Category: Patho

Experimental sourdough starter

August 1, 2020

I fell in love with sourdough bread when I visited Pier 39, Fisherman’s Wharf, in San Francisco, many years ago. The unique tasting bread takes its flavour from the bacteria that surround the area. The bread is famous and rightly so. I’ve chased sourdough bread ever since, but nothing has been as good as my first experience of it. So I’m trying to make some myself.

To bake it you need to have a sourdough starter mix, a culture of flour and water for growing wild yeast and developing the bacteria that give it the flavour. The starter needs looking after each day. You can purchase sourdough starter, but I’m not travelling to get it. An alternative is to buy some special yeast, but I want to experiment and see what I can make the natural way. There are lots of methods for starting this using flour and water and relying on the bacteria present wherever you are to give it it’s special flavours. This is apparently similar to making cheese and even wine, where the environment determines the flavour and characteristics. My past track record has not been successful. The last lot just went mouldy, but I’m giving it another go. I will try to tend to it every day, feeding it more flour and stirring it up.

Bubbles!! that is a good sign that the yeast is developing
It’s grown in size!! also good

My starter is experimental. I bought a packet mix of sourdough rye bread. It contained the mix and the yeast. I took some of the sourdough yeast to make the starter. It was added to some plain flour, sugar, milk and water. It seems to be working. It smells like it should, sourish. Apparently you can adjust the ‘sourness’ of the starter depending on how much and when you feed the starter.

Looks OK

I used the rye bread with a combination of some of the sourdough yeast and some ordinary yeast to make this loaf. Apologies for the pictures. I wasn’t quick enough and there’s not much left. I made two loaves one full of my home grown olives and one plain. This is all that is left and it won’t be there after supper!

Tasted wonderful

So, to make sourdough bread you use some of the starter and add more flour and whatever else you want. You add more flour and water to the starter and off it goes again bubbling up, fermenting, ready to be used when you want the next loaf. Should be easy, right??? We’ll see.

Excited about echiums

July 31, 2020

Echiums fascinate me. Here are two that are about to burst into amazing color. You’ll have to wait for it… I haven’t noticed many of these around where I live. My sister, who lives nearer the coast in much more temperate conditions, has them everywhere and I decided to try them out. They need lots of space; the send up flower spires, in this case a beautiful blue colour.

Looking carefully I noticed the buds

Earlier this year I thought that I had lost them. This one looked dead, but then I noticed some tiny self sown ones coming up amid the weeds underneath. I carefully weeded and watered them. I tried transplanting some into pots but they got neglected and needed more attention than they got.

Hidden in the foliage
Won’t be long now

Below is a different variety. There are some seed pods from last year still attached. This year I will take some photos and try to work out what varieties I have.

Aspiring for asparagus

July 30, 2020

In the last house I lived was located, as they said, “in the dead centre of town”. Over the road from my place was an old cemetery. In summer many of the old graves were quite beautiful; reason being, some lovely ferns grew alongside the graves. The pretty ferns were in fact, asparagus plants. Were they planted by relatives of the dead to look beautiful or were they just wild? Did they seed from the popular floral arrangements of the day? It’s not unusual to find asparagus plants in old cemeteries. I eventually learned to look out in spring, after the first rain. If I was quick, and beat other visitors, I could pick some amazing asparagus spears, tender, succulent and tasty. There’s something special about asparagus, picked fresh and taken straight away to the kitchen.

After moving to my present location, imagine my surprise and delight when I noticed clumps of those unmistakable ferny plants scattered randomly along the waterway in front of my house. In winter they grow with little red berries and then dry up and wait for the rain.

From past experience I have learned to cut back the plants to the ground. So I attacked this little clump. As the asparagus shoots poke, up the trick is to cut them as close to the ground as possible. They seem to like this treatment and continue to produce more and more. Bring on the rain.

Pot watching

July 27, 2020

An old proverb says a watched pot never boils. In a previous post I mentioned I had planted some seeds. I’ve peeked in periodically, anxiously waiting for some progress. I was almost resigned to the fact that here was yet another seed tray, where I hadn’t provided the necessary care or skill, so they would never eventuate. Yes, blaming myself for their failure to germinate.

Take a close look at the seed tray. Is it possible that there is a tiny little shoot? Or maybe two? I dutifully sprinkled them with water, being careful not to flood them out. Grandchild number one, who was accompanying me at the time said, “Nan, I think it works better if you talk to them.” So, I said a few kind words and went off on my way.

I returned just before dark, curious to see whether there had , in fact, been any progress.

Thrilled! It doesn’t take much. There definitely has been some progress. Now I’m holding my breath and waiting. They should be hollyhocks. I have a spot in the garden just waiting for their arrival. I can’t wait.

Tree row

July 24, 2020

When we first bought our farm about 30 years ago, it was a run down ex-dairy farm. It is two kilometres of dirt track from a main road. The dairy was no longer functional and it had few fences that would keep an animal enclosed. Much of the land was salt affected and non productive. The agent suggested we run the tractor through the house and start again.

We gathered seed from the few trees around and carefully grew young trees in our first purchase, a glasshouse. We planted rows and rows of trees in an effort to reduce the water table, fix the salt problem and return health to the soil. Keeping the trees alive was a struggle. We fought rabbits, kangaroos, heat, lack of water and salty soils.

Since the covid lock down we have been cleaning up one of the tree rows. It’s a huge job, with a chain saw and fire. We’ve removed lots of dead branches on the ground. It’s become a problem because the rabbits have taken a liking to the shelter and are being very destructive. We cut tree limbs off fences and pruned trees and bushes. Hard work but we can see results starting to happen. AND bonus, we’ve taken the time to enjoy the winter sunshine and the outdoors.

Our favorite spot is in a remote spot that we nearly gave up on when we first started establishing the trees. We finally got some really tough little pine trees to grow where nothing else would. The sound of the wind in the pine needles really changes the ambiance of the little grove of trees.

Spring cleaning in winter

July 21, 2020

Yesterday was one of those magic days that started off very cold and then the sun slowly warmed the day. It was a perfect day to go and get some farm work underway. Although it is early winter, we did a spot of spring cleaning along one of our fences. It is overdue for replacement, but first it needed some cleaning up around it. The wattle trees have a short life span anyway and needed to be trimmed back. The trees had dropped limbs, making access difficult.

Getting rid of the rubbish was satisfying after a hard day’s work.

and while were we on a roll, a patch of weedy reeds as well

Here comes the sun

July 20, 2020

It only takes a few rays of sunshine to trick me into thinking its time to plant. Looking at the product info for my seeds in stock, I come up with this possible short list. I guess it is winter. Maybe a little too late for the hollyhock seeds, although I did see plants for sale yesterday. So I’ll give them a go in the green house.

Look – before and after

Firstly I had to clear a space on the shelves. There are a few pots hardening up, outside. I’m hoping they won’t be a frost tonight. I planted some really old scarlet runner beans. I doubt they’ll come up. I’ll love it if they do. And.. I planted 2 different varieties of peas, also from old seeds. But what’s the alternative, throw them away? I can’t do that. And…I found a packet of different varieties of basil. The packet says they can be planted at any time, I’m impatient, wish they would just sprout up..