DISPATCHES FROM THE FARM

We have a small number of our beautiful hand crafted garlic braids left and would like to make a SPECIAL OFFER tomorrow (Sat. 13 Feb) at Collingwood Children's Farm Farmers' Market to our loyal blog followers who live in Melbourne. All you have to do is visit our stall and mention that you read this on our blog to receive a garlic braid discounted to $22 instead of the current general special of  $25 (They were $28 full price at f.m.s).

       

Hope to see you at the market tomorrow!

You can see above some striped Romans, red and yellow pears, cherry and a few small Black Russians.

They always start off slowly but at least we get to enjoy an early season preview in home meals after our months of 

tender loving care. 

Within the next few weeks there'll be a bounty of these as well as other heirloom types we're growing this season, soon followed by the usual suspects we all love, Roma, Grosse Lisse and such like.

On another subject, Tim saw a baby rabbit closely followed by what was probably a sizable deadly Brown snake this afternoon (these dudes move a little too fast for Kodak moments!). We are hoping it's just the cycle of life...mainly that the rabbit was snake dinner and the only one in such close vicinity to the farm crops. Hopefully there's not a whole bunch of snakes hanging around either! We know they're there but we are both (us & them) happy to avoid each other. It's another aspect to life on the land and we personally subscribe to live and let live and sincerely hope the Glenlyon snakes do too :) in regards to us humans and Billy the farm dog.

Have a lovely weekend all!

In a few weeks we'll be picking an abundance of cucs. daily!

I know some folk manage to grow cucumbers around here in their back yards without any form of covering/temperature control but we can only guess their yards or a particular spot there in present a good little micro-climate for their cucumbers to grow well. The farm is much more open than that and because we rotate crops, we couldn't keep replanting them in the same location year after year even if we did have a specially protected location outdoors.

We planted the zucchinis back in November and they have just started to fruit. 

Zucchinis are also know by their French name 'courgette' in some European countries, NZ & the U.K.. 

They are actually a summer squash. They can be yellow, green or light green but we are only growing the dark green ones this season. They are rich in vitamin C and other anti-oxidents. 

They have gorgeous golden, edible flowers (more about that another time). Botanically, the zucchini fruit is considered to be the 'swollen ovary' attached to the female flower. The flowers occurring on stalks without zucchinis are the male flowers. Plenty of bees are needed for pollinating zucchinis for the squash to be produced and to grow healthily. The bees pollinate from the male flowers to the female flowers, fertilising the seeds in the immature fruit. If the seeds aren’t pollinated, the plant won’t waste energy growing a non-viable fruit, so it just withers and drops off, and the plant tries again with a fresh flower.

Anyone who has ever grown zucchinis or cucumbers for that matter, knows they go mad with very quick growing fruit (& can be master camouflage artists!). Unless you want large gourd-type zucchs. and cucs., you really need to harvest them daily to get to the fruits before they become huge...one more day can result in zuch/cuc-a-saurus! Personally, we prefer the flavour of smaller-sized zucchs. and cucs..

So between the zucchs., the cucs. and then the tomatoes when they arrive in the next few weeks, we'll be busy each morning picking their fruits whilst it is at its best, ready for the chefs, local shops and of course our farmers' market stalls each week. 

Well, only 3 more sleeps until Christmas Day...hard to believe another year has flown by so quickly.

A lot has been going on at the farm lately even though I haven't been writing to you much (that's why not much blogging has been happening!). We're still cleaning the new season's garlic bulbs in earnest and a lot of time over the past week has been filled with harvesting and other preparation for farmers' markets, doing our wonderful market stalls (bumping in!), packing up (bumping out!) and then returning  to the farm, unpacking the van etc and then doing it all again. It's a vibrant time of year and many vegies (& many more weeds...) are growing rapidly with the regular warmth and the blessed regular rain we've so luckily had.

Last Saturday morning we did our first Hawthorn Boroondara F.M. and rushed back home to do the Daylesford Xmas Twilight F.M. from 4pm. Our inaugural Boroondara F.M. was a ripper! Very busy and very welcoming...we had a great day. So lovely to see some regulars from our other Melbourne f.m.s and to meet lots of new people, passionate about locally grown, good quality organic produce, especially real, un-messed Australian garlic.

  

Our stall at the Hawthorn Boroondara Farmers' Market last Saturday.

  

The Daylesford Xmas Twilight F.M. was pretty laid-back and not really busy but we did get to catch up with and exchange Christmas greetings with our fellow stallholders and a number of local friends, which was a very nice added bonus. Plus, Santa rode in on the Daylesford CFA No. 1 fire truck, which all the kids loved and to be honest it 'tickled me pink' too! Some of the French WWOOFers who helped us clean garlic the other week were helping out on Don & Sue's stall and we commented that Santa's fire truck entrance was a uniquely Australian Christmas event and they thought it was great!

 

Our stall & Tim at Daylesford Xmas Twilight F.M.  

 

Tomorrow arvo / evening (Wednesday) is the super-dooper Slow Food Xmas Twilight market in the grounds of the gorgeous Abbotsford Convent in Melbourne, between 3pm & 8pm. It's promising to be smashing, with loads of great stalls (including us!)...great Xmas fare and gourmet gifts and a festive Xmas vibe :).  Come along if you can and join in the fun.

I won't blog you until after Christmas now, so from us to you and your families and loved ones, WE WISH YOU A SAFE & BEAUTIFUL CHRISTMAS. MAY SUMMER BE A GOOD & RELAXING TIME FOR YOU & US, FREE FROM FIRE DANGERS & MAY 2010 BE A PARTICULARLY FABULOUS YEAR FOR US ALL! :)

Best wishes from Deri-Anne, Tim & Billy

Apologies for my shortage of blog posts this week, but I haven't been slacking off.  I've actually been working hard at the farm with Tim, particularly getting the tomato and zucchini seedlings planted out in the field. These tomato plants will increase in size by many times their current size over the coming weeks, under the summer sun. We anticipate starting to pick zucchs in about a month and tomatoes by the end of February. 

As previously mentioned, we grow a wide variety of tomatoes but specialise in heirloom or heritage varieties, which allow us to help keep centuries of plant history and diversity alive and available into the future. Heirloom tomatoes are tender, rich and juicy and what's more they come in pretty much all colours of the rainbow and then some and can include contrasting coloured stripes and speckles on their skins. They make very 'sexy' summer salads!  These tomatoes are so opposite to the often flavourless and tough-skinned field and Roma tomatoes commonly available in the supermarkets and most other shops, which are 'factory' grown on broad acreage farms. We do grow Romas and a couple of other 'typical' red tomatoes but again they are open pollinated seeds from organically grown tomatoes, so they too are tender and super tasty.

       

Each year we have varied how we've planted (raised or flat beds, mulching or not) and/or 'supported' our growing tomato plants (e.g. stakes as above or strings or wire...). This year we're going with raised beds and stakes as you can see. We have found that although labour intensive to install, tomato stakes are the most reliable, sturdy form of tomato support (accompanied by regular ties)  for field grown tomatoes, especially as gale-force winds are not uncommon at the farm.

Like for most of our veg., we use drip irrigation, which is not only water efficient but allows the water to get to exactly where it's needed, the root zone.

Although a real scorcher weather-wise, it was really fantastic to be back at markets last Saturday. Collingwood Children's Farm is such a bucolic setting and there's always a lively collection of stalls and shoppers.

See you soon with more farm happenings...

We'll have a selection of the freshest and most flavoursome culinary herbs such as coriander, parsley, oregano, thyme,  mint, sage, rosemary, bay leaf and lavender, as well as premium spicy rocket and zingy mizuna leaves (for salads/pizza/stir fry), beautiful red curly kale leaves  plus maybe a small quantity of other vegie morsels to get us back on deck for our new seasons produce. 

A feature of our stalls are our mixed herb posies - they're both pretty and practical!  These mixed herb posies were borne from our own experiences of buying full bunches of single herbs for various recipes, only to find we had too much wastage when we couldn't use them all quickly enough. After trialling the idea last season, we did indeed discover that many people have had the same problem and were delighted to be able to buy farm fresh, mini-bouquets of a selection of 3-5 herbs and they're even organic! We hope to see you at our fragrant little 'ol display on Saturday!

HOLD ON TO YOUR HATS, your culinary desperation is almost over...our new season gorgeous, gourmet GARLIC will hit the stands by December markets, just in time for the festive season and all those shared meals with loved ones. Of course we will have our new hand crafted garlic braids (AKA plaits or ropes) and grappes (decorative bunches), which really do make the loveliest gift for people who just love quality and attractive epicurian delights to brighten up their tasty creations and their kitchen .

    

• Re-sellers of fruit, vegetables or any other farm based product
• Re-packagers of any food or drink
• Art and craft stalls
• Bric-a-brac stalls