Postcard from Grenada

Grenada is named after the 'pomegranate', 'granada' en castellano.

Here is a pomegranate tree in the gardens of the famous Alhambra, which I visited yesterday in Granada.

Here is part of the orchard, which grows alongside the vegetables in Alhambra. The whole complex has always been served by water diverted from a river, which you can still drink from water fountains, due to its high quality.

From almost a 1000 years ago, when it was built, the sewerage was treated on site and returned to the river.

Here are some blueberries growing on site.

So much for modern technology, where I am based in Barcelona we are advised not to drink the water due to its low quality (desalinated).

The hazelnut trees are part of a grove in Alhambra.

Walking in atrocious heat later in the afternoon, the beautiful white washed garden and house walls had figs and grapes tumbling over them.

Returning to Madrid today we stopped at Toledo, where there are many shops with marzipan confectionery made by nuns. Marzipan, of course, is made from ground almonds and sugar.

Postcard from Seville

In the last couple of days I have been on the road, in a bus.

We have travelled from Barcelona, via Zaragoza, to Madrid and, from there, to Seville.

The first shot is a scene from a plaza full of trees with the bitter oranges of Seville in Seville.

The next is of Seville orange trees along the streets.

The historic gardens of Seville include grapes and bitter lemons.

The farms on the sides of the highway from Zaragoza to Seville feature many groves of olives for harvesting for use as olives. The olives growing in the dry red Andalusian soil closer to Seville are used for making oil.

Postcard from Barcelona

Here in the densely populated city of Barcelona, with many apartment blocks but people-and-bike friendly streets, some houses still have gardens where fruit and nut trees, as well as herbs and vegetables, have priority.

Lemons and figs are grown at kissing distance. The trees of tart Nepras stand side to side with olives.

Almonds reach in through the windows. And, what would a Mediterranean garden be without grapes?

Propagation and Pruning

Today we picked the last medlars from a tree in Katoomba's fabulous Blue Mountains Organic Community Gardens. During a wander around the fruit and nut trees we imagine future orchard scenes as we continue to develop this lovely space. Taking full advantage of these bright winter days and our community minded orchards, the fruit and nut tree network is delighted to present two winter workshops for fruit and nut enthusiasts in the coming weeks. First up, on Sunday May 27th, a propagation session in a wonderful Mt Tomah orchard (we are now taking names for a reserve list if you would like to come email Kat), and pruning on Sunday June 24th, a little closer to home for many of us, in North Katoomba. Bookings are essential and places filling up fast: contact Clare Power if you'd like to come.

The pruning workshop will be covering the how when and whys of pruning fruit trees, as well as practical demonstration and hands on opportunities to have a go at various pruning techniques.

Practical demonstration to include:

• Tool preparation and safety
• Preparing the ground around the tree
• Crown lifting
• Pruning to shape----removing deadwood , watershoots , weak branches.
• Creating the vase shape or keeping the central leader.
• Crown reduction.
•  Identifying common pests , diseases and deficiencies of fruit and nut trees.

2 examples of pruning that we will demonstrate:

•  individual trees
•  the apple arbor (close planted)

And a chance to discuss bigger issues:

• New approaches to growing fruit and nuts in the Blue Mountains
• Avoiding monocultures in orchard design
• Multipurpose design ie food production , wind and fire breaks plus artistic and creative aspects esp. in relation to hedges and arbors.
• Purpose of pruning and when to do it.

Entry by donation.

Preserving Day

by Cressida Hall

Although I grew up in the country I don’t have any childhood memories of my mother bottling fruit, making jam or pickling vegetables.  My family have been universally blessed with black thumbs so we never had a surfeit of produce that needed preserving.  In my friend Petra’s house it was a different matter altogether.  Magda, her mother, was Czech and an inveterate preserver and grower of fruits.  Indeed she’d converted her double suburban Canberra lot into a most prolific orchard where she grew several varieties of plums, along with cherries, nectarines, peaches, apricots, pears, apples and crab apples.  She was a crazy good gardener so there was always a lot of fruit to preserve.  Her stove-top Fowler’s Vacola set was probably her most used kitchen utensil, followed closely by the baking tray on which she made two fruit strudels every second day.  Somehow (perhaps driven by my gluttony) we’d end up at Petra’s house each day after school where we’d eat strudel and hot chips, not together, as our after school snack.  Heaven.

Along with snacks Petra’s house was also my designated go-to place in case of nuclear disaster.  For in her kitchen Magda had a giant, dark cupboard literally groaning under the weight of hundreds of ancient bottles of preserved fruit.  She was also a keen adopter of wild cats so I figured that I’d have protein, fruit and a handy source of fur in case of total world annihilation.  Nuclear Armageddon aside I’d always admired Magda’s prodigious skill at preserving, and how she used these gems to ensure that she always had something delicious to offer visitors, even of the ravening teenage kind.  

And so, nostalgic for someone else’s family, I decided to attend one of the Fruit and Nut Tree Network’s seasonal preserving classes taught by Anne Elliott.  There were five of us in the class – myself, Kat, Suzanne, Marta who’d come all the way from Bathurst and Antonio who was visiting from South Australia.  Marta who must be as talented a gardener as Petra’s mother brought with her home grown figs, lemons, persimmons and medlars while Anne had provided huge bowls of kiwi fruit and pears for preserving.  I’d never seen a medlar before and concerned to get the spelling right was amused to find the following dictionary description of them:
A small tree of the rose family, the fruit of which resembles a crab apple and is not edible until the early stages of decay.
I guess we now know what Marta meant when she called them a ‘particular taste’.

 
  


And so the preserving began.  We all peeled and chopped fruit, put rubber seals onto sterilized preserving bottles, and attempted, remarkably unsuccessfully, to arrange the fruit in beautiful patterns in the preserving jars.  Jars filled, syrup poured in, air bubbles removed, lids clipped on and seals checked by the heart-in-mouth method of turning the jar upside down, our first batch of fruit was ready for an hour in the electric vacola set.  And we were ready for some of Anne’s scones, jams and pickles.  Repast over we started furiously on the pears.  

A mere two hours after arriving we’d preserved five bottles of kiwi fruit and six of pears, perhaps not my fruit of choice for a strudel but if you’ve any stone fruits languishing in a cupboard here’s a rough approximation of Magda’s hunger busting strudel.


Strudel Recipe
1. a tray holds two strudels so you should always make two.
2. take filo pastry and brush each layer with a small amount of melted butter, sprinkle every second layer with some sugar and chopped nuts
3. when you think the pasty is thick enough put some preserved fruit along the longest side of the pastry leaving a fruit free section at each end.  Don’t use too much fruit, this is not a fat strudel.
4. roll the fruit up in the filo ensuring that the edge of the pastry is underneath the strudel.  Don’t worry about folding over the short ends leaving them open allows some of the preserved fruit’s juice to escape onto the baking pan where it will caramelise beautifully (this is Magda’s method, not mine!)
5. place on baking tray and sprinkle with sugar.
6. repeat all of above – remember two strudels are better than one
7. bake until done.  If you leave it in the kitchen on the tray over the next two days it will not only disappear but the pastry will ‘wilt’ delightfully

enjoy!

Postcard from the USA

Lots happening here on the east coast of the USA. It's Spring.

Strawberries are flowering in New York City. See the patch in the community where I've been staying on Staten Island. There are berry plants on trellises behind them. The community has several houses and the fences are pulled down between them. They have chickens, vegetables and herb plots as well as fruit trees.

Here, in rural Virginia where I'm staying right now, you can see lots and lots of strawberry plants in front of the solar panels on the Twin Oaks community farm. This area of gardens is flanked by rows of grapes, not caught in the photo. Each day we enjoy crab apple jelly and apple sauce, pumpkin jam and other delicious preserves made last year.


The top of the Twin Oaks' old barn will be used to dry fruit later in summer. You can just see the empty drying racks leaning through the central door. The community makes hammocks, tofu and other soy products. The community cuts and dries timber and does some carpentry for their own use.

Back in NYC citrus plants have been pulled out from their winter basement protection to sit in the unseasonably warm weather these last couple of months. You'll notice the hot house window being constructed behind.

This morning I spent a few hours touring and weeding at the Living Energy Farm. Alexis showed us around. He loves his fruit and nut plants and has hundreds planted. He runs grafting and other workshops which have proved very popular.

Great to see the activities rolling along in the Blue Mountains!

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.