them to hold my size (11 always sells out so fast). I put it to the vote on Instagram with a resounding affirmative. So then I came up with a good excuse to drag Rob into town, so I could try them on. I loved them so now don't need shoes for awhile.
Rob dug out a spot in the garden and planted our two avocado trees (bacon and Reed varieties). I cooked Nigella's aromatic lamb shank stew.
On Sunday we did a tip run, and headed up to Leslie Vale to order garden sleepers for the vegetable patch, and a trailer load of soil. Back at the hut we started recoating the vertical celerytop pine timber cladding. It took us all afternoon, but we actually ran out of the oil, with a 4m section on the back wall and one end of the hut to go. We were pretty tired so just had a light dinner of fresh mozzarella, tomatoes and basil with rye bread.
Today I did a thorough hut clean and took a heap of photos to share here as a hut tour later this week. Rob moved and divided our strawberry patch, tidying up my flower beds as he did so. After I finished phaffing around inside I quickly potted up some spare lily bulbs and helped Rob plant three Corymbia citriodora trees.
Hope your weekend was just as satisfying.

Another late Friday flowers

Sorry I've been a slack blogger of late. With the week away and a lot of work email to catch up on I have been reading your blog posts just not been good at commenting!
Not many flowers in the garden right now. I'm about to order some spring bulbs, well when I say some, I actually mean 1040. Tulips, ranunculus, daffodils, snowflakes, and anemones.
But Rob bought me a bunch of mini sunflowers to make me smile. They are very happy flowers.

Monday mix up

Sorry I tried to upload my regular post last night, but the blogger app on my phone beat me. So I'll save the pics for a double post next week as I won't be near a real computer for a while.
I enjoyed a quiet weekend-Rob has finished planting the box hedges around my flower gardens and it looks so much better already! Sorry I'll take a photo later in the week.
We visited our favourite local antique store and it was full to the brim with new treasures, not only furniture, but kitchen wear, baskets and now retro clothes. I loved this red dress, but the waist was tiny! I haven't a hope of fitting into it! We did score 3 more Piper-Truline blackwood dining chairs. They're so comfortable, an important factor for enjoying dinner! They are covered in some terrible beige vinyl, but we've still got some red fabric that we can recover them with on a rainy afternoon.
I'm in Brisbane for the next few days for an annual planning meeting for work. My flights were fairly delayed as I was transiting through Sydney and there'd been some serious storm activity slowing down air traffic. So I arrived late, checked into my room and fell asleep (the time difference made it feel even later!)
I've never been to Brisbane before, but sadly I don't have really any time to look around.

Friday Flowers: Happy Birthday Dame Elisabeth

This Friday I wanted to honour a garden hero of mine, Dame Elisabeth Murdoch.

She just celebrated her 103rd birthday on Wednesday. Her attitude to life is quite amazing, but her love of her garden at Cruden Farm in Victoria is what I find most inspiring.

Photo credit: Simon Griffiths 

I found out about the garden at Cruden Farm when I was looking for ideas for trees to line our driveway. The iconic photograph of the lemon-scented gums (Eucalyptus citriodora) along the drive at Cruden Farm popped up. I was immediately intrigued. I was given the full colour photograph book Garden of a Lifetime for Christmas, and I was smitten. To see a paddock transform into this grand garden over 84 years is quite inspiring.

All other images sourced from www.crudenfarm.com.au

I would love to go and visit one day.

Friday Flowers

Another week has gone in a flash. This Friday I have some hut flowers to share. The lilies have started!
I love lilies, so easy to grow, and so spectacular. The Asiatic lilies usually start first, but this year my Zantedeschia lilies have decided to go early. This black one is my favourite, the colour is so rich. They are great cut flowers as they last forever in a vase. The orange and red lilies are just starting, but I can see the cream flower buds swelling up so they must be close too.

Thanks for all your comments about our tree. Even though I was so tired last night, I still had to sit and look at it for awhile. Just a little sneak peak of the living room at the hut, our honeycomb decorations went up last night and those cute little red stocking garlands are on each window. I've written little notes for Rob and tucked them into each day of our Advent calendar. We accidentally ate the chocolate I had put aside for each day so I need to get some more, cause you can never have enough chocolate right? I won't share all the notes with you, (for fear you'll realise just how silly and romantic we are), but Rob's 2nd advent calendar note was that I will put the iphone away this evening (apart from the obligatory photo of dinner) and I will just concentrate on him. He looked quite happy about that, opps, maybe I'm a little more addicted to instagram and blogging than I thought!
Have a lovely weekend.

Friday Flowers

Hello, I'm feeling revived after our 1st weekend, today I thought I'd share a bunch of roses my lovely friend gave me last Sunday, the first picked from her garden this year.
She is one of our gardening heroes, I doubt we'll ever achieve her level of garden perfection, but we can live in hope! She has a lovely garden in Sandy Bay full to the brim with roses, flowers, fruit trees, berries and vegetables. Every available space is used. It's just such a beautiful place to visit. I always think as I leave, one day when I grow up I'll have a garden just like that!
These roses smell beautiful, and even though they've started to wilt (forgot to snip the tips off before putting them in the vase), I'm reluctant to put them in the compost.

I'm still waiting to buy my roses from here. I have picked out 40 roses, mainly for use as cut flowers, in red, pink, yellow and white. Every year I get the lovely colour brochure and painstakingly review any new varieties to see if they might bump one off my list. But I just haven't been able to buy them until we have a fence around the garden and some water.
So next winter is the year to finally purchase the plants. We should do our fence in the next few months, and I can't wait to stroll around my picking garden selecting the perfect rose.
(Rob hates growing roses, so I had to promise to keep them separate from any other plant and promise that I would deal with all the pruning etc! I don't mind, I quite like pruning them!)

Our 2nd weekend is looming, we managed to cross a few things off my list yesterday:

1. Sleep in (well a little). Does 8.30am count?
2. Lazy breakfast. Poor Rob was treating me to sourdough toast with cherry jam in bed, unfortunately as he was bringing the plate in to me a piece slipped off the plate, hit my pillow then smeared down the bedhead. Opps. It was very tasty, just a little messy and enforced a bedding washing day!
3. A little stitching of the Maisy birth sampler (I may have accepted defeat about it being for Christmas- I think it might be a 1st birthday gift now). Didn't get to this one.
4. Help Rob clean out the leaf litter from the driveway drains. Or this one.
5. Keep the dogs away from Rob whilst he uses the brush-cutter to tidy up the orchard. Big tick, forgot to take a picture but it looks splendid.
6. Make some cake bunting for a friend's birthday cake we're making on the weekend (this is as crafty as I get I guess!) See below, it was quite fun really!


So we're having a birthday party on Sunday afternoon for my little friend, and I'm going to visit my sister and Maisy. Who apparently is rolling over now and pretending to cough whenever she hears anyone else cough!

Friday Flowers

Another new regular post I hope- I've been following Sarah's blog Molly's Maison since the beginning of the year, and I love her Friday Flowers posts. It's nice to look around and find beauty in the garden, all year! So I hope you don't mind Sarah, but I'm joining you in regular flower appreciation.

Today is a new acquisition, that actually flowered a few weeks ago, a real snowdrop, Galanthus elwesii.
I've lusted after them for years, always bookmarked the page in my favourite bulb catalogues. But never been able to bring myself to actually buy one.

I saw this one at the markets a few weeks ago and could resist no longer.
Thank you Rob for capturing it so beautifully.

Our life:

Left to my own devices I am actually quite lazy. I admit that upfront. Some of it is learned behaviour, I guess, my parents are really “inside” people, movies, books that’s their thing. Given the choice between staying in bed with a good book (or more likely nowadays the iPad to check out what’s happening in blog-world) or get up and start gardening, I would choose bed nine times out of ten!

But then I started living with Rob. He doesn’t sit still. He lives for action. Doing something, anything, preferably outside with our dogs in tow. He lives by the saying “I’ll sleep when I’m dead”. For someone who is older than me he puts me to shame with his energy!

I think it works out ok for both of us as we counteract our natural tendencies for slothfulness (me) or busyness (him). Sometimes I encourage him to just sit and enjoy the moment with a cup of coffee and a Chocolate chip biscuit (best recipe ever thanks to C & C cupcake factory).

But more often he’s encouraging me to get my lazy butt out of bed and to live life.

I am grateful, for many things that I’ve learnt from my husband, but this is a good lesson to learn.

So our weekend consisted of:

• watching Rob play real tennis (this was me at my multi-tasking best in between points I could read and comment on my favourite blogs with near perfect reception on the iPad and he got to run around for an hour);
• heading to bed early to read new library books;
• going to the gym for a weights class together;
• shopping at Salamanca market, for vegies, seedlings to plant, treats from Jo and Michelle (the gin-soaked damson brownie was to. die. for.);
• visiting my little niece Maisy and marveling at how much she’s grown;
• cooking a lovely dinner of rib-eye steaks, baked potatoes and wilted spinach followed up by a Seville marmalade steamed pudding (I’m unjustifiably proud of my first batch of marmalade!);
• being served said pudding in bed for breakfast;
• sorting out a few last details with the builder at the hut- he even took down his builder’s signs at the front gate;
• cleaning the hut as a team so it was done more quickly;
• sitting for a moment in the sun coming through the bi-fold door while we ate toast and vegemite;
• planting out five cider apple trees, four quince trees and a prune tree in the orchard (stage 3) and protecting them from marauding wallabies;
• cooking a roast chicken in the Weber BBQ for Sunday’s dinner and chatting about how much we enjoyed our weekend but looking forward to falling asleep!

Sorry it probably sounds a little saccharine, but then we have only been married for four months and living in our hut for two of those so we’re still in that honeymoon phase!

Family

I have no excuse for my lack of blog posts since Christmas. Although still on holidays, I have felt exhausted by the last couple of weeks. Apart from Christmas festivities in Launceston and Hobart, the last couple of weeks have been full on in terms of time with my family. I don't think I've mentioned it here before, but I am the eldest of 5 siblings. I'm not sure what my parents were thinking or how they coped, but they had the 5 of us in 6 years! My youngest brother has been engaged for a while now, and his wedding was last Saturday. This meant that the entire clan started to gather. One of my sisters has been living in the UK for the last 4 years, so she took the opportunity to come home for an extended stay, turning up in Tasmania in early December. It's been great to catch up with her, I haven't seen her since her move and we are the closest in age, being only 15 months apart. It's funny how a relationship can pick up where it left off, and how well we know each other. Her Irish boyfriend flew over after Christmas to meet us all, a lovely and amusing fellow, he seemed to cope with us all pretty well.

As well as these visitors, the bride and groom-to-be also stayed with my parents (we live in a little flat attached to my parents house) as they are selling their house in Burnie so it was pretty busy. Throw in a hens party, a couple of birthdays (Dad and my other brother) and our friend coming to visit for a couple of days and we were pretty exhausted by the wedding. My 87 year old grandmother and my aunt also turned up from Melbourne on Thursday, both very excited not only about the wedding but have I mentioned that my youngest sister (who lives around the corner from us) is pregnant? Oh yes, the first grandchild is on its way! They had knitted some beautiful little outfits.

The family dinner before the wedding was pretty hilarious, all of us at the table talking, dogs running around, and then one of us brought out Dad's wedding suit (ok it may have been me). A very special 1970's flared burgundy suit, still in pristine condition with matching pink shirt and burgundy tie and red shoes. Rob couldn't resist (and much to the horror or perhaps delight) of my female relatives stripped in the living room to try it on! It fitted perfectly and he nearly wore it the next day!

The day of the wedding was hot (well for Tasmanians) but the whole day went well, a radiant and completely relaxed bride, my brother his usual laid back self! The reception was fun, and revealed a side of my brother-in-law I'd never seen before- a dancing star! He had us in stitches with his routine of moves (the shopping trolley, lawn mower, zimmer-frame, sprinkler, emergency exits) and had us all shedding our inhibitions and grooving on the dance floor.

The next day most of the wedding guests and the newly married couple came around to my parents (ie our place) for lunch to send them off! Yesterday my sister and her boyfriend left for the mainland, and this morning my grandmother and aunt headed off. So finally we have returned to normality. Thank goodness I still have another 2 weeks of holiday!

In amongst all the shared meals, visits, and outings, whenever we could we snuck off to the block. Not much has been happening building wise. But Rob has been cultivating our vegie patch and my flower garden. Although it looks fantastic, he's a little disappointed as it isn't as obvious now how much digging has occurred, as all the spade sized clods have been broken up. While he works I sit and read or dream in the hut with the pups.

Happy Birthday me!

So I've been so busy that I didn't realise I had passed a significant milestone here at the Hut Chronicles, my 1st blogging birthday. The last year has gone by in a flash, a cliché I know!

So what have we been up to?

Hut wise, it’s been a little dull, just waiting for the slab to cure, but it has been fun to walk around on it. Imagining the space. Lying down where our bed or the window seat will be. The wallabies are quite taken with it too and have taken to decorating it with their clay covered paws and tails. The builder took the formwork off the other day, so Nigella had to pose for the obligatory photo.

Gardening at the block is another story. Things have been happening. Last year we started the garden at the block. I don’t think we realised what we were in for. We thought we’d just turn the soil over. But then we developed our plan into having two terraced gardens, my (flower) picking garden (15 x 16m) and Rob’s vegetable patch (21 x 16m). We had some time off last year so attacked it with gusto, by hand. Certainly makes you feel you’ve achieved something! But then we wanted to create some ag drains so that our gardens didn’t turn into a boggy mess in winter. We purchased some of the ag pipe and gravel, but only got half way finished before we had to start saving seriously for the hut. So it kind of went on the back burner.

Having a half finished job was irritating for Rob. So a couple of weekends ago we bought the remaining pipe and gravel, and shifted another 5.5 cubic metres of gravel into all of Rob’s carefully hand dug drains. It does seem a little crazy that we spent quite a bit of money on something we will never see again (well hopefully). But we both know it has been a worthwhile investment! Now we just need to fill in the paths that will be over the top of the drains with extra soil and the excavations will be complete.

I could pretend that the Veuve was to celebrate my 1st blogging birthday, but it was really for Rob’s father’s birthday, which we headed up north to Launceston for. We took up 2 dozen oysters to have with the Champagne (which disappeared quickly between four of us) and ocean trout to poach with leeks and carrots, and served it with steamed pink eye potatoes and salad. Graham was terribly indulgent and provided a Burgundy with dinner and then Sauternes for dessert. The Sauternes was amazing, although sweet at the front of your mouth; the acidity cleansed your palate, so it didn’t feel cloying at all. The wine was 3 years older than me! A real treat.

Finally I’ve been a little busy shopping on the internet and managed to get to exciting parcels on the same day. One contained a replacement handle for our Canadian ice-cream maker, the Donvier. I can’t wait to start trying some new sorbet and ice-cream recipes, as well as our old favourites, so bring on summer! I had also found a cake recipe in Maggie Beer’s book “Maggie’s Harvest” that called for dried cumquats. There is a special birthday coming up next year for someone and I think this cake would be perfect for him. I contacted Noelle Tolley at the Kumquatery and placed an order. They arrived too, they are so beautiful, like tiny perfect sweets, I can’t even begin to imagine just how many cumquats it took to produce 500g of dried cumquats!

Another little project has been keeping us occupied, but hopefully we'll have more news about that next week.

Our weekend was:

in two parts; it was a public holiday here in Tasmania (Show Day) on Thursday, but we had to go back to work on Friday. Oh well.

Thursday was an absolute cracker weather wise so we spent the day making the most of it by:
Walking Nigella at the dog beach,
Weeding in the garden,
Eating leftover asparagus, pea, leek, mint and goat cheese frittata on the swing chair,
Hanging out at the block, planting new trees (chinese quinces, a flowering chestnut and some Eucalyptus morrisbyi) and staking out older trees to protect them from wind damage.
The day came to end with a wonderful dinner (cooked by Rob) of roasted spatchcocked chickens (with garlic, red onions, lemon zest, rosemary and thyme), roast potatoes and salad, and I had made a yoghurt blancmange earlier in the day for dessert.

The weekend proper involved shopping at Salamanca (where I found the great ceramic jug above- I couldn't resist it!), toast and raspberry jam, walking around the perimeter of the block checking for wallaby damage to our trees and hiding under a big tree when we got caught in a rain shower. Watching old episodes of Nigella Bites (Rob hit Nigella overload and couldn't bear her anymore!), using up the left over chicken in a risotto, with leeks, broad beans and fennel from our garden. Inspired by Nigella I cooked her chocolate raspberry pudding cake, which was ok, but we won't do again, as Rob said, there are plenty of other cakes to try.
Yesterday involved weeding my lily pots and killing the hundreds of snails that were hiding in amongst them, and getting a little burnt in the process as this took far longer than I thought! A third trip to the block for digging (Rob) and dog grooming (Nigella & I). We headed home and I was spoilt by Rob who cooked dinner: steamed pink eyes, asparagus, peas & mint with bearnaise sauce and rib eye steak. Who needs to go out?

Hope your weekend was just as enjoyable.

Our Sunday:

I’d been planning this adventure for awhile. It was funny to go on a Sunday drive though; surely we’re not at that stage of our lives yet? Anyway, first stop was the Huon Grower and Makers market at Franklin, after their 3 month break. We picked up some free range eggs, it looked like it was a bit early for garden produce. Then we took a meandering drive via the Cygnet Coast road to the Coads Daffodil Farm. I’ve wanted to go since I saw it on Michelle’s blog last year. It was a bit blustery, so a bit tiresome for photos. Like children in a lolly shop we were a little overwhelmed at first but we narrowed it down to our top 8 favourites and ordered 10 of each for next March.

By this stage Nigella was getting a little grumpy in the back, so the next stop was just for her. I’d read about Drip Beach somewhere, and thought if we were ever in the area we should pay it a visit. Nigella loves beaches so was out of the car in a flash running along the sand, jumping over logs and splashing around in the shallow bay, her first swim for the season. It was a beautiful spot, and quaint to be on a beach and still look across to a paddock of cows!By now we were starting to feel a little peckish, so needed to collect some supplies before heading to the block. Almost as if I’d planned it we were in the vicinity of Red Velvet Lounge so dropped in for some jam doughnuts (we just had to try one of each sort, apricot and raspberry) and a loaf of Steve’s sourdough (worth the trip on its own).

I did have to smile at ourselves though, we waltzed in and the place was buzzing (which was great to see) but I realised that some of the customers were looking at us a little funnily. I looked at our attire a little more critically, in our defence we were at least clean, but I guess I was wearing blunnies and trackpants, and Rob, well, he had his block clothes on, T-shirt, his favourite old shorts (thanks goodness he’s not into stubbies!), well used blunnies and boot protectors. Sorry Steve, hope we didn’t lower the dress standards too much for RVL- but we were never intending to eat in yesterday!

So feeling quite smug that our hunting and gathering had been successful we headed to the block. There was one last final item I was hoping for, as we rushed by the Nicholls Rivulet Organic Farm I saw it- fresh Rhubarb. I am afraid that I literally squealed with excitement, “turn around!” A quick u-turn and we had 3 bunches of the reddest Rhubarb you can imagine.

Finally the block, to find the first step towards the hut; during the week the builder had set out the markings for the excavator to do the footings. A small step I know but exciting none the less. We set out our picnic of leftover egg and bacon pie (Rob made the day before), boiled the kettle (we have to use the power board in some way!) and followed the pie with a cup of tea and an apricot jam doughnut. Heaven.

At the end of the day we both felt quite content as we sat in front of the TV eating Rhubarb and Orange (our first harvest of oranges) crumble, sorry no picture, we couldn’t wait to eat it.

Winter, actually...

I may have been a bit premature in my announcement of spring in my last post.
Winter is back with a vengeance this week in Tasmania.
But that’s ok.
It means I can snuggle under my Waverley woollen mill blanket on the couch with a heat pack.
It means waking up to check out the crispy white frosting on Mt Wellington.
It means slow cooking lamb necks with spices and sweet potato and eating it on couscous.
It means delicate pink flowers on my camellias.
It means mash potato, with everything!
It means Rob gets to wear the scarf it took me 3 years to knit.
It means fat furry flower buds on my Magnolia, with a promise of pretty starry flowers to come.
It means muddy paw prints inside the house, although Nigella does stop sometimes to have then towel dried.
Finally, it means that moment of total bliss as I bake myself on the electric blanket as I hop into bed.

Spring

Snowflake Photo: R. Wiltshire


Lemon Meringue Pie

Savoy cabbage with our bargain find at Salamanca- a Le Creuset frypan

Flowering quince Photo: R. Wiltshire

Last weekend felt like Spring, the Snowflakes and Flowering quince are out.

We cooked a Lemon meringue pie for a family lunch, piping the meringue made it look like a sea anemone. Sadly there were no left overs!

We found a bargain frypan at a second hand stall at Salamanca which made us pretty happy. I bought some cute little bottles of pear juice, and although the juice was nice all I wanted was to use the bottles as mini vases.

Can't wait for spring to start for real. Particularly looking forward to the longer days.