Introduction; Wombat News; New books; Schedule for 07; What to Do in the School Holidays; The January Garden- gardening without water
A Few Useful Recipes
. Harvesting tomatoes
. Home Made and Totally Delicious Cordials- passionfruit cordial and lemon cordial
. Frozen fruit Salad (one of the great foods in the universe)
Introduction
It’s hot. I’m hot. The garden is hot. The wombats aren’t hot, as they’re sensibly deep down their holes where the temperature doesn’t change much all year round. (The next house I build is going to be partly underground. Seriously. Except I profoundly hope I never will have to build another house. I’m glad I did it once. But once is enough.)
It hasn’t been a bad Christmas. Well, Christmas itself was lovely, a slow trickle of friends calling in over the past three weeks. But the weather was about as good as it could be…okay, 100 mm of rain would have been better. Let’s just say it was as good as one can expect in a drought. The southerlies blew nicely from the alps and the arctic, the days were cool, the nights even cooler, and even better, there were a few days of drizzle, enough to leave the grass green and growing even if the soil below was dust, and give us all- humans, wombats, wallabies etc- a feeling that we might all survive the summer.
Even the garden perked up. Somehow the beans are producing with less than 20 mm of rain since I planted them- and absolutely no watering either. I mulched them deeply as soon as they came up; the wallabies munched them about a week alter. And then I forgot about them in the dry and heat, till just before Christmas I noticed the beans.
Wacko. And lovely tender things they are too, full of flavour.
Drought is good for flavour. The apricots might be small this year- and only a few handfuls instead of a few truckloads of them. But they tasted like the apricots of paradise. We’re eating the peachcotts at the moment, a cross between a peach and an apricot. Again, they‘re small and misshapen from the late November frosts. But they’re ambrosia, eaten fresh or stewed with some tiny damson plums in a bit of leftover white shiraz that a friend brought and we didn’t quite drink.
Anyhow, I’m sitting here in my study, trying to ignore the smoke drifting up from the Cann river fires, and the heat. It was so hot last night that I gave up trying to sleep at 3.30, and went for a walk instead up the mountain.
The moonlight lit the road (only tripped over one wombat, which startled us both) and by the time I got up to the look out the sky was grey instead of black, and I could see the mist over the valley. Mist sounds cool, but this mist was more like hot soup, which was why I couldn’t sleep. Got back, showered, and then I did sleep, as the southerly had arrived, taking the soup away but bringing the smoke…)
I’ve spent the last few days doing the final (I hope) additions to Pharaoh, the book coming out in April about the young man who united ancient Egypt. It’s party set in ancient Sumer too, in what’s now Iraq. Then more additions for The Dog Who Loved a Queen, about Mary Queen of Scots’ dog, adding dates and trying to explain the Reformation in a paragraph.
When it’s cooler I’ll go out and pick more beans, and an avocado or six for lunch later this week, more peachcotts, sloes, macadamias and capulin cherries- lovely dark things that fruit for about three or four months , more stone than flesh but sweet and rich and flavourful. And some early apples which to be honest I don’t feel like dealing with at the moment. Who wants apples when there are peachcotts and plums? And it’s too hot to make apple crumble. Unless I add a few blackberries and make a sort of summer pudding…
Anyhow, I hope you had the most wonderful Christmas. And that the new year looks full of joy and promise.
Wombat News
The drizzle has meant new grass. Which meant lots of wombat droppings (The more grass that goes in one end, the more that comes out the other.)
Wombats get very...inventive...about places to put their droppings when there are a lot of them to spare. When it’s dry, and there is only so much to go around, they leave their droppings to mark the most important places, like a fallen log or the top step or around Mothball’s favourite patch of kikuyu grass near the water tank.
But when there are a lot of droppings every night they can really have some fun. A dropping on EVERY step. Droppings on the front door mat. On my gum boot. On the back doormat. On the laundry basket. On the lawn mower down in the big shed (the poor thing hasn’t been used for so long that it’s probably wondering if it’s a wombat toilet or a machine). Oh, and a dropping in the boot a visitor unwisely left by the front door. (I think Mothball was aiming for outside the boot, but missed. A wombat bum isn’t always accurate)
But it’s good that the wombats have had a grass break. I suppose that’s how you survive a drought- just be grateful for the days of drizzle, a few weeks of good grass. And try not to think of the next couple of hot, dry months….
New Books
Josephine Wants to Dance came out in November...and promptly sold out before Christmas . There are still a few precious copies around if you hunt for them. Otherwise there’ll be more copies in February! No one guessed so many copies would be sold so fast.)
Oh, and Pete the Sheep sold out in December too, but he won’t be back in the shops till late March.
January’s new book is My Pa the Polar Bear, the eighth in the Wacky Family series. Every family is wacky in it’s own way. But maybe not quite as wacky as Fuzz’s family.
Fuzz and his family run a zoo. His dad is the zoo’s tiger, his sister’s a giraffe, his brothers happily spend their time dressed up as monkeys and his mother loves being a rhinoceros (she never has to diet, and that horn can be useful when the kids misbehave).
Fuzz’s grandad, Pa, loves being a polar bear. He can’t understand why Fuzz doesn’t adore being a polar bear too. The rest of the family take off their costumes when the day’s work is over. (Well, most of the time, anyhow.) But Pa won't get out of his polar bear suit - even when he wins a cruise to the Arctic with Fuzz. The family don't understand why Fuzz doesn't like being a polar bear, even if it is only part time.
What will happen when Pa and Fuzz meet REAL polar bears? And who is Legsie, the mysterious long legged elf? And what about the Man in Red, and the melting icecaps?
My Pa the Polar Bear is the eighth and last in the Wacky Family Series. (Other titles include My Dog the Dinosaur, My Mum the Pirate, My Auntie Chook the Vampire Chicken and My Dad the Dragon.) Hopefully they get kids laughing, having fun...and reading, reading, reading, even past new words like volcano and door knocker, till the reach the end.
Schedule for the Next Few Months
January Saturday 27. Talks at the Jindabyne Visitors Centre as part of their tenth anniversary celebrations.
February 2007 Perth Literary Festival and talks at Port Hedland and Mount Newman in the Pilbara.
March 24, 25 Norman Lindsay Festival, Springwood, Blue Mountains NSW
April 2007: Open Garden Workshops at our place. The Fruitful Garden…how to grow 270 sorts of fruit in drought, heat and frost as well as providing a haven for wildlife. Limited places, bookings necessary. Contact the Open Garden Scheme for details. (Please don’t contact us. We can't take the bookings – they have to go through the Open Garden Scheme).
Monday 14 and Tuesday 15 May 2007, Allwrite Festival, Adelaide.
August 2007: Book Week talks in Sydney and Melbourne (just a few) Contact Lateral Learning for details (bookings@laterallearning.com.au).
13-16 September Albany Writer’s Festival, W.A.
Email Contact Address
I’ve just been hooked up to a new email address jackiefrench72@gmail.com
I’ve never given out my email address before – we have such poor phone lines out this way (curse Telstra forever) that our system just collapses if we get too many emails, or emails with lots of data, like big attachments, or, even worse, photos attached.
But this one is separate from my home and work system, so I’ll see how it goes. But please, please don’t send attachments or photos! And please, please don’t send me lots of questions where the answers are in my gardening books, or ask for material for school projects that’s already on jackiefrench.com. I’m not sure I can answer more queries than I do already! In fact I’m pretty sure I can’t.
And if you just want to say ‘hi’ or it isn’t urgent, please write the message in the guest book at jackiefrench.com, and I’ll answer when I check the messages once a month.
The address above is just if there’s something that’s urgent or that I really need to hear. If there are too many emails for our phone lines to cope (or me) with I’ll have to stop using it.
What to Do Over the School Holidays
1. A Visit to the Markets
Fruit and Veg markets are all about food- fresh food, new food, food in colours you’ve never tried before. They’re fun, their free, they’re something the whole family can do together..and even better, there is a lot of really great food.
Humans need to learn about new tastes to like them, and the markets are a great place to start. Wander up and down, taste the free samples..and always come away with at least one food you’ve never tried before.
2. Watch the Stars
Well, okay, if the bushfire smoke will let you. Most cities have an observatory of some sort. Actually I wish families could hire telescopes for a week or so. But even a pair of binoculars will give you a surprising show. And there’s lots of great places on the web that will tell you what you’re look at or looking for. (There’s a nice comet about this month too.)
3. Write a Book
See ‘How the Aliens from Alpha Centauri Invade my maths class and turned me into a Writer and How Your can be One too at your local library for some hints. The best one sent to me at PO Box 63 Braidwood by the end of January (That’s January 07) WITH A STAMPED SELF ADDRESSED BOOK SIZE ENVELOPE will get one of my books in return. And I’ve carefully put this in the middle of the newsletter so most people will miss this and I don’t get overwhelmed!)
The January Garden
Ahem…is there anyone out there who has a. water and b. energy to garden right now?
January is a month to just have faith that both you and your garden will survive till autumn. But just in case you haven’t already been overloaded with water saving advice, here’s some more:
Even when good rains come again, there just isn't enough water for a growing population with the big green lawns and the other water wasters that most of us are used to.
But this doesn't mean that we have to live with brown grass, or even dig up our rose gardens and plant cactus instead. There are a multitude of plants that thrive with very little water - and ways to change your garden so you hardly need to water at all.
But most importantly of all- increase the amount of shade in summer with deciduous trees and masses of vines. We don’t have too little rain in Australia- we have too much evaporation!
Increasingly I’m planting my trees in groves, where the trees shelter each other from drought, frost, heat, wind, hail, birds, possums and all but the most determined swamp wallabies. The groves also do most of their own weed and pest control- no niche for the weeds, and very confusing for pests.
And of course also:
1. Mulch!!!!!!! Every garden writer keeps yelling 'mulch' but most people still don't. Mulch can be a miracle. See below.
2. Have less lawn! Lawns use about 95% of garden water. A hundred years ago only a few rare great houses had big lawns - other mansions had gravel, which was raked every day and smaller gardens were filled with gravel and garden beds too.
Replace most of your lawn with paving, leaving small circles of grass for greenery, or plant massed shrubs and trees instead and mulch them heavily.
3. Water in the evening, or in the early morning if you are worried about powdery mildew on damp foliage.
4. Use drip irrigation instead of overhead sprinklers.
In hot areas more water evaporates from sprinklers than gets to the soil - up to 90% on a hot day. Drippers and black polypipe are actually less expensive than garden hose and much more flexible. You can move them around the garden or leave them in place so you only need to turn on the tap to water your garden.
How often should you water?
If plants are still drooping AT NIGHT TIME, water them. (Plants often droop because of the heat, not because they are thirsty.)
How to keep your grass green
. Make sure your lawn is very well-fed – healthy grass stays green longer
. use a product like Yates Lawn Tamer, that encourages vigorous roots and not much leaf growth;
. set your lawn mower at a higher level in summer - short grass dries out sooner; and
. hard-packed soil dries out faster - keep cars off the grass, put paths or stepping stones where grass gets lots of wear, and use a product like Wettasoil so that water penetrates and doesn't just run off into the gutter.
Pots and baskets
Potting mix can actually become water repellent after about a year, especially if the pots are allowed to totally dry out. Water just slides down the side of the pot instead of watering the roots.
Every spring repot with new soil, and add water retaining crystals, so you don't have to water as often. Try to keep pot plants damp, not wet/dry, wet/dry. Choose sun loving succulents and grasses- see below.
Mulch pots and baskets too! Pebbles or coconut fibre both look good and keep soil damp and friable.
Mulch
Mulch works! Nor does mulching mean your garden has to look like the leftovers from a haystack!
A good thick layer (at least 30cm deep) of mulch really does keep the soil moister. It also helps stop soil turning into concrete so any water just rolls off. Soil that has been mulched also retains moisture better - so last year's mulch and the year's before is still helping to keep trees alive.
You may find that except in very hot dry times you don't have to water mulched trees or shrubs at all, once they are well-established and a year or two old.
If possible mulch over DAMP soil, as mulch will also stop drizzle penetrating. If the soil is dry do water both the soil and the mulch when you are spreading it.
Which mulch?
Rocks and pebbles
Advantages: This is the most low care, elegant mulch of all. A layer of pebbles or rocks really does keep moisture in - and each night the moisture in the air condenses around the warm rocks, so that a tiny trickle dribbles down to the plant roots below.
Disadvantages: Doesn't break down to feed your plants - but this is also a plus, as it doesn't need to be replaced every year!
How to use: There are a great range of pebbles and rocks available now. Arrange some large rocks around your shrubs, so they look like they are growing out of a rock garden, or spread a layer of pebbles about two or three centimetres deep around shrubs or flowers or even vegetable gardens.
When you want to plant new flowers or veg just scrape away the pebbles, plant and replace. You can even feed pebble-mulched plants with fertilisers like Dynamic Lifter - scatter and water well till the pebbles are clean again.
Lucerne hay, pea straw, sugar cane slash
Advantages: Things really seem to grow better with a mulch of leafy lucerne, especially roses and fruit trees. Keeps down weeds - just shove the mulch over the weeds and wait for them to die.
Disadvantages: Expensive (but you save on fertiliser and water), must be replaced at least once a year, can look messy around shrubs. Can soak up all the moisture from drizzly rain so the soil below stays dry.
How to use: Scatter a layer about 30 cm deep; renew as needed. Lucerne also comes in compressed pellets - use as directed.
Wood chips
These can encourage a range of root rot diseases and pests like earwigs and cockroaches. But they are fantastic on steep slopes or where you experience high winds, as they are heavy enough to stay put where lighter mulches slip downhill or blow away.
Other mulches
Lots of mulches can be foraged - lawn clippings mixed with leaves (lawn clippings by themselves can compact so water can't penetrate). Autumn leaves, chopped up prunings - our giant avocado trees are just mulched with mess - any old corn stalks, cabbage stems and prunings are all tossed under their wide skirts where no one can see them. I toss in Dynamic Lifter or old chook poo once every year or two, and the mess breaks down into good rich soil.
Some councils will sell you relatively aged, coarse mulch that they make from their garden waste collections which they put through chippers, heap up and sell by the trailer load – this is usually reasonably good quality, remarkably cheap and convenient to use especially when you have a large area to cover.
Homemade compost is best of all - lovely rich stuff that will get your garden growing.
Water Myths
Myth: Native gardens need less water.
Not necessarily! Many native shrubs like some of the bottlebrushes die in dry times. Long-lived shrubs that have deep root systems are more likely to survive drought than short-lived natives. But YOUNG natives survive better than young roses, for example. Many natives are shallow rooted and need frequent light waterings. Choose natives from dry, or even arid, locations rather than those which occur naturally in rain-forest gullies or wet forests.
Myth: One deep watering a week may not be best!
Grass has shallow roots and only needs a light watering. Any more means you're watering the soil, not the plant! Seedlings may only need a short, gentle water, but they'll need to be watered often – maybe even twice a day until they’re established. Big trees will need a longer soak.
When I put the sprinkler on, I leave an empty 400-550 gm jar under the spray. When it's about an eighth full I know I've watered the seedlings enough; a quarter full is about right for veg and grass; half full is a decent water for a small shrub; and totally full is a good soak for trees.
Some Useful Products
Tree Sleeves
These are plastic sleeves you put round your trees, shrubs or even tomatoes. They're mostly used to establish trees in paddocks or along roads, but even though they're pretty ugly in the garden they can really keep your young plants alive through bad times.
Water Tubes
These are fat bulging tree sleeves filled with twenty litres of water that seeps around the roots of your plant over about sixteen days. Like tree sleeves, you need three stakes to keep them upright. You get the advantages of a tree sleeve, plus extra water.
Aqua Spikes
You screw an old soft drink bottle into the spikes, poke a few next to your shrub or one by your capsicum plant, then fill them up with the hose. The water drains out at about a litre an hour.
Homemade water savers
Homemade Polypipe Waterers
Take about one and a half metre lengths of black 50mm polypipe, and bury one end of it about 30cm deep near the plant you want to water. The rest of the pipe sticks up in the air. Once a week or fortnight fill the pipe with water.
Upside down old pots
These are great to keep seedlings alive in the heat. Cut the bottoms out of old pots, and wriggle them down to make 'collars' around each seedling. They'll keep plants cooler, moister - and keep off snails too.
All products available mail order from: Green Harvest, ph 07 54944676 for a free catalogue
Prices at time of publication: Tree sleeves from $18 for 20 small (450mm H x 350mm W), $29 for 20 large (800mm H x 450 mm W). Three stakes are needed for each sleeve - not included in price.
Water tube
$11 each or for more than eleven $10.50 each
Three stakes are needed for each tube; not included in the price.
Aqua Spikes
Pack of 6 - $10
Pack of 50 - $75
An empty soft drink bottle is needed for each spike.
Grey water
Used properly, grey water can keep a garden green when all around is dry. But grey water can also be a health hazard. Even without water from the toilet small amounts of faecal matter can be flushed down showers, laundry tubs etc, and bacteria breed in the rich soapy water.
Grey water also contains fatty soap residue, grease from the kitchen and salts from soaps and detergents. These can clog up the soil and if too much builds up, can kill plants.
If you plan to use grey water:
. avoid detergents, highly perfumed soap and water softeners;
. collect grey water discriminately - say from the rinse cycle of your washing machine, or your own shower when you don't wash your hair and can be fairly sure you've used the toilet paper efficiently;
. install at least one filter, preferably two or three, and regularly clean out soap sludge;
. use only on trees and ornamentals - not on grass where kids might play.
. avoid products containing boron or chlorine; and
. always share out the grey and the clean water - make sure the whole garden gets some of each rather than concentrating the grey water on a small part of the garden.
The easiest and safest way to collect some grey water is to stand a bucket next to you in the shower - pull it close when you've washed off most of the soap. Fill buckets with rinse water from washing too.
Commercial water recycling
Grey water systems cost about $4,000 - $5,000, are trouble free (usually with a 'hot line' in case of break down), and regularly inspected (this is a legal requirement). Some systems also recycle sewer waste. These systems are highly recommended for dry areas.
Plants that don't say die
You don't need to stick to natives and succulents for a low water garden!
Most plant labels now will tell you how much water your plant needs, so you can stick to hardy ones. But you can also tell how hardy a plant will be yourself.
Choose
• plants with thick fleshed leaves - succulents like echeveras, agaves, sempervivums, crassula, senecio, euphorbias and yuccas;
• plants with grey or aromatic leaves such as lavender, cushion bush, rosemary or curry plants; and
• tough grass-like plants like yuccas, turf lilies, mondo grass, cordylines (cabbage trees), miscanthus and phormiums.
Drought Hardy Vegetables
Amaranth, artichokes, (globe and Jerusalem), asparagus (mulch well), beans, carrots, chives, chokos, cardoon, celeriac, chicory, Chinese mustard greens, endive, fennel, garlic, Kiwano (African horned cucumber), melons, mizuna, parsley, pumpkins, radish, tomatoes and spring onions.
Veg to avoid
Lettuce (red-leafed lettuce are far hardier than green lettuce), celery, spinach and peas.
Drought Hardy Flowers
Achillea/yarrow, alyssum, borage, catnip, brachycome/Swan River daisy, calendula, cornflower, convolvulus, dianthus, erigeron, gazanias, grevilleas, gypsophila, geraniums (both Pelargonium spp and Geranium spp), Helichrysum/everlasting daisies, lavender, marigolds, nasturtiums, ornamental corn, ornamental kale, sweet peas, perennial poppies – California and Shirley, Sturt's desert pea, Sturt's desert rose, sunflowers and wallflowers
Drought Hardy Flowering Shrubs
If you want reliable colour in droughts, stick to shrubs - their root systems are larger, deeper and more hardy than annual and even perennial flowers. Many shrubs are far more drought hardy than you might suppose. These are just a few you can choose from.
Banksias (Banksia spp), Bauhinia galpinii, broom (Cistus spp) Buddleia spp., callistemon, ceanothus, eriostemon, grevillea, pyracantha (beware as it can become a weed), rock roses, indigophera, leptospermum, melaleuca, oleanders, roses (drought resistant once well-established) and tree lupin. Japonica camellias are much hardier than sasanquas!
Drought Hardy Climbers
Note: These all need a year or two of good conditions to become properly established before they tolerate extremes of drought and heat.
Banksia rose, bougainvillea, Chinese trumpet flower, Chinese jasmine, clematis, grapes, honeysuckle (be careful - the most rampant varieties can easily escape and become weeds), mandevillea, wisteria and wonga vine.
Drought Hardy Bulbs and Tubers
Agapanthus, Algerian iris, belladonna lily, clivea, dahlias, gladioli, kniphofia (red hot pokers), watsonias and early daffodils and jonquils - mostly because they die down before the worst of the heat
Drought Hardy Fruit Trees
Apple, apricots, avocado, almonds, carob, Irish strawberry tree, feijoa, grapes (drought hardy varieties like Red Cardinal), mulberry, palms - coconut, date and Canary Island, olives, peaches, plums, pistachios, pomegranate, stone pines, pecans, walnuts and chestnuts.
Trees to avoid: Citrus - they are very shallow rooted and need regular water.
Rainwater Tanks
A rainwater tank can give you all the water you need for your garden, as many country gardeners know!
How much water?
The bigger your roof, the more water you can collect. Your roof is usually 20% larger than your house, depending on the slope and size of the eaves. One millimetre of rain on a HORIZONTAL metre of roof gives you a litre of water. If your roof is the equivalent of 200 flat square metres, a light shower of 5 mm will give you 1,000 litres in your tank - enough for a couple of weeks of careful watering.
The bigger your tank, the more water you can store.
If you get fairly frequent light showers of rain, they'll keep your tank topped up, and a small tank may give you all the water you need. If you get thunder-storms only every couple of months, you'll need a much larger tank.
What type of tank?
If you are going to drink your tank water, your tank MUST be suitable for supplying drinking-quality water - and your roof materials mustn't taint the water either. You also have to be careful about pollution, dead rats, possum droppings and many other factors! But possum droppings are just extra fertiliser if you only want the water for your garden.
You MUST get council approval for your tank. Many councils now offer a rates rebate if you install one.
Mosquitoes: Put mozzie wire around the opening and put an inverted colander over that, so that mozzies can't breed in the 'overflow' puddle. A thin film of edible oil will suffocate mozzie larvae. It will also taint the water, so don't do this with drinking water.
Other ways to save water
. A dripping tap loses 100 litres a day! Check all taps!
. Taps use ten litres a minute. Turn off the tap when brushing your teeth - and use the plug!
. Check water consumption of dishwashers and washing machines when you buy a new one - some use far more than others! Front loading washing machines may use about 40% less than top loading ones.
. Dishwashers use about 180 litres per load - wait till they are full before turning them on.
. Use buckets, not hoses, to wash the car, or go to a car wash that recycles water (most do).
A Few Useful Recipes
Harvesting tomatoes
Fresh eating: Frost free period minus about 16 weeks for early maturers. Tomatoes can be grown inside in pots in winter; tomato bushes with unripened fruit should be hung in a sheltered spot to continue ripening over the next month. Most green tomatoes will gradually ripen indoors. You may get tomatoes all year round with the last two methods.
Storage Time: Several weeks in fridge. Green tomatoes may keep for months.
Food value: 88 kj per 10 gms. Excellent source of vitamin C, also A and potassium.
How to peel a Tomato
Cut just through the skin, no deeper, from top to bottom and back again, so you've divided the tomato into quarters. Now pour boiling - or even very hot- water over the tomato for a few seconds. The edges of the cuts will peel back and you can peel the rest of the skin off.
Peeled tomatoes are much nicer sliced on sandwiches and infinitely better in soup and stews unless they are going to be puréed - otherwise you end up with wrinkly bits at the bottom.
Tomatoes and onions
If you are cooking tomatoes with onions, sauté the onions till they are soft before adding the tomatoes, otherwise the onions will stay tough and not melt away.
Dealing with surplus tomatoes
Simple 10 minute preserved tomatoes
Take ripe, firm small tomatoes. They must have no bruise or blemish at all. Make sure they are clean and quite dry.
Place them in a tall, deep jar, one at a time - again, make sure they do not squash, bruise or split. Cover with oil right to the top of the jar. Seal. Keep in the fridge till needed. These will keep up to six months or even longer.
Tomato Paste
There are dozens of ways of making tomato paste. Try chopping the tomatoes, add no water and simmer till they are thick and bubbling like magma - great bursts of bubbles that spread over the kitchen. Spread the mixture on alfoil and leave in the sun till dry - take indoors in wet weather or at night. Now roll the sticky mixture into balls, dip each ball in a cup of oil and store in sealed glass jars in the frig. Take out a ball as you need it. Otherwise just stuff the paste in a jar and cover the lot with oil - though this can give an uneven surface as you use it which may not be oil covered, so you can lose some of the paste to fungus.
If you don't want to dry the paste in the sun boil it down as far as possible with a tablespoon of white vinegar or half a teaspoon of citric acid for every four cups of tomatoes. Pack the thick purée into glass jars, cover with a film of oil. Place the jars in the oven in a tray of water and cook till the water just boils. Leave till cool and seal.
The paste can be flavoured at the simmering stage with garlic, black pepper or very finely chopped basil or thyme.
Tomato Sauce
6 kilos tomatoes
1 litre white vinegar
1 kilo chopped onions, sautéed till soft in a little oil
150 grams sugar
10 cloves chopped garlic
teaspoon ground ginger
pepper and salt to taste
Boil for two hours, strain through a sieve. Bottle. A little melted clarified butter or lard (the traditional sealer) on top before sealing will help it to keep longer and keep the colour brighter.
Classic Tomato Salad
Slice very red ripe tomatoes. Douse with good olive oil. Serve at once.
A few torn basil leaves or a little chopped garlic may be added. Ripe tomatoes are both sweet and acid and shouldn't need anything else.
Dried Tomatoes
Home dried tomatoes still taste of the sun.
Halve or quarter your tomatoes, spread them in the sun on alfoil on a very hot day. Take them in at night. They should be dry in about three days, depending on the amount of sunlight.
Layer them in a jar and cover with olive oil. You can add fresh basil and garlic to the oil to taste.
I add dried tomatoes:
. roughly chopped to winter salads.
. whole with artichokes, potatoes and mayonnaise.
. with camembert and lettuce and vinaigrette dressing.
. and cooked in a about a hundred ways.
Tomato sandwiches
The secret here is to butter evenly, thickly and everywhere so the juice doesn't soften the bread - or use cheese to protect the bread instead.
Crackers and cheese with a thick slice of ripe tomato are one of life's delicacies - with a good grind of black pepper.
Tomatoes and good bread
Take a thick slice of fresh French or Italian bread. Brush olive oil on both sides. Toast lightly on both sides, top with fresh tomato, with or without bocconcino cheese and lots of torn basil leaves or a thick spread of pesto and thinly sliced very ripe tomato or eggplant in olive oil with a thin slice of fresh tomato - the possibilities are endless...
Tomatoes in cream
Pour a cup of cream into a pan with four cloves of chopped garlic. Simmer for ten minutes. Cut four very ripe peeled tomatoes in half and lay them in the cream. Cook gently till they are heated through. Take off the heat before they turn soggy and top with finely chopped parsley, basil or fresh coriander.
Simple pasta sauce
Sauté two onions and 12 cloves of garlic in olive oil till soft. Add 12 peeled chopped tomatoes. Cook till soft. Add a lot of chopped basil, chives, parsley - or marjoram or oregano instead.
This isn't as garlicky as it seems, as the garlic is cooked in oil first and loses most of its pungency.
Scatter cheese on top - parmesan or pecorino or even mozzarella - grind on black pepper at the last minute - it goes bitter if you add it too soon.
Cordials
Passionfruit Cordial
2 cups white sugar
1 cup passionfruit pulp
1 cup water
juice of two large lemons
2 level teaspoons tartaric acid
Bung the white sugar and water in a saucepan. Boil five minutes. Add the passionfruit pulp and lemon juice. Boil 5 minutes. Strain. Throw the pulp to the chooks. Add the tartaric acid. Stir well and bottle. Throw out if it bubbles or grows mould.
Lemon Cordial
6 cups white sugar
3 cups lemon juice
6 cups water
2 level teaspoons tartaric acid
2 level teaspoons citric acid
Bung the lot in a saucepan. Boil five minutes. Boil 5 minutes. Strain. Bottle . Throw out if it bubbles or grows mould.
Frozen Fruit Salad
Frozen fruit salad is one of my favourite dishes in the universe. (I've been eating it since I was seven- it was the first recipe I ever concocted on my own)
Ingredients
2 tb finely chopped mint (your choice of mint- even spotty backdoor mint will do)
2 large bananas, sliced
1 ripe pineapple, chopped
1 rockmelon, chopped
the pulp from 10 -20 passionfruit
sugar to taste: this will depend how sweet the fruit is. You may need lots, or none.
Optional: raspberries, mulberries, blueberries, mango
Mix it all together; leave for an hour for the sugar to dissolve and mint again. Place in iceblock moulds, or paper or plastic cups, with either a teaspoon or an iceblock stick poked into the centre. (You can buy iceblock sticks at many newsagents). Freeze.
Kids (and anyone who isn't too dignified to eat an iceblock) can eat these on the stick. Or you can serve it up with great elegance by roughly chopping each iceblock up with a knife, and slipping the result into a chilled wine glass, with more mint as decoration. But do eat your frozen fruit salad before it totally thaws, as the banana and rockmelon will be a bit squishy.
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