fruits of a forgotten garden
September 3, 2012 § 3 Comments
I went away just as the broccolis were perfect for picking. When I came back they were blushing with yellow flowers. I did a great job of forgetting about them. And then I forgot about them some more.
This is the result.
P.s The white flowers are rocket. I can never keep on top of rocket.
morning
April 6, 2012 § Leave a comment
It was such a quiet morning this one. Everyone was still in bed. The mist hung around till late. The grass was wet and cold under my feet. I thought about the brown snake we had seen yesterday and I thought about my shoes but I did not want to break the morning by going back inside. There is a sameness to all the mornings here, this place that grew me up. The light follows the same cycles year in year out. I know this landscape like I know the lines on the palm of my hands. Painted behind my eyes.
pumpkins and pomegranate
March 28, 2012 § 7 Comments
I love it how the shadows get longer at this time of year, creeping into far off corners, exploring unknown territories. A certain stillness. If I listened hard enough I feel like I could hear the pumpkins growing ever so slowly in the vegie patch and a pomegranate breaking open in the dappled sunlight that falls behind the house.
a photo a day
February 29, 2012 § 2 Comments
On returning from India, I vowed to keep my pace slow, to let that country that had saturated my thoughts and body linger into my Melbourne life. But I knew it was stolen time when a week had passed and I still felt no hairs turn grey. I needed a strategy. I decided to make sure I do the things that make me happy. I would take a photo a day, I would draw more pictures, I would write more often in a book with thick cream paper – pages that allowed my thoughts to spill out and look comfortable there, all in a row. It didn’t matter for the words meanings, just the black on cream, the repetition making the messy letters look organised, thoughtful.
My photo a day has ended up being more like 3 photos every 3 days, often at night, just before bed, when I remember. But it doesn’t seem to matter, its a small piece of time out, like that quiet moment smokers have on the veranda. I haven’t noticed any more hairs turn grey. Here are some of them.
summer
December 13, 2011 § Leave a comment
Straight from the vegie patch, I’m sure you can imagine what I did with these little guys…
…yes, I stuffed those lovely delicate flowers with rice, feta, anchovies and herbs, baked them in the oven with cherry tomatoes and olives and invited 7 friends to come eat them with me.
edible inflorescence’
September 23, 2011 § 2 Comments
The smell of orange blossoms at our front gate meet me at the end of our street each evening, the fragrance stronger after a whole days sun, an intense and sweet welcome home.
Further down the garden path, these little friends greet me in the vegie patch… a fine way to end the day.
a few little thoughts from an inspiring reading and memories from Varanasi
September 10, 2011 § Leave a comment
Overtime the city has been compared to an artwork, a machine, a sculpture and a poem.
But it is more than these things on their own. A city is composed of memories, feelings, interactions, desires and passions. It is both a natural, built and thought entity shaped by culture and geography. It is a place where lives are told, where natural forces ebb and flow.
It tells a narrative about the people who live there and how they relate to the world. Together these stories make up a place and connect all who dwell in them.
Spirn, AW 1988, ‘The Poetics of City and Nature: Towards a New Aesthetic in Urban Design’, Landscape Journal, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 108-126.
a frozen morning
August 7, 2011 § 2 Comments
Family visits, the old farm I grew up on, to wake up one morning, a frozen landscape, the bright highland dawn strong with altitude, playing its tones on the frozen webs of the arachnids.
planting garlic winter solstice
June 22, 2011 § 2 Comments
It is the darkest day of the year today, the winter solstice. I’m so happy that from here on in things are only going to get brighter.
A wonderful thing to do on the shortest day of the year is plant garlic. So much to look forward to as each clove is pushed an inch deep into the ground. By the summer solstice they will be ready to harvest and you will have fresh garlic all of your own.
How to grow garlic
You can take any old garlic that you have bought from the shop, especially those that have begun to sprout, however, I prefer to use organic and the lovely fragrant purple varieties.
Choose a sunny, well-drained position with good fertile soil. I like to plant garlic around the borders of the vegie garden as they are great at keeping away pests and disease.
Separate all the cloves, leave the skins on, and plant about 15 cm apart, an inch deep, or so the top/pointy part of the clove is 2 cm bellow the surface. Cover with soil and wait patiently, they will take quite a few months before they are ready.
Each clove will grow into a plant that will contain a single bulb that can itself have up to 20 cloves.
You will know your garlic is ripe to harvest when the tops of the plant begin to dry off and die. If you harvest them to early your bulbs will be small, too late and they will split. A general rule is, plant them on the shortest day of the year and harvest them on the longest.
Your garlic will then need to be hung to dry in a cool dark place for 1-2 weeks. You can then brush the dirt off. It is best not to wash them.
Here is one I snuck in about 2 weeks ago, they don’t take long to sprout.
the invisible cookbook 