Alas, poor Zucchini

I finally had to take them out. The fruit was actually dying on the plant. Still, I got the last five, and here we are not far off June. The seasons change, and right now dawn (above) is just spectacular. The book is finally moving -4K words yesterday, but that is meaning I see little but my desk.

I've planted out a garlic clove under a plastic cup - partly to follow Quilly's advice, and partly to keep the $#@#ing mice digging it up and eating it. Roll on kitty-cats! (yes, not good for birds, and I am sorry about that, but the mice are just so darned destructive.) I've also planted - in an enclosed bed Jerusalem artichoke -also mouse sheilded. Oh and we have had an outbreak of snails again. Yep, small farming, dead easy, innit? Anyway, in the electricity conservation stakes (I think this heat-leaking piece of rubbish oven is a major culprit) I did my best to cook on lounge heater/stove thing tonight. Hmm. Well the big 'camp oven'cast iron pots were supposed to produce pitas. It was more like frizbees. Anyway very tasty frizbees, and so what if they don't open up for filling. The filling went fine on top :-)

The March of Zucchini

And so it begins... The march of the Zucchini.
There is another one that needs harvesting today. The wildlife however is adding a new dimension to it - something had been digging up seedlings, so I set two traps. Well, this time around they caught 2 mice. The second I spotted in the torchlight at about 9.30 pm, when I suddenly relaised I'd forgotten to cover with plastic cups the surviving beans - my night-garden looks like a disgruntled kids tea party, with added nightmare elements as the gut section of the mouse had been eaten. I retreated to put on boots - which I was an idiot not put on in the first place.

This morning there was evidence of a wild and busy deadly night out there. Firstly the gate had been knocked down. Secondly there was a large dead rat in a bloody puddle between the beds. Cause of death - undetermined. Could it have been post- election violence, Australian style? Have I become a sleep-walking raticide? Was this the effect of cannabilistic excess?

The garden is - despite the depredations, coming along. My tyre-tower potatoes are nearly ready for another tyre.



We went to a harvest festival and barbeque on one of the farms on Summer road today. As it was spattering with rain, the entire thing took place in the farm shed. Corrugated iron... and it rained. It was rather like Nottingham Road's annual carol service (held in the sale-hall - with real sheep and calves and any kid under five that showed up dressed as either an angel or a shepherd in with them. Last time one of the angels got her hand sucked by a calf... it was one of few bellows that was louder than the inevitable drumming of the rain on the tin roof). This too was drowned out by the rain that bucketed down. Good thing too: the farmers need the rain, and I was singing. The rain stopped and we cooked snags (see, I learn. They are called sausages elsewhere) - we talked, kids rode bikes (a unicycle yet! I WANT one) a couple of chooks looked in and we were a world away from Africa. Or Venice, that I must now return to.

Certainties: Death, taxes and zucchini

(with thanks to Melissa for the appropiate title). Few things are truly certain - and while everybody knows the first two - zucchini - aka corgettes aka baby marrows are punting hard to get into that realm. Back in the dark ages when we moved out Finnegan's Wake, I plunged into home gardening with huge eagerness. And a packet of Zucchini seeds. I lots of space, and a packet of seeds. So I planted all of them in good well manured soil. About 30 plants, IIRC. I got my first lesson in self sufficiency when they started to bear... and bear. And bear. And BEAR... Now there is good Yorkshire and Scots blood in the bloodline - to say nothing of depression era parents. "Waste not, want not!"

Much ingenuity and even picallilli followed. To the ingenuity I owe the fact that we all still eat zucchini. A bit of overproduction is the life-blood of the self-supporter. You want something for the inevitable less-than-formal (and sometimes formal) trade that develops with other gardeners and foragers. Besides the fact the fact that it's better and more varied food than you can buy, there is this moment of delight in knowing the tax-man isn't keen on 45% of a zucchini. He just wants money (which is pity. I rather fancied posting a few zucchini to the 'revenue service'). But there is no point in having tons of glut of something your neighbours and friends have a glut of too. So I've never planted more than 6 Zucchini at once since.

I have seven now.

Winter may rescue us.

When the wind blows

The electricity supply can be... touchy shall we say. OK, today it has been mostly below gale force, but close, A nasty hot north east wind that gusts and rushes and wuthers, and does its evil best to unscrew my beetroot seedlings from the ground. It's days like today that make Flinders such a wonderful place for bird-watching. See... the birdies can't FLY without a risk of touring Antarctica, and so all the twitcher has to do get really close is crawl around on hands and knees on the forest floor - because even trees might end up in Antarctica (There is apparently a lot of coal in in Antarctica. Geologists claim it's from when the world was warmer, and Antarctica was further north (I asked if it only came north in winter and had my geologist son roll his eyes), but _I_ suspect it's whole forests from Tassie that blew there. They should search for frozen birdies to see if I am right. In the meanwhile those birdwatchers who like to get really close only need to work on being able to crawl faster than birds can run.
Speaking of birds and vegetables and geologist-type sons, there is a brown thrushy thing (yet to find out its name - give me a few more months - we'll call it Henry for now. The superb fairy wrens are called Tink and Wendy) that has formed an unholy alliance with my son. The Campaign for the Eradication, Demolition and Destruction of Yuck (AKA red lettuce) (CEDDY) has a new and powerful friend in Henry birds. I actually think it is Henry-birds love of red lettuce that makes them rip the leaves to shreds and actually pull seedlings out, but whether it is love or CEDDY they're a menace. My other great gardening decision is that leeks are just too confusing to plant here. The principal weed I am dealing with is a thin grass which looks exactly like a little leek
- only the little leeks are much much easier to pull out.
Two different people have given us Zucchini (Pura and Inge) which I appreciate right now very much. To think I would miss the abundant supply of Finnegan's Wake (53 new ways to cook/disguise zucchini by Dave Freer). My next book will probably be 53 new ways to cook Henry.