Category Archives: Fruit

Guinea pigs and much more!

Posted on by

Yes, that’s right- guinea pigs! We read that guinea pigs LOVE eating grass and weeds, so decided to get some to base in the orchard. Due to the risk of predators, we don’t let them free range, but keep them in an enclosure around a fruit tree. So far we have two groups of boys- the brothers Huey, Dewey and Louie; and the brothers Pinky and Perky. So far it has been successful, in that they have stayed safe and are eating down the grass!

Dewey and Louie in their enclosure around the pomegranate tree
Huey, Louie and Dewey (L to R)

It has been a particularly busy January, not just with the new arrival of the guinea pigs. The ducklings are growing at a rate of knots, and we have now moved the four from mama hen and joined them with the rest of the ducks.

We also cleaned out the yabby tank, and were thrilled with how many there are! After moving to McCarthy Park 2, we kept getting losses and really couldn’t figure out why. The only real difference between the places was that in MP 1 we used bore water (as that was our only water supply), and in MP 2 we used rain water (as the bore water is ok for the garden but is a bit brown and sulphide smelly). Well, in desperation we eventually just started using bore water to see if it made any difference, and it obviously has! There are large, medium and small yabbies, lots of tiny babies, and at least a couple of females ‘berried’- with eggs.

mid way through emptying and refreshing the tank- gorgeous blue yabbies!
Just some of the yabbies, the smaller ones

It has been HOT, far too hot to work outside during the middle of the day, so that is a good time to preserve the harvest.

We have had an abundance of tomatoes, still (!), and have made sauces and given plenty away. We also dehydrated a few, to store in oil for snacks and pasta.

Also the hot weather encourages other inside jobs like saving and storing seeds from our home grown vegetables….

Over the years, we have tried a few different seed storage systems and methods (eg by season, by month), but this is the most successful for us- alphabetical order!

It’s been a long time…….

Posted on by

After some time to renew and refresh the website…..we are back!

It has been a busy few months, with lots growing and happening, and is best said in pictures to get us back on track!

Beautiful fungi

Ducklings December 2020

Mama hen raising turkeys!
Over the summer we added supers to the horizontals, harvested, and removed them in April for the cooler weather.
We have had a bumper crop of citrus going on for months!
Stunning sunset, photo by Philby
Wheat and lupins sown and growing
Long necked turtle found away from the dam- we took it to the water, fingers crossed!

We were honoured to have a pair of butcher birds raise a family in front of the house!

More fruit!

Posted on by

The orchard is now pruned and fertilised, and looks like being a bumper season. Apart from the citrus, the nectarines and peaches are looking very healthy with lots of flower buds. The loquat is bursting………

Loquats to come!

…….and the ice-cream beans are ripening….

Ice-cream beans, our first!

Fingers crossed for a great fruit season this year!

Delicious Citrus!

Posted on by

Our orchard is growing and producing! At the moment the citrus are just ripening, and look fabulous. It was great to plant different varieties that fruit at different times of the year. One mandarin tree has finished and the next is almost ready. Just love the bright orange of the mandarins and oranges, they look so fresh.

The lemon tree is also producing well, which is very timely as we have almost run out of frozen lemon wedges! And the main orange tree near the house also has an abundant crop again.

Orange season again!

Posted on by

Last post was about how many lemons we had, and making Lemon and Mustard Seed Chutney- now it is oranges!

We gave our 30+ year old orange tree a good prune as it was getting very tall and overhanging the roof. Timing for pruning has always been difficult with this orange tree as it is always in fruit! As one lot of oranges are ready to harvest, so another lot are forming. We decided to just go for it as we had way too many oranges and the tree really needed a tidy.

After pruning we had so many oranges to give away and preserve.

plenty of oranges!

We gave away a couple of baskets, and made some more of our delicious Orange Brandy Liqueur, which always is well received at Christmas time!

orange brandy liqueur in progress

There will be more of that to come, plus maybe some Orange Chutney……….

orange tree AFTER pruning!

Last month was pruning time for our orchard, and now the plums and nectarines are starting to flower! Hopefully we get lots of delicious fruit again this year!

plum tree in flower

And just to update on the bee hive move- it is going really well! Thank goodness, because it has been very cold and windy in Perth since we did the move. Today was lovely and sunny and we saw plenty of coming and going and also plenty of pollen coming into the hive. Phew!

pollen coming into the hive- a good sign!

 

Winter time- orchard, bees and animals

Posted on by

It has been a fairly busy month or so tidying the orchard trees, preserving the bountiful lemons, and of course getting firewood for our wood fire!

We generally do a summer prune, and a fairly light prune in winter but there has been so much growth on most of the fruit trees that we have just done a fairly thorough winter prune on most trees. It was a bit late for the apricots so they have been left, but everything else was reduced in height to ensure they can be easily netted and harvested.

Pruned and tidied orchard

We have had some bumper crops this last season, so a good tidy up was certainly needed! Also most of the trees are now big enough to remove the metal surrounds we had surrounding them so the geese and turkeys didn’t damage them. This makes it so much easier to whipper snip, fertilise and generally tend each tree.

Couple of remaining surrounds protecting the growing trees

Our lemon tree has been thriving, as lemon trees so often do! We have cut many into wedges for the freezer (ideal for adding to a refreshing drink- whether it is just water or gin and tonic!), and made lots of Lemon and Mustard Seed Chutney to add to the couple of remaining jars from last year. This chutney is a real favourite of ours and used almost daily.

Lemon and Mustard Seed Chutney

We have also sowed our ‘clucker tucker’ areas, adjoining the chook run. This provides a good supply of green food for the poultry when we need to leave them locked up in their pens.

Clucker Tucker

We recently purchased some more guinea fowl which were added to one of the clucker tucker areas to get accustomed to our place. In another week we will let them out to join our others, who free range the property.

New additions

As if there aren’t enough mouths to feed, we have been including a pair of Pacific Black ducks who are regular visitors to the dam and now the food supply!

Wildlife joining in

And another major bee event- we moved our Langstroth from the front paddock because with all the tree growth it is now in pretty constant shade, and hadn’t really thrived over the warmer months. We used the same procedure as when we moved the Warre some time ago- the hive was closed up one evening when the bees were inside, strapped up and tied to a trolly, and moved to its new location nearby the other hives.

Moving the strapped up hive

The hive stayed closed for three days, and a bush placed at the entrance. When the entrance was opened, the bees are forced to reorient due to the bush in the entrance. So far so good, there is coming and going from the hive and even bees taking pollen in. The plan in the warmer weather is to transfer the frames from this Langstroth to the new horizontal hive which was placed behind it ready. The horizontal hive uses all Langstroth components so is easily interchangeable (unlike when we have transferred to or from Top Bar and Warre hives), and has the huge benefit, like the Top Bar, of not needing to lift a full super. Unlike the Top Bar though, it will be easier to manage, and harvest, as it uses the Langstroth frames.

Horizontal hive ready for the transfer

Passionfruit, limes and chillies!

Posted on by

The warm Perth autumn weather has been great for growing (not so good for filling the dams though!). We have had (and are still having) bumper crops, particularly passionfruit, limes, chillies and lemons.

yellow passionfruit, limes and lemons

Today has included some preserving- freezing loads of passionfruit pulp to use later, freezing lime and lemon wedges (great fro add to a refreshing drink, especially those with gin in them!), making lime and chilli pickle, and salted chilli (great for a quick add to a meal without having to cut up chillies each time.

Love these chillies, there is always an amazing amount!

We usually make a delicious sweet chilli sauce, but with over 20 bottles already in the produce room it is time for something different! This is a really easy recipe- just chop up 500 grams fresh red chillies (I use the Thermomix), then add 60 grams salt and mix thoroughly. Put into sterilised jars and add another 15 grams of salt on top, then store in a cool place for a couple of weeks, then the fridge to use. This fills two 300ml jars.

Chopped chillies and salt, ready to jar- it is quite pungent!

After searching for something different to make with our limes, I decided to make a lime pickle next weekend as it needs more preparation time. Today was this really simple lime pickle– just wedges of lime, julienned ginger and chopped green chillies, in layers with a teaspoon of salt on top of each layer (3 in total). Once all that is done, just add the juice of one lime, add the lid and give it a good shake. Shake three times a day for 3 or 4 days. It looks delicious and we can’t wait to try it!

Lime pickle

All in all a fruitful day!

 

Spring 2017 at McCarthy Park

Posted on by

We have had a very busy spring this year, though we think we say that every year!

Sometimes it is nice to just make the garden look nice! Yes, the mulch will help with water retention as the hot summer comes, but…… it just looks so good!

Here’s a couple of before and after shots:

Of course more than mulch spreading has been happening:

Looks like a good crop of olives this year!

We had a great harvest of perch to stock up the freezer!

And some yabbies too!

And of course now the weather is warming up, the trout are harvested, smoked and vacuum packed for the coming year!

Winter in the Orchard…..

Posted on by

This winter we have been blessed with great gardening weather, which enabled us to spend a lot of time in the orchard. Of course it is fabulous to pick fresh, delicious fruit straight from the tree- the flavour is always amazing! But to continue with this the trees need a bit of TLC. So, they have been pruned, fed with blood and bone, potash, trace elements and chicken manure (the citrus trees). The area around the trunks has been weeded, and the stone fruit sprayed with copper spray to reduce the leaf curl we are prone to get.

Winter 2017

 

Oranges, oranges and more oranges!

Posted on by

We have the most amazing orange tree- it fruits prolifically and the oranges are delicious. Only problem is, there are SO MANY oranges we can’t possibly eat them all so we need to preserve them.

One days picking

One days picking

img_0980

Another day’s picking, after giving loads away!

 

One of our favourite ways is to make Orange Brandy Liqueur. It uses up lots of oranges (and brandy!) and tastes divine, however we still had plenty left from last year so really didn’t need to make more with this year’s harvest.

Last year we also froze a load of whole oranges so we could juice them when we wanted- except we didn’t and they were still in the freezer! So out they went, and after a search of the recipe books we settled on:

  • Litres and litres of orange juice- some to drink straight away and plenty for the freezer.
  • We also cut heaps of orange wedges for the freezer- these are great to add to a drink instead of an ice block and are great to suck on on a hot summers day.
  • Orange chutney (18 jars!) – this is delicious, and while it took ages to peel the oranges the result was worth it.

Orange Chutney

Orange Chutney

  • Orange, coconut and apple crisps-we happened to have some apple sauce left over, so whizzed up some with oranges and coconut in the Thermomix to make a paste. This was then dehydrated and broken into pieces for a delicious snack!

Orange crisps and orange, coconut and apple crisps

Orange crisps and orange, coconut and apple crisps

  • Orange crisps– we did this last year too, and is well worth maintaining a supply for quick snacks or to add flavour to cold drinks or tea. The oranges are sliced with a mandoline and then dehydrated.
  • Orange infused vinegar and oil- the dehydrated orange slices give a great flavour to white wine vinegar or a light olive oil. Great for cooking with or for salad dressings.

Orange infused vinegar and orange infused oil

Orange infused vinegar and orange infused oil

  • Marmalade- it is hard to not make marmalade with a surplus of oranges, so 20 jars were made, which is more than enough for us and for gifts!

Orange marmalade

Orange marmalade

  • Orange paste– by now we were wondering what else to do with so many oranges still. We kept giving them away, the last basket was starting to linger, and we love the fruit pastes that go with cheese so decided to try Orange Jelly (paste). It is quite a simple recipe and really delicious! We made 16 jars, so plenty to last a long time!

Orange jelly- a fabulous paste to have with cheese

Orange jelly- a fabulous paste to have with cheese

And that, finally, saw the end of the baskets of oranges. Now we can enjoy  the wonderful flavour in so many different ways for many months to come, and we have added to the shelves in the produce room!

Full shelves

Full shelves!