Category Archives: Garden

Autumn leaves and green leaves

by

The colours in the garden are heart-stoppingly beautiful. The glory vine has huge rose-pink leaves and next to it are four crabapple trees, all spangled in gold and around the corner the pomegranate tree has five beautiful fruit (its first crop).  My barrel of salad leaves is still producing exquisitely tender leaves that I harvest with scissors. I cut the outside leaves and each plant continues to grow. In five minutes I have a bowl full of frilly or crinkled or smooth leaves, each one around 10cm in length. Such a perfect salad just needs a few drops of extra virgin olive oil and a few flakes of salt. I add no acid at all.  The olive oil that was given to me last month by Lina and Tony Siciliano is very, very special.

Have been tweeting quite a bit and I think I am enjoying it. Still not sure about the etiquette of retweeting, or even how to do it to best effect, but am learning all the time. I do notice the blanket tweeting of political figures – is this in case they miss our attention by the blink of an eye, or the click of a finger?

Saw a great bit of footage after the first episode of Masterchef that followed the fortunes of several former contestants.  One was Fiona Inglis who is a kitchen specialist at Findon Primary School and she is doing a great job and the footage showed the children enjoying themselves in the garden and in the kitchen. I also attended a working bee at Stanmore Primary School near to Sydney airport, where thirty volunteers who work for one of our partners GPT Group had come to help create the beds for the  kitchen garden. The children had planted fruit trees, and enthusiastically showed me where they would free-range their chickens. In a few hours the volunteers had done an amazing job and the shape of the beds could be seen, where once had been bare ground.

We have been corresponding via Twitter with the Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley California. Their schools are just starting up and soon we hope to create connections between the students themselves.

I have planted out crops for the winter months and will now sit back and watch, and scare away the white cabbage butterflies and the snails. I have a mixed arsenal. Copper ribbon along the edge of the bed, coffee grounds regularly sprinkled around the seedlings, twirly dangling things that are shiny and that scare the birds, and pet-friendly pellets near to the tiniest broccoli and spinach seedlings.   I have planted some chicory, some Tuscan kale, brussels sprouts (my first ever), more carrots, and small cauliflower and sprouting broccoli.

And I also have planted more of the beautiful sweet peas that I bought a year ago at the Chelsea Flower Show. They were spectacular and so highly-scented.

It has rained on and off all day and such weather always makes me think of soup. At dinner at Andrew McConnell’s Golden Fields a few nights ago a favourite was the chicken congee, a Chinese rice porridge that is a popular breakfast or anytime pick-me-up soupy dish and absolutely delicious.

Last week I made a pot of minestrone. This week it will be leek and potato, with the extra bonus of a large quantity of parsley to make it apple-green. I pick the parsley, give it a quick wash, then plunge it into boiling water for less than a minute, drain it and then blend it with the leeks and potato. And maybe the week after I will make my version of caldo verde that combines torn silverbeet or kale leaves, with potato and pieces of pork or spicy sausage.

I am really enjoying this autumn weather!

Autumn

by

Melbourne in March is justly famous  for superb weather – warm days with just a light breeze, mellow afternoons, and cool evenings. Perfect weather for gardening. I have made jars of pesto and still have armfuls of basil. Reminder to self. Don’t plant so much next year! I have made two batches of cumquat marmalade and there is enough fruit for another batch. And I rescued my almond crop before the birds found it. The leaves of the stripped crabapple trees are just starting to turn a bit golden and the first leaves of the glory vine have drifted down. The first few pomegranates are ripening on my tree. They do have to struggle for sunshine so will not be prize specimens.
In the vegetable department I still have wonderful crops of climbing yellow beans, bush beans both green and yellow, capsicums, round zucchini, two varieties of eggplant, and the very last of the stunning tomatoes.  I just couldn’t eat them fast enough so I made several pans of roasted tomato sauce and I have frozen it. Each container provides a perfect sauce for a grilled eggplant or a bowl or two of pasta, enlivened with more of that basil and some extra virgin olive oil.  I have also harvested my first ever watermelon and I was really very excited about it. Next year I will be more careful about pollinating more flowers to get more than one melon. And the Chantenay carrots were very successful and I have sowed a third crop.

I am about to publish my memoirs and am feeling both excited and anxious about it!  A Cook’s Life hits the bookshops on March 21. One’s own life is certainly very interesting to explore.  The challenge is to do it in a way that is not seen as self-indulgent, engages the reader, maybe leads to personal reflection, even some questions, and gives a convincing picture of a certain period in our history….One of the strongest motives for writing the book was because I wanted to tell the story of Australia’s food development, the importance of our migrants, and the rapid rise of restaurant culture from the late sixties to today.

Once you have read mine, another book to look out for is Annie’s Garden to Table written by my long-ago apprentice, the very talented Annie Smithers owner and chef at her bistro in Kyneton in country Victoria. I had a quick peep at her preview copy and was enchanted. There is more about country life and country cooking in Rosa’s Farm by Rosa Mitchell. Both books have me thinking up some delicious rustic lunches. Rosa’s book has also had me planning where I can plant the cicoria that I have ordered from The Italian Gardener (www.theitaliangardener.com.au)

The planting of the cooler weather crops may have to wait until I return from my own book tour which will take me to most states and a variety of venues over the next four weeks.

In amongst the touring and talking will be a delicious little Easter break with friends.

A new year

by

Having returned to the city after two weeks at the beach, the pace of life has increased dramatically. Instead of that enjoyably bracing early morning walk along the ocean beach, there is  now a morning battle with ever-increasing traffic. Still I always look forward to a new year with plenty of new challenges.

My garden offers plenty of climbing beans and carrots and cucumbers and dwindling supplies of fat tomatoes and zucchini. The eggplant and capsicum bushes are laden, the basil bushes are still luxuriant after all the rain, and my crop of pink fir potatoes has been harvested and I must say was a bit sparse.

Whilst the warm and humid weather persists I have planted another crop of bush beans, more carrots and I broadcast mixed lettuce seed hoping to have a crop I can harvest with scissors whilst waiting for my self-seeded frilly lettuces to develop.

The most dramatic garden news is that I returned to find my crabapple trees and my sole quince tree invaded by brilliant green and gold parrots. I frightened them off to quickly gather about three kilos of crabapples but as soon as I went inside they returned and the rest went in a matter of days. I was really angry about the quince crop as the fruit was nowhere near ripe. I made a small batch of crabapple jelly and included the two unripe quinces left hanging amongst the gnawed cores, and a branch of my rose-scented geranium. I have now bought an electronic bird scarer that supposedly deters the birds (and possums it is claimed) by emitting a high-pitched frequency signal. We shall see if it works.

The Black Krim tomatoes were magnificent and I will save the seed to plant again next season.

School is back and the team at the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation are all hard at it developing new resources and activities and supporting our schools. We have welcomed seven more schools in Queensland this month and our total across the nation is now 266 schools. Training is very important and at our Learning Centre we offer sessions for kitchen and garden specialists and some for the general public.

I am to give a demonstration of how to make fruit-based desserts that maximise the fruit element and minimise cream and butter so that our kitchen specialists can be newly inspired.  Yesterday I  poached some peaches and made a jelly with some of the diluted pink syrup, and will suggest that an exquisitely wobbly jelly surrounded by a delicious combination of diced seasonal stone fruit is perfectly possible for the students, and by omitting any sugar with the fruit is a healthier option than the fruit they may have encountered in cans. Cutting the fruit salad is good for the knife skills too.

 

Sweeping into Summer

by

An excerpt from ‘Stephanie’s latest’, first published on the Kitchen Garden Foundation website. The full text is available here.

It is such a busy time in the garden, cleaning up after the last of the brassicas (although I still have sprouting broccoli to pick) and planting out eggplant, sweet peppers and zucchini or squash. And of course basil. Every available bit of free space in my front beds is taken up with magnificent self-seeded lettuce. Even though I share with my friends it is impossible to eat it fast enough. I am still waiting for my beans and cucumber to start growing strongly up the bamboo tepees I have waiting for them.

Like all gardeners I have been delighted by the great rain we have had over the last few weeks. One downside is that the snails in my garden have taken over my empty bamboo teepees for their own personal gymnasium. I am disposing of them ruthlessly.

As always the last few weeks of the year seem to start speeding up and here we are nearly at the end of another school year, and already deep in planning mode for 2012. We hope that every school has a water plan to carry them over the vacation so that students will return to a bumper harvest. We may be in for a hot summer this year so all gardeners will be thinking of the best way to protect their gardens over the long holidays. Mulch, mulch, mulch I hear you all say. And maybe some of the fruit trees should be netted to frustrate the birds.

Some schools will have some crops ready to pick just before going on holiday. It is rare for any berries to make it to the kitchen – the perfect treat to enjoy in the garden. But maybe cherries or early apricots or nectarines, or even a first crop of tomatoes. Fruit can be poached and the chunks frozen, or it can be turned into a purée, or bottled. Tomatoes can be cooked to make a very fast tomato sauce, which is a fabulous resource to come back to.

Once again the messages we are promoting have proved irresistible to a wide range of media and many schools have featured on television and in print. I have spoken to a very wide range of audiences. But the most pleasurable moments in my year have been visiting schools and watching and listening to the students. Enthusiasm, excitement and pride in achievement are what I see and hear, wherever I go.

 

 

My November garden

by

An excerpt from my regular column, Stephanie’s Garden in Australian Gourmet Traveller.

Well I couldn’t resist.  I now have my very own herbaceous border, small compared with those magical gardens I saw in England but glorious nonetheless.  It has been a team effort with my gardener doing the heavy work, her garden designer friend advising and laying out a lovely plan and all curbing my enthusiasm for too many different things, and the result is a delight.  As I write the plants are just starting to flower. I am in love with the foxgloves and the new roses. I have Mme Isaac Pereire, Stanwell Perpetual and Tess of the d’Urbevilles. My border will be mostly in luscious purples, rose-pinks, white and some silver-grey. I have salvias and verbena, and campanula and aquilegia and many, many more. I have been warned that it will take twelve months to attain its full glory.

I did have an anxious  couple of weeks when all the existing shrubs had to come out for re-location or to go to foster homes. Passers-by worried too. There were many enquiries as to my intention, and one woman asked my gardener, ‘Does she intend to plant more vegetables?’. A Greek neighbour leant over the fence and asked if she could have one of my globe artichoke plants in exchange for some rocket seedlings. I dug up one of the smaller plants but cannot believe that her rocket clump will grow. I usually select an enclosed space, such as a wine tub, and broadcast rocket seed freely. It is important to keep rocket picked so it does not become leggy and impossibly bitter. And if it has, pull it up and probably it will have seeded itself and new plants will emerge.

Elsewhere in the garden the sweet peas I purchased at the Chelsea Flower Show are growing well and soon should be covering their frames with pastel-coloured flowers. The blossom on the peach and nectarines has all finished for the year and the fruit is setting. This month I am looking forward to the glory of my five crabapple trees all about to flower. I have an anxious eye on the new miniature cherry. Will it produce even one cherry this year?

Two months ago I wrapped each of my celery plants in many folds of newspaper and tied each one firmly with twine. I have been thrilled at the result. It is true that once I removed the paper I discovered that quite a few very small  snails and slugs had enjoyed the protection, but I also have the crispest, whitest, crunchiest stalks. Once well-washed and free of the afore-mentioned invaders,my celery has featured in many a lunchtime salad tossed with frilly leaves, soft goat cheese, or anchovies. I also made a very lovely soup in the tradition of potato and leek, substituting a lot of sliced celery for the leeks. When both potato and celery were quite soft I added several handfuls of very fresh watercress leaves. I turned up the heat for just a few minutes before pureeing the lot and straining it . I now have a beautiful pale-green soup with a little bite from the watercress.

The French rarely serve butter with cheese. An exception is roquefort that is almost always offered with butter. I squashed about one-third unsalted butter with two-thirds roquefort and made a very retro party appetiser by piping this soft mix into the channels of my perfect white celery sticks. And whilst on my celery theme I made another classic – waldorf salad – using more of my celery, orange segments, toasted walnuts, and a little sour cream. I added thinly sliced nashi pear (which I did not grow).

I am still enjoying broad beans and peas and am starting to wonder where the beans will go?  It is a dilemma in a small garden space, not just for reasons of rotation, but simply where to put the next crop when the earlier one is still producing. Not a bad problem to have though.