Delicious Preserving Traditions

This Saturday brings the next highly popular series of preserving workshops hosted by  Blue Mountains Slow Food convivium leader Anne Elliot. Anne’s been an advocate for living locally and enjoying ourselves as we do, in this case by creating a storage fruit that can be eaten all through winter which also looks gorgeous on the shelves. Anne’s passionate about preserving food and a wealth of information and recipes. I asked Anne how long she’d been using Fowler’s Vacola “I have been using this system for around 18 months now, but have fond memories of watching my mother use it to preserve all kinds of surplus , seasonal fruits and vegetables when growing-up in country south-west New South Wales.  My father often visited a lot of the local farms, and the Italian farmers, being always-generous, would give my father boxes of produce.  We had lovely wooden boxes filled with local fruit, for example, stored in our laundry!” 


There are electric and stove top systems with Fowler's.  Anne will be demonstrating use of the electric Fowlers Preserving System, which she loves because “it is so quick and easy for people feeling a bit 'rushed'  - dare I say!”. Bringing these sorts of systems bang up to date is a great way to help a new generation of preservers to get started. These days so much food goes to waste and ends up in landfill. In NSW alone households throw out $2.5 Billion worth of food. Preserving your fruit at home is a great simple way to help prevent so much food going to waste as well as creating sweet treats to be  on hand in your larder or kitchen cupboard to enjoy all year round without having to ship them in from far away.


There are loads of other ways of preserving of course, and different cultures have developed a myriad of preservation techniques for especially loved or nutritionally valued fruits to see them through the winter. These age old traditions including using salt to preserve lemons which the Fruit and Nut Tree Network featured here last year as part of A Kitchen Garden in Every Blue Mountains Home. You can still download full instructions at Slow Food Blue Mountains.  Making relishes and chutneys is another form of preserving, either your harvest or seasonal fruits in the shop when they are in season, in plentiful supply and in therefore in tip top condition for preserving. Anne just recently made another two batches of fantastic "tomato relish, using discarded tomatoes  (doesn't matter if they are a little over-ripe for this.)  This is a GREAT VERY OLD  RECIPE AND SOOOO EASY" she enthuses.
(folks in the lower mountains may consider sharing any remaining tomato bounty with those of us who were less fortunate in the tomato growing season this year - hint! - Kat)

CONNIE'S TOMATO RELISH  (Can always divide this to make smaller quantities)

6kgs tomatoes

1/2 cup salt

2kgs onions

2 kgs sugar

Paste:  4 tablespoons cornflour, 2 tablespoons curry powder, 1 teaspoon pepper, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon ginger (mix with some water to form a watery paste)

3/4 bottle vinegar

Soak chopped  tomatoes and onions overnight in salt.  Drain off liquid.  Add vinegar and sugar.  Boil for 1/2 hour.  Take off stove, add paste, simmer until thick.

Bottle while still warm in sterilised jars.

Coming along to the workshop on Saturday? call and book in 0423 109270 or email cloudlands@iinet.com.au - I'll see you there, with my fruit, knife and pinny! 

Fruits of a Food Forest

At the beginning of April, I visited Milkwood's Open Day on their farm out in Mudgee. A glorious whirlwind tour, speed-dating appropriate sustainable technologies including the  now classic rocket stove shower and oh so nearly completed earth bag building with gorgeous natural rendering. A couple of technologies were immediately standout useful for fruit and nut tree growers everywhere. First up a nifty greywater treatment specifically designed for fruit tree establishment.


On this farm work preparing the ground gets started long before before the tree is even planted in giant pits of woodchips, at least a meter square on the intended growing site. Greywater from their ample teaching shed is directed into these pits which over time collect nutrients rich enough to help a young fruit tree get a helping hand later planted in there.  It’s just one example of many small strategies that Nick, Kirsten and their growing team on this farm are making in the day to day practice that ultimately make a big difference to their lives and livelihoods. 


Nestled in a native forest themselves, they’re establishing a food forest filled with fruit trees and bushes along with lots of other herbs and native trees. In this way all the plants and creatures that live in this specially designed ecosystem have particular roles to play to keep it healthy with a minimum amount of work (hurrah) or expensive fertilizers (yay!) and instead all are working to support each other. 

And if you're thinking about planting an orchard sized property you'd save a heap of time using this fabulous seed ball maker to get those supportive species going. Dan Pascall Harris now works with this developing food forest, which contains a surprising number of nitrogen fixing wattles. The seeds are collected from local trees so they're better adapted to the local conditions here than ‘natives’ brought in from outside. Using these and other ideas of food forest design, in a few short years of its existence there is already a feeling of liveability in its interior, a sense that this little food forest has already begun project is own personality, and perhaps that is one outward sign of its resilience.

Tomorrow evening Permaculture Blue Mountains presents Nick Ritar from Milkwood Permaculture. Find out more about more about one farm’s experience of learning to live abundantly and respectfully within a native forest.

Creating Abundance in a Native Forest starts at 7:30 start Lawson Bowling Club.  
The Sustainability Talks are part of a series of talks films and workshops run by volunteers, talks are completely Free for PBM members, $5 for non members.





Milkwood Permaculture run inspirational and practical courses helping to create food forests using permaculture strategies, find them at Milkwoodpermaculture.com.au

Underneath the spreading chestnut trees

After so many weeks of incessant rain, two clear days in a row has become almost unheard of in the mountains. It's a rare day of sunshine then that welcomes my first outing to an Kookootonga chestnut farm. Being from the UK where few chestnuts are safe from squirrels, mice pigeons, pheasants to name but a few, I'm relishing the idea that these trees have no natural 'predators' here, and hoping to find more than an occasional spiky casing still full of nutty treasure. No squirrels here, but plenty of squirrelling, as we find scores of families, bucket in hand visitors by the coach load. Whether from New Zealand Taiwan and Singapore all are chestnut lovers together scouring the grass beneath the trees in search of perfect nuts. Off we go!

There are nuts everywhere, and its easy to get picky about which ones to take. The chestnuts vary in size considerably and some are split out through the shells, a growth pattern resulting from this year's continuous summer downpours. We're cautious of the split nuts at first but soon think its work the effort of trying them out, after all, no need to score them before cooking. While there are heaps of vehicles outside, its easy to walk a solitary path through these lovely spreading trees and its after about half an hour of foraging that we head back into a more populated area to weigh in. An impressive line of families visiting from Blacktown show us how its done as they sweep through the paddock. "Just get the big ones!" I hear a father call to his children, "quickly". This wiggly little line of people draws back through the trees like a line of foam marking the tide receding from shore, only the smallest nuts left in its wake. 


My efforts today bring in about 3 kilos. Back in the kitchen out come small sharp knives, essential for scoring the back before roasting or boiling, so that they don't explode. There are a few different ways to do this, we score a cross covering 2/3 of the flat surface before roasting for a tasty lunchtime treat.

Fresh Chestnuts must be kept in the fridge and don't last long making them a rare seasonal treat, although there are a few ways to preserve this particular harvest including delicious traditional marron glacé. Kookootonga farm at Mt Irvine has a few varieties of chestnuts which extends the season a little; the 'easy peelers' develop a little later and are still available til around April 21st.

'Summertime'

If you know of any unsprayed, accessible and publicly available blackberry bushes to pick from, please let Karine know (karine.gleeson@bigpond.com).

The weather has been unpopular and unreliable in the mountains over the last couple of seasons. After an early hot spell we have languished into cool to humid weather, which seems set be 'summer' this year. This means there isn't sufficient sun and heat to bring on and ripen really good crops in many gardens. Fruit as well as nut trees — especially pome/stone varieties — are more prone to fungus and some diseases, which encourages pests. Storms later in 2011 took lots of leaves off, especially citrus plants. Our lemon trees and cumquat trees were very hungry for organic food and only shot off in December. They are still to fruit.

We are in the throes of setting up the second discussion in our collective sufficiency series. Watch this space (and/or get onto our eBulletin list, see above).

Collective Sufficiency

The Collective Sufficiency Here and Now discussion held on Saturday 14 January with Ben and Deb, Lucy and Rob, and Celeste offered appraisals of past efforts and ideas for 2012 and beyond.

Reviewing their experiences, Rob said that the following list of key principles for designing of communal management of ecological resources that Nobel Prize winner Elinor Ostrom defined initially in Governing the Commons (1990, Cambridge University Press) were spot on:

• Clearly defined boundaries (effective exclusion of external un-entitled parties);
• Rules regarding the appropriation and provision of common resources that are adapted to local conditions;
• Collective-choice arrangements that allow most resource appropriators to participate in the decision-making process;
• Effective monitoring by monitors who are part of or accountable to the appropriators;
• A scale of graduated sanctions for resource appropriators who violate community rules;
• Mechanisms of conflict resolution that are cheap and of easy access;
• Self-determination of the community recognized by higher-level authorities;
• In the case of larger common-pool resources, organization in the form of multiple layers of nested enterprises, with small local common-pool resources at the base level.

Other important principles focus on the particular challenges of the local environment, strong communication skills, trust and reciprocity amongst the managing community.

Other ideas to come out of the session included a call to Occupy the BM tip/s, so that we can have more rational and extensive re-use and recycling processes. We expect to hold another in what might become a short series of discussions on this topic, so watch this space...

Plums

I find it hard not to concentrate on fruit and nut cooking this time of year. I've tasted some lovely pan fortes over the last month and have decided to experiment with these to work out the ideal recipe for gifts late this year.
                           
Meanwhile, the day before yesterday I made plum jam. It was very simple. I stalked and washed 3kg (about 40) tart plums and put them in a large saucepan with 2 cups of water, brought them to the boil and simmered them until they virtually disintegrated. Making sure the bottom was not sticky I added 3kg brown sugar and stirred well as I brought the mixture to the boil again. At this point the stones tend to surface and you can remove them with a spoon. I boiled the mixture for 15 mins or so until it reached setting point and then bottled it in 12 jars.
                       
It's hard not to get a spot or two on the walls, surrounding surfaces and clothes. On clothes we found soaking in milk did the trick.

Rhubarb and Berries Freeform Tart

This recipe is adapted from Stephanie Alexander's Kitchen Garden Companion (Lantern 2010, pp. 562–65).

• First make a basic shortcrust pastry: 80gm butter sliced and rubbed into 240gm plain flour with a pinch of salt; once the mixture resembles breadcrumbs slowly add very cold water till the mixture amalgamates into a workable dough. Cover and chill for 20 mins in a fridge.
• Dust pastry board/bench with flour and roll out to a 10"/26cm round form, around 5mm thick. Remove to a baking tray and place back in fridge while you simmer, for just three minutes, 750gm sliced homegrown rhubarb in 1/2 c. each of hot water and sugar, and the juice of an orange.
• Remove rhubarb to a bowl to cool and keep the syrup. Preheat oven to 200 degrees C.
• Coarsely crush 50gm raw almonds, 2T each of sugar, plain flour and toasted oats with a dash of almond essence. Divide this mixture in half with one half going into the rhubarb mixture and the other sprinkled over the pastry base except for a 4cm boarder.
• Pile rhubarb into the central circle and hold in place by folding back the edges and pleating them into place; it looks like an upside-down beret of fruit!
• While you bake it for half and hour, reheat the syrup and reduce it over a few mins. Remove pastry and top with several halved strawberries or similar berries/soft fruit. Brush all with syrup and bake for a final ten mins.
• Brush with more syrup after it has cooled for a few moments. Serve cold with yogurt or cream...

Feral Fruit Maps

There are a few groups who have set up electronic maps of fruit trees, mainly located on public land, available for foraging, i.e. fruit picking. Here's an example: http://www.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=113329138399514125575.00047fff295ddda73bd86 This means that there is a great opportunity for us pinpoint local trees with fruit ripe for the picking. In the mountains many such trees exist along the railway tracks near the station. We're not sure whether the council ever had a policy of planting trees in these locations or whether they tended to spring up there as people ate fruit and tossed away their seeds as they cam too and from the trains. Most of them are pomes and stone fruit: apples, pears, apricots, plums and cherries. If you use the mapping tool for local purposes please let us know.

From a Blue Mountains local in exile

On 25/11/2011, at 9:26 AM, Liz Connor wrote: Oh, I wish I could be at your Collective Sufficiency discussion in the flesh — of course I'll be there in spirit. Good luck! We're embarking on an Extended Family Sufficiency project here: stepson Vern and his wife Fran have the farmland with lots of vegies and fruit, a fair amount of bush and a wonderful creek (Nicholls Rivulet); son Mat has the bush-block with home-made cottage; and I have the north-east facing suburban block close to public transport etc and an almost home-made cottage. We're planning to work together and separately to try and provide for as many of our combined food needs as possible (two vego females and two carnivorous males). Mat intends to keep a blog... I'm also very interested in the fruit butters. I've been making low-sugar fruit spreads in small quantities for a while without knowing what to call them — not sterilising them and eating them within a fortnight ... The Huon Valley is a wonderful place for scrumping beautifully plump and juicy blackberries growing along the roadsides, but the street trees are all non-edibles... I have a bush-tucker ground-cover growing along my front boundary, where I've been allowing natives to self-seed and just taking out the obvious weeds... its very small berries were quite juicy and tasty, and it's spreading out very nicely thank you.

Sourcing plants, cooking with fruit and AN ADMISSION

Some of the most experienced members of our network report sourcing good plants from Daleys Fruit Tree Nursery, which is located at Geneva in NSW but mails out stock. They have a mail order plants list and their online shop includes lots of useful information about the seedlings, cuttings, and grafted plants that they sell as well as an online forum with questions and space to share your experiences.

Just going through the 'A's in the index of this new locally produced book, Vegan Cooking: Recipes for a Peaceful World, there are 19 entries under almonds, 6 for apples, 10 for apricots and 5 for avocado. Blackheath residents Diipali Lilburne and Amanda Quinn have made their great second cookbook, advocating for organic, locally sourced produce and sustainable diets. Tom Whitton has told me that he and Wendy have just found out that the raspberry plants they have, and have passed onto others in this network as native Rubus raspberries, are in fact an exotic Asian variety! We are very sorry — I have planted two in my garden. We always wondered why the books said the Rubus raspberry fruit was not so good and we had found it delicious. Well, there you are!

Last Day of TAFE course

Saturday 12 November was the last day of our Introduction to Growing Fruit and Nut Trees in the Blue Mountains TAFE Course. Sue Girard wound up with basic information on pests and diseases and how to protect your plants against them, as well as a pruning session. You can see (in the photo) that we had an extra participant at the community gardens where the course was held. I brought some muffins made from Rubus (Native Raspberry) blackberries given to me by a network member in Katoomba — last summer Wendy Whitton (Megalong Books, Leura) gave some of us cuttings from her plants and I now have two growing successfully in our front garden.

Jed wants to spread the news (see right) about bagging fruit trees against birds and other animals eating the forthcoming fruit at the gardens this coming Friday from 10.30 am RUBUS (NATIVE RASPBERRY) MUFFINS Sift 1 cup rye flour and 2 cups cornflour into a bowl with 6 teaspoons of baking powder and 3/4 cup sugar. Beat 3 eggs together and then beat in 3/4 cup soy milk. Pour the wet mixture into a depression made into the dry ingredients in the mixing bowl. Quickly mix all together. Finally, and again working swiftly and lightly, add two heaped cups of raspberries. (Mine had been frozen from last season so I left them for an hour at room temperature before using.) This mixture will make around 15 medium-sized muffins. I prepare the tray by simply inserting a square of greaseproof paper in each muffin hole. I had set the oven to 200 degrees Centigrade and they took around 30 minutes. My suggestion is to check them after 15 minutes and wait till they are firm and spring back when lightly pushed on top.

Second Saturday of TAFE course

It was a bit drizzly yesterday but we still got some practical work in on the middle Saturday of our TAFE introduction to fruit and nut tree growing in the Blue Mountains course, as the photo shows.

EcoFair North Katoomba Primary School

The EcoFair (aka Fooprint Festival) held on Saturday promoted sustainability initiatives throughout the mountains, such as the Alternative Technology Association, Climate Action, solar panel businesses, plant and seedling sources, Slow Food and our own BM Fruit and Nut Tree Network. We shared a stall with Slow Food Blue Mountains. That's Anne Elliot who runs our preserving fruits workshops seasonally in the photo of the stall.

TAFE course Day 1

Yesterday Susan Girard started the TAFE course introducing the basics on fruit and nut tree growing in the Blue Mountains. She took us on a tour of the Blue Mountains Organic Community Gardens where the course is being held. Then Sue talked a lot about the appropriate soil and local weather conditions, the geology of the Blue Mountains, testing the soils in a garden, creating soil suitable for healthy plants, aspects created by our movement around the sun throughout the seasons and precipitation.

Hazelbrook Food Forest

Given the wet weather only a few of us made it to the Hazelbrook food forest last Saturday morning but it was well worth it: evidence that a Blue Mountains block can be turned into an edible nursery by following permaculture principles. We had another recommendation that Daleys Nursery is a reliable source for fruit stock, and I notice good words from Katoomba and Springwood residents in their testimonials. Their stock includes bush food, about which we know too little. The local lillypilly is probably our most obvious indigenous fruit but I have native raspberries (shared through cuttings from others in our network). Please post a comment or email me with other experiences of indigenous fruit and nut plant growing in the mountains, as well as reliable suppliers.

Festival of Joy, 1 October

The Blue Mountains Organic Community Gardens held its annual gathering yesterday, which was pretty bad weather, as you can see by the sky in the shot of the hazelnut grove. But the apple and other fruit tree blossoms are out — see heritage apple walk pic. And the berries are producing beautiful green shoots, worth a visit to check out their trellis. If you can make it during the week, they are open every Friday morning for working bees on the garden.

Preserving fruit with Anne

A couple more photos from our bottling workshop with Anne Elliot. I like the one where Anne's hands are clearly clapping for attention, and we're all laughing as we work. And, of course, the great demo of pouring the syrup over the freshly cut pears, yum! Anne will do another bottling how and tell workshop at the Katoomba North Footlight Festival, a local eco-fair where Anne and I will have a stall for Slow Food Blue Mountains and Blue Mountains Fruit and Nut Tree Network. The date for that is Saturday 22 October. The Saturday before and after are the first two sessions of the TAFE growing fruit and nut plants in the Blue Mountains course being delivered by Sue Girard at the Blue Mountains Organic Community Gardens, also in North Katoomba.

Lemons

I'm getting lots of reports, and have personally experienced, that lemon (and other citrus) trees here in the mountains suffered badly from the severe winter and cyclonic winds this year. It's important to try and protect lemons from frosts and winds because they damage bud growth and rip leaves off the plants. Remember you can always remove lemons when they are still green and ripen them inside. Lemons are one of the most frequently used kitchen fruits. At the recent preserving workshop that Anne Elliott held — and will be delivering again at the North Katoomba Footlight Festival 22 October — we almost-quartered lemons (i.e. cut them right down to the nipple but kept the fruit intact), stuffed them with course sea salt, laid them in a big glass jar and covered them with lemon juice and more salt (as in the photo above). After this, the jar needs to be inverted daily to make sure the salt dissolves well and the mixture is evenly distributed over the lemons (as in the photo below). These preserved lemons/lemon skins are rinsed on removal and make wonderful additions to all kinds of dishes, especially any time your lemon tree has no fruit left on it for you to use. (Both photos were taken at the recent workshop.)

Scrumpers

Scrumpers are foragers or gleaners. Where fruit fly exists people who pick fresh fruit from trees on land that isn't owned or cared for perform a social purpose as well as enjoying the fruits of their labour. Check out Scrumpers Delight — we can add trees from the Blue Mountains. The tool for establishing the scrumper's map is drawn from the Live Local Experiments in Local Living site, which offers other ways to share information too. The Urban Orchard project is yet another site for sharing your fruit and nut swap and stall activities. Write the date of the Eco-Fair Footlight Festival (see to the right) in Katoomba in your diary.

Bottling Fruit

The bottling fruit with Anne Elliot last Saturday proved very successful. Bottling is so easy!

We went over all the sterilising: first make sure the bottle has no chips or cracks; wash jars, elastic rubber rings and sound metal lids and rinse all well; place in 150 degree C oven for 20 mins; fill bottles with fruit while still warm; Anne suggested using a medium syrup (1 cup of sugar to 2 cups of water)* over the packed fruit; cover and clip the bottles and set in the steriliser (pressure cooker, large pan or special equipment — see below); cook as recommended (different times for different fruits). Depending on your equipment the syrup will be cold (in special equipment, 10–30 mins, see below) or hot (quick deep pan method 2–20 mins; or pressure-cooked, 1–5 mins). There are oven methods too. I advise consulting a book.

*Fruit can be bottled in water, and honey, stevia or golden syrup can substitute for sugar.

Preserved lemons — simply bottled in salt were another delicacy we learned to make. Again, so easy!

Lindsay, in Katoomba Country Brewer, Shop 2, 101 Katoomba Street (i.e. behind Katoomba Street), stocks Ball and Fowlers Vacola bottling equipment, bottles, wax, pectin, etc. Contact him on (02) 4782 3000 or katoomba@countrybrewer.com.au

Bits and bobs...

Funky Front Yard Farmers and Crop & Swap

Along with growing lots of vegetables, Jo and Joe from Springwood have recently initiated a community orchard in their local street (see http://www.funkyfrontyardfarmers.blogspot.com for more about them).

They have also initiated a community food swap, which will begin in November. The Crop & Swap will start on the second Saturday in November at the Faulconbridge Community Hall (see http://www.cropandswap.blogspot.com). See you there.

If you're interested in food foraging, read this article, which recently appeared in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/us/15forage.html

Apple Pruning Workshop

There will be an Apple Pruning Workshop at the BM Organic Community Gardens this coming Friday 26 August, 11am to 1pm Developing a pruning strategy and pruning technique. Cost: $8. Contact Jed for more information: jw99@pnc.com.au

Chestnut Blight

On Friday 19 August the ABC Radio National program Bush Telegraph ran an item in their Food on Friday segment on the chestnut blight. You can hear a podcast, read some brief notes (and find some chestnut recipes) here:

http://www.abc.net.au/rural/telegraph/content/2011/s3297573.htm

Hazelnuts and Oranges

The BM Food Coop has a lot of locally grown citrus and pecans and hazelnuts in their shells for sale right now, which inspired me to find recipes to use them.

Hazelnut and Vegetable Crumble
(from Rose Elliot's The Supreme Vegetarian)

Turn the oven on to a moderate temperature (180 degrees Centigrade).
Prepare 1 kilogram of several different kinds of homegrown or cheap and fresh in-season vegetables (such as pumpkin) and steam till tender, reserving the water.
Mash one third of the mixed vegetables with one tablespoon of olive oil and some of the reserved water to form a puree, and then mix back into the rest of the cooked vegetables with a vegetable stock cube or other favourite seasonings, and place in the base of a casserole.
Place 75g rolled oats, 75g sliced hazelnuts and 75g crushed* hazelnuts with a grated onion, one crushed bulb of garlic, and some thyme or similar fresh/dried herb into a mixing bowl and stir well to combine. Add 50g olive oil and stir to a crumbly mixture.
Cover vegetables with nut crumble and bake for half an hour or so, till the crumble browns.

*I crush shelled nuts by placing them in a paper bag and belting/rolling over them with a rolling pin.

Hazelnut Cake
(from Claudia Roden's The Food of Italy)

Turn the oven on to a moderate temperature (180 degrees Centigrade) and grease and line with greaseproof paper or dust with flour a 20cm round cake pan.
Beat a tablespoon of baking powder into 3 egg yolks. Add 200g sugar, 125g butter/margarine/olive oil, 200g plain flour, and 200g hazelnuts (which have been skinned if you're sensitive to their taste, roughly chopped and quickly toasted in a pan or in the oven), the grated rind from one lemon and 4 tablespoons of soy/cow's/rice milk. Mix it all together well.
Beat the 3 egg whites (which need to be at room temperature) with a pinch of salt till they are stiff and fold through the rest.
Bake for a good half hour, taking out once brown and cooked through.

Orange Granita
(from Claudia Roden's The Food of Italy)

Squeeze enough oranges (or other fresh in season citrus) to make up one litre of juice.
Add either the juice from one lemon or 2 tablespoons of orange blossom water.
Add 4–6 tablespoons of castor sugar (adjusting amount to taste), stirring well to dissolve sugar.
Pour into ice cube trays and freeze.
Blend ice cubes in food processor till a granita texture is obtained, and serve immediately.
Any uneaten mixture can be frozen again.

Pruning

This time of year we have lots of questions related to pruning, which differs in terms of different fruit plants and nut trees. June/ July is a good time for pruning deciduous trees.

The Western Australian Department of Agriculture and Food has some great general advice, which can be downloaded, on growing fruit and nuts, and on pruning:

http://www.agric.wa.gov.au/PC_92657.html
http://www.agric.wa.gov.au/objtwr/imported_assets/content/hort/fn/cp/pruning.pdf

I find referring to some ABC online print and video resources useful:

On grapevines, see:
http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s3262676.htm

For general advice on making fruit trees more productive through pruning:
http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s3279171.htm

On citrus pruning:
http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s3274552.htm

On deciduous fruit tree pruning:
http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s1386719.htm

On apple trees:
http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s1971601.htm

A transcript of a television program, which includes some pruning tips:
http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s2273813.htm

This program transcript includes some tips about pruning. More than that some good words to say about the humble carob and some other handy advice:
http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s2240156.htm

And if you look deep into the program some snippets on berry cane cutting from Peter Cundall:
http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s2432343.htm

More advice can be found here:

http://www.daleysfruit.com.au/fruit%20pages/pruning.htm

Let us know which advice you found most/least useful, so we can improve our resource access advice.

Citrus — Oranges

In the lower mountains we have lots of citrus, which have been or are being harvested. Elsewhere in Australia, there is a glut of oranges so you might get some cheap and use them straight away, store in a cool place or preserve them. Depending on the variety, one orange usually yield 1/4–1/3 cup of juice.

Here are some ideas:

# eat fresh or use fresh juice with other fruits as a salad or compote
# use on grated carrot or beetroot as a dressing
# use orange instead of lemon juice when making hommus or guacamole dips
# use up to a cup orange juice instead of the same quantity of water for every cup of rice you next steam up
# serve with fish (instead of, i.e. as you would for, lemon)
# grate fresh rind and freeze spoonfuls in small packets in your freezer
# pare the peel finely, dry well and grind or chop and use in baking, or as a base for liqueur*
# make orangeade or orange squash
# freeze the juice with a little sugar
# prepare clean segments and freeze in a light syrup or dry pack
# make an orange sauce, e.g. for pancakes
# make orange marmalade
# make orange souffle
# make an orange (instead of lemon) pudding
# make orange muffins, loaf or cake
# make orange ice/gelato

If you have your own tree, or can access orange flowers and leaves, you can use the 'neroli' oil for flavour and scent. Dried petals can be pounded with castor sugar (1:2) and stored for use in sponges and other baking.

Oranges go well with a range of spices (such as allspice, cardamon, cinnamon, cloves, mace and nutmeg) and seasonings (such as chives, garlic, mustard, pepper, sage and tarragon).

* In their great book Fruit For the Home and Garden: A Comprehensive Guide to Cultivation and Culinary Use (1985, A&R: 186), Leslie Johns and Violet Stevenson recommend:
squeezing 6 oranges and paring and finely chopping their peel;
blending the juice with 2 cups of sugar, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, and 1/2 teaspoon of coriander and adding the finely diced peel;
pouring the blended mixture into a jar and pouring 4 cups of brandy (or some other white spirit) over it;
covering and leaving for two months or so to infuse;
filtering the infused mixture and bottling it.

Apple and Hazelnut Cake

On the weekend I made the following Claudia Rodin Apple and Nut Cake (Apfelnusstorte/Torte di Mele), from her The Food of Italy collection. It proved a success.

Oil and line with grease-proof paper a deep 20–25cm cake tin. Set the oven at 180 degrees Centigrade.

Chop 100g hazelnuts in half (the recipe says to blanch them but I left the skins on). Toast them in a little frying pan on your stove (doesn't take long).

Slice 6 baking apples (6 if they're big Granny Smith style apples, more if they're smaller). The recipe says to peel them but I left most of the skin on and just tossed out the central core.

Beat 4 egg yolks with half a cup of brown sugar. Add juice of one lemon (I used an equivalent in orange juice because they are so cheap and plentiful at the moment). Finally, slowly beat in a heaping cup of wholemeal flour.

Beat 4 egg whites (easiest with room-temperature eggs and a pinch of salt). Fold these into the cake mixture with the toasted hazelnuts.

Pour half of the cake mixture into the prepared tin. Layer half of the apple slices on top and repeat process. Cover top with a mixture of 2 tablespoons of margarine or butter and a sprinkling of 1 tablespoon of brown sugar.

Cover the top once it brown and leave in the oven for up to 90 mins (i.e. 'until a skewer pushed into it comes out clean').

TAFE Outreach course on Fruit and Nut Tree Growing

Introducing the Basics and More! This Blue Mountains College (TAFE Western Sydney Institute) Outreach course on Fruit and Nut Tree Growing in the Blue Mountains has been developed in partnership with our Blue Mountains Fruit and Nut Tree Network

The workshops will cover:
Establishing fruit & nut trees in the Blue Mountains
Maintaining trees, pests and diseases, nutrition
Harvesting, storing, preserving and sharing

The venue is the Blue Mountains Organic Community Garden, Harold Hodgson Park, in Katoomba

When? Three Saturdays: 15th October, 10.00am—1.00pm; 29th October, 10.00am—2.30pm (bring lunch for a half hour break); and 12th November, 10.00am—1.00pm.

Interested in this free Course No 9070 Statement of Attainment in Access to Work & Training? Register now.
Contact Denise at TAFE on 4753 2039 or email denise.newton3@ tafensw.edu.au, or contact Anitra on 4782 9003.

Boston Tree Party

Amongst hundreds of community initiatives around fruit and nut tree growing is one that Kat (Blue Mountains Organic Community Gardens) has drawn our attention to — the Boston Tree Party. Take a look.

Fits is well with Maryanne's idea of a fruit and nut community orchard. Perhaps we could distribute samples of heritage varieties and Indigenous fruit and nut plants in small islands throughout the mountains — just as they already appear in certain places near railway stations and even public parks (see Medlow Bath).

Cheriras Community Orchard

Lucy and Rob are key members of the Cheriras Community Orchard in Mt Tomah. This photo of Lucy and Rob and their little family was taken at the Bilpin Garden Club who invited us to talk about the Blue Mountains Fruit and Nut Tree Network at one of their monthly meetings earlier this year. Right at the moment the orchard is selling bare-rooted raspberry canes and strawberry plants!

Olives

If, like me, you have some olive trees then over the next few months you'll be harvesting them. You might be interested in hearing about the commercial olive harvest this year (in the 27 May ABC Radio National Bush Telegraph program).

The ABC TV1 Gardening Australia site also has a fact sheet on pruning olive trees, which we'll need to be doing later in the year. You can watch an ABC TV1 Gardening Australia program on grafting olive and apple trees too.

There are olive farms in the Megalong Valley (see post below). Poor soils, well-drained soils and cold winters are the olive's natural habitat. But the high humidity characteristic of Blue Mountains' weather is an enemy of olives. In places, such as the upper mountains, where an olive tree might not get full sun and many weeks of it they will not thrive.

Bare-rooted raspberry canes and strawberry plants

Cheriras Community Orchard will have bare-rooted raspberry canes and strawberry plants available soon for purchase by locals — you can find advice on planting them at the UK BBC gardening site. The BBC recommends Autumn Bliss, amongst others, and this is a variety Cheriras can supply — generally they produce a strong harvest. Another site worth looking at is UK GardenAction. Our link takes you right to the raspberry page.

If you want advice on tending the strawberry plants try the Vegetable Patch site. Also the ABC's Gardening Australia has three items on growing strawberries: a 2003 fact sheet by Colin Campbell; a 2007 fact sheet by Janea Edmansont; and, an item from a 2007 issue of the Gardening Australia Magazine; And, if you're heavily into strawberries or have had problems growing them, consult the Berries page of the NSW Department of Primary Industries horticulture site.

Preserving workshop

The pic says it all — the fruit preserving workshop on the weekend was a great success and will be an annual (if not even more regular) event.

Feral Fruit Melbourne/Blue Mountains?

Take a look at Feral Fruit Trees Melbourne — why don't we make a map like this for our area?

May in the Mountains

Remember that on Saturday 14 May 11.30 am Anne Elliott (Slow Food Blue Mountains) will present a workshop on preserving fruit using Fowlers Vacola equipment on Saturday 14 May in Katoomba. Entry is by donation. Bookings are essential.

Kat Szuminska reports that they've just bulk ordered fruit plants for the Blue Mountains Organic Community Gardens, also in Katoomba. See their website for some recent activities involving citrus planting: http://bluemountainscommunitygardens.org/ If you'd like to be involved with planting the new stock, contact Kat directly.

The ABC TV program Gardening Australia, which screens at 6.30 pm every Saturday evening, has announced that next week (Saturday 14 May) they will feature the grafting of fruit trees. This is a subject of great interest in our network and we hope to hold a workshop later in the year on it. Meanwhile watch the program — see http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/

Permaculture Day

This weekend there are numerous activities in the Blue Mountains for Permaculture Day. Notable is the Katoomba Organic Community Gardens, which is open 11 am to 4 pm (up to 2 pm for specially guided walks, including through the heritage apple path which features around five to six dozen apple varieties!)

On the SBS website, leading up to our preserving fruit workshop, take a look at the Gourmet Farmer's advice and at Costa's planting fruit tree guide, and the moroccan dressing for a salad of fruit of your choice (local, of course).

Fowler Vacola fruit preserving workshop coming up

On Saturday 14 May, starting at 11.30 am Anne Elliott (Slow Food Blue Mountains) will present a workshop in Katoomba on preserving fruit using Fowlers Vacola equipment. Entry is by donation and bookings are essential.

If you want to find out a bit more about preserving home produce with Fowlers Vacola before registering for the workshop, see a personal view at cartoonist and John Ditchburn's site: http://www.urbanfoodgarden.org/main/processing-garden-produce/fowlers/fowlers.htm

Kookootonga Chestnut and Walnut Outing

It was a beautiful day at Mount Irvine on Sunday when we visited the chestnut and walnut farm that we go to each time this year, to collect and roast chestnuts. Unfortunately, our photographer's camera was stolen after the visit so we have no pics — though last years' best ones are still up (see below).

Last year there weren't any walnuts to collect but this time there were. Walnuts fall inside a fleshy fruit that quickly blackens and becomes slimy. Ultimately, the sun and rain ripen and wash off this thin outer layer but meanwhile there is a tendency for mould to develop and invade the nut. Therefore walnut picking up requires skills in checking the probable quality of the walnut and then scrubbing the dark outer flesh off to leave a lovely shell like those we're accustomed to in shops.

The Australian Walnut Industry Association claim that walnuts grown in our country are free of pesticides and chemical treatments, and fresh, i.e. always sold within several months of harvest. If you go onto the Austnuts: Australia's nut directory site, and click on the walnuts section, you will find masses of useful information, including Perry's Fruit and Nut Nursery Home Garden Cultivation Notes and walnut recipes.

The Austnuts: Australia's nut directory site also has similar information on chestnuts and, of course, other nuts which can grow here in the Blue Mountains, such as almonds, hazelnuts and pistachios.

Fig Preserve

Issue 65 of the Permaculture Magazine (UK) had lead articles in it on 'Transition Trees' and 'Useful Trees in Public Spaces' on networks and activities like ours. On page 14 there is a great recipe for preserving figs, as follows.

Wash and core — or scald and peel, and core — 2.4 kg of fresh figs. Make a syrup by boiling together 500 ml vinegar and 500 ml water with 2.4 kg sugar for ten minutes. Now drop the whole fruit into the syrup and very gently cook for three to four hours. Bottle in sterile jars while hot and seal after cools.

Orange and its fruit and nuts

The annual Orange F.O.O.D Weekis on again in April. Orange represents a great neighbouring bioregion for fruit and nuts and is definitely worth a visit. Find a list of local producers at the Orange Farmers Market site.

Note in the Blue Mountains Gazette this week, that the council is treating blackberries so the advice is to avoid eating spray with your berries by going without when you see berries grown on public land. Also go to the council's website to notify the Noxious Weeds team leader if you need to be put on its Chemically Sensitive Register to be notified when they spray nearby.

BM Food Co-op turns 30

The Blue Mountains Food Co-Op is the easiest place for residents in the upper mountains to share, sell or buy surplus fruit and nut produce. When I browsed on Friday there were blackberries, hazelnuts, pears, apples, and more ... all grown locally.

Now the biggest and longest opening outlet of its kind in Australia, it is located in Shops 1 & 2 Jones House, Ha'penny Lane (under the Katoomba Post Office). Phone: 4782 5890.

Our NFP food co-operative specialises in organic wholefoods, encourages local produce and minimal packaging. There are transparent mark-ups and bulk discounts.

The co-operative will celebrate its 30th birthday Saturday March 12th at Phillip Hall & Park in Blackheath, 10am–10pm. Slow Foods has a stall where you can see BM FNTN flyers and can sign up to our e-list for bulletins about our activities.

Other projects like our own...

If you didn't hear it on the ABC Radio National's Bush Telegraph or Country Breakfast this week, go to —http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bushtelegraph/stories/2011/3145462.htm to find the audio to listen to and the transcript to read. And for more on the Growing Abundance project, see — http://www.cch.org.au/growing.shtml — it's so like our own Blue Mountains Fruit and Nut Tree Network!

Chutney

With fruit picked at the Mount Tomah Cheriras Orchard (see photos in posts below) I've made marmalade and chutney this week. Given many of you might well have, or have access to, lots of little apples this time of year — too many to eat — I'll share my method for making chutney. You can add chopped up onions, or other delicacies at hand, as you wish, e.g. substitute some apples with windfall pears.

Into a very large saucepan (e.g. the bottom part of a pressure cooker) place 5 cups of apple cider vinegar, 1 tablespoon of allspice, 2 tablespoons of salt and 1 kg raw sugar. Stir well and then occasionally, as you bring it to the boil, making sure the sugar dissolves. Meanwhile wash 2 kg apples, peel where necessary, roughly chop and add all to the simmering liquid mixture.

Bring back to the boil and, after a few minutes, add 350 gm sultanas, 250 gm of finely sliced preserved ginger. You need to stir it well for the next 15–25 mins as you keep it at the boil to thicken. Make sure your jars are sterilised and pour into 8–10 medium sized 'jam' jars.

Bilpin Garden Club

Last Saturday Rob and Lucy, from the Cheriras Community Orchard in Mt Tomah, and I spoke about our network to the Bilpin Garden Club in the Bilpin Hall. Before we went, we picked blueberries with some other families. I took these photos of the figs and prima apples in the orchard. We expect the figs to be ready in March sometime.

Landshare

See the ABC story on a new national organisation facilitating landsharing, i.e. having other people use your land productively and you working on someone else's land to produce food you eat.

The following is a quote from the Landshare website:

Landshare is for people who:

+ Want to grow vegetables but don't have anywhere to do it
+ Have a spare bit of land they're prepared to share
+ Can help in some way — from sharing knowledge and lending tools to helping out on the plot itself
+ Support the idea of freeing up more land for growing
+ Are already growing and want to join in the community

Great idea and even easier to apply for fruits and nuts. That's happening around the mountains. The Quarry Garden at Blackheath is one example and the Cheriras Community Orchard is another. Think about expanding the idea.

Figs

An update on fruit-picking at Cheriras Community Orchard at Mt Tomah — they have begun harvesting apples outside the large netted area 'due to intense interest from the birds'! Watch out for these apples, which are on sell regularly now at the Katoomba co-op any day of the week or at the Quarry Garden Gate, Connaught Road (off Govetts Leap Rd) in Blackheath, between 10am and 12 noon/1pm on Tuesdays and Saturdays. (Turn left into Connaught Rd off Govetts Leap Road, drive to the end and turn left though the big gates.There is a sign out the front.) For more details contact Deb Hurley 4787 7429

Leura Goodies has fresh-picked (daily) blueberries from Mount Wilson suppliers for sale at the moment too.

This means that the up coming BM FNTN activity will focus on figs: 'the second (autumn) crop should be amazing and plentiful'.
We might get a fortnight notice time but it is likely to be March. Watch this space and, if you are a local to the Blue Mountains, make contact to get on our e-list so you get notified instantly!

2011

It's a new year and Cheriras Community Orchard is the new name for the Cloud Farm Community Collective (see post below, 1 January), where we expect to pick apples and figs once they are ready — probably February. 'Cheriras' is from the French 'to cherish' (chérir) — very cutely Google asked me if I meant 'cherries' when I searched it on the Internet!

Meanwhile Blue Mountains Slow Foods have a series of Summer Harvest Kitchen workshops. The following should be of interest to fruities and nutters:

Good enough to bottle – Tips for preserving using Fowlers Vacola equipment. Thurs 3 Feb, 10 am–1 pm and 2–4 pm @ Cloudlands, Katoomba. Cost: by donation. Bookings: 4782 7376
Learn the simple steps for using a Fowlers Vacola Electric Sterilising Unit. Look at equipment required and take home practical, step-by-step sheets to keep. A hands-on component as well, bottling antipasto vegetables. Light morning/ afternoon tea will also be provided.

Chooks Tour: an excursion to small, integrated backyard chookhouses/runs in the Blue Mountains: Sat 5 Feb, 9.30-2.30pm @ Various Chook yards across the Mountains. Cost $10. Bookings: 4782 7376
Small group visits to 6-8 backyards and talk with owners about their chooks, chookhouses and yards. Finish at Sun Valley Produce with display of equipment and feed for keeping hens, and chickens for sale. (Heavily booked, so contact presenter for date of 3rd excursion.)

Notice too the campaign to save the bees.

I made some brandied cumquat and orange marmalade in November — from our own cumquats, sadly we don't grow our own oranges in our Katoomba garden — and now we're having it on Hominy toast each morning for breakfast — yum!

Cloud Farm Community Collective and Love's Harvest

About 25 people came to the Cloud Farm Community Collective open berry picking day today. It was great weather, but a little hot.

We took photos at the entrance of the one-acre netted food forest (left) and from inside, where garlic and other herbs grow adjacent with fruit trees and berry plants (above right).

Next month there will be other fruit to harvest, stone fruit will be ready in a number of weeks. The apples will take longer. To receive notification of such activities please register your email on our e-list.

On 31 December 2010 SBS screened one of a four-part documentary series, called Love's Harvest, on the experiences of organic farmers. The half-hour part on New Year's Eve was on a couple who established a commercial raspberry patch at Yandoit in Victoria. Especially if you like raspberries, and raspberry growing, it is worth a look.

Hazelbrook–Lawson 100 year old apple tree

On Sunday 20 December Maryanne and Chris and I accompanied Father Eugene Stockton for a walk over an old property located halfway between Hazelbrook and Lawson, which was once the site of an orchard. According to Father Stockton, the apple tree shown in the photos was already an old tree when he first saw it seventy years ago. We think that it is probably over a century old. It fruits every second year and he can testify that the apples are very nice stewed with rhubarb.

Updates

We have a few reports that cuttings of native raspberry (Rubus Hillii) sourced from the Whitton's earlier this year (see pics in post below) are doing well.

Similarly berries sourced from Lizzie Connor, who used to live in Katoomba but is now a Taswegian, have taken.

The Cloud Farm Community Collective at Mount Tomah reported that red currants, yellow raspberries and gooseberries were already ready last week and raspberries will probably be harvested today.

Blueberries, though, look like they are waiting for the Blue Mountains Fruit and Nut Tree Network to pick on January 2!

Dwarf apples

Did you see the ABC's Gardening Australia program last Saturday night (4 December)? There was a great segment on dwarf apples and although the garden was in Tasmania, all the information would be relevant for us here in the Blue Mountains. They discussed pruning, organic manures, trellis's and the apple's love of dolamite. You can view it here. Please let us know if you have a dwarf apple varieties growing succcessfully in our area.

Best fruit cake time of year

It's that time of year, which is why writing posts has dropped by the wayside. But, here we are again, with my best fruit cake recipe to share.

You will need a large saucepan and a large cake tin smeared in oil and lined with greaseproof paper oiled on the side of the mixture.

Into the saucepan place 2 cups of raisins, 2 cups sultanas, 1 cup currants, 300gm butter (or 1 heaping cup, 300ml, of oil), 1 and one half cups of brown sugar (or 1 cup, 250ml, honey), 2 teaspoons of bicarbonate of soda and 2 cups (500ml) water (or 375 ml if using honey instead of sugar).

Bring to the boil, being careful because the bicarb will froth and foam over if you're not there to regulate the heat. Keep on a brisk simmer, stirring for several minutes, i.e. until the sugar has dissolved. Now leave it to cool, which will take at least half an hour depending on the weather and where you leave it.

Once the mixture is cool preheat the oven to 170 degrees centigrade. Beat 4 fresh eggs together. To the cool fruit mixture add a couple of teaspoons of finely grated nutmeg or ground ginger and the same quantity of ground cinnamon, and a pinch or two of cloves as well as the beaten eggs. Finally fold in 2 cups of sifted wholemeal plain flour. Don't be surprised at how runny the mixture is, just pour it into your prepared pan.

The cake takes around an hour and a half of baking. I place a lid on it, usually after about half an hour, to make sure it doesn't burn on the top.

We call this the Christmas fruit pudding cake.

Growing your own prevents pesticide exposure

All of us should eat a few servings of fruit everyday. Choice magazine has done several tests over the years on pesticides in fruit (don't think you can wash them all off).

An article on strawberries (29 January 2008) revealed that most conventionally grown strawberries tested by Choice contained pesticides, some relatively dangerous ones. Even though they tested only good specimens, one batch was above the maximum residue limit set by Australian standards, another breached EU standards, some contained traces of pesticides not permitted for use in the source state (the states and territories have different regulations for producers) and 17 contained traces of two or more pesticides, which means consumers risk the often unknown (under-researched) synergistic affects.

Another article (10 March 2006) showed that testing of fruit and vegetables is neither as regular not as rigorous as we might expect — neglecting many (95%) imported products. The conclusion was go organic or grow your own — organically of course!

Cloud Farm Community Collective

Despite the shocking weather last Sunday, ten of us braved the rain and toured the Mount Tomah food forest, hosted by the Cloud Farm Community Collective. This collective was formed to preserve a one acre food forest in a massive netting house.

The collective is 'working for food not money'. One of its aims is to share skills and knowledge within our local community. We will go back in a couple of months to give more people the opportunity to tour and do some skill-building and work there.

John outlined the land's history. (John and Judith Chorley established the food forest and have entered into an arrangement for the collective to manage and benefit from the food grown there.) Rob and Gary, members of the collective, filled us in on other details as to how it functions, with people dedicating work and being 'paid' in a proportional amount of food. It's a beautiful work-in-progress.

Quarry Garden Gate, Blackheath

The crew gardening the quarry site in Connaught Road Blackheath have honey, home made cordial and marmalade — as well as other fresh produce and organic vegetable seedlings — for sale at the moment.

The garden looks wonderful right now, so rock up 10am to 12 noon/1pm one Tuesday or Saturday over the next few weeks.

Connaught Rd is off Govetts Leap Rd. Drive to the end and turn left through the big gates. (There's a sign out the front.)

ABC Organic Gardener Magazine

Every now and again I browse the ABC Gardening website. Today i noticed a great article that I missed when it came out in the July–August issue of the ABC's Organic Gardener Magazine: 'Catching Falling Fruit'.

The article discusses activities, such as our network promotes here in the Blue Mountains, as part of an 'urban orchard' movement.

There was an article in the July issue of the ABC's Gardening Australia Magazine, 'Dwarf Apples', too; many of our members are interested in, or experimenting with, dwarf varieties.

You might want to take a look at the Fact Sheet on Planting and Pruning Berries too.

Lemons and grapefruit

The Blue Mountains Food Co-op in Happenny Lane, Katoomba, is open seven days a week (P: 4782 5890). The fresh vegetable and fruit area includes locally grown produce by gardeners; currently there are lots of lemons (so you can try out the recipes provided in the last post and on 30 July) as well as grapefruit (red and yellow).

We had to cancel Monday's Varuna pruning because of excessive rain, but plan another visit 10 am Monday 18 October (weather permitting).

Fresh lemon sponge

This 'sponge' lasts up to a week. It is a lovely light cake, ideal for serving as a dessert with fresh fruit or a soaked dried fruit compote.
Beat half a cup of corn (or other) oil with one cup of raw sugar. Beat in two eggs, one at a time. Sift in one and a half cups of self-raising flour and a pinch of salt alternately with half a cup of soy milk. Add two teaspoons of grated lemon rind. Pour into a pre-greased and floured round cake pan. Bake in a 180 degree C. oven for three-quarters of an hour, but cover around half way through once the top has browned.
Mix together one-third of a cup of lemon juice with one-quarter of a cup of brown sugar, stirring well to dissolve sugar.
Once cake is 'done', remove from oven and prick all over (say 100 times with a skewer) before gently pouring the sweet lemon mixture over the hot cake. Leave it to cool in its tin and then gently remove.

More pruning at Varuna

Yesterday we pruned again at the Varuna Writers Centre in Katoomba (see photo, below left). This is an ongoing project — we will have another working bee there in a couple of weeks (TBA). The weather is beautiful this time of year. There is some great information about pruning fruit trees at different times of the year for different purposes at the North Carolina Cooperative Extension service website: click here for the page.

The cuttings of the native raspberry that I — and several others — got from Wendy and Tom Whitton's place are starting to establish themselves too (see photo, above right).

There is so much blossom in the air, lots of us are suffering from the allergic affects of pollens. But, the upside is the nurturing feeling of new beginnings.

Olives growing in Megalong valley

The photos are from pruning fruit trees at Varuna Writers Centre in Katoomba on Monday 6 september, an ongoing project of the fruit and nut tree network.

Slow Food Blue Mountains has organised two visits to the Glyn Newydd Olive Grove in Megalong Valley for Sunday and Monday 14 and 15 November. A tour through the organic farm will include information about growing olive trees and harvesting olives. Lunch includes a taste of their olive products — dips, oils etc. (The cost is $35/$39.) Take a look at their website.

Pruning

It's too late to prune many fruit and nut trees now to improve the summer harvest. However, tomorrow we are pruning at the Varuna Writers' Centre because they prefer to see them 'tidied up' rather than worry about the coming crop. Indeed we all prune out of season sometimes when a tree is damaged by the weather, has been attacked by pests and disease, or reshaping is desired or required because of the trees siting.

A book recently published by the CSIRO, Pruning for Flowers and Fruit by Jane Varkulecivius, has many chapters on pruning specifically fruit trees/plants, including the canes of berries (which we covered in the workshop at Lizzie's in May).

The photo shows Paul at Anne Elliot's yesterday, with some preserved kiwi fruit. Yum!

Apple pectin recipe

Here's an apple pectin recipe from Melanie from Bullaburra.
To set one litre of liquid you will need 1.5cl (cl = centilitre; 1cl = 10ml; ml = millilitre) of the following.

Take one kilogram of apples and roughly chop them — don't bother about peeling, coring, or deseeding.
Place them in a pan and cover with water, bring to the boil and cook on a low heat for half and hour.
Sieve by pouring the pulp in a colander lined with muslin over a large bowl and allow to strain for at least 12 hours.
Put the collected juice into a pan and reduce by half.
Seal in sterilised jars.

Citrus workshop

Our Citrus Workshop in the Kihilla (Lawson) kitchen on Saturday 14 August was well attended. Lizzie gave a short talk and led the sharing of citrus experiences, questions and produce.

People brought grapefruit, oranges, lemons and tangellos, including: Frank brought several tubs of citrus — all named — from the lower mountains, Ross brought lemon sorbet and served it in lemon peel cups, Melanie brought a paste and marmalade for tasting and there was a basket of lemons from Gwen (Kihilla).

Frank offered us small slices of a white sapote — a member of the Rutaceae family too.

Kat talked about the cooperative development at Mt Tomah where they have planted many fruit trees, and some nut plants.

Maryanne led a tour of the Kihilla site where the Mid-Mountains Community Gardens is being established — you can join for just $2!

Carob cake

Some have reported growing carob here in the Blue Mountains successfully. Did you know that the carob pods — from which we derive the powder usually used in cooking — are so reliable in terms of similarity in weight that the measure of a carat (e.g. of gold) derived from the carob pod?

Recently I adapted a recipe from Alan Wakefield's and Gordon Baskerville's The Vegan Cookbook (Faber&Faber 1996 edn).

To start with I smeared the inside of a 7 inch (18 centimetre) round pan with virgin olive oil and set the oven to 180 degrees C.
I sifted 1 cup of light carob powder and 2 cups of self-raising wholemeal flour into a large bowl, finally mixing half a cup of sugar through.
Then I added half a cup of oil, a teaspoon of vanilla essence and a heaping cup of warm water to the dry ingredients and beat it all in well.
The mixture was just a bit more moist than dough and so I made a bit of an indent after pouring it into the baking pan.
It took a good 50 mins to cook through, though you will find the size and shape of your cake tin as well as the temperature of your specific stove make a difference. I needed to cover it after about twenty minutes so it wouldn't burn.

Wakefield and Baskerville suggest a topping. We liked it as it was as well as with butter. We dreamed of ice-cream and the kind of fruits and nuts that might match the full and dark richness of its unique taste — dark cherries, figs, apricots and walnuts. I might try mashing an avocado for a future topping.

You can find out more about the carob plant at the Purdue University Centre for New Crops and Plant Produce site.

Lemon marmalade and history

We'd love to hear from people who know about the history of fruit and nut trees in the Blue Mountains, records of:
the pre-settlement Indigenous plants that local Indigenous people ate and that kept them healthy through their medicinal properties;
the early settlers who farmed and gardened to feed themselves and provide produce for small local markets;
twentieth century developments.

In a little tome that is a cross between a volume of local history and a cookery book — The Blue Mountains Olde and New Ways Cookbook by Juliette Palmer Frederick (Katoomba 1992) — there is a recipe for a simple lemon marmalade that follows.

Take four lemons and cover with water (under 600 ml) in a saucepan.
Boil till the lemons are tender and switch off heat.
Remove, halve and de-pip the lemons, then dice or slice them finely.
Return chopped fruit and juice to liquid in saucepan.
Add 500 gm sugar and boil fast for, say 15 mins, i.e. till setting stage is reached.
Place in sterilised jars and seal.

This is the kind of information that we'll be sharing at our next workshop at Kihilla on Saturday 14 August. Hope to see you there!

Organic Gardener Essential Guide — Fruit

The ABC's Organic Gardener magazine has just released a special Essential Guide to Fruit. It's 124 pages and just under $10. Both the Organic gardener website and the ABC website's gardening section have great information on citrus growing (see the ABC on dwarf apples).

Take a browse in preparation for our Citrus Show and Tell coming up Saturday 14 August at the home of the Mid-Mountains Community Gardens at Kihilla in Lawson starting at 10.30 am.

This will be an opportunity to share information, samples and stories of citrus growing in the sub-regions from Meyer lemons in the upper mountains down to grapefruits, limes and oranges and their hybrids in the lower mountains. You can bring produce to share, swap or sell. There will be a mean home-brewed lemonade to taste, and more!

Indigenous raspberry

In the 'Berry Similar Plants' section of the Blackberry page on the Blue Mountains City Council site Weeds of the Blue Mountains Bushland, there is a discussion of some of the Indigenous raspberries found locally. One of them is Rubus hilli. Wendy Whitton potted cuttings of this plant, which grows at their place in South Katoomba, so that several of us can now try to grow it in our gardens. We will share our knowledge of the best sites and soil, and ways to maintain them. If you have some experience, please let us know by writing in the comments box.

Orange preserving workshop

Following the very successful medlar preserving workshop at Melanie's and Alexander's in Bullaburra, our next activity is there on Sunday 18 July — again for a demonstration and talk but this time about making orange marmalade, candied oranges and peel, orange curd and orange cordial!

The orange (Citrus spp. Rutaceae) is one of the oldest fruit trees cultivated by the human species being a hybrid of a pummelo and a mandarin. It is a wonderful winter fruit growing well in the lower mountains. The Seville orange is able to survive higher up where it is colder more often.

We're particularly interested in hearing from local growers of their indigenous plant relatives, such as the Australian finger lime (Citrus australasica). The indigenous varieties seem less susceptible to pests and diseases that bother the kinds brought by European and Asian settlers, and are generally drought and salt tolerant. CSIRO has trialled grafting the indigenous varieties onto the more plentiful commercial varieties. All make very good marmalades and fruit juices, cordials and sauces.

Non-monetary exchange; the way things 'were'

The Blue Mountains Fruit and Nut Tree Network runs by processes based on 'olde worlde' values that we hope will contribute to new ways of being in a sustainable future world. All of our activities — the sharing of information and skills — are run as much as possible by volunteer workers at no or minimal costs to participants and volunteers.

We try to have activities in locations that are close to public transport or car share. We like to use local community gardens and other communal resources and peoples homes as places for our activities. We promote sharing surplus through exchanging goods and services directly, even if delayed over time, e.g. surplus fruit for value-added jam or other surplus fruit later.

For many of us, when we were young, this is how our neighbours, friends and extended family operated. They swapped and shared, gifting and receiving gifts of garden cuttings, seeds and produce — helping the exchange of ideas and information on growing, preparing and cooking fruits and nuts.

Today the Internet provides a great new means for sharing information. This blog, our e-list and all the links we make with local media — and groups far away, but with the same values and vision of a sustainable future — facilitate and enhance our operation based on traditional values of caring and sharing.

Pruning and bare root fruit tree planting

Lizzie C alerted me to the Sustainable Gardening Australia site, which has a great page describing the hows and wheres of bare root fruit tree establishment and maintenance — Bare Root Fruit is Beaut. As they say there: 'winter is the time to get down and dirty with deciduous fruit trees'.

Another member of our network, Tom P, has sent through advice on pruning red and black currants and gooseberries (a topic addressed at our recent workshop in Lizzie's garden). They need to be planted out during May to September:

'Prune currants and gooseberries when plants are dormant in late winter or early spring once frosts have ended. Remove branches that lie along the ground and branches that are diseased or broken. Fruiting is strongest on spurs of two and three year old wood.

'After the first year of growth remove all but 6 to 8 of the most vigorous shoots.

'After 2 years of growth leave 4–5 of the best one-year-old shoots and up to 3–4 two-year–old canes.

'At the end of the third year prune so that c. 3–4 canes of each age class remain.

'By the fourth year the oldest set of canes should be removed and new canes allowed to grow.

'Each winter shorten long stems that have grown too scraggly. Do not prune after spring growth commences. This system of renewal ensures that the plants remain productive because young canes always replace those removed. A strong healthy and mature plant should have about 8 fruit bearing canes, with younger canes eventually replacing the oldest.

'Prune red and white currants back to an outward facing bud, as is normal for most plants. Prune back droopy gooseberries to an inward and upward facing bud. Keep centre open to air and sunlight, leaving a few regularly-spaced main branches. Cut away any laterals that are crossing, drooping, or otherwise misplaced, and shorten for fewer larger fruits.'

Good pruning!

Medlar workshop

Last Sunday, 6 June, Melanie (and Alexander) ran a wonderful medlar workshop for our network in Bullaburra. The demonstration centred on medlar preservation for the pantry and medlar preparation for the table: medlar jelly, medlar cheese, medlar paste, medlar and apple chutney, medlar tart, and medlar comfit.

Medlars have been described as a cross between a pear and a quince. Lizzie is right in saying they have a texture and even taste like dates, though they are nicely tart in comparison to dried ones.

They have a thin skin, like but even thinner than the skin of a kiwifruit. Similarly, you can scoop out the medlar's flesh to eat raw, but the seeds are large.

Like pears, medlars need to be ripened off the tree. The ripening process of medlars is commonly referred to as 'bletting'. One workshop participant reported making jam and stewed from medlars picked straight from the tree, i.e. in their hard and tart state, and the product was successful.

Berries and more

This last weekend we ran two very successful workshops. On Saturday, we ran one on berry (and more) growing alongside a unique-to-the-Blue-Mountains hanging swamp vegetation (see photo).


Lizzie, who ran the berries and more workshop, loves raspberries etc. because they are such easy plants to start growing and having your own fresh produce is so sweat. if they make it to the kitchen, here are some very easy recipes too.

British cookery book writer Rose Elliot has a raspberry or blackberry coulis (sauce) recipes which goes like this: blend 350gm fresh/thawed frozen raspberries/blackberries with 1.5T water and 1.5T caster sugar. Sieve. Bring to boil for a minute to clarify and give a shine to the sauce. Refrigerate.

Lizzie's favourite is with rhubarb as a lovely caramelised sauce. Place trimmed and cut rhubarb stalks in a lidded heavy saucepan or frying pan with the water it was washed in and a sprinkle of sugar. Dry-fry, by closing the lid and cooking over a low heat for 2-3 minutes, and turning off the heat to finish cooking.

Finally a three-minute loganberry/raspberry/boysenberry jam. Place 5 cups of berries and 4½ cups sugar in pan. Stir to dissolve sugar as bringing to the boil. Boil for 3 mins. Pour into hot sterilised jars. Thickens over the following days.

Share the surplus

Thanks to a donation of two boxes of surplus medlars, which were grown locally in the Blue Mountains, we have a wonderful workshop on making medlar jelly, paste, tart and cheese coming up this weekend.

There are many options for dealing with surplus fruit and nuts. We hold workshops on storage, cooking with and preserving them. We promote sharing through our network too, and email any offers through our e-list.

But you can arrange to give away, exchange or trade through the Blue Mountains food cooperative in Katoombaa, which is open every day of the week, or the Blackheath Primary School Community Market held on the first Sunday of every month (contact Deb by emailing: debhurley100@yahoo.com), or at the Lawson Primary School Community Market held on the third Sunday of every month.(contact Cheryl on 47591823).

If you plan to hold a local stall or regular market opportunity for sharing surplus fruit and nuts, please let us know.