Chestnuts roasting in a woodfired outdoor oven

Fabulous chestnuts brought from Mt Irvine and Mt Tomah took centre stage at the weekend's permaculture day celebrations at the community Garden. Both seemed yielded their creamy sweet nutty centres easily, sliding from the shells when expertly cooked in this traditional chestnut roasting pan. You can always roast chestnuts in the oven too, and that's a great way to heat the kitchen as the temperature drops.  I noted chestnuts from Bathurst at the co-op last Friday but I suspect we won't see too many more of these from local sources now. Remember fresh chestnuts don't keep for long even in the fridge.

A this time of year, the risk of frosty nights and cold winds increase, remember to protect any young citrus trees with a hessian or shade cloth wrapped securly around garden stakes as a tent (those under 3 years).

Medlar: The Fruit of Misunderstanding

by Melanie and Alexander 

The medlar is no ordinary fruit; it has inspired reverence and revulsion because of its obscure ripening process.  The centre of a medlar flower invites curiosity and introspection. Flirtatious stigmas and stamens reflect the self-fertilizing nonchalance of a fruit which is edible when it borders on rotting. As the medlar fruit matures on the tree it resembles an apple with a crown at its bottom. 

Its nether region is the source of risqué references in literature, including this one from William  Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (II, 1, 34-38):
"Now will he sit under a medlar tree,
And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit
As maids call medlars, when they laugh alone.
O Romeo, that she were, O that she were
An open-arse and thou a poperin pear!"

They are said to be “A fruit that ripens through its own corruption”.
Medlar is related to quinces and apples, and part of the rose family. Medlar trees grow very
slowly to 10 to 25 feet tall (3 to 7.5 metres), with a spread of 7 to 15 feet (2 to 4 1/2 metres.)
The wood of the tree is light red and very hard with a very fine grain; it was often used for
canes and walking sticks. The trees will start bearing fruit after 4 to 6 years, and are very long
lived. The leaves are long and pointed with hairs underneath them.


The trees bloom a month later than apple trees, producing pinky-white flowers. The fruit is
small and round. It starts off with greenish-yellow skin ripening to rust coloured. There is an indent at the top of the fruit, and several seeds inside.
The fruit is picked in the autumn when the leaves start to fall off the tree. You pick them right
after the first frost, when they are still hard. At this stage, they are not only too hard to eat;
they are also too sour to eat. The fruit needs to rot a bit first (this is called "bletting") before it
is actually considered "ripe" enough to eat. This takes about 2 to 3 weeks in storage. They will
become soft, mooshy brown, sweet and tasty with a flavour close to applesauce or cider. If
the word "rot" is too indelicate, you could always say that they need to mature, like a wine or
cheese.
 “Bletting,” permits the breakdown of starches into sugars. As the flesh softens the inside of a
medlar begins to resemble applesauce. It is precisely at this time that notes of cider, spice
and the musk of ripe apricots develops. There is short window of time between edible and
rotten, which has led to adoration by connoisseurs and disgust by those who cannot contend
with the medlar’s fermentation. The fruit is more tenacious than those who have no patience
for its obscurity. In addition to being self-pollinating the medlar can set fruit without
pollination—nature’s reckoning for those who misunderstand this amazing fruit.
Medlars may be eaten raw, cooked or baked. Jellies are commonly made as the fruit is
naturally rich in pectin. Medlar varieties include: Dutch, Macrocarpa, Nottingham and Royal.
Nottingham fruits are about 1 inch (2.5 cm) wide. The Dutch and Macrocarpa have somewhat
larger fruit.

Recipes:
MEDLAR CHEESE (An old recipe!) 
Put some Medlars into an earthenware jar, stand it in a saucepan with boiling water nearly to
the top and keep it boiling gently over a slow fire. When the Medlars are quite soft, pass them
through a fine hair sieve, and weigh the pulp, and for every pound allow one and a half
breakfast cups of coarsely crushed loaf sugar and half a teaspoonful of allspice. Put all the
ingredients together in the preserving pan, and stir them over the fire with a wooden spoon
until thickly reduced, skimming occasionally. Turn the cheese into moulds, and keep them in a
cold place. When ready to serve, turn the cheeses out of the moulds on to a dish.
From Theodore Garrett The Encyclopaedia of Practical Cookery (London 1880)

MEDLAR CHEESE (A modern translation) 
Put some Medlars into a Pyrex bowl, stand it in a saucepan with boiling water nearly to the
top and keep it boiling gently over a slow heat. When the Medlars are quite soft, pass them
through a fine sieve, and weigh the pulp, and for every pound allow one and a half breakfast
cups of coarsely crushed sugar and half a teaspoonful of allspice. Put all the ingredients
together in a preserving pan, and stir them over the heat with a wooden spoon until thickly
reduced, skimming occasionally. Turn the cheese into moulds, and keep them in a cold place.
When ready to serve, turn the cheeses out of the moulds on to a dish.
MEDLAR CHEESE (A Country Harvest Cookbook)
Equal weights of medlar pulp and sugar
1–2 oranges or 3-6 mandarins – juice and zest
Ground cloves
Stir pulp and sugar together in a pan, add the juice and zest of the oranges (or mandarins) to
taste.
Heat and cook, stirring constantly, until the pulp is thick and comes away from the sides of the
pan. Remove from heat.
Add cloves to taste and mix well. Pour into a buttered dish or tray. When dry, cut into
squares (can be sprinkled with sugar) and store in airtight containers with fresh bay leaves
between layers of baking paper. Serve as a sweetmeat with coffee or cheese.

MEDLAR JELLY (Method 1: Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall)
Ingredients 
• 1kg medlars (quartered but not peeled)
• 500g Bramley cooking apples
• About 650g granulated sugar
1. Quarter the medlars. Peel and chop the apples and tip the fruit into a preserving pan, or
any heavy-bottomed, deep, wide pan, with just enough water to cover.
2. Bring to a simmer and cook for 30-45 minutes, until the medlars are soft and pulpy.
3. Strain through a jelly bag on a stand set over a large bowl. Don't be tempted to poke,
squeeze or force the pulp through the bag or you'll get a cloudy jelly, just leave it to drip over
the bowl for several hours or overnight. Don't discard the pulp though – it’s perfect for adding
to our chutney.
4. Measure the juice, pour into a clean preserving pan and bring to boiling point before adding
the sugar (for every 1l of juice, add 650g of sugar). Stir, in one direction only to reduce foam,
until sugar is totally dissolved then boil rapidly for 8 minutes or until the setting point is
reached. If you have a preserving thermometer, it should read 104.5°C; if you don’t have a
thermometer, drop a little jelly onto a saucer which you have chilled in the fridge. Let the jelly cool for a minute then push it gently with your finger. If it crinkles, it has reached its setting
point. Remove from the heat and skim off any scum using a slotted spoon.
5. Decant carefully into a warm jug and pour into warm, sterilised jars.

MEDLAR JELLY (Method 2: A Country Harvest cookbook) 
Put soft, ripe medlars whole into a pan and just cover with water. Cook gently until the fruit is
pulpy. Place into a double layer of muslin, and hang over a basin so that the juice drips into
the basin. Leave overnight. Measure the liquid into a pan. Add 2 cups of sugar for every 2½
cups of juice. Heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves, then boil rapidly until the jelly sets when
tested. Pour into warm, sterilised jars.

MEDLAR PASTE
Sieve the pulp left in the muslin – this can be stored in the refrigerator and used in the recipes
below. It can also be sweetened to taste, maybe add some spices and/or citrus zest, and
used in smoothies, served with yoghurt or ice cream, stirred into porridge, etc.

MEDLAR AND APPLE CHUTNEY (Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall)
Ingredients
• 3-4 tbsp sunflower oil
• 4 tbsp mustard seeds
• 2 tbsp crushed black peppercorns
• 1 tbsp fenugreek seeds
• 1 tbsp ground cumin
• 2 tsp turmeric
• 1 bulb of garlic, peeled and grated
• 5-7cm piece of fresh ginger, peeled and grated
• 6 fresh red chillies, deseeded and finely chopped
• 2kg Bramley apples, cored and chopped
• 500g dark Muscovado sugar
• 500ml cider vinegar
• 2 tbsp salt
• The left over pulp from the medlar jelly, or about 700g pears, peeled, cored and
chopped
Method: 
1. Warm the oil in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan over a medium heat and add the spices,
stirring well and frying until the mustard seeds just begin to pop. This will only take a minute
or so – be careful not to scorch the spices. Add the garlic, ginger and chillies, stir well, and fry
gently for few minutes.
2. Tip the chopped apples into a large preserving pan and pour over the spices.
3. Add the sugar, vinegar and salt, along with the left over pulp from the medlar jelly, or the
pears if you are using them instead.
4. Stir over a low heat until the sugar dissolves, then simmer for about 2 hours until thickened,
stirring occasionally and adding a little water if you think it’s beginning to look too thick.
5. Bottle in warm, sterilised jars, filling the jars really full as the mixture will shrink slightly as it
cools. Seal with vinegar-proof lids.

MEDLAR CAKE (A Country Harvest Cookbook) 
½ cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup medlar pulp
½ -1 cup sultanas
1tsp bicarb
1tsp hot water
½ - 1tsp ground cloves
2 cups plain flour
Grated rind of 1 lemon or orange
¼ cup walnuts
Cream butter and sugar until smooth, and blend in the medlar pulp and sultanas.
Dissolve the bicarb in the hot water and add to the mixture.
Sift the cloves and flour and fold in with the grated rind.
Put into a greased tin and sprinkle with walnuts
Bake at 180C for 1 hour.

MEDLAR TART (A Country Harvest Cookbook – this is an old Elizabethan recipe)) 
“Take medlars that are rotten, strain them, and set them on a chaffing dish of coals, season
them with sugar, cinamon and ginger, put some yolks of eggs to them, let it boil a little, and
lay it in a cut tart; being baked scrape on sugar.”
Robert May The Accomplisht Cook 1660
Shortcrust pastry shell (use your favourite recipe)
Medlar pulp
Sugar to taste
Spices – ginger, cinnamon or cloves
Grated citrus peel
Egg yolks
Beat the pulp and egg yolks until thick and smooth. Blend in sugar and spice (amount to suit
your tastes), and grated citrus peel. Spoon into the pie shell and bake at 200C until the
pastry is brown and the filling set (depending on your oven, this should take about 30
minutes.
Variations: You can add some dried fruits (sultanas, glace peel, etc), or nuts. The egg
whites can be beaten to stiff peaks, sweetened with sugar, and piled on top before cooking to
make a medlar meringue pie.

MEDLAR FUDGE
Makes about 4lbs
- 2lbs medlars
- 2 small lemons
- 3 cloves
- 1pint apple cider
- 2lb light brown sugar
- Honey or maple syrup to taste, cream and macaroons to serve.
• Wash and chop fruit, add cloves and cider.
• Simmer until fruit is soft.
• Sieve and weigh the pulp.
• Add three quarters of its weight in sugar and bring back to boil, then bottle and seal.
• When required, whip the fruit cheese with honey or maple syrup until soft, spoon into
bowls and top with whipped cream and broken macaroons.

MEDLAR COMFITS (ELIZABETHAN RECIPE)
Medlars
Honey
Coriander
Cardamom
Ginger
Black Pepper
Butter
Squish the medlars, as many as you have or have patience to squish. (The stuff that's left
after you smoosh your medlars: Pour boiling water over it, and leave to cool. Strain through a
sieve and you have MEDLAR NECTAR.)
Put the pulp in a pan with a like amount of honey, e.g. 1/2 cup medlar to 1/2 cup of honey.
To that, put what seems like a ridiculous amount of spice, e.g. 1/2 teaspoon each of
coriander, cardamom, and ginger, and three freshly smashed peppercorns. Add your butter (a
walnut-sized blob).
Cook over medium heat, stirring all the while with a wooden spoon. It should seethe nicely in
no time, and thicken faster than it should, considering anything exotic should take several
hours. Consider it done when it parts to your spoon, falling back before you can say a twosyllable word. It will be satiny and pourable but not runny.
Pour into an oiled tray or dish to a depth that is as thick as you have patience for, because it
needs to dry. Put aside till it sets firm enough to do what you will with it, which may be two
days later, when it is rubbery enough to come away in one piece when lifted with a knife, but
still pliable enough to be rolled up without cracking.
To make these medlar comfits:
Cut into strips and roll up or cut into shapes (squares or diamonds are easiest). Put them on
waxed paper in a cardboard box. Leave for several weeks at least, not only for the
consistency to be firmer and chewier, but for the spices and honey to properly mellow.
These comfits are spectacularly good eaten with an accompaniment of walnuts. Serve also
with cheese, wine, and with coffee or hot chocolate.

MEDLAR WINE
8 lb / 3,600 grams Medlars
3 lb / 1,350 grams sugar
Pectin enzyme
Water up to 1 gallon
1/2 pint strong black tea
Campden tablet
Yeast nutrient
Wine yeast
Place the ripe fruit in a fermentation bucket and pour over the boiling water. Add 1 lb. of sugar
and an equal quantity of cold water. Add the campden tablet, pectin enzyme and yeast
nutrient and wine yeast. Cover and leave for three days in a warm place, stirring daily. Strain
through a fine sieve and add the rest of the sugar and put into a demijohn and fit an airlock to
seal the jar.
Store in a warm place and allow the fermentation to work. When fermentation has ceased,
rack the wine into a clean jar and place in a cooler environment and leave. When the wine is
clear and stable siphon into bottles.

Preserving Traditions Winter Workshops

Hang on to that harvest for longer and the kitchen warmer in these delightful processes. Come along and learn how easy it is to fill those shelves with homegrown or foraged fruits. If you've a favorite ferment, ways with pickling or you're nuts about flours and want to share those skills, or you'd simply like to experiment with ways of storing & enhancing nutrition and flavours over winter, get in touch with the fruit and nut tree network via edibleforests@gmail.com

local produce this weekend at the co-op

This week a the co-op find local Persimmons, Lemonades, Rhubarb, tamarillos, quinces, lemons, apples, chestnuts,  kale, cos lettuce, rocket, bok choy, chillies, pumpkin, parsley, & beans. Feast on that! More updates over at the co-op  

Remember to look out too for free ingredients from fellow mountain fruits and nuts sharing their surplus, like these free curry leaves.

Edible Plants for Sale in Clarendon at the Collectors' Plant Fair Today

Grumichama

If you're a fruit and nut enthusiast not sure what to do after breakfast today (Sunday 14th April) then you'd do well to head on over to Clarendon, Richmond this to catch day two of the Collectors' Plant Fair. It's not such a well publicised event, and only thanks to gardening friend Lloyd this is the first time I've had the opportunity to attend event, rather than just hear about it some weeks later. 

With talks, plant stalls & refreshments this is easily a full day out. Sunday's talks begin with landscape gardener Michael Bligh on Edible Gardening in a more formal garden context in an eclectic schedule.  Plant enthusiasts, garden geeks, books, accessories as well as plants you will rarely see elsewhere all feature at this friendly event. 

$12 gets an adult through the turnstile, accompanying under 18's get in for free.

We're just there for a morning and so it's my chance to see what small productive plants I can find for my own garden and see the wider range of suppliers all in the one spot. With over 40 nurseries' stalls, it would be easy to be overwhelmed, so I checked out the list of nurseries selling edibles as a shortlist,  within those stopping to explore those with whom I felt some accord in their plant selections. I picked up some more unusual herbs like caraway thyme at 5 for $15 at Four Seasons Herbs in Coffs Harbour. Bargain! Their stall includes certified organic garlic, saffron corms and even wasabi all at prices lower than advertised on their website. If you're as keen to seek out unusual fruits to keep fresh sources of vitamin C flowing throughout the year,  peruse the offerings from Forbidden Fruits who have everything from Acerola Cherry (Malpighia emarginata) & Midyim berry (Austromytus dulcis) to the humungous White Sapote (Casimiroa edulis) tree, at up to 15m high its not one for my tiny backyard unfortunately!


If you discover this post a little later than 'in the nick of time' don't despair, many of the great plants suitable for fruit and nut tree growers are available at some participating nurseries on site or online for the rest of the year through nurseries represented at this event. 

Visit nearby Secret Garden at the UWS Richmond campus who have an open day coming up in time for Permaculture Day weekend with Autumn Harvest on Saturday 4th May, or locally to our own Blue Mountains Community Gardens in North Katoomba also be open for plant sales on the morning of May 5th for International Permaculture Day. Online pleasures can be found at Forbidden Fruits with their formidable catalogue of unusual fruit, and Heaven in Earth displayed a fabulous range of low key, beautiful and useful gifts made from natural materials for you and your gardening friends. I'll also mention that the  wonderfully helpful & friendly booksellers Florilegium carry a range of excellent books on edible gardening including the mighty Edible Forest Gardens volumes, online or in Glebe. Full list of nurseries at this special annual sale available here.


If you know of  sales, swaps or events coming up through the year which would be of interest to budding or established food foresters, please leave a message here or drop a line to edibleforests@gmail.com and we'll include it in upcoming calendar notices and/or newsletters.

This week (8th April) at the Food Co-op local producers have brought in HEAPS: Quinces, figs, limes, apples, plums, chestnuts, beetroot, potatoes, beans, choy sum, chillies, parsley, basil, chives, rhubarb - see regular updates on their facebook page, share and swap with the Blue Mountains Foragers' Network and monthly in the mid mountains at Crop and Swap (next meeting April 13th)

April 6th: Dehydrating Food Workshop

Dehydrating Workshop on Saturday 6 April with Maggie 

hot chillies drying for later

Dehydrating: Sucking the juice out of food. Or, in more techno speak, a food processing technique that extracts the moisture in foods, thereby inhibiting the growth of microorganisms facilitating the preservation of food for indefinite periods. 

Dehydration is one of the oldest methods of food preservation – going back to prehistoric people who sun-dried seeds. At the workshop there will be no experts. Just a lot of folks sharing experiences. 

Different styles of dehydrating machines will be on display as well as examples of delicious dehydrated food stuffs like: beef jerky, fruit and vege strips, as well as some surprises. 

Did you know you can dehydrate soups and even complete meals? 

So this workshop is perfect for everyone, no matter where you fall on the dehydrating experience scale. 

 Bring a little something to share for morning tea and it’s not necessary for it to have been dehydrated! 

Please email/phone Maggie if you wish to attend for full address of workshop in Leura. 

Hope to see you there. maggie53@aapt.net.au 4782 2441

Fruit and Nut Events Coming Up

A beautiful morning to meet up and organise events for the fruit and nut tree network at the Community Gardens in Harold Hodgson Park. Its still early enough in the day not to accumulate too many mosquito bites we meet to discuss what we might arrange over the summer months. And the outcome? We’re looking forward to delicious combinations of both planned and spontaneous activities based on what the seasons bring, and of course we hope you'll join us....

Anne, Kris, Jed, Rosie, Maggie and Sue

January 29th as network members know already, is the date for our popular Summer hands-on workshop:  preserving with fowlers vacola with Anne Elliott - contact cloudlands@iinet.com.au to participate and create some beautiful jars of lovely fruit in this uniquely Australian tradition.
Find out more at the Slow Food website or see our post on the last session.

Summer brings so many fruits and this year is looking like a bumper crop all around, our friends at Todarello's Fruit market on the Bathurst Road, Katoomba will be letting us in on any super big spoils. Bruised fruit may not be acceptable for shoppers' fruit bowls at home, but they're great for preserving as jams, pickles and relishes. So throughout January and February, be on alert for news of fallen fruit jam and rescued relish making sessions which Anne will be hosting any morning there is such a surplus at 11am - FREE

Sunday February 16th - Love your trees this Valentine’s weekend, and find out all about Summer Fruit Tree Pruning in the mid mountains.  Ben Gorrick (from Intree Solutions) will be running a masterclass on pruning - there will be the opportunity for lots of questions, and some guided hands-on practice.  Kris has several established (and very overgrown) fruit trees (apricot, apple & pear);  we’ll be turning these into ‘pedestrian’ height trees with the capacity to turn them into weeping habit to increase productivity.  Contact Kris via email kris@cervelle.com.au or call 0458 626210 to arrange your spot in this workshop (and to help with catering for the refreshments :-) ). 
Suggested donations to contribute: $10 waged, $5 unwaged.

In March we’ll be organising one of our calendar highlights gathering chestnuts in nearby Mt Irvine with Kookootonga Farm. We’re dependent on when the nuts are dropping, so sign up for updates or look out on the fruit and nut tree website to find out more.

Saturday April 6th  The date for a dehydrating workshop - no experts. Just curious individuals who want to share helpful tips and information, ask questions and discover more about the diverse products you can make at home with a dehydrator. Bring all your experience to share or come as a beginner and see what it’s all about. - contact Maggie at  maggie53@aapt.net.au if you’d like to attend. This event is FREE.

Next meeting of the fruit and nut tree network is: Sunday Feb. 24, 10 am  at the Community Gardens in Katoomba. Bring (local) nibbles to share.

PLENTY OF GREEN THUMBS AT FESTIVAL OF THE GREEN

27 October, Springwood Public School 
by Anne Elliott

It was  most satisfying for Slow Food Blue Mountains and the BM Fruit and Nut Tree Network to be involved with this Festival.  Hard to imagine that a very hardworking P & C of 5 people organised this event! So many hands-on activities  covering worm farming, no dig gardening (with guest "verge garden king "and tv presenter Costa Georgiadis, making a special guest appearance)  - to raising backyard chickens. 

The whole school was taken over with activities, with scarecrows as direction points.  There was even an 'eat street' and numerous stalls featuring handmade and locally-made. The scarecrow competition had some exciting entries, and the waste to art was also popular. Our stall consisted of information on Slow Food,  and the BM Fruit and Nut Tree Network as well as the first of our Hands-on  'Cooking From Scatch' activities at local festivals, using local/rescued/bulk food.  We invited Festival participants to make their own muesli from scratch, featuring bulk, organic ingredients from the Blue Mountains Food Coop.  There was also educational material available (and taste-testing!) on healthy sugar-free alternatives such as xylitol, which is available in bulk from the Food Coop. 

It was also heartening to learn just how many people are now 'growing their own' , and have embraced kitchen gardens in all their different formats. A number of people also added their details to our Fruit and Nut Tree Network enewsletter in order to keep in touch with Fruit and Nut Tree activities.

Notes from the Apple Orchards of Mustang

by Brian Coates

Central Asia is the crucible of many stone and pome fruit ecosystems. Most notably quince, pomegranate, apricot and pear. The origin of the apple is uncertain but it is most likely Western China.

We were fortunate this year to go treking in Northern Nepal to a region called Mustang which is famed for its apple orchards. Interestingly no other fruit trees are grown apart from the occasional apricot but Mustang has a lot of apples.

Mustang is a high cold desert with characteristics of high radiation, low precipitation, low soil nutrients and low temperatures. It is cut by the Kali Gandaki river gorge which supplies most of the water and soil nutrient. High desert regions along river valleys allow high hours of sun, soil nutrient, water and chilling hours for setting of fruit.

The apple orchards however are often located on the high ground above the river where the soil is rocky and sandy and water supply is supplied by snow melt from the high mountains.To see apples thriving in sandy rocky ground with high soil drainage,hot summer sun and no mulch or ground cover only to be surrounded by stone walls 2M high made me think how tough they must be. The only protective factor is wind protection. There is also the added advantage of very few birds !!

Apple Trees in Mustang - Manoj Adhikari

In most orchards however, companion vegetables are grown such as beans/peas to provide nitrogen and cabbages to attract and absorb pests. Interestingly there was often a dead apple tree with an underplanting of tomatoes !!! Tomatoes are obviously toxic to apples.

Having said all this, the apple tree is a tough old thing and in my experience it resents being over cared for. So long as soil is very well drained, tree protected from hot strong winds, a steady supply of water via some sort of slow drip irrigation and a good companion planting arrangement should see the apple tree do well in the Blue Mtns. For bird protection grow as a tight hedging arrangement.

Meeting about continuing and expanding our network

We invite you to a meeting on Sunday 25 November, at 10.30 am at Cloudlands, 6 Banksia Park Road in Katoomba, to discuss how to continue and expand the BM Fruit and Nut Tree Network. Since its rejuvenation a few years ago, Anitra has been the key contact point for the network. Earlier this year, while Anitra was overseas, Kat Szuminska filled that role. Although Anitra returned late in July, she plans to move interstate (back to Victoria) in the near future. The role is already too much for one person so we need to work out ways to keep the network operating and to expand it.

This meeting will explore different ways that the network can operate. We're particularly interested in hearing from people who can invest time themselves but good ideas are welcome too. One idea is to have more sub-regional nodes, activities which rotate round the upper mountains, lower mountains and mid mountains. Up till now the network has been upper mountains centric simply because more people there have been prepared to offer time to activities there. We have more community gardens throughout our region now to support such activities and lots of members up and down the mountains so there seems to be a lot of potential to grow.

If you have ideas or can volunteer but can't make this meeting please contact us to discuss your thoughts and offers. Feel free to forward ideas for the agenda now, even though you will be able to add items when we start the meeting on 25 November — to Anitra


Contact Kat if you want to be involved in a bulk buy of fruit trees from Daleys Nursery: download a free catalogue here


The Blue Mountains Food Co-op welcomes supplies of garden grown fruit and nuts, which you can label with a price or chose to give away free. Look out for this kind of produce there too.

An Introduction to the Fruit and Nut Tree Network

A little while ago, Kat Anitra and Sue were kindly invited by the Springwood Gardening Club to talk about our little network. Anitra put together these slides which you can share with anyone who would like to know a little more about what we do. Thanks Anitra! If your community group is interested in learning more about growing fruit and nut trees in the mountains or would just like to get together, just get in touch. Contact details may be found at the end of this presentation.

Fruit and nut trees and friends

The latest Daley's catalogue is out for your perusal! Download as a PDF here

Flicking through the pages of potential fruit trees for our gardens and properties is truly an exciting experience. The thoughts of sweet smelling fruit trees providing not only fruit but a host of other benefits. Many fruit trees, as well as fruits on the vine are deciduous, growing leaves in summer leading up to Summer Autumn fruiting, then pulling back nutrients and dropping leaves in winter, thus conveniently letting through the winter sun, making them a terrific choice for the hotter northern sides of our homes.

If you're wondering what grows well where and what to plant in your backyard, or you've been growing for a while and want to update your growing experiences, come on down to the Slow Food stand at the Festival on the Green this weekend in Springwood and have a chat with Anitra and perhaps meet some fellow fruit and nut tree growers too.

Festival of the Green Saturday October 27th 2012 10-4pm
With Special Guest Presenter Costa Georgiadis from Gardening Australia!

Sustainable and soil nourishing techniques including composting, worm farming and no dig gardening feature in workshops in this family friendly day out. Great ways to build up the kind of soil you need to give fruit & nut trees as well as other trees and plants in your garden or orchard.  All that nutrition you might pour on from a bottle of fertilizer from the shops could come through organic matter, nature's recycling. Ever wondered how you'd design compost differently for fruit trees over other plants? Find out more with the permies composting demos and discussions. 

Grass is the enemy of many a fruit tree, competing for water soil for starters! With Oasis seedlings for sale (donated, proceeds to the school) you might find a better alternative to plant beneath your trees, companion plants which have a more beneficial relationship with your own fruit trees (and think of not having to mow!) Nasturtiums are said to deter coddling moth and can wind their way around a tree with plenty of light and air. Borage with its long flowering season keeps many a bee and other important pollinating insect happy. Plant scented herbs to deter or confuse pests (and make tea for you! like lemon balm and mint) nitrogen fixing legumes like peas to run up your apple trees, and ground covers play their part as a living mulch, keep water in the soil and provide welcoming microclimates and shelter to call home for beneficial predatory insects. 

Find out more about companion planting and other great seasonal fruit tree growing tips with Anitra representing the Fruit and Nut Tree Network at the Slow Foods Stall. Thanks Anne and Anitra!

For heaps more info about this fab festival see their facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/Festivalofthegreen

Footlight Festival Saturday 8 September

Our network had a stall at the Footlight Festival at North Katoomba Primary School on Saturday 8 September. It was windy and unpleasant but, considering the weather, the talk we gave about the functions and achievements of our network at 4 pm was well-attended (see photo below). People discussed some problems with citrus and hazelnut tree growing.

Thursday 13 September we will talk about the network to the Springwood Garden Club. We're looking forward to better weather down the mountains!

Essential Rules for Fruit Tree Pruning

Words by Brian Coates

Hi and thanks to all you came to enjoy a great pruning day at the community gardens.


Fruit tree pruning is a balancing act of science and art and in particular using the principles of permaculture. Observing and interacting , obtaining a yield, applying self regulation ,and producing no waste. Winter pruning is in fact inseparable from the all season care of the fruit tree.

Rule 1:  Start from the bottom and work to the top. Consider soil health - lots of mulch, no grass and plenty of comfrey growing around the base. A healthy tree resists pests and disease.

Rule 2 : Crown lift to create light and shape. 

Rule 3 : Walk around the tree as you are pruning, because you see a different view all the time.Rule 4 : The 4 D's  -remove dead, dying, diseased and damaged wood. Look for pests and diseases.

Rule 5 : Remove potentially unproductive branches. 

Rule 6 ; Remember that pruning is a balanced act of science and art . You want to create a yield and in order to do that you need to aim at a self regulating system. 

Rule 7 : Reduce the height of the tree by one third. 

Rule 8 : Pruning does not stop here -you need to observe and interact with the tree throughout the seasons ie from the first cycle as mentioned above to budburst when the friuting wood starts to differentiate, to the appearance of fruit  -thin out to avoid overcrowding,  continually do this to avoid heavy broken branches. The ripening of fruit depends upon just the right amount of tension on the branch--not too much, not too little. 

Rule 9 : Recycle and be creative and artistic with your prunings. Dont let the waste pile up--think of ways you can use each pruning as you prune.

The aim is to have a self regulating system whereby you are reducing overall effort and above all create beauty. The following buddhist analogy gives a good summary .

' As when a sturdy potter plies his wheel and labours long and hard to get it turning well, It later spins without his further work and pots are seen to be produced thereon '

Chandrakirti  c. 7th century. 

It would also be good to look at other ways of growing fruit trees in the mountains. A single tree is a monoculture in itself but traditional methods from northern Europe to the high deserts and valleys of Central Asia use hedging of 2-3 varieties. The apple arbor at the gardens is another example.


Please come to an apple  pruning day on the 15th July 10am-2pm.     

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