Jackie's December message . . .
Intro
New books
Schedule for 2004/5
Christmas things! (including how to make Christmas crackers, cards, tags and recycled wrapping paper)
The Garden in December
.native Christmas trees
.what to plant
.how to keep your cool over Christmas
.fly repellents
A Few Recipes:
A Totally Fabulous Peppermint Cream
Prune whip
The Sticky Date Cake served at our Open Garden workshops- for all who wanted the recipe! (It also makes a good, moist, healthy and very easy Christmas cake!)
I've been mooching. Mooching means wandering without any set purpose- it's not walking TO anywhere in particular, though my mooches usually end up sitting down at the swimming hole watching the wind on the water. They're not meant to Do anything either, though I mostly end up with a skirt full of fallen avocadoes (The currawongs knock them off the top of the trees) and a few late limes and maybe a blood orange or two, and quite a lot of asparagus.
A mooch is just a mooch, best done in the cool of the morning or just at dusk, when the flies have stopped buzzing and the mozzies haven't started dinner yet.
It's been a good month to mooch. A magic time. It's actually rained in the last month- not enough to break the drought, or even top up the water table. But enough to make the world green, the leaves shine and the fruit swell with four years accumulated wombat droppings.
There are roses dripping from just about every branch, bottle brush and grevilleas, pomegranates flowers and salvias, loquats ripening, mulberries, red currants, strawberries, avocadoes big as footballs- small footballs, anyway, the sort gnomes might play with- late limes, lemons, buckets of asparagus, still a few chilacayote melons under the trees, the first passionfruit, Ngami cumquats sweet as tiny mandarins, a few tangerines, a mid season crop of calamondins and with fingers crossed we'll have apricots for Christmas, and the first of the zucchini and maybe even a tomato or two, and young beans and new potatoes.
We always have the first of the summer veg for Christmas- Christmas might be a season out of place from the point of view of the northern hemisphere, but here it's an early harvest festival, when the world is suddenly becoming bountiful again. A better time to celebrate a birth, come to think of it, than the grey of winter.
Okay, drought is going to leap on us again, sure as little apples. But just at the moment things are pretty good.
Wombat news
The world is green and hot, and that means even Mothball wombat is ignoring us. Wombats like fresh grass even better than carrots, and at the moment there is all the grass they want, lovely soft succulent stuff. Plus fallen avocadoes- it's taken the wombats 30 years to learn to like avocadoes but now they tuck into them. It's done wonders for their coats too.
And now it's hot- 28C in the kitchen this afternoon which means it must have been about 40C outside- so the wombats don't come out till long after we've gone to bed. So we just have the wallabies, nibbling the rose buds and Chinese jasmine while we have breakfast. Wallabies love flowers. I suppose flowers are bit like lollies to a wallaby. Good Christmas treats.
Open Garden Workshop
It's always a relief when this is over, but we enjoy them none the less. It is so much easier to explain how to grow a garden- not to mention fruit trees and veg- where the animals are welcome, not excluded poisoned or shot , and how growing groves will let you harvest avocadoes and custard apples when the frost is on the ground and the thermometer reads minus 9C. And I don't think anyone really believes we can grow all we do- and have wallabies munching- until they see it.
It is a pity though the workshops are only three hours long. There is so little you can do in three hours- just explain the outline and take a tour of the garden and orchards then have morning or afternoon tea. maybe next year we should have a full day workshop too, where we could talk about weeds and cropping and fruit fly in real detail, not a quick skip and a jump over a dozen topics...will think about that, anyway.
Christmas
I love Christmas. Not sure why- they haven't always been happy ones. No, that's not true. They HAVE always been happy, even when there was unhappiness around them, and I suppose that is why I love Christmas.
This year we'll celebrate as we have the past few years, with friends for Christmas dinner, and if the creek hasn't dried up by then a plunge into the swimming hole, or even a mooch up the gorge. And there'll be treats for the chooks and for the wombats too, if they deign to notice up- I'm watering the patch of grass by my study, now there is water in the creek, so the wombats have a good grass feast at least.
And may all next year be like today, with greenery and no smoke in the sky, and fat wombats, and friends and books and family.
New books
. Rocket Your Child into Reading
. Phredde and the Vampire Footie Team
. Pete the Sheep (with Bruce Whatley...and the rest of the team who brought you Diary of a Wombat!)!!!!!
plus
. To the Moon and Back...with Bryan Sullivan, otherwise known as Him Who Mutters at the Wombat
. Tom Appleby, Convict Boy, and
. My Dad the Dragon and
. My Uncle Gus the Garden Gnome
Coming early next year:
They Came in Viking Ships
The Secret World of Wombats
Schedule this year and next:
November 2004: release of Pete the Sheep with Bruce Whatley, a picture book about a sheep who does things a little...differently
Release of Phredde and the Vampire Footie Team- a story to eat with an orange at half time
2005
Jan 9th Hobart Comedy festival- contact Fuller's books, Hobart, for details
Jan 20 11.30 -12.30 Tuggeranong Library Canberra: free talk on The Secret World of Wombats for Club Cool kids and anyone else who'd like to come along!
Jan 20 Canberra Botanic Gardens...probably 2.PM (Not confirmed yet) a talk on wombats and gardening, for kids and adults
Jan 26 Gladstone Australia Day celebrations and lots of talks!
Feb 5 gardening talk to Moruya Apex
Feb 12 The Braidwood Cup and family reunion (just in case any family are reading this and haven't yet decided to come!)
March 10, 11, 12 Melville Festival Perth
March 17 Librarians Conference, Bright, Victoria.
March 18, 19, 20 Two Fires Festival Braidwood
March 27 Open Garden Workshops here...Bookings essential- there are only 40 places in each workshop. Kids over 8 welcome..there are water hazards and machinery so it isn't suitable for kids under 8. Contact the Open Garden Scheme for details at act@opengarden.org.au
April 8, 9, 10 ASLA Conference Canberra
April 23, 24 Conflux Sci Fi Conference Canberra
May 4, 5,6, 7 Talks and workshops at Bowen QLD
June 22,23 gardening school at Toowoomba, QLD
August 15, 16, 17 Sydney Book Week talks-
August 22,23, 24 Melbourne Book Week talks
Sept 30- October 1 Bega, NSW Rural Women's gathering
If you'd like to book talks or workshops contact Lateral Learning (Lateral Learning, bookings@laterallearning.com)- often I can fit in other events when I'm in the area. But please don't contact them just to get a message to me!
As Lateral Learning are a booking agency they only take bookings for paid talks, and charge a fee for all bookings. If your event is non profit it's best to write to me directly at PO Box 63 Braidwood to see if I can fit it in, or email Harper Collins.
But I'm not sure how much more voluntary work I can handle in 2005.
Christmas Things!
Home Made Christmas Crackers
I've always thought that Christmas crackers are one of the great disappointments of Christmas.
Every year you think somehow it's going to be different - there'll be a really great gift inside or at least a joke you haven't heard before. But there never is.
I've tried every sort of Christmas cracker, from the cheapest of the cheap to ludicrously expensive ones. And none of them do what a Christmas cracker is supposed to do - start the dinner with a bang and a giggle and an INTERESTING pressie.
So this year I've made our own.
Now I've done it once, I wonder why on earth I didn't do it sooner. It's ridiculously easy and is great fun, especially for kids. (Or somewhat larger kids, like me).
You need:
Paper hats (see below)
The cardboard innards of rolls of alfoil, baking paper or plastic wrap, cut into lengths about 30 cm long. (Christmas gift wrapping has extra long cardboard rolls inside it too. Each roll should make three or four crackers. If you leave your cracker making till after you've wrapped up your Christmas presents, you should have plenty.)
scissors
crepe paper or pretty wrapping paper - I like to use gold or silver, or traditional red or green
ribbon (I like to use two or three colours of narrow ribbon together - it looks especially good)
a few pretty stars or other stick ons (you can get them at any newsagents)
sticky tape (easiest) or glue
a few funny jokes - just write your own on bits of paper - and this time you can really suit the jokes to the company!
'bangers' - the things that go pop when you pull them. (Optional)
You can buy these at craft stores, but I find that most people don't really care if their crackers go pop when you pull them or not - it's what's inside that counts.
trinkets to stuff in the crackers, which is the best part of it, a sort of Christmas lucky dip
The trinkets can be as silly as you like, or useful ones like tweezers - no one ever has enough tweezers.
This year I've decided that the money I'm saving on commercial crackers is going to go into really good gifties to put inside my homemade ones - a couple of nice lipsticks (yes, I will make sure my stepson-in-law doesn't get to pull the cracker with them inside), a pair of underpants with redback spiders on them, an irresistible sheep finger puppet, five glow in the dark plastic spiders, a pair of shark earrings, pliers. You get the general idea.
If you don't want to go to too much expense, a few chocolate wombats, musk sticks or liqueur chocolates are always acceptable. You can even make an 'adults only' version, if you're that way inclined (No, I have no intention of going into details here- use your imagination dearie!)- or bung in a few diamond rings and the keys to a new Porsche if you're feeling flush. Just make sure when you buy the gifties that they will fit into the cardboard roll.
To assemble
Step 1. Stuff a folded hat, joke and prezzie into each cardboard segment.
Step 2. Cut pieces of paper about three times as long as each piece of cardboard, and wide enough to roll them completely in the paper with a bit left over. It's easiest just to use the pieces of cardboard to do the measuring, as they'll vary in width.
Step 3. Place the cardboard with the thingummies inside in the centre of the paper. There should be a good length of paper on either side.
Step 4. If you are using bangers, sticky tape them on to the outside of the cardboard now.
The middle of the banger should be in the middle of the cardboard, so a bit pokes out each end to grasp.
Step 5. Roll the whole lot up carefully.
Step 6. Tape down the edge.
Step 7. Now even more carefully tie ribbon on either side of the tube of wrapped cardboard. You have to do this very gently, as if you tie too tightly the paper might tear.
Step 8. Paste on a few stars or other stick ons, or even sprinkle on glitter or paste on pressed flowers- decoration is up to you.
And even if your Christmas turkey shrivels in the oven or the pudding burns and Uncles Sam and Ned start arguing politics again, you know at least your Christmas crackers will do what they're supposed to.
Christmas hats
You need:
crepe paper
scissors
glue or sticky tape
a few stars or other decorations from the newsagent
Step 1. Cut pieces of crčpe paper about 60 cm x15 cm.
Step 2. Stick the ends together.
Step 3. Cut the top into a zig zag (remember how you used to roll up paper and cut out paper dolls or other shapes in kindergarten?).
Step 4. Stick on a few stars or other stick ons, or get the kids to draw on original, never to be repeated, Christmas specials . . . and you have a hat.
Simple Christmas Tree Decorations
Most of our decorations have been slowly gathered over the years - the orange angel that Edward made at preschool many (many!) years ago, the tiny birds that Grandma gave me, the baubles Shirlee gave me as a Christmas present. As they are lost or broken others slowly take their place, which is how Christmas trees should be decorated, with as many memories as bits of bric ŕ brac, instead of designer perfection every year.
If you're just starting out on your Christmas tree collection, and don't want to pay a fortune, how about the following:-
. gumnuts in clusters, painted gold, with a bit of red ribbon glued on to the end
. long gum leaves, also painted gold, with the stems tied onto a length of string (these will only last one Christmas though: by next year they'll be a crackly mess)
. paint jacaranda seed pods or pine cones or the tiny cones from cedars, casuarinas and other conifers gold or silver or red, and glue on a tiny piece of red ribbon
. cut out cardboard stars, and paint gold or silver
. make tiny bows of gold red or silver ribbon
. make tiny Christmas crackers (see page )
. cut out circles of corrugated cardboard; paint red or gold and sprinkle on glue and glitter
. three dimensional cardboard and glitter: cut out two circles of corrugated cardboard, paint and add glitter to each. Cut each one half way down the centre, then slip one into the other and you'll see what is supposed to happen, so cut a bit more or wriggle a bit till it does!
A Home-Made Wreath
You need:
a wreath base (from Lincraft or other craft store - about $3.00)
tinsel
ribbon
tiny decorations
Wrap the tinsel around the wreath, leaving good amount of base exposed. Glue a ribbon bow onto the base; glue on the decorations (and I know this is vague) but that's the fun of it - working out what YOU think looks good!
Christmas gift tags
I refuse utterly to buy these. Why pay good money for tacky bits of paper with robins and snow topped chimneys?
Instead a few years ago I invested in one of those pairs of scissors that give a fancy edge when you cut with them. (I bought mine at Lincraft; they were about $5.)
Every year I buy a large parchment coloured sheet of cardboard (about $2) that does me for gift tags for the year - birthday, Christmas, congratulations it's a baby/new poodle/you've passed your driving test...
If I'm in a hurry I just cut out a rectangle and use a purple or green pen to write on it. If I get round to it I rummage through my Greater Oxford Dictionary for some of the pressed pansies and little sprigs of alyssum or miniature roses I bung in there every few months. They dry happily (if you're worried about stains on the pages put them between sheets of typing paper - I LIKE rose stains in my dictionary).
One dab of glue; one flower pressed on it and there's a respectable gift tag.
Or if you've any gift at all for art, draw a tiny pic in one corner (I sometimes add my signature wombat) or make a tiny ribbon or raffia bow.
Other materials for gift tags:
. corrugated cardboard, painted bright colours
. brown paper, with a gold border.
. a small rectangle of paper pasted onto a large leaf
Christmas cards
Well, yes, you can buy a whole bundle of snow and stone cottages or grinning Santas at the beach. Or make your own:
1 rectangle of cardboard, bent in the middle
1 photo of you and the family grinning at the camera, or the family corgi looking cute and corgi-like, or the house and garden last time you remembered to mow the lawn and decided to immortalise the event.
Glue on pic, write in the middle and there you are!
If you have digital camera and the means to run off a zillion copies, you have it made. I take a good pic to a place with colour photocopying and get them to run off a few dozen. It costs about 10 cents a pic that way and the photocopies are much easier to stick on than photos.
If the whole family has broken out in chicken pox, or pimples, and little Bertie has dyed his hair green, forget about the pic - paint the front red and paste on silvers stars; use corrugated cardboard (very trendy) paint the front green and paste on a green cardboard star (ANYONE can cut out a star!). Or a wombat and star, a few flowers. All depends on how artistic you feel!
Useful Wrappings!
One of the saddest post Christmas affairs is to go to our local dump, about two metres deep in torn Christmas wrappings.
If you don't want all the gaudy trimmings to end up as dump waste, consider wrapping your presents in:
. tea towels - always useful, and you can buy cheap Christmassy ones too
. cloth dinner napkins, for a change from the horrible paper sort; by the time you've given Aunt Ethel half a dozen presents she'll have a set!
. hand towels
. socks or stockings
. pillow slips (use an indelible marker to write on Merry Christmas!)
. ANY pretty fabric - unlike paper it can easily be washed if necessary, ironed and used again and again!
The December Garden
A Christmas Native-ity
When I was a kid all Christmas cards had snow and holly on them, Christmas dinner had enough calories via suet and baked veg to warm up an Arctic traveller, and the Christmas tree had to be a nice European looking pine tree with blobs of cotton wool on it pretending to be snow.
Actually even though the pines LOOKED traditional, they were really only pinus radiata, a newcomer from the USA. The Christmas tree tradition was brought to England (and then to the rest of the western world) by Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's beloved, and he definitely didn't use Pinus radiata, otherwise known as the Monterey pine and not terribly popular anywhere - except the Monterey Peninsula - till plantations were grown for wood pulp.
Okay, I am a traditionalist - I do like a living tree at Christmas, not a twiggy imitation thing, because a Christmas tree is a symbol of birth and new life. (And until a plastic Christmas tree bursts in to flower I'm not going to believe they're a symbol of anything except the capture of earth by aliens from the Planet Plastic.)
But until the Pinus radiata craze, Christmas trees were whatever looked good and green and growing at Christmas timeŠ and in Australia and New Zealand we have some really stunning trees, none of which will drop needles on the carpet, and all of them good to grow in pots to brighten up next Christmas.
Which Christmas Tree?
New South Wales Christmas Bush
Like many people, I've enjoyed New South Wales Christmas Bush (Ceratopetalum gummiferum) at Christmas time for years - but as a wild flower, not as a Christmas tree!
Wild Christmas bushes look stunning from a distance, but close up they're a bit raggedy looking and, even though they've been used as Christmas trees on and off since the early settlement at Sydney Cove, they don't exactly scream 'come and decorate me!'
Then last Christmas I saw one in a friend's living room - and it looked wonderful. It was a new cultivar called 'Albery's red', with a much tidier form. It was very simply strung with tinsel and nothing else, and the silver winding in and out among the red calyces looked stunning.
(Christmas Bush's brilliant red 'flowers' are really the ripening calyces, which hold the seeds. The real flowers arrive in Spring and are small and white, not red.)
It should be fairly easy to get hold of a good potted New South Wales Christmas bush at most nurseries this year, and there are other cultivars on the market too, including one with variegated leaves and another with white calyces instead of red ones, and there are neat little miniatures available as well.
Indoor Care
Keep your Christmas bush in the most well lit spot you have, by a nice sunny window, and take it outside as soon as the Christmas season is over, or the poor thing will start to lose its leaves.
After Christmas
You can keep your Christmas Bush either in its pot or plant it in well drained, sandy garden soil. If you have heavy clay soil, though, keep it in its pot!
The full sized ones grow between three and six metres in height. They're not suitable for areas with heavy frost, but if you live in a cold area you can either keep them in a warm, sunny spot in their pot, or grow them as a wall shrub up against a northern facing masonry wall, especially if there is a bit of an eave as well. They can be kept clipped and tidy looking and the rosy red calyces look wonderful at a time when there is often not much else happening in the garden.
Give your bush a trim in February and September, to keep it looking neat, and scatter on blood and bone too, and water well in late Winter and Spring, to ensure a good Christmas display.
Other Christmas Bushes
If you are fervently loyal to your State and feel a New South Wales Christmas Bush would be a betrayal, you could try the Victorian Christmas Bush (Prostanthera lasianthos). It's quite different from the New South Wales Christmas bush, with lovely minty smelling leaves, masses of white tubular flowers lightly spotted with lavender and needs rich moist soil and a cool climate.
Another common cultivar to be found in nurseries has pretty pink flowers and there is another one with variegated leaves. Victorian Christmas Bush will grow in a large pot, if you want to keep one specially for Christmas. Again, keep it in a well lit spot when you bring it indoors and take it out again as soon as you can.
There are Tasmanian and Western Australian Christmas Bushes too - Bursaria spinosa in Tasmania and Nuytsia floribunda in WA - but they can be hard to get hold of except at specialist nurseries. I also suspect that Nuytsia would be extremely difficult to grow as it is semi-parasitic on the roots of another W. A. plant!
I'm afraid I don't know of a South Australian or Queensland Christmas Bush, though if anyone knows of one I'd love to hear about it! When I was growing up in Queensland we always had a casuarina for Christmas, but they were just referred to as 'one of those pine looking things down in the scrub'.
New Zealand Christmas Tree (Metrosideros excelsa), is an evergreen hardy tree to about fifteen metres, with red bottlebrush flowers. It needs moist soil and full sun and tolerates salt laden winds and all climates except extreme heat or cold, and I wish Santa would bring me one of those too. Again there are cultivars available with variegated leaves, and an extremely neat miniature which makes an excellent pot specimen.
Topiary Kurrajongs and Lillypillies
These are not cheap - they may set you back between $15 for a tiny one for the dining table to $200 for a big stunning one. But they are beautiful things and I wish Santa would also leave one of these on my doorstep.
Kurrajongs and lillypillies flower and fruit, but they probably won't if you trim them regularly. Just enjoy the greenery or the red tinged new lillypilly leaves.
Indoor care: Place them by a sunny window, but not too close especially in very hot areas or they may get burnt. (They need light, not heat.) Unless you have a position well lit by French doors, or some other great spot, keep them indoors for no more than ten days or they'll start to lose their leaves.
After Christmas care
Both Lillypillies and kurrajongs need full sun to light shade. Don't put them into full sun as soon as you take them outside especially if they've started to yellow a little indoors. Put them in dappled shade under an open tree, and keep them well watered. You'll also need to trim them several times a year, or they'll become twiggy or lopsided.
How to shape your own lillypilly
Lillypillies grow quite fast - a small pot this year may turn into an impressive cone shape by next Christmas.
Step 1. Buy your potted tree. Look for one with a good straight stem.
Step 2. Also buy a conical wire shape, or make your own from chicken wire.
Step 3. Place the shape over the tree. As bits grow through, trim them off.
Step 4. Water, feed and keep on trimming! Remove the wire shape when the leaves look thick and closely matted under it.
ps. Keep pines in their pot!
Many potted Christmas trees like Norfolk Island pines will eventually take up half your garden if you plant them outside! If you're feeling sorry for a poor straggly potted tree, feed it and water it and trim off the straggly bits - but don't plant it out unless you are sure you have room!
How to keep your cool in December
. Don't fill your garden beds in a last minute panic with bloomers: they'll wilt in the heat and so will you. If you feel like a touch of Christmas colour buy a two giant baskets or pots and fill them with bloomers, for either side of the front door. Easy to water, and you get a faceful of colour.
. Feeling humid? Tall trees will shade you from the sun, but too much greenery around the house can also block breezes and add to the humidity. Sometimes a little thinning of the jungle can greatly add to summer comfort.
. dry soil can repel moisture. If your soil is still dry just under the surface after you've watered, use a wetting agent like Wettasoil so that the next lot of water can really penetrate
.raise the height of your lawn mower. Slightly longer lawns tolerate heat and dryness better than shaved lawns, and you'll still be chopping the heads off the weeds and leaving the grass neat and even.
. Water crystals expand and store water when wet. Add them to pots or even around young plants and seedlings. But do keep them out of reach of kids and pets, and make sure that the soil covers them completely, even when swollen - in dry times birds will eat them and, even though they may not be toxic, they probably are not good for their diet.
. When you are away on holiday see if a neighbour will water your garden for you; water indoor plants them cover with a plastic bag, and place in a cool spot - the bath is excellent.
. Mulch - but don't mulch dry soil in hot weather. Water well first.
. Cut dead blooms off agapanthus, roses, hydrangeas, daylilies etc to encourage them to keep blooming and to avoid a dead scrappy look at Christmas.
PS Remember pets need cool water at Christmas too! Make sure their water bowls aren't in the sun and change the water often. A rock in large containers helps stop them from being knocked over. (Bryan has glued a wide sheet of plywood to the wombat's bowl to stop her knocking that over too.)
Dear Santa,
This year I'd love a giant indoor swimming pool and enough water to fill it, but I'll settle for a good rainstorm. Also 200 bales of lucerne mulch (don't let the reindeer at it, it'll give them indigestion) and a 40 year old Pohutukawa in bloom, though I accept it may be a bit heavy for the sleigh.
Lots of love, Jackie
PS I don't want to sound ungrateful but please try to keep the reindeer out of the strawberries this year and tell whoever chomped my Papa Meilland rose last time that I've sprayed chilli sauce on EVERYTHING , so they and the possums had better watch out!
Presents for gardeners
Beware: Most avid gardeners know exactly what they want - and don't want - in the garden. Aunt Bertha's ceramic whale peanut holder can be put away in a cupboard and only brought out again when Aunt Bertha visits again next year, but a gift plant has to be planted - and it may well be the wrong colour, shape, species, gives little Jennifer eczema and makes her Mum sneeze. The poor thing also has to be planted, watered, mulched all in mid-summer heat...
Gift plants should be something the receiver really wants, or something easy care and unusual, that isn't going to eventually dominate the garden. (To those kind friends who over the years have given us a pepper tree, an Illawarra flame tree, a Sydney blue gum and a pot of jasmine just itching to invade the next 300 kms of bush - we are very grateful for the thought, but ...)
So what do you give a gardener? Gardening gloves - you can never have enough of them; a good rich hand cream; anything really unusual in the nursery - last year there were pineapple plants, complete with fruit, and there's sure to be some specials this year too. Go for the less common herbs, like French tarragon, or licorice or a hop vine for a beer lover, a dwarf fruit tree in a tub.
And non-gardeners? Something unkillable. Small boys love cactus or Venus fly traps (I have yet to actually see a Venus fly trap actually catch a fly, but kids have fun hoping). Look for almost unkillable house plants like ivy (indoors only!), begonias (great stately plants - so elegant you don't realise how unkillable they are), weeping and other indoor figs, rubber plants; most palms, umbrella trees. Kentia, Rhapsis or Parlour palms (Neanthe bella) are other great choices. When in doubt, just ask at the nursery for something pretty indestructible!
PS A comfy garden chair is great gift for anyone
What to plant
As little as possible; more lettuce, beans, corn and zucchini; seeds of autumn and winter bloomers - but basically all planting can be left to January, when life isn't so hectic.
PS If you REALLY want to plant now, there is very little that can't be planted. Just remember that seedlings that get too hot - or dry - can go to seed prematurely, and some plants like lettuce won't germinate in very hot weather. In tropical humid areas many veg planted now will be affected by root rot or mildew; this is a great time to plant shrubs and fruit trees though - if you have the energy!
A Christmas Question
We want to eat Christmas dinner out of doors this year but how do we keep the flies away? Is there a plant that repels flies?
Answer: Nope, sorry about that.. Enormous amounts of basil will repel flies - but you'll need to literally surround everyone with basil for this to work. Years of decayed leaves under walnut trees repel flies, but it takes about twenty years to get your walnut tree to this stage. Hanging branches of tea tree or elderberry around you is supposed to repel flies, but doesn't.
Basically flies are party animals: they like the smell of food, and once a few flies have gathered round others will join them just to see what's going on.
So let everyone help themselves to food indoors, so there are fewer yummy odours to bring the flies; a big shady umbrella or shade sail will keep out bush flies - but house flies will flock to its shelter. And next year, either plant out the entire garden in basil, or build a fly screened pergola.
A Few Recipes
Chocolate peppermints (or pistachio, or cherry, or orange, or pineapple creams)
200gm cooking chocolate
2 tbs butter
1 cup icing sugar
1 tsp olive oil
7 drops peppermint essence OR Cointreau to taste
cream
finely chopped pistachios, crystallised cherries, pineapple, peaches etc.- optional
melt half the chocolate and butter; spread thinly. leave to set.
Mix icing sugar, flavouring and enough cream to make it JUST spreadable- must still be very thick. Spread over chocolate layer. Now sprinkle on chopped pistachios, crystallised cherries, crystallised pineapple or peaches- tiny pieces of your choice.
Melt the rest of the chocolate and butter. Spread as a final layer. leave to set. Cut into small slices- each layer should be attractively distinct. Store in a sealed container for up to a week probably much longer but they are always scoffed long before that!
Prune Whip
1 cup prunes, stones removed
orange juice
juice of a lemon
1 cup cream
3 tbs castor sugar
3 tbs whisky, or cider, or 1 tbs cointreau or rum (optional)
Place prunes in saucepan; cover with orange juice. Bring to the boil. Turn heat off and leave till cool. mash prunes a bit- they'll be soft by now. Don't need to mash till smooth- just break them up a bit.
Whip cream with other ingredients. Just before serving fold in prunes, again, not till smooth- the prunes should be in separate streaks. Place in 4 wine glasses to show off the colours, and eat.
Keep any leftovers in the fridge. The liquids may separate out a bit but will still taste good for breakfast.
Pickled Onions
2 kg onions, preferably small ones
2 litres vinegar- I use white wine vinegar or white balsamic but cider vinegar and malt have their fans!
salt
2 tbs brown sugar
1 tbs black pepper corns, whole
1 tsp cloves
1 stick cinnamon
1 tbs allspice berries
Peel onions under water- the onions under water, not you. (stops your eyes stinging). Let them dry, sprinkle well with salt, leave overnight.
Boil vinegar, spices and onions for 5 minutes, or ten if they are giant onions- or three if tiny onions. Pour onions and vinegar into jars; seal and keep for a fortnight before eating. Keep in the fridge after opening. Avoid if they go mouldy, ferment, look cloudy or otherwise odd, and don't keep more than six weeks.
Sticky Date Cake
1 cup prunes, chopped and seeded (or dried apricots if you prefer)
1 cup dates, chopped and pitted
half cup sultanas
half cup currants
275 gm butter
1 x 395 gm tin condensed milk
1 cup plain flour
1 cup SR flour
2 tbs marmalade (or other jam)
1 cup water
Put fruit in a saucepan with the water, condensed milk and butter. Simmer for five minutes. Cool. Stir in the marmalade then the flours. If it's too dry add more water- some fruits are drier than others and will absorb more water. Place in a greased floured cake tin- or line it with baking paper-then lay a sheet of baking paper or alfoil over the tin so the cake doesn't brown too much. Bake it at 170 C for two and a quarter hours.
Take out of the oven; take off the paper or alfoil. Let it cool for ten minutes then turn out onto a wire rack to cool. Dust with icing sugar, or brush over 1 tbs heated marmalade, or ice, or just leave plain. Keep in a sealed container for one to two weeks.
This cake is very moist, very rich and very good for you!