February 2006 . . .
Intro.
Book News
Wombat News
The February Garden- keeping your cool
A Few Icecream Recipes (including fat free ones)
Yesterday was 44 C and everything was wilting, including me. Then Araluen Billy arrived ...
Araluen Billy is the local sea mist. I don't know why it's called Billy. It does look a bit like an old man's beard as it drifts over the mountains between us and the coast, so it might be that.
The mist was snaking through the trees as I drove down the mountain from home, and by the time I was down in the valley it was cool and mizzling and the lyrebirds were singing.
It was still misty this morning. Showered with a small black tailed wallaby peering through the bathroom window. (Our bathroom doesn't have curtains- no one to see in except the wallabies.)
Josephine started watching people in the shower over Christmas. For a while I thought she was worried we might be going to shoo her away from the rose bushes. But now I think she is just trying to work out why insane humans choose to stand under running water, when it'd be so easy to step out of the way.
At least the roses are growing faster than she can eat this year. Both her babies from the last two years have moved away now, though she has another baby in her pouch- still just a bulge, and too small to stick it's head out and munch too. The only other wallaby in the few acres of garden about the house is the one we call Muscles- very nice set of pectorals on him indeed. He likes roses too, and can reach higher then Josephine to drag down the branches. But he comes and goes, while Josephine sleeps under the dwarf pomegranate and is around every morning at breakfast time.
It's been a wonderful summer, apart from the heat. No nearby fires, rain once a week, and everything growing. The banana tree that I usually have to cosset to keep alive looks like it thinks it is in north Queensland.
The only problem is the amount of fruit- I'd forgotten quite how much the trees produce in a good season. Where are the fruit bats and flocks of rosellas when you want them? Actually the answer is that many have been shot and poisoned down the valley and up in Major's Creek. I wish there was some way of putting out notices for birds 'Warning: don't go over there. Come and eat our apples instead. And plums, pears, nashis, loganberries, avocadoes, custard apples, lemons, limes, emu berries, macadamias, mandarins, sapotes and I don't even want to think about the late peaches in the top orchard.
Book News
Macbeth and Son is just about to go to the printer.
It's been a difficult book to write, and I think to edit too - it's been a real team collaboration, this one, with Lisa and Emma and Liana getting me to rewrite and rewrite. But I think it's been worth it. Hope so. You never really know till the book comes out. But I can't read it without tears, and not because the ending is sad. (It isn't.) I have a feeling you know if a book has worked if there are tears at the end.
At the moment I'm working on Boo Boo Bark and the School for Heroes, the series to replace the Phredde Books, which is about as far away from Macbeth and Son as you can get. (The eighth Phredde book, Phredde and the Haunted Underpants was the last in the Phaery named Phredde series, for now anyway, as Phredde Bruce and Pru fly off to hero school.
In this series Boojum Bark, hero and werewolf, isn't quite sure if he IS a hero. But he's going to do his best. Hopefully it's even funnier than the Phredde's, with a lot more meat on the bones too.
Wombat News
Mothball has been munching. Munching the drip irrigation pipe to be precise. I'm not sure if she likes the taste or just can't be bothered trudging a few metres to drink from the pond. But it's meant that every morning Bryan has another length of polypipe to replace. It's going to be more joiners than pipe soon.
I could be mean and spread chilli paste along the pipe. But I have a horrible feeling she'd rip the entire pipe up in revenge.
Heard Mothball grunting under the bedroom last night, too, with what sounded suspiciously like a couple of sneezes, but might just have been a cross between a growl and a snort. She's fussy these days - there is so much grass about that she only eats her favourite, kikuyu. We only have a small patch of kikuyu, thank goodness, as it grows so fast it can strangle young trees. But wombats and roos love it.
The February garden
A green garden around your house can literally cool the place down by 10 C, as well as give you a refuge of soft smells and cool air while the world outside is all traffic and pollution and glaring concrete.
Keeping Life Breezy
Trees shade you, add a touch of moisture to dry air, and keep soil moister below them too. BUT ... trees can also block breezes.
If you live in a humid area i.e. near the coast, do have TALL trees - ones that are above your window height, not parallel to it. (Yes, I know trees take a while to grow but it is worth aiming for an ideal garden, even if takes a year or three).
Tall trees shade your house and garden, but unlike tall shrubs they allow breezes to cool the house too - or at least help some of the clammy moisture on your skin evaporate.
Look at the type of shade the tree gives too. Thick greenery above you can make a house dismal even in mid-summer, whereas more open canopies - the sort that a jacaranda gives you, for example, all green dapples (not to mention stunning flowers) will give you shade plus light. Looked for umbrella shaped trees as well, like palms, bauhinia, or Albizia (silk tree).
Just Add water
If I could just remember my high school physics I'd be able to tell you why evaporating water really DOES cool the air down, which is why Coolgardie safes work. (Hands up those who remember what a Coolgardie safe is!).
But a breeze flowing over through a fountain is also a delicious thing in its own right, softening the air with water smells and coolness. (Mostly you only sense the smell of water on hot, still days.)
In fact even watering the paving around the house will cool things down! We have a polypipe and micro jets watering system above our hanging baskets, and on hot afternoons these both water the plants and cool the air.
PS. Please no one write and tell me how a Coolgardie safe works! If I've forgotten for this long I don't need to know!
Keeping Things Green
Okay, don't panic about that parched patch of grass. Grass recovers. Our grass turns brown here each summer (we just don't have enough water to keep it green) but even a few hours after rain green shoots appear.
Concentrate on watering the things that WON'T survive, like young shrubs and trees. But also consider planting a few 'stay green' climbers so you still have cool green colours around you.
Our passionfruit and kiwi fruit and grape vines make the whole garden look green, and there's a comfortable feeling of abundance about it too (anyone like a passionfruit? a basket of grapes? twenty passionfruit and a box of peaches?)
Watch out for paving
Large areas of paving may be elegant, fashionable and low maintenance - but they do reflect a lot of light and heat onto the house. (Old-fashioned lawns were popular for a reason!)
If you do have large areas of paving, consider a pergola above them, with grapes or hops or kiwi fruit that will cover the area with greenery in summer and lose their leaves in winter. Of these, hops are the least messy, as the leaves wither up and mostly blow away, and kiwi fruit the most - their thick tough leaves drop through autumn and most of winter and the fruit can get a bit splodgy too.
Light up the darkness!
Install garden lighting! Why? Because the best way to enjoy your garden and stay cool is to do it at night. (A mozzie proof 'cabana' in the garden, or mozzie proof blinds on the veranda may also be a good idea!)
Keep Things Smelling Good
When the world smells of hot bitumen cool garden scents are immeasurably refreshing.
Hot days are also great for actually SMELLING your plants - perfume rises on hot days. One good fragrant plant can fill a garden with scent; half a dozen can turn your place into paradise. My midsummer scented favourites are hybrid musk roses like Prosperity, Penelope or Buff Beauty, curry bush (our front steps smell like a good vindaloo at the moment), clary sage, mandevillea, boronia, lavender, rosemary plus thyme between the hot paving stones. Also chocolate cosmos. Note: do Not plant chocolate cosmos by the front steps if you're on a chocolate free diet. I've been wondering why I feel like a chocolate every time I come in from a walk.
Plant out your shade
A shady garden doesn't have to be a dull one - especially if most of your trees are deciduous ones that lose their leaves in winter to let the sunlight in.
As I look around our garden I can see deep purple impatiens flowers, purple pansies, blue and purple agapanthus, pink and purple fuchsias (well, I do like purple), blue and white hydrangeas, plus Green Goddess lilies that keep blooming all year if they're kept cool and damp, and quite a lot of liliums- impossibly the most spectacular shade bloomer I know.
If you want a flash of orange, try clumps of bright clivias. Or the coloured foliage of cordylines in warmer areas or a carpet of hostas under fruit trees (watch for snails – install a blue-tongue lizard at the same time), or shade loving natives like Boronia heterophylla, Correa or native fuchsias, or the river dog rose (Bauera rubioides). I could go on for pages with colour in the shade. Seek and ye shall find!
Naked ladies
If you are one of those who gives your beloved a Valentine's day present (We forget till the radio tells us it's Valentine's day over breakfast) consider a naked lady. A botanical one, anyway.
Belladonnas (Amaryllis belladonna) are called naked ladies because the flowers rise out of the ground before the leaves. They're most commonly fat fleshy pink, but there are rare waxy white ones and a subtler pale pink and white form.
Naked ladies are wonderfully, incredibly hardy. They adore dry heat, survive cold winters. The only thing they don't like is being dug around or moved, so stick them in an out of the way spot and forget about them till they bloom.
Where to grow: in well drained - even hot dry - sunny or lightly shaded banks or garden beds. They hate being disturbed, divided, moved or mowed, and may take a year or two to flower after shifting.
How to plant: with the crowns (top of the bulbs) JUST showing above the soil
Flowering: Feb/March
Best grown: Naked ladies don't like extreme frost (any lower than minus four - what naked lady would?) and will grow in all but the hottest of Australian climates. In humid areas though, make sure that drainage is perfect!
What to plant
.Autumn bulbs for spring flowers
In cold to temperate areas sow your winter and spring veg now - broccoli, cabbage, silver beet, lettuce, leeks, spinach and flowers for winter and spring too: alyssum, pansies, primulas, Iceland poppies, English daisies.
In tropical gardens plant every veg from carrots to zucchini, including sweet potatoes!
ps. if your area gets cyclones or February downpours, raise seedlings in pots under shelter- seeds just get washed away!
Other jobs:
. prune geraniums (pelargoniums) and pot up the cuttings
. buy a new garden hat, mozzie repellent and a tube of Stingose for biting beasties
. if you have a few precious fruit you need to save from fruit fly, possums, fruit bats or birds, try covering them with sections of old panty hose, tied at both ends. I have yet to find a fruit bat who can bite through panty hose! One pair of 'one size fits all' (except they never do) will do about 8 fruit.
A Few Icecream Recipes
I treated myself to an icecream machine this Christmas- a real one, with it's own cooling element, not one you have to freeze first in the fridge. Which makes sense for us- we're on solar power and only have a small fridge, and it's crazy to have a bigger fridge all the time just to make icecream. More efficient to have a separate icecream maker that's only on for half an hour a week.
But the recipes below don't need an icecream maker. I've been making them for years without. But it's enormous fun
Ps Icecream doesn't have to be bad for you either, especially if you make it yourself. Half the recipes below are 'virtuous'; i.e. fat free and without much sugar either. The other half are ones I make mostly for Bryan, who can eat all the fat and sugar he likes, damn it.
*Fat Free banana Icecream
This sounds as though it should be truly disgusting. But it's actually superb. I really surprised myself when I tasted it. (I was just experimenting with different textures when I came up with this recipe, and didn't really expect this to taste so good.)
Take a plastic bowl you can put in the fridge. Add:
2 large mashed bananas
half a cup orange juice (not from navel oranges- it will turn bitter)
1 egg white
juice of two lemons
1 tsp citric acid or tartaric acid (optional but does accentuate the flavour)
half cup castor sugar (also optional; can be reduced or substitute artificial sweetener or just leave it out)
half a cup soy or fat free milk.(Or cream if you want a rich icecream)
Beat well until all frothy, about three minutes.
Place bowl in freezer covered with plastic wrap. Beat again every half an hour till light and frozen and very very creamy. Or use an icecream machine according to directions
Pack into a plastic container and keep frozen. Eat within a week, it doesn't keep.
*Adults only Pina Colada Icecream
1
small can crushed pineapple in syrup (about 2 cups)
2 tb rum
one cup coconut milk or coconut cream
Blend it all together. Freeze.
*Pineapple Sorbet
Blend:
1 pineapple, peeled and cored
half cup castor sugar (can be reduced or left out)
juice of 2 lemons or limes
1 tsp tartaric or citric acid
1 egg white
Freeze as above or in a machine. Again, this has a wonderfully rich texture because of all the pineapple solids in it- it's not rough and grainy as it would be made with pineapple juice.
*Rich Macadamia Icecream
500 gm thickened cream, or 300 cream and 200gm milk
two thirds cup of castor sugar
2 egg yolks
2 tsp vanilla essence or use vanilla sugar (sugar that's been stored with a few vanilla beans, which is what I mostly use)
1 cup chopped macadamia nuts, chilled in the fridge.
Heat sugar, yolks and cream, stirring constantly, very very slowly till ALMOST simmering. Take off the heat at once. Freeze as above but when it's almost frozen add the nuts. (It's hard to beat if they're added too soon.)
This is the most wonderful icecream. A little is all you need. (Or will want. A good icecream is satisfying. A bad icecream just leaves you longing for something else unspecified.)