Tea Garden » winter

blackbird returns

the gardener — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 09:43:44 +0000

When we moved into the Tea Garden I was surprised by the lack of blackbirds. Our last place had blackbirds a-plenty, but here, in what I would’ve thought was an ideal suburban environment – hedges, lawns, shrubs – so, where are the bids?

Well, to my ‘joy’, the birds have arrived and have commenced doing their famous scratch in the garden routine. In amongst my carefully planted, mulched, fertilised, and bark covered spring bulbs. The bulbs are beginning to come away, and suddenly the birds decide to scratch them out, and heave the bark over the footpaths. I’m trying to remain charitable…

Apple Snow

the gardener — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 09:45:53 +0000

We had our first light dusting of frost yesterday here at the Tea Garden, and to celebrate the frost, and Matariki ( a few days back – on the 16th this year), I remembered apple snow. I’d never made it before, but I can remember the delights of it from when I was a kid – I think (I bet) it was one of my Dad’s favorites. A quick phone call to Mum and yes, I’d pretty much guessed right – and here is an ancient family recipe for perhaps the easiest dessert.

Peel some apples. I’d allow about two apples per person. It’d be great to have superb cooking apples, I used some slightly scanky green delicious (apparently organic) that were on their way to having seen better days. They were flavorsome nevertheless. Chop the apples into chunks just to help speed the cooking process. I added a sprinkle of cinnamon, slightly less of nutmeg, and a teaspoon of vanilla sugar. You could add some powdered cloves, or whole cloves (remove once the apple is cooked), and/or a vanilla bean. Whatever you like. I added the sugar really for the the vanilla, my plan was to taste the apple once cooked to decide how much sugar was needed. None, as it turned out.

Add a little water to the pot, and simmer the apples until soft enough to mash – about 20 minutes. I added too much water, I’d misjudged how much apple juice would come out during cooking. Once the apple was cooked I drained off most of the liquid. Hm-mmm – hot spicy apple juice. I poured the apple pulp back into the pot, and did the initial mash with a potato masher. You could probably do the whole deal by mashing and sieving the apple, but I didn’t want to spend the time – I used a wand blender and whipped the pulp into a fine puree. The pulp was a golden colour, once I started to whip air into it, it became paler.

I folded a scoop (maybe two) of vanilla ice cream through the puree. I then took the white of an egg and beat it until it was very stiff – peaks formed on top, and folded that through. The trick is to lift the air through the puree, and capture it with the smooth creamy texture. The warmth of the apple expands the air trapped in the egg white, and you end up with a soft, smooth textured, delicious dessert. You can serve the dessert hot, warm, or chill it – personally, I like it hot to warm. Simple, elegant, nutritious – what more could you want from a dessert? Give it a try.

Lions in Winter

the gardener — Thu, 31 May 2007 20:47:39 +0000

Today has given us all of the joys of Winter. The wind has been ripping and roaring and it’s not difficult to imagine lions romping around – disporting, as my neighbour would say – in the Tea Garden. I went out to make photos the Bowen Cemetery at lunchtime and found that despite the rain (and the lions) it wasn’t that cold. Irises are named after the Greek goddess of the rainbow – and there, in a sheltered corner, this lovely iris was nestling beside an old grave. I love irises, and I particularly like the smaller, species(?) irises. I find visiting the cemeteries useful because generally they’re forgotten, and the species that manage to survive and thrive are going to do the same in the Tea Garden.

A number of the other irises (I. foetidissima) have set their big, bright red/orange seed capsules. I’ve never tried growing iris from seed before and if they’ve cross pollinated I might get some interesting variations. List of things to do for June:

* Gather iris seed, clean, and scarify ready for planting.
* Sow grass seed to patch gaps in lawn.
* Continue trimming and readying the herbaceous border.
* Plant garlic on the shortest day.
* Make a start on the herb garden.
* Finish out the driveway border.